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A Multicultural, Multiethnic, and Multiconfessional Bosnia and Herzegovina: Myth and Reality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Cynthia Simmons
Cynthia Simmons*
Affiliation:
Slavic Studies at Boston College, U.S.A.
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Extract

In early 1992, the “three m's” (tri m), which denoted a multicultural, multiethnic, and multiconfessional Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), became the rallying cry against the forces of disintegration, or more accurately, of partition. These identifying characteristics or national ideals could not avert catastrophe. Indeed, BiH's liminal position at the crossroads of cultures, religions, and history rendered it the most vulnerable of republics in the Yugoslav wars of succession. However “three m” Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, it was less so by 1995. Yet, despite the bloodshed, forced expulsions, migrations, and the inevitable rise in nationalism, citizens of BiH have no choice, in the aftermath, but to examine what their country was before the war and the potential for a new “multi-multi” Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such an investigation must begin with the past, as a Sarajevan colleague implied when I asked her how she envisioned the future in Bosnia. She replied that Bosnians could hardly conceive a future when in 1998 they still had no idea what had happened, and why. This work addresses the reality behind the epithets that gained currency during and after the war, of a “three-m,” “multi-multi,” and multi-kulti (multicultural) Bosnia and Herzegovina. Within the framework of a particular understanding of multiculturalism, it will suggest why, despite its multiethnic and multiconfessional reality, BiH proved in many instances vulnerable to nationalistic rhetoric. This analysis proceeds from the conviction that multiculturalism must be both studied and encouraged in the international community's efforts to support the growth of democratic institutions and practices in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 623 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

* I would like to acknowledge support for this research from the International Research and Exchanges Board, which funded my travel to the former Yugoslavia in 2001.Google Scholar

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41. Bogdanović, “The City and Death,” p. 73.Google Scholar

42. During World War II and in the aftermath that produced modern Yugoslavia, this disowning was, of course, far from subtle. On the heels of Ustas̆a atrocities during the war, Tito's security chief Aleksandar Ranković implemented a policy of forced repatriation of Muslims from the Sandjak and Macedonia to Turkey. See Zulfikarpas̆ić, Bos̆njak, p. 104.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., pp. 104–105.Google Scholar

44. Marković, Mirko, “The Intellectual and Creative Conscience of a Writer,” in Forgotten Country 2: War Prose in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992–1995) (Sarajevo: Association of Writers of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1997), p. 92.Google Scholar

45. Of course, equitable multiethnic political representation was, theoretically, a goal of communist governmental organization in Yugoslavia. These quotas had little bearing, however, on how power was actually distributed across ethnicities. Political inequities and disenfranchisement of segments of the population (i.e. non-communists) fostered feelings of resentment among some, who then became more receptive to nationalist rhetoric.Google Scholar

46. Other researchers have investigated the failure of cohesive forces on the level of nation (“Yugoslavia”) and republic (“Bosnia”). In Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation, Andrew Wachtel found the support for a “supranational Yugoslav culture” insufficient and waning over time (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). With respect to Bosnia, Tone Bringa cites Marilyn Strathern, who argues that “in order to create a collective identity, individuals must submerge the heteregenous sources of their identity, rather than just add these to one another.” See Bringa, Tone, ed., Being Muslim the Bosnian Way (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 32. I would agree that contiguous but separate ethnicities in parts of BiH did not contribute to a sense of “Bosnia.” However, I would disagree with Strathern's conception/requirement of an exclusive collective identity. The goal of multiculturalism, it would seem, is to maintain multiple identities; although, of course, there must be an overarching (supranational) identification with the larger nation. “Brotherhood and unity” was doomed from the start in Yugoslavia, for the multiculturalism that it invoked could not develop in the absence of political freedoms.Google Scholar