For Today’s blog, I looked at some of the more recent
changes in Bosnia due to the war. Basically, I wanted to find out how our trip
would be affected by the current situation in the cities we will be visiting. For
starters, Bosnia actually used to be one of the most ethnically diverse countries
prior to the Yugoslavic wars. Here is a map of the ethnic composition of Bosnia
in 1991 and another in 1998.
With respect to the two cities we will be visiting, the two
cultures will be very different merely due to the differing predominant ethnicities
of the region, since Livno is mostly composed of Croatians and Sarajevo is
right on the between Serbs and Bosnians. Additionally, the apparent cultures of
the two cities will be very strong, but not as diverse as before the wars.
Recently, there have also been a series of protests against
the corruption of the government. Some of the protests have been against
policies such the decision not to join the Erasmus program, which was accepted
by every other country in the EU and the nearby regions. The Erasmus program
was an international student exchange program. Around 230,000 students
participate in this exchange program, with that numb expected to rapidly
increase as the financial support for the program has increased 20 fold. Specifically
the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) was against participation in the program.
However, the majority of the
protests have been due to recent high unemployment rates, estimated to be as
high as 40%. A large part of this has due to the recent privatization of large
firms, which then quickly outsourced a significant portion of their work and
began laying off local workers. The protestors set fire to several government buildings
in Tulza and Sarajevo, including the National Archive buildings. Thankfully
this seems to be more of an economic unrest than an ethnic one.
Unfortunately for us, many of
Sarajevo’s museums are in disrepair due to ongoing disputes over which
particular government is responsible for funding them. In particular, Bosnia’s
National Museum was closed two years ago, after having previously been open for
124 years, because of these funding disputes. Six other cultural museums were
closed for the same reasons, including the Historical Museum and the National
and University Library. Many others continue to operate only because the worker’s
volunteer their time without compensation. This conflict is, at least
partially, ethnic in nature. The Dayton accords peace treaty that ended Bosnia’s
war in 1995 split the government into two main parts, overseen by a relatively
weak central government. The two main governments are divided geographically,
but also culturally as one is predominantly Serbian and the other Bosnian as shown in the above maps. This is only one of many conflicts between the two governments that have locals upset and protesting. It
should be noted that recently, in fact starting this past week, there have been
moves to reopen the National Museum.
sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment