Grey is the color of Berlin’s sky. The new year is not quite so new, even though it is only day six. Everyday life is catching up faster than you might like it. And at the same time it is what you often need: structure, everyday life, routine. To know where you belong, what to do. We live in a world in which our self-image is far too often shaped by what we do, who we surround ourselves with, where we come from. Where do you belong, a harmless question that often touches the core of our identity. Or does it?
Where do you belong? This question may not be asked directly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but students in the Balkan state usually know the answer anyway. For there are always only three possible answers to this question: Bosnian, Serbian or Croatian.
After all, school classes are divided according to ethnicity. With the end of the Yugoslavian war, the OSCE first officially introduced the concept of "two schools under one roof" in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The idea was to make it easier for Bosnian refugees to return home and to enable the ethnic groups to come together. In theory, the system of two schools under one roof was abolished in 2000. In practice, it persists stubbornly, with different forms.
The dividing lines are particularly clear in the canton of Central Bosnia. There, pupils in primary schools are divided into Bosnian and Croatian. Aszra and Lucija from the small town of Jajce with 27,000 inhabitants know this as well. The two 17-year-olds have been best friends since kindergarten and spend every free minute together. Every free minute - except for school hours. Strict rules apply in the Bosnian-Croatian Federation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnians and Croats do not belong together, according to the local government. In other parts of the country, too, there is separation according to origin, even though these three ethnic nationalities speak almost the same language. But people have different faiths (Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox) and a different cultural history. So one could say that those who understand each other but believe differently cannot and must not come together. "I didn't understand this separation at all in the beginning," says Azra. "We speak the same language. Nevertheless, we were separated throughout our primary school years. I found it terrible and was always very sad.
But not only the classrooms are separated. Many schools in the canton of Central Bosnia have different break times, so that Bosnian and Croatian pupils cannot meet even in the schoolyard. Anyone who thinks that this is as far as the separation goes, is mistaken: in some schools there are even different toilets - one for each ethnic group. When I first heard about this, I instantly thought about systems that have fortunately become obsolete: Germany, South Africa, USA. These are perhaps the most prominent examples where states have separated their citizens by religion or skin colour. The fact that such a system still exists in the 21st century and in Europe, often so convinced of itself as the cradle of the Age of Enlightenment, comes as a shock.
In most schools, subjects such as religion and history are taught separately. Only in sports and computer classes are children of different ethnic nationalities allowed to meet in the classroom. By the way, for the Serbian minority in the region there is only the choice between the Croatian or Bosnian curriculum. However, many parents disagree with this policy and send their children to Banja Luka, a city with 185,000 inhabitants in the north of the country. The fact that it takes a commute of 70km to reach the city is something most parents are willing to accept.
But what the parents for the most part simply accept, meets with resistance from students at a vocational school in Jajce. At first, most subjects were taught together there. Azra, who transferred to the local school after eighth grade, was enthusiastic: "On the first day I felt as if a miracle had happened. All of us together! It was indescribably beautiful." But this phase of a single, common class association didn't last for long. At this school, too, lessons were to be separated according to ethnicity. The fact that the Supreme Court had already declared the principle of "two schools under one roof" unconstitutional in 2014 was deliberately ignored.
But just because one state thinks that separation is the answer to the question "where do you belong" does not mean that citizens accept it. "We can't let that happen!" So together with her classmates Azra started the student uprising. The students of the small town of Jajce, the former seat of the Bosnian kings before the conquest by the Ottoman Empire, began to fight against "apartheid in the classroom" and caused and still cause uproar throughout the country. And they are going into their fourth year now.
