Films Help Serb Students Understand Bosnian Conflict

Iva Martinović

IWPR-trained reporter and outreach assistant

Monday, 11 April, 2011

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Serbian high school students attending the first public screening of IWPR’s mini-series on the return of displaced people to their homes in Bosnia said it gave them a rare chance to learn about a little-discussed part of their recent history.

In July last year, IWPR filmed a series of short documentaries on refugees who had gone back to the homes they were forced to flee during the war. The films revealed their everyday problems, but also their belief in co-existence between Bosnia’s various ethnic groups (See: Tales of Transition).

The documentaries were produced by IWPR and Sarajevo-based production company Mebius Film and broadcast on the state television BHT 1 and 30 local TV stations throughout Bosnia. They focused the lives of Bosniak returnees to Derventa and Klotjevac in Republika Srpska, RS, and Serb returnees to Nisici in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, as well as Serbs and Bosniaks in the ethnically-mixed village of Baljvine near Mrkonjic Grad in RS.

On March 23, these short documentaries were shown in Belgrade to a group of 40 high school children from all over Serbia who took part in the School on Human Rights for Youth, run by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, HCHR. 

After they had seen the first two films, the teenagers, aged 14-18, engaged in a lengthy and lively discussion with IWPR and HCHR staff and asked to see the two remaining documentaries - although that was not originally planned. They said they appreciated the opportunity to find out more about the consequences of war in neighbouring Bosnia, something they’d learned little about either in school or at home.

The chapter about the fall of Yugoslavia in high school history books in Serbia is only a few pages long and, explained Stefan Randjelovic from the Knjazevo grammar school, teachers did not really want to talk much about the subject.

“There is no way we can find out in school what happened in Srebrenica, Vukovar, or why the wars in Croatia and Bosnia started,” he said.

In 1991, the Croatian town of Vukovar was the scene of some of the worst war crimes committed by Serb forces against Croats during the 1991-95 war. 

Around 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces took over the town of Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in July 1995.

“I think it’s very important that we know what happened to people in the former Yugoslavia during the wars of the Nineties and what the consequences of those wars are today,” Sara Velimirovic, a student from Belgrade grammar school student, said. “That is the only way we can fight denial, which is still present in Serbia.”

Filip Babic from the Negotin grammar school said that he would really like to see more stories on coexistence on national TV.

“The stories of coexistence, new hope and faith in life are almost non-existent in the Serbian media,” he said. “It would be good if Serbia’s ministry of education could incorporate documentaries such as these into our curriculum, so that watching them would be obligatory.”

All the students IWPR talked to after the screening said that the war and its consequences were rarely discussed in schools, in the media or among their peers. If they wanted to know something, they had to do the research themselves in books and on the internet.

Uros Milic from the Bora Stankovic grammar school in Nis said IWPR’s films should be broadcast to a wider audience.

“My friends and I are interested in documentaries on these subjects and we often watch them,” he said. “You should arrange the screenings in some local cinemas as well, because I am sure a lot of people would be interested in seeing them.”

Dajana Dodik, from the Sombor grammar school, told IWPR that the younger generation in Serbia and other Balkan countries were discouraged from learning about the recent past and tend to hear negative stories about relations between nationalities.

“I heard horrible stories about schools in some countries of the former Yugoslavia [Bosnia and Kosovo], in which children of two different nationalities are completely separated from each other - they go to the same school, but in different shifts, so that they wouldn’t meet even in hallways,” Dodik said. 

“If more nice examples like these depicted in IWPR documentaries were shown in the local media, people would realise there was no reason for any separation. This would create a healthy atmosphere for future generations and assure they lived in peace.” 

When asked whether his own teachers would be willing to screen documentaries related to the wars in the former Yugoslavia in school, Andrija Krstic from the Nis grammar school said they would probably be too uncomfortable with the subject.

“They know that after such a film a discussion would develop,” he said. “They would have to explain the background of the wars to us and tell us why people had to leave their homes. That’s not something our teachers would want to do. Of course, they wouldn’t want to reveal the real reasons why they wouldn’t want to screen such documentaries, but would probably tell us that we are too young to understand.”

Natasa Niskanovic, from the Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj grammar school in Novi Sad, said she was lucky to have a history teacher in her own school who was prepared to be more open with his students, unlike many of his colleagues.

“My history teacher is very young and is very into us watching documentaries,” she said. “At the moment, we are learning about the Second World War, and although I don’t know what will happen when we get to the Balkan wars in the Nineties, I believe he will be prepared to show us some documentaries, at least some positive stories such as those made by IWPR. However, I’m not sure teachers in other schools in Serbia would be so open to this idea.” 

The Serbian branch of HCHR, whose representatives were also present at the screening in Belgrade, said IWPR’s documentaries represent “a valuable contribution to educating young people on what happened in the former Yugoslavia in the Nineties, the causes of wars and their consequences”.

“I found all IWPR’s documentaries wonderful,” said Jelena Dzombic from HCHR. “Children in Serbia have no opportunity to see something like this. Facing the past can be done in various ways, and this is one of them. I think we’ve achieved a very important goal here – we’ve inspired students to find out more about this subject by themselves.”

HCHR has been organising programmes for young people throughout Serbia since 2000. Over 1,500 high school children have so far participated in their School on Human Rights for Youth, which focuses on history, transitional justice and facing the past.

“They know nothing about the wars in the former Yugoslavia. They know that neighbours were killing each other, but they have no idea why,” Dzombic said.

IWPR is planning to produce another 20 short documentaries on transitional justice in the near future. Selected films will be screened in high schools in Bosnia and Serbia, in cooperation with the ministries for human rights and education in both countries.

Iva Martinovic is an IWPR contributor.