ABANDONMENT OF THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUES OF ZAVNOBIH BY ETHNOPOLITIZATION AND SEGREGATION OF THE BH EDUCATION SYSTEM Cover Image

NAPUŠTANJE TEMELJNIH VRIJEDNOSTI ZAVNOBIH-A ETNOPOLITIZACIJOM I SEGREGACIJOM OBRAZOVNOG SISTEMA BIH
ABANDONMENT OF THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUES OF ZAVNOBIH BY ETHNOPOLITIZATION AND SEGREGATION OF THE BH EDUCATION SYSTEM

Author(s): Adila Pašalić Kreso
Subject(s): Politics, Education, Political history, Recent History (1900 till today), State/Government and Education, Politics and Identity
Published by: Akademija Nauka i Umjetnosti Bosne i Hercegovine
Keywords: People’s illumination; Literacy; Knowledge; Patriotism; Antifascism; New Man; Ethnic divisions; educational segregation;
Summary/Abstract: From the whole of this discussion and tabular summary, the inevitable conclusion is imposed about the Dayton BIH lagging behind in the development of democratic values in education. Today, it is easier to find the similarities of the system of values of ZAVNOBIH with values that are supported by international organizations (UNESCO, OECD, EU, and Council of Europe) than ZAVNOBIH with the education system of BIH today. It seems that the more developed world insists on democracy, the more retrograde forces holding the BIH education system “flee” from that. Since the actual narrative tells that everything socialist is to be blamed, especially in political and public life, with the “deliberate construction of distorted memories”, the educational system(s) in Bosnia and Herzegovina is sinking more and more into the old practice that is today largely overcome and abandoned everywhere. Everything that Europe highly valued and appreciated in education by the end of the last and the beginning of this century, we had, but we thoroughly destroyed and abandoned. Therefore, the “education experts” are here for more than two decades to teach us democratic values, interculturality, tolerance, common life, reconciliation, equality in education, while we should have taught them. We have had a foundation and a long successful practice of cultivating everlasting values, pedagogical principles and goals established in ZAVNOBIH. What was set in the difficult days of the Liberation War and based on the true notion of humanism has been in the education of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for several decades and is still not overcome or lost its relevant character. The analysis in both studied social systems confirmed the inextricable link between society and education, but with different interests and diametrically opposite goals. While the ZAVNOBIH in education insists on clear, explicit goals and values in the function of building a new society, a new person, progress, unity, common life and tolerant ethnic coexistence, Dayton BIH enables strengthening of centrifugal forces that represent a serious threat to the “brotherly community of all nations”, to “the Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina” and “our homeland”, if it is allowed to use these forgotten syntagms from the time of ZAVNOBiH. If by any chance could be analyze todayʼs education by ZAVNOBIHʼs councillors were to analyze today’s education in BIH, they would have been certainly amazed that schools turned into environments that had not existed even 70 years ago. Instead of learning and acquiring high-quality knowledge and critical thinking, schools are becoming more and more, as the textbook analysis have shown, the schools of misunderstanding, intolerance, conflicts and half-truths. Politicians of todayʼs BIH not only do not mind it but rather say loudly: “Your ignorance is feeding us” or we are proud of your “graduated ignorance supported by false certificates”. There are many reasons why it is necessary to return again and again to the values of ZAVNOBIH. We have to refresh awareness why we need to thoroughly reform our education system, why to return to knowledge (not diplomas) and its universal value, why to leave national and develop integrated intercultural programs in which the values of all cultures of BIH will be and from which they will learn “everything about everyone”. In addition, everyday discriminatory rhetoric in education has to be replaced by another more acceptable from the point of view of tolerance and understanding, of strengthening patriotism and antifascism. This will certainly help to turn Robinsonʼs knowledge key to the right side more quickly and to unlock the perspectives of young people.