From Class to Identity: The politics of education reforms in former Yugoslavia

CHAPTER 3 Religious Education or Civic EUcation? Education Policy and Transition in Post-Milošević Serbia

CHaPter 3 religious education or Civic eUcation? education Policy and transition in Post-milošević serbia Introduction reforms implemented during the 1970s and 1980s did not succeed in preventing the breakup of the socialist Federative republic of yugoslavia . By the end of the 1980s, political fragmentation, combined with nationalist mobilization, resulted in the conflict that changed the face of the region forever. education followed the trajectory of other public policies of the time: from the focus on employment and the containment of social unrest that characterized the vocation-oriented education reform in the 1970s and the early 1980s, it evolved to support the processes of ethnic mobilization and consolidation of the new nationstates that emerged from the conflict. the dissolution of former yugoslavia prompted a multitude of analyses that attempt to reconstruct the causes and consequences of this process. today, these amount to a veritable “genre” of their own, attributing different weight to factors ranging from economic crisis to “ancient ethnic hatreds” mentioned in the Introduction to this book (cf. dragovic-soso 2007). despite differences, the point in which the majority of analyses seem to converge is in attributing the main responsibility for the beginning of the conflict to the expansionist politics of serbia and its leader, slobodan milošević. For instance, tismaneanu writes: “the paradigmatic ‘worst case scenario’ in eastern europe, the exemplum of the shattering of all democratic values under ethnocratic 80 FROM CLASS TO IDENTITY pressure, has obviously been yugoslavia. In the former federation, we witnessed the ‘Belgrade syndrome’: a form of populism instrumented through militaristic and expansionist policies and demagogic nationalism . Its purpose was to preserve the political domination of the ex-communist, radically nationalist elite grouped around slobodan milošević. the ruling party, the secret police and the army were the pillars upon which milošević built his personalist, ethnocentric authoritarianism ” (tismaneanu 2012, 22–23). milošević had risen to power by defeating the more centralist, integrative options within the league of Communists of yugoslavia, and established his power base through a “tougher” stance on nationalist mobilization in Kosovo and identification with the interests of the serb minority in a series of, now iconic, public statements.1 His government, though not always openly, supported the rebellion of the serbs after Croatia declared independence, and the establishment of the republic of srpska Krajina. It cooperated with (and, at least a certain point in time, indirectly controlled) the army of Bosnian serbs as they began the siege of sarajevo and proceeded to ethnically cleanse the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the 1995 dayton peace conference, milošević was hailed as the “guarantor of peace and stability in the Balkans,” as, together with the leaders of Croatia and Bosnia, they agreed on the division of Bosnia. However, the dayton Peace agreement did not put a stop to the violence in former yugoslavia; atrocities in Kosovo continued, finally resulting in the nato intervention in the spring of 1999. thus, it was not surprising that the international community identified milošević as the main obstacle to full democratization and the establishment of a durable peace in the region. throughout the 1990s, there had been several attempts to remove milošević from power. In serbia, his policies grew steadily less popular, especially as the country began to pay the economic and political price of the war (cf. Bieber 2011; ramet 1992). In 1991 and 1992, there 1 these include “no one should dare beat you” but also, for instance, a more elaborate “We shall win the battle for Kosovo regardless of the obstacles facing us inside and outside the country (...) We shall win despite the fact that serbia’s enemies outside the country are plotting against it, along with those in the country.” (ramet 1992b, 83). 81 Religious Education or Civic EUcation? were mass popular and student protests against repressive internal policies and serbia’s pending involvement in the conflict (Kuzmanović et al. 1993; Popadić 1999; Prošić-dvornić 1993). In 1996 and 1997, prompted by alleged electoral fraud, the longest anti-regime protests in the country’s history took place (e.g., lazić 1999; Prošić-dvornić 1998). However, the success of these initiatives remained limited; the political opposition to milošević was divided along ideological and social lines, while civic initiatives managed to mobilize a part of the population, but not sufficient for milošević or his party to actually lose their power base. the nato...