Perspectives on Building Trust among Communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Challenges and the Role of Faith Communities

precis:

This essay examines the role of religious leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina in current interfaith work and, more importantly, in the reconciliation process within the post-war-of-independence society of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It therefore focuses on the challenges religious leaders face when it comes to rebuilding relations among Muslim, Orthodox, and Catholic communities. Among these challenges are the ability to engage actively with others, to have the voice of religious leaders separate from that of political leaders, and to engage political leaders in the process of reconciliation, even when it goes against their political desires. All these considerations are contingent upon an understanding that political leadership has a need to continue a status quo of separation through which their power base has grown. This essay argues that a relationship with, and an independence from, past and present political elites has been one of the most difficult barriers for religious communities in undertaking any significant reconciliation process based on religious values. Any future reconciliation and interfaith work carried out by the religious communities in Bosnia depends, to a large extent, upon this relationship.