The publication of changes in the Curriculum in the Republika Srpska (RS) entity in the context of history classes has caused a lot of public attention, due to the fact that students will learn about convicted war criminals Ratko Mladic or Radovan Karadzic, but not in the context of their crimes, but the other way around.
However, the latest changes are not particularly new in the educational program of the RS, but have only attracted a little more attention. Children in the RS have been learning history for years, which is largely one-way and of course politically colored. Until now, all this has passed without any reactions, especially those that emphasize the themes of dealing with the past.
Politically colored history
Nevertheless, it is evident that dealing with the past (and that of the war) in the RS entity, is not going exactly as the facts say. In the educational system of that entity, children learn almost political messages for years, while the facts are “adapted” to daily political use.
In the textbook for the 9th grade of primary school, authored by Dragisa Vasic, in the lesson entitled RS in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), it is emphasized that the political situation is marked by the national question.
So it is stated in the textbook: “After the war, Croats fight for equality with Bosniaks. Bosniaks, on the other hand, want centralization and unitarization, so the RS began to strive for closer ties with its motherland, Serbia.”
The international community, represented through the actions of the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.), is described in the textbook as a party that only supports Bosniaks. The students were told the story of how, in the desire to centralize BiH, financial pressure was also exerted on the RS. So it was stated that less than a fifth of the 5.3 billion dollars in aid went to the RS.
The textbook emphasizes that the Constitutional Court and the Office of the High Representative (OHR) often worked against the interests of the RS. It was pointed out that the OHR transferred responsibilities from the entities to the state and that numerous institutions were formed in this way.
Furthermore, the students were told the story that foreign and Bosniak judges often outvoted judges from Serb and Croatranks, and that the coat of arms and anthem of the RS, as well as the Day of the RS, were contested.
The end of the war was described as the RS army occupying Srebrenica and Zepa. Of course, the crimes are not mentioned anywhere, let alone the genocide against Bosniaks.
At the end of the lesson, students are offered the complete text of the Declaration of the Assembly of the Serbian People from 1991.
Mladic and Karadzic are presented in a positive light
In the same lesson, the war from 1992 to 1995 was presented as a civil war. Alija Izetbegovic is described as the leader of Muslims and as the culprit for the war because he rejected Cutileiro‘s plan for the decentralization of BiH.
Ratko Mladic is described as an important figure for Serbs, as a general and chief of the Main Staff of the RS Army. His crimes of genocide and others are not mentioned anywhere, except for the sentence that the Serbian authorities delivered him to the court in The Hague in 2011. Radovan Karadzic was presented almost identically. Crimes and judgments were not mentioned.
Essentially, history textbooks in the RS contain everything that the current government, headed by Milorad Dodik, has been creating as a narrative for a decade and a half. In this way, generations of children in the RS were brought up with the story that there was no genocide in Srebrenica, that there was no crime, that Bosniaks wanted to centralize the state and that foreigners were helping them.
This is a real question for the High Representative. How does he intend to protect the credibility of the Law on the Prohibition of Genocide Denial? How does he intend to implement policies of reconciliation when, in this example, dealing with the past is just a dead letter? So, in this example, we see that the children are not learning about historical facts, but are learning the political narrative of the ruling structures in the RS, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
