“This is a modest proposal for institutionalisation of
peace-related teaching in regions of conflict. It’s a
Citizens Forum for Human Rights and Peace Education,
HR&PE. It mentions Croatia but is equally relevant for,
let’s say, Kosovo or Macedonia, or any other trouble spot.
You may think that this is relevant only after war, but I
strongly believe that forums like this should be created
wherever the situation threatens to erupt into violence. If
the trigger-happy international “community” had invested in
such projects – both in their own ministries of foreign
affairs, in international organisations and in trouble spots
such as Kosovo – 5 or 10 years ago, people on all sides
would begin to realise the utter futility of using weapons
to achieve their goals,” says TFF director Jan
Oberg.

“You see, there are no limits to what can be done to help
people coexist in postwar communities. The international
community has no specialised competence or organisations in
this field. Post-war reconciliation is the most important
measure to prevent future outbreaks of violence – and we
must focus particularly on children and youth,” says TFF
director Jan Oberg.

“TFF has been working for more than one year with
reconciliation issues in Eastern Slavonia, Croatia. We have
analysed problems of co-operation in many schools, served as
resource persons at three UN/Council of Europe seminars for
principals and teachers, helped about 120 Croat and Serb
gymnasium students to see a better future together and we’ve
supported local Serb media in their wish to contribute to
reconciliation. Just a couple of weeks ago, TFF conducted a
seminar with CINES – the Citizens Initiative Network Eastern
Slavonia that we helped create in June, an effort to bring
mixed groups of teachers, media people and all NGOs together
as they are all educators.”

• The wish of the Croatian government and the UN to
promote and develop human rights including peace education
within Croatia especially in multi-ethnic regions like
Eastern Slavonia. This will help to fulfil, for instance,
the goals of the Education for Citizenship programme of the
Council of Europe, and those of the earlier UN mission ‘to
retain the multi-ethnic character of the region’, ‘promote
an atmosphere of confidence among all local residents
irrespective of their ethnic origin’, ‘enable all refugees
and displaced persons to enjoy the right of return freely to
their homes and to live there in conditions of security’.
and ‘promote respect for the highest standards of human
rights and fundamental freedoms.’

• INFORMATION – Information on all issues
relevant for human rights and peace education must be
gathered, links between schools established, public
information made reliable.

• EMPOWERMENT – Build on local resources, to local citizens more self-reliant and society more democratic.

• SKILLS IN RECONCILIATION AND
FORGIVENESS – Through participative processes help
locals themselves train their peers and develop teaching
materials in conflict understanding, -resolution and civil
society democratization.

• COOPERATION – Between principals, teachers,
pupils and parents and between them and the surrounding
society, particularly domestic NGOs and international
organisations.

• CIVIL SOCIETY RESTORATION – To help schools
play a much needed role as community centres and
public/civic education institutions.

• INNOVATION – Schools in Eastern Slavonia
could pioneer new subjects, methods and curricula for the
rest of Croatia, and thereby turn a disadvantage into an
advantage.

• PROFESSIONALIZATION – To help principals,
teachers and students to develop their identity as both
educators and learners.

• TO HELP CREATE BETTER SCHOOLS where real
educational issues rather than ethnic politics, grievances
and symbols dominate and which serve as centres of community
transformation.

• NETWORK – Breaking away from the former
Yugoslav and present pyramid-shaped organisation; no
“President” should be elected and the people running it
should be devoted school people, chosen by their peers for
their competence and vision. No one who is also a politician
or state/municipal employee should be responsible for the
Forum’s daily work. Horizontally structured, dynamic, open
for creativity and do-it-yourself.

• LIAISON PERSONS – Aim to appoint committed liaison person(s) in each school.

• RESPONSIBILITY – A small board is responsible to grant-makers and the ministry, but the activity is self-governing.

• INNOVATORS – Take some, perhaps about five,
of the most open-minded participants in the Council of
Europe seminars, find some Student Council representatives
and some NGO leaders whose organisations work with issues
relevant for human rights and peace and education in a broad
sense.

• COORDINATORS – Help them establish a small
secretariat or clearing house that communicates – phones,
fax, e-mail – with, in principle, all schools in the region.
Best if this group of coordinators is recognised within a
Croatian professional organisations of teachers.

• ADVISERS – Ask Council of Europe, OSCE, UN,
TFF and others to serve as advisory group, but only when
asked by people in the region.

In principle unlimited, here are some:

• Newsletter/journal
A simple mono-lingual product where general human rights and
peace education (HR&PE) issues can be discussed and
where each school – principal, teacher and pupil – can tell
others what goes on in their schools and what they want to
do, draw on the experience of others in the field. HR&PE
in other countries could be reviewed, too.

• Seminars
Workshops and training for the many who did not have a
chance to go to the three 1997 seminars, spreading the
message, building momentum.

• Educational materials
Develop teaching materials, serving as a pedagogical centre,
perhaps build a small library, translate and edit important
international texts for teaching human rights and peace,
such as those of UNESCO.

• Pilot studies and experimental
curricula
Propose and develop them, in consultation with the Ministry,
so that practical experience can be gathered; experimenting
with and introducing modern equipment such as computers,
video, Internet etc, facilitating later contacts with global
trends.

• Spearheading Croatia’s development
Eastern Slavonian schools could become pedagogical learning
centres, inspiring schools all over Croatia – and the region
needs to be seen as useful, strong and as a vital part of
Croatia.

• Reforms in schools and their management
To introduce HR&PE, a democratic spirit, decision-making
and dialogue into the daily management of the schools as
well as into the formal and the hidden curriculum, to secure
that the subjects are practised and not just taught as
texts.

• Education-related social activities
Aiming at democracy, reconciliation and community
development, such as e.g. gathering citizens to rebuild
schools, paint them, make gardens (memorial gardens too)
attached to the schools, suggest cultural activities etc –
all to further a sense a community across whatever divisions
that exist.

• Outreach to the larger world
Serve as a link to the educational community in Croatia,
other former Yugoslav countries and the international
community, including linking up with interest associations,
professional societies and teachers’ unions.

• Media education
Another important group to reach out to – as educators – is
media. The Forum could conduct seminars with educational,
human rights and peace NGOs for and with media people and do
educational programs for radio and television.

• Small research projects
Conduct a survey of attitudes, norms, wishes and future
perceptions of relevance to the schools, in the educational
sector as well as outside it.

• Later on – a local history commission to
write what happened in that part of the country and why –
and what to learn from it. Three versions: one from a Croat
perspective, one from a Serb, perspective (and perhaps other
minorities), one written together, specifying where
agreement can be reached, where mutual understanding is
possible and where no mutuality exist. If published the
materials here would have a healing effect, suffering of
citizens on all sides would be recognised, it would be
psychologically helpful to victims. If transformed into
school books, it could have a considerable educational value
for children and youth by offering reconciliation rather
than hate speech.

“What a pity that such, rather simple, ideas are never
presented in government circles and among diplomats
shuttling around to make what they and the media mistakenly
call peace. Why is a Forum like this not even mentioned in
the Dayton Accords for Bosnia or in “Interim Agreement”
brokered by US ambassador Christopher Hill now for
Kosovo?

Does anyone really believe that peace can be “engineered”
by foreigners and enforced by military pressure, tough talk
and some legal provisions – or that such a peace would be
sustainable without involving the people in the conflict
areas? Such an attitude lacks every ethos of democracy that
the same diplomats normally preach.

I don’t believe that any peace accord will hold if
enforced without the informed consent of the citizens. And
would it not be wonderful if they were well educated in
conflict-resolution and could inspire and challenge the
international ‘conflict-managers’ who keep on making peace
as if people didn’t matter,” Dr. Oberg wonders.