Nužnost Dijaloga Religija i Kultura
On the Necessity of Dialogue among Religions and Cultures

Summary/Abstract: Today, global society is in the stage of searching for a model of social cohabitation. The problem lies in the fact that global societies have constructed their identities through culture and religion and therefore the process of cohabitation with others appears only as a process of assimilation. The solution to this difficulty is usually found in a compromise that is plausible only when we leave essentialist standpoints. Leaving these standpoints also means the loss of identity. To overcome this problem, the first step is coming to know and understand other cultures and religions and recognize their distinctions, rather than avoiding, ignoring, or suppressing. The example of Bosnia and Herzegovina is instructive in this respect. A unique social form of communication and values arising out of it had a crucial influence in forming symbolic and cultural-religious goods and values there. We can claim that Bosnian society has been molded through a kind of original social interaction. Meaning that this society has represented one of the original types of communicative community. Cultural identities in Bosnia and Herzegovnia, as a base for ethnical -national identities, have been formed in models of communicative action, i.e., through understanding and acknowledgement. Communicative action or the process of intersubjectivity is actually based on understanding (which implies common language) and on the fulfilled demands for validity, presuming mutual recognition of social actors and their mutual acknowledgement. Communicative action qua social process took place within these language structures and recognition. Identities of social actors were validated and maintained in this kind of communication.

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