Florian Bieber

Balkan Lego Challenge

December 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Here is an end of year Balkan Lego Challenge. While Lego might have its own architecture series, it is much more interesting to do the same with some standard bricks. Here are four challenges from the Balkans: two cities, one historical event and one architectural style. The results of much construction during the holidays.

Enjoy guessing (in the level of difficulty)!

1st Challenge: Guess the city!

2nd challenge: Guess the historical event!

3rd challenge: Guess the architectural style!

4th challenge: Guess the city!

Filed under Fun, Uncategorized Tagged with Balkans, Fun, Lego

When Austria first discovered the Adriatic: Notes from an exhibition

December 26, 2013 Leave a comment

I am re-blogging a post I wrote a few weeks back for Total Hvar on an exhibition in Vienna that is worth a visit:

The museum of the city of Vienna ) currently organizes an exhibition on the “Austrian Riviera. Vienna discovers the sea” on how the Viennese and with them the upper and middle classes discovered the Adriatic in the 19^th century.

While the exhibit mainly focuses on the prime destinations of the late Habsburg elite—Abbazia (today’s Opatija), the Brioni islands and the northern Adriatic, Hvar is also mentioned, especially Hygienische Gesellschaft Hvar and Hotel Elisabeth (today’s Hotel Palace).

After the Südbahn, the southern train line from Vienna to Trieste opened in 1857, a journey that took days was cut down to around 12 hours (not much slower than the same journey today). The Adriatic became for the first time accessible for a wider number of visitors from Vienna and elsewhere in the Habsburg Monarchy. The train line coincided with the beginnings of modern tourism and—as the exhibition explores—the first visitors mostly came in winter, traveling alone for health purposes, only a few decades later summer tourism emerged and upper-middle class families traveled for the summer to the Adriatic. After arriving in Trieste or later Rijeka, the tourists traveled onwards to Hvar and Stari Grad and elsewhere by steam boat. To make the new destinations attractive, they took their names from the Western Mediterranean that had already developed tourism: the Adriatic coast came to be known as the Austrian Riviera and Hvar as the Austrian Madeira.

The exhibition includes old time tables, paintings, objects, and photos. Old bathing suits and cartoons remind the viewer that women and men bathing together was controversial at the time. This is a fascinating exhibition that provides for a great journey into the past when the Adriatic was “discovered” and tourism had its beginnings. It is a pity that the exhibition did not reflect more on how this “discovery” fit into the larger identity of the Habsburg Empire. Graham Robb wrote a few years ago in his Discovery of France how infrastructure and tourism were part of the nation and state building process—train lines “shrank” the country and allowed citizens to discover “their” country. The title of the exhibition in Vienna—the “Austrian Riviera” suggests a similar process in the Habsburg Monarchy, but the main challenge here is the diversity of the country. The exhibition shows how the different traditions of Dalmatia were a source of exoticism and thus the appeal of the journey, but the growing political demands of Croats, Italians and Serbs of Dalmatia, however, were rather a threat for the Monarchy.

Photo from the Adriatic Exhibition 1913

The timing for the exhibit is perfect: exactly 100 years ago, on the eve of World War One, Vienna celebrated the Adriatic with the Adriatic Exhibition, a kind of early theme park complete with a mini replica of Venice and the rector’s palace of Dubrovnik. Over 2 million visitors visited Dalmatian villages, steam boats, slide shows of the journey. Thus those who could not afford the trip to the South could (pretend to) escape the capital of Monarchy for the day.

Cafe Dalmatia at the Adriatic Exhibition in 1913

There is also an impressive and very detailed catalog available accompanying the exhibition. The exhibition will run until late March 2014 at the Wien Museum (1040 Vienna, Karlsplatz 8). Further details here.

Filed under Croatia Tagged with Austria-Hungary, Dalmatia, Hvar

The good past and the bad past: Two Belgrade exhibits

December 21, 2013 1 Comment

A family tree

Picturing the past

Belgrade is hosting two very different exhibits these days, just a few meters apart: The exhibition Bogujevci—A Virtual History was opened with much public attention, it was less the few protesters who opposed the exhibit, but rather the visit of Ivica Dačić. Even now, a few policemen in front of the exhibit and out on the street keep a watchful eye. Otherwise, there is a steady trickle of visitors… just down the road another exhibit just opened, called Živeo život, a second exhibition about “what we lost and brought with us from Jugo”. Here, unsurprisingly, a much larger number of visitors listens to Yu-Music, marvels at sports stars of Yugoslavia or looks through the Yugoslav supermarket.

A painful reminder of the past

A nostalgic couch

Both exhibits give a central place to a living room, complete with couches, TV, dark brown wall unit and kitschy decoration. In both, they are reminders of the past. The first represents the home of the Bogujevci family in Podujevo before most family members were killed in 1999, the second is generic living room of Yugoslavia. Both exhibits try to take historic events out of the larger political narrative of grand events and big politics to a personal level–literally into the living rooms. The exhibit about the Bogujevci family is neither pathetic, nor does it provides for a grand narrative of the wars. It simply shows the consequence of a war crime on a family and the very personal efforts of the family to see some of the perpetrators punished. The exhibit is testament to their effort to remind the public of the crimes. The “Live your life” exhibit instead offers an escape from the present. It puts the red Yugoslav passport into a golden frame, and presents the glories of Yugoslav life and consumerism with little irony or critical narrative.

For visitors, this is the opportunity to put on the pioneers’ cap and scarf, step on a vespa and listen to Yu-music. There is no mention of the inflation, the shortages, poverty, or the absurdities of the political system. Where the House of Terror in Budapest and similar exhibits try to paint a picture of Communism as a period of pure horror, this exhibit does the opposite by mixing personal nostalgia with the memories of a country gone by. These two exhibits shed two very different perspectives on the past and how large events effected everyday life.

Filed under Kosovo, Serbia, War and War Crimes Tagged with Yugonostalgia, yugoslavia

Protests from Maribor to Istanbul: Looking back at a year of demonstrations

December 11, 2013 1 Comment

Here are some answers for an interview on the protests I gave to the Macedonian daily Dnevnik on the occassion of the conference “Rebellion and Protest from Maribor to Taksim. Social Movements in the Balkans” that will be organised this Thursday through Saturday by the Centre for Southeast European Studies in Graz.

What signal are the Balkans sending through these social movements: are they waking up, finally?

The protests accross the region, from Maribor to Istanbul show, that civil society is alive and well in many countries. Citizens care about public spaces, are concerned about corruption and austerity and resent the close links between business and politics. Of course, there is great variation in the size of the protests, their duration and their success. I would see the protests in Sofia as the most impressive display of public discontent this year. Their duration is spectacular and their participants are sceptical of the entire political elite, both government and opposition. When the target of the protests is so broad, unlike for example the building a shopping centre in a park as in Istanbul, it is often hard to sustain momentum. There are two clear messages that the protests send. First, citizens do not trust elites, they are seen as not representing the citizens, but private interests. Thus, the message is a call for more democracy and rule of law. Second, in some protests, the economic crisis and the difficult situation many citizens have found themselves in was either a central theme, or a trigger, like high electricity prices in Bulgaria. Overall, citizens in the region have endured much greater economic hardship than elsewhere in Europe without protesting. Economic hardship becomes a key trigger is when the difficult situation is combined with a sense of lack of fairness.

What do all this protests, as you described: from Maribor to Taksim, have in common?

Every protest is individual and has different causes and triggers. Yet, there is a larger pattern, that extends of course beyond Maribor and Istanbul: we have probably seen the largest wave of protests over the last two-three years around the world since 1989. These protests have taken place in democracies like Spain or Greece and in dictatorships like Libya and Syria. Most protests have taken place in the European borderlands of the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe (see the current protests in Ukraine). The protests share a sense of frustration with being badly governed and having unresponsive elites. The promise of prosperity and better rule of Europe is close and thus seems possible. This has motivated many protests: the comparison of one’s own government with the possibilities close by. The economic crisis might not always be central to the protests, but the crisis has shed light on corruption and patronage—if there is less money to go around in times of crisis, bad governance becomes more obvious.

Do you, as an expert, think that this is the right way for the Balkans to make their “dreams come true”?

Protests can achieve their own goal and still fail. Individual demands can be met, governments can resign—as was the case in Bulgaria in February—and yet fundamental change might not happen. Thus not addressing the roots of the problem that brought about the situation in the first place. The key is for protests to lead to institutional forms of civic engagement. I don’t just mean NGOs, but rather movements , political parties and also media that will carry the demands along. This is always a tricky moment, as those working through institutions might be accused of “selling out” and some indeed might become regular politicians and abandon their original goals. On the other hand, the demands or the underlying grievances of the protests are often too large to be addressed right away. When change takes time, it cannot be achieved through protests alone and then invariable the question arises of how to pursue change and reform. A protest can have two functions: it can empower citizens, giving them the feeling that they can achieve change , in the words of banner from protests in Banja Luka to save Picin park, “You are not a slave of the system, you are change”

What if their problems are not solved as they want and insist?

Disappointment is nearly inevitable: Firstly, protests movements include citizens with many different expectations. In fact, to be succesful a protest movement usually has to draw from different social groups with varying hopes and grievances. Observers noted that the protests in Istanbul brought together gays and lesbians, Kurdish activists, environmentalists and citizens who had not been previously active. They will all have different expectations of the protests and some will find their demands not met. The success or failure of protests is thus not only a function of whether the immediate demands are met, but rather whether the political environment changes—if those who went to the streets realise that they can achieve change and that institutions are responsive. This dynamic sometimes takes time to be visible. The protests in Belgrade in the winter of 1996-7 first seemed like a failure—Milosevic met the formal demands, but continued to rule like before. However, the revolution of 2000 was unimaginable without these earlier protests. Similarly, the protests in Taksim have been repressed with force by the Turkish government and at the moment it does not seem like they were successful. However, as a banner in Istanbul read, “This is just the beginning!”, “From now on, nothing will be the same again!” We do not know what the next form of protest will look like in Turkey, but it clear that many citizens are dissatisfied with the status quo and demand not just a different government, but a different style of governing—and this is a common feature across the region.

Filed under Serbia, Turkey, Western Balkans Tagged with Demonstrations, Istanbul, Maribor, protests, social movements, Taksim

Croatia Referendum Shows Perils of Direct Democracy

December 5, 2013 Leave a comment

Here is a comment I wrote for Balkan Insight on the recent referendum in Croatia. I have added two tables that compare support for EU membership and support for the constitutional definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman.

Last Sunday Croatia held its third referendum in the last 23 years. In 1991 Croatian citizens voted whether to remain in Yugoslavia, in 2012 whether to join the EU and now on whether a marriage should be constitutionally defined as a union of a man and a woman. Hardly of the same caliber as the previous referenda, it passed with nearly a two third majority. The referendum was in fact a demonstration of the risks of direct democracy. Croatia already defines marriage as such, all be it not in the constitution. Furthermore, there is no effort to move towards giving same-sex partnerships equal status to marriages. As a result the initiators of the referendum—a previously unknown ultra-conservative group “In the name of the family” (with support of the Catholic Church)—achieved a success without any great legal consequence, but political significance.

Some commentators in Croatia and outside decried the result as evidence of a conservative, backward looking Croatia. This is, however, is one-sided reading of the referendum. Firstly, only ten European countries open marriage to same-sex couples, all of them in Western and Northern Europe. Thus, Croatia is by no means exceptional. Five other EU member states ban same-sex marriage, namely Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania. According to the Rainbow Europe index of ILGA the main European group lobbying for equal rights of LGBT communities—measuring legal protection, human rights violations and social attitudes—Croatia ranked 13^th among 49 countries in Europe, at similar levels to Austria, Finland, and well above Greece, Italy and all other countries of Central Europe except Hungary. Second, attitudes in Croatia are no particularly hostile towards gays and lesbians and opposition to opening marriage to homosexual is not particularly pronounced. There are few recent Europe-wide polls on levels of support for opening marriage to homosexual couples, but Eurobarometer numbers from 2006 indicate that the levels of the referendum outcome are do not make Croatia a conservative outlier. A 2012 study of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency of discrimination against LGBT citizens in the EU (and future members) did find that Croatia ranks as the country with high level of LGBTs who experienced discrimination and harassment (60% experienced harassment or discrimination within the previous year), only Latvia has a higher level. The levels are similar in Italy, Cyprus and Poland. Thus, Croatia belongs to the countries of the EU that are more conservative in regard to LGBT citizens, but largely reflected Central and Southern European patterns. Third, the turnout of the referendum was low, only 37.9% voted, thus with support for the initiative at 65.87% only a quarter of all Croatian voters endorsed the initiative.

Yet, the group and its referendum were successful. (below is added to the Balkan Insight Comment). Here it is worthwhile looking the 2012 referendum joining the EU. (added to the Balkan Insight Comment). As the table below shows, the support for limiting marriage is not inversely related to support for EU across counties in Croatia. In most counties citizens supported both. The only places where we can identify a clear discrepancy are Istria and the region around Rijeka where a majority voted again the prohibition of same-sex marriage, but for the EU.

If we look at absolute numbers, see table below, a similar pattern emerges that support for accession to the EU was not lower where support for the recent referendum was high. The only region that is striking here is Split, where in fact more people voted in favor of the ban than voted in favor of joining the EU.

Thus, while there is a clear regional pattern of support and rejection of the ban on same-sex marriage (with more liberal regions in Istria,around Rijeka, and to a lesser degree in Zagreb and Medjumurje and more conservative regions in Dalmatia), it would be wrong to assume a straightforward liberal-conservative divide that translates to Euroskepticism. A second point of comparison is turnout (continued from the Balkan Insight comment). Turn out at the referendum is not as low as it would seem. Turnout in 2012 on joining the EU was less than 7 percent higher, 946.433 voted in favor of the ban, some 1.299.008 voted for joining the EU. Referenda often have low turn outs as they are usually able only to mobilize voters who are concerned with the issue at stake. It would be thus a mistake to consider the turn out a failure for the church and the groups that supported the initiative. The main successes reach beyond the referendum itself. For the first time, conservative groups in Croatia were able to gain main-stream support for a social issue, rather than a national issue. While popular support for “homeland war” can be more easily generated, Croatian society, as other post-Yugoslav societies, have been overall unresponsive to social conservative initiatives and policy agendas beyond national issues (borders, veterans, interpreting the past). The referendum suggests that a conservative social agenda might gather popular support. Such campaigning is likely to be polarizing and cannot capture a majority, but can energize the conservative spectrum of the electorate. Not unlike the Tea Party in the US, such an agenda is unlikely to be sustainable in the mid-term or to gain a majority, but it can dictate the debate. Finally, this referendum opens the door to potentially other referenda. It remains to be seen how serious the threats of nationalist groups in Vukovar are to seek a referendum on banning Cyrillic, but the success provides an incentive for the opposition to by-pass representative democracy and impose a conservative agenda through referenda (or their threat). Slovenia has had some similar experiences with multiple referenda in 2010-2012, mostly initiated by opposition groups that among others blocked pension reform and a law that would have put same-sex partnerships on equal footing with marriage. The threshold for holding a referendum in Croatia is higher (10% of all registered voters), but the success of the referendum against same-sex marriage highlights the ability to reach the number of required signatures if the issue has a polarizing effect and well-organised groups stand behind the initiative.

Thus, the referendum is less the evidence of a backward and conservative Croatia, but of the risks and potential of using polarizing social issues to dictate the policy agenda.

Filed under Croatia, European Union Tagged with LGBT, marriage, referendum

The show will go on: EU enlargement and the new German government

December 2, 2013 1 Comment

Signing of the coalition agreement, 27.11.2013 (author:CDUCSU)

Last week the German SPD and CDU/CSU signed the agreement for forming a grand coalition. This 185 page long document sets out the agenda for the new government has been negotiated now for some 2 months. It also discusses EU enlargement, making it a key document in assessing the perspectives for the EU integration of the Western Balkans in the coming years. German is not just an important member state, but with 75 percent of Germans against enlargement in the coming years, the country with the highest number of enlargement skeptics. The section on enlargement (p. 165) towards the Western Balkans is just one paragraph long (part of one page on EU enlargement and Eastern partnership), here in the German original (it thus did not receive much attention in the German press covering the coalition agreement, see SZ, FAZ and FR):

“Die Erweiterung der EU ist aktive europäische Friedenspolitik. Die bisherigen EU-Erweiterungen sind im Interesse Deutschlands und Europas. Wir stehen dazu, dass dieser Prozess unter strikter Beachtung der Beitrittskriterien fortgesetzt wird und die Staaten des Westlichen Balkans eine Beitrittsperspektive haben. Sowohl Serbien als auch Kosovo müssen ihre eingegangenen Verpflichtungen erfüllen. Wir wollen KFOR im Einklang mit der Sicherheitsentwicklung schrittweise reduzieren und zum Ab-schluss führen. Gemeinsam mit unseren Partnern und Verbündeten werden wir die Heranführung der Länder des Westlichen Balkans an EU und NATO aktiv vorantreiben. Für die EU-Erweiterung sind die Anwendung strenger Kriterien und klar überprüfbarer Fortschritte wichtig. Maßgeblich sind sowohl die Beitrittsfähigkeit der Kandidaten als auch die Aufnahmefähigkeit der Europäischen Union.”

In essence, it maintains the German committment to EU enlargement and describes it as a peace project and German and European interest. However, it also points out that the process shall continue “under strict observation of the accession criteria” and later once more “strict criteria and clearly identifiable progress. Essential is both the ability of the candidates to join, as well as the ability of the EU to absorb the countries”. As a result, the coalition agreement suggest that the new German government will pursue the enlargement as in recent years. The multiple references to strict criteria, visible progress and the absorption capacity of the EU all suggest that enlargement will remain difficult and Germany, reflecting the larger tendency of the EU for member states to get invovled in the enlargement process, will assess the readiness of countries seperate from the Commission.

Some change is though likely: the composition of the new government has not been announced yet, as the SPD members have to first vote on the coalition agreement, but traditionally the junior partner in coalitions holds the Foreign Ministry. It is likely that an SPD-led Foreign Ministry will be more supportive of EU enlargement than the previous FDP-led ministry. The coalition agreement, however does note, that all EU policy decisisons will be particularly coordinated by the government under leadership of the chancellor and vice-chancellor, so there will be little room for a different policy of the SPD. In addition, the short mention of enlargement does also serve as a reminder that it is a low priority for the new German government.

Filed under European Union, Western Balkans Tagged with Germany

A train to nowhere: Talgo in Bosnia

November 28, 2013 3 Comments

Talgo parked in Sarajevo train station (source: thehindu.com)

The Talgo trains, made in Spain, belong to the high-end trains rolling around Europe, North America and Asia. They travel at high speeds on conventional tracks and offer comfortable intercity and international travel. Bosnia (together with Kazachstan and Uzbekistan) has nine such trains (bought in , so far the good news. While the website of the railways of the Bosnian Federation (ZFBiH, there is no single Bosnian rail company) even has a link to Talgo reserations (including the tempting offer to travel in time: Register for a free Ride from 1/Nov/2010 to 31/Dec/2011), none of the trains is going anywhere. The trains had some test runs, but never entred service. Instead, the trains have been languishing for years in Sarajevom, partly in storage, partly in the open. When they were tested, they achieved the incredible maximum speed of 70km per hour. Of course, for such great speeds, it is necessary to have a train that can go 220 km per hour… Samir Kadrić from the railways of the Federation described it “as if you bought nine Ferarris and you don’t have roads to drive them on”. Besides old tracks and no realistic plan to improve them to anywhere close to the speeds the Talgo can travel, it took years to negotiate the use of the train with neighboring countries and meanwhile, the train to Belgrade no longer operates and there is only one train per day that takes 9 hours for the journey. Now the railway company does not have the money to maintain the trains, so they are not even riding at 70 km per hour, but just standing and waiting. The Talgo thus share the same fate as the Croatian-made Končar trains the ZFBiH bought in 2009 to run local lines and which the company now seeks to return to Croatia. Just for the Talgo trains, the ZFBiH payed 67.5 mio Euro which is tries to pay for by renting the trains to Turkey.

There is hardly a better metaphor for what is wrong in Bosnia today. The country cannot move on, or only at the speed of 19th century train travel in 40-year old run down cars. The alternative is there (and even paid for) but there is no plan, no will and no resources to accelerate. Instead of leapfrogging several train-generations (or in extension reforms) with the Talgo, the episode highlights that Bosnia needs new tracks, and not just for trains. The fact that nobody had to resign over this affair that raises suspicions not just about tremedous stupidity, but also corruption, also is indicative of how the scale of bad governance has created an incredible degree of hopelessness in the country.

Filed under Bosnia Tagged with Train

Ready for the Homeland? Šimunić and a bit of normal fascism

November 21, 2013 4 Comments

After the end of the soccer qualifier for the World Cup between Island and Croatia two days ago, Josip Šimunić took a microphone and shouted “Za dom” (for the homeland) and the fans in the stadium screamed back “spremni” (ready). This is no ordinary slogan, but was the salute of the fascist “Independent State of Croatia” and has been used by extreme nationalist groups in the 1990s. It is the equivalent of shouting “Seig Heil” at a German soccer game. After coming under fire for the incident, Šimunić defended himself, arguing that “I associate home with love, warmth and positive struggle – everything that we showed on the pitch to win our place in the World Cup… Some people have to learn some history. I’m not afraid. I’m supporting my Croatia, my homeland. If someone has something against it, that’s their problem.” Of course, it is he, who has to learn some history. While the salute has its origins predating World War Two, it is tainted by the use by the Ustaša regime. The blantant display of extreme nationalism during a sport event is of course nothing new either in Croatia or other countries of the region and maybe it forces a greater degree of dealing with the use of extremist and fascist symbols in the public space in Croatia.The response by media and most politicians was clear and condemn the incident, as did many fans on online portals. However, as columnist Boris Dežulović points out, the problem is less that Šimunić shoted “Za dom”, but that thousands shouted back “spremni”. This exchange points to a failure of the state and society to openly deal with the past, both of World War Two and of the war in the 1990s and to build a social consensus that makes the open use of fascist symbols unacceptable. The salute is not banned and in a different case, a court found a man evoking “za dom spremni” not guilty of hate speech. Courts are also ill suited to confront flirting with fascism, as concerts by singer Thompson demonstrate. The symbolic references to the Ustaše are clear, but they do not need to be explict enough to make courts effective. It is the ambiguity on which extreme right wing politicians thrive elsewhere as well.

The main concern is that these symbols become or remain “normal” and part of the mainstream and thus using them does not put you at the margins of society. The incident in the stadium takes place in the context of polarization in Croatia over the introduction of cyrillic script on public buildings in Vukovar. While the groups that kepts smashing the cyrillic signs are marginal, they contribute to “normalise” that the use of a script is a threat to the nation or disrespectful towards war veterans. It seems like a contradiction that these incidents occur now that Croatia joined the EU and last year saw the release of Ante Gotovina from the ICTY, seemingly putting a symbolic end to the war era.

There are three ways to think about it: First, the regime of Tudjman, while officially distancing itself from fascist Croatia, began the ambigious use of fascist symbols and references, that brought it to the mainstream and it never really left. Second, just like ten years ago when the HDZ used nationalism to bring down the first post-Tudjman government through mass rallies in defense of generals accused of war crimes, nationalist incidents and protests are a resource for the opposition to weaken the government. When evoking the war, the assumption is that by setting the agenda (war and homeland rather than reform or economic isssues), it would benefit more the nationalist opposition than the government. Third, after reaching the strategic goal of joining the EU, Croatia is now just a normal, ordinary country, with high unemployment and little to no growth for five years. The everyday fascism is a way to distract from this dull reality. Probably, it is the combination of these factors that makes such incidents possible. If this leads to a broader debate in Croatia on what symbols and slogans are socially acceptable and which ones are not, Šimunić might have done Croatia service, but not in the way he thought.

Filed under Croatia Tagged with football, nationalism, soccer, Šimunić

Bad Metaphors and The Mostar Bridge

November 12, 2013 1 Comment

Twenty years ago, the bridge in Mostar was destroyed by Bosnian Croat forces, since it has been rebuilt nearly ten years ago. In the mean time, the bridge became the symbol of Bosnia and countless books and posters of Bosnia feature the bridge. The bridge has become overburdened with symbolic value which does not reflect the bridge or Bosnia. The bridge was not a symbol of multiethnic Bosnia, but part of the country’s Ottoman heritage that remains strongly contested. When it was destroyed it did not link two communities, but two parts of Mostar held by Bosnian government forces with a Bosniak majority. Its reconstruction thus neither mended interethnic ties, nor could it be an appropriate symbol for it. Furthermore, a bridge is an ill-fitting metaphor for cooperation. Bridges are edifices to get from one place to another, but they are not a place to stay, a meeting point. I remember asking a Slovak diplomat some 15 years ago whether he saw his country as a bridge between East and West and he dismissed this suggestion quickly, noting that one does not want to live on a bridge, it is neither here nor there. Beyond being a bad metaphor, should the Mostar bridge have been rebuilt. I understand that the reconstruction of the bridge sent the signal that the ethnonationalist leaders and they militias cannot destroy the countries heritage. Yet, it is a fake. Just like the Berlin Stadtschloss or the Old theater in Skopje, it is a re-construction of a building that had disappeared. In this sense, the building pretends to be old, but it is not.

In addition to being disingenuous, it also is a reflection of the larger “reconstruction” paradigm that has been dominant in Bosnia and in other post-conflict countries. The “reconstruction paradigm” focuses on both the physical and societal reconstruction after the war. However, the reconstruction might be possible in the material sense (and even here it near impossible), the societal reconstruction is not possible. Instead the emphasis should be more on construction, i.e. on the ways in which a post-war society and country can be built and build itself. Thus, most of the focus on international policy makers has been on refugee return in the first post-war decade, but little thought went to other ways in with divisions could be overcome based on the post-war realities.

As such, the bridge is Mostar is not a symbol of reconstructing Bosnia, but rather of faking the past that was destroyed rather than building a new reality.

Filed under Bosnia Tagged with bridge, Mostar

Let the manipulation begin: First number claims of the Bosnian census

October 31, 2013 1 Comment

Less than two weeks since the end of the census (see my previous posts on the Bosnian census here and here), politicians have begun to claim to know the results of the Bosnian census. First the head of the HDZ Dragan Čović claimed that there are some 570,000 Croats in Bosnia “according to information he gets every day.” Afterwards, Sejfudin Tokić, a former Socialdemocrat and now a vigorous campaigner for Bosniak identity (and against Bosnian identity), coordinator of the “Bosniak movement for equality of nations” claims to know the number of Bosniaks: According to him, there are 54 percent Bosniaks in Bosnia and 17 percent in the Republika Srpska (and 32.5 percent Serbs, 11.5 percent Croats and 2 percent others, as reported here. See also here, and here).

While these numbers might turn out to be true, it is completely implausible that the two or anybody else already has such reliable numbers. Take some regional examples: The 2011 census in Montenegro was carried out in April, first results were released in May, but only pertained to the population numbers, not the break down by ethnicity, religion or language. These results were released in August, i.e. four months after the census was concluded. This is record breaking fast by regional standards and that is due to the fact that Montengro is, well, small. Montenegro, like Croatia and Serbia have also conducted one post-war census and are thus arguably better prepared than Bosnia. In Serbia the first results, again only pertaining to the overall population number were released a month after the census and results about ethnicity were released in November 2012, more than a year after the census in October 2011. In Croatia,two months passed to the publication of first results, and results on ethnicity where not published until 2013, well over a year and a half since the census was held in April 2011 .

Considering the complexity of any census and particularly the Bosnian one, numbers that are currently circulating cannot be considered reliable. The claim by Čović and Tokić that they have informers that provide them with data that would allow for a Bosnia-wide picture of the population distribution by ethnicity is implausible. First, this would require a very large number of informants to give such a comprehensive picture. Second, considering that lack of knowledge about the size of the population and other data, giving percentages of a particular community is inherently inaccurate. Third, a census is not like an election where you can have a parallel vote count based on a representative sample. First, one does not know what is representative (not just in terms of size, but also in terms of age, geographical distribution) in Bosnia and second, the results in the census and those given to third parties might very considerably, especially when it comes to identity questions (in the census somebody might call himself a Bosnian, but when somebody from the NGO “it is important to be Bosniak” knocks on the door to ask about identity, the answer might be different).

Thus, if statistical offices from neighboring countries with more experience in censuses, less complicated processes and structures take at least four months and usually more than one year to give the number of citizens identifying with one nation or ethnic group, claims to know this in ten days are at best a “guestimate” and at worst just made up. But why make up numbers or circulate such claims? It is a perfect example of setting expectations. This is called the anchoring effect in psychology, well described in Thinking, Fast and Slow by David Kahnemann. If you are giving a number associated with a question (like a price tag for a product or the age of a person), you are likely to use it unconsciously as an anchor, no matter how random the number might be. If the price tag of jeans states 150 Euros and then you are told, they are on sale for 25 % off, they seem like a good deal, but that original number might as well be random and still we are influenced by it.

Circulating numbers about population shares is unlikely to be shaping the outcome of the census, but it is likely to shape the perception of the outcome. Thus, if you claim that 54 percent of the population are Bosniaks and the real number is 42 percent, the number seems wrong, too far away from the original claim and thus can be more easily challenged. This type of setting the agenda thus substitutes results with desired results. In the best case, the desired results turn out to be real, in the worst, they are lower and then their legitimacy can be challenged. Timing matters here: CeSID and others involved in the parallel vote count in 2000 in the Milošević elections know why: they were eager to get their first results out before the state election commission. By releasing the results first, they planned to set the agenda: They determined what is the standard results against which all others are measured, not the state election commission. When the state election commission produced their results, they seemed wrong also because they differed from the results first released by CeSID.

Whether those circulating numbers will succeed remains to be seen, but the season of number games has official opened.

Filed under Bosnia Tagged with census

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