The role of the Islamic Community in peacebuilding in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina: Case study of East Bosnia.

• Author: Preljevic, Hamza
• Position: ARTICLE - Case study

ABSTRACT The main aim of this paper is to prove that religious communities can play a vital role in building peace and trust among conflict-divided societies such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. A special focus has been put on five municipalities in East Bosnia that survived the genocide, ethnic cleansing and mass deportation. Enforcement, peacekeeping, agreement making, and institution and capacity-building are the main elements that have to be taken into consideration in the process of peacebuilding. The peacebuilding process is challenged in East Bosnia due to the lack of desire on the part of the Serbian Orthodox Church to take part and be involved in a joint peacebuilding process with the Islamic Community.

Introduction

The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ICBH) played an essential role as a contributor to relief and development in many conflict zones during the Bosnian War 1992-1995; beyond that, the ICBH has tried to foster post-war peacebuilding in the country. But the question is, can faith-based or religious organizations, such as the ICBH, be an effective agent of interfaith peacebuilding process in the post-war period in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)? Can they rise beyond their faith-based identity and try to bring the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina closer to each other? How has the ICBH contributed to the peacebuilding process among the people?

In an attempt to answer these questions, this study assesses how the activities undertaken by the ICBH have influenced peacebuilding between the formerly conflicted parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main aim of this work is to investigate and analyze the role of religion, specifically Islam, in the peacebuilding process in BiH. The peacebuilding process is a long-term project, and it is not easy to determine which of the activities performed by the ICBH has contributed the most to it. Therefore, this study discusses the different methods and perspectives used by the ICBH to strengthen the peacebuilding process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Scholars in international relations have long been concerned with techniques and methods in preventative diplomacy, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and peacebuilding. A secular paradigm has dominated these studies, and not many seriously conducted studies have examined and analyzed the role of religious communities in the peacebuilding process. The role of religion as a facilitator in conflict prevention and peacebuilding processes and promoter of justice, tolerance and peace has been very much neglected by the scholars. Yet, justice and peace are fundamental commitments of virtually all religious communities. Moreover, religious communities generally have well-articulated value structures that could potentially provide a basis for collaboration. (1) Therefore, religious interpretations of conflict prevention and post-conflict peacebuilding should be more widely utilized in international relations--especially in societies where religious communities play an important role.

Peacebuilding has been recognized as a necessary component of post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina. The process of peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina is important to avoid any possible new conflict or violence among the formerly conflicted parties. Specifically, peacebuilding among the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Bosniaks (Bosnians Muslims), Croats (Bosnian Catholics) and Serbs (Bosnians Orthodox Christians) necessitates constructive faith-based dialogues and debates. If faith-based dialogues and faith-based promotion of peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina are to provide a model for other countries, the role of religious communities in building and maintaining the peace must be examined.

The goal of this paper is to argue that in a conflict-divided, multiethnic and multi-religious society such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the important role of religious communities and religious leaders in fostering the peacebuilding process should not be ignored. The geographical concentration of this study includes five East Bosnian and Herzegovinan municipalities (towns), namely Zvornik, Bratunac, Vlasenica, Milici and Srebrenica.

This paper is limited to a focus on the ICBH because of the difficulties involved in meeting the conditions to include other religious communities within this study. Therefore, this paper focuses only on the ICBH's view of the peacebuilding process in BiH (with a focus on previously mentioned five municipalities), and the difficulties that the ICBH employees and members face while advocating the establishment of peace. It is important to note that the ICBH and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), even though they count among the victims of the most recent war events (1992-1995)--including the total destruction of the region's cultural and religious infrastructure and heritage, ethnic cleansing, systematic raping and genocide--still do not give up calling for the establishment of long-lasting and sustainable peace among BiH's different ethno-religious groups.

Peacebuilding

The term peacebuilding was first introduced by UN Secretary General Boutros Ghali in his report to the Security Council in 1992, entitled "An Agenda for Peace." Since then, peacebuilding has been included in the policies of a plethora of donors, as well as multilateral and regional organizations. (2) Peacebuilding is a process that facilitates the establishment of lasting peace within societies where conflicts might occur. It tries to prevent the emergence of future conflicts by stressing the root causes of conflict and violence through reconciliation, institutional settings, and economic and political transformation. Peacebuilders work in highly sensitive environments that require long-term approaches to deal with problems and injustices that are not easily solved in the short run. Therefore, peacebuilders must possess creative strategies that will be effective in moments of crisis, but which will also affect lasting changes over the period of social transformation.

Peacebuilding as a process requires the building of new relationships and trust among opposing groups that have experienced conflict and various atrocities. Since both relationships and trust deteriorate during periods of conflict and violence, peacebuilding represents a tremendously hard task that requires long-term devotion. From a general perspective, peacebuilding tends to end the conflict and violence and to support sustainable peace. Key peacebuilding objectives include: preventing countries from lapsing or relapsing into violent conflict, establishing structures and incentives for the peaceful mitigation of conflicts, incentivizing commitment to peace processes among the elite, establishing a framework for political, security and economic transition, and demonstrating peace dividends by meeting the urgent needs of the population. (3)

Religious beliefs and values, as well as religious leaders themselves, have huge potential for promoting peace all over the world. Religious influence goes far beyond state borders and is able to unite different societies in the international arena. Since religion is a powerful mean of controlling societies worldwide, there is an ongoing discussion among scholars as to whether religion is a cause of, or solution to, conflicts today. Many say that religion as a concept, over the centuries, has been an undeniable instrument for achieving peace. However, it is obvious too that huge numbers of acts of physical violence, including killings, have been perpetrated in the name of religion. Therefore, a clear point should be made that violence and extremism are aberrations executed by those who pervert religion and misunderstand its core principles.

Even if we find evidence from different conflict zones stressing that religion contains an inclination for conflict under certain conditions, it is a fact that the connection between religion and violence is very complicated. Individuals and groups that rigorously follow the bona fide and pristine teachings of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, or other traditions will invariably become instruments of peace and harmony, rather than of chaos and destruction. (4) As it has been already noted, any connection between acts of violence and religion is an example of degraded religion and its principles.

Four general principles apply to the work of religious peacebuilding: enforcement, peacekeeping, institution and capacity-building, and agreement making. The first two concepts rely on third party forces in order to cease the conflict and monitor peace settlements and agreements that guarantee at least a minimum of stability. When it comes to the third principle in religious peacemaking, 'institution and capacity building,' a great example is the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ICBH). The ICBH is an institution that acts independently from the state apparatus and represents the unique community of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One role of the Islamic Community, like that of other religious communities in the process of peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is explained by the Raisu-l-Ulama (Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority), Husein Kavazovic, in one of his interviews, where he stated:

[The] responsibility of all religious communities to help in the process of reconciliation and building of our society can be efficient if religious communities and people inside religious communities decide to be dedicated to the principles of 'good,' and if they observe a human as God's creation, not as a member of a certain religious or national group. In the essence of all religions there is a principle called 'repentance.' If we do not teach people to repent we will not be able to face each other, and religious communities need to enliven this institution. In our region we see that war criminals are being glorified, war crimes are being negated, and unfortunately it is a sign that...