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.
Jajce, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Nikolas, another fighter against segregation in schools, sees the time for a lasting change in the country. "Our parents' generation can't get over how things were 20 years ago during the war. What they went through was terrible, but there is no reason to pass on these experiences to us children. "Hate," as the young man sums it up, "is not the solution." The attitude of the students from the vocational school is simple and their firm belief is written in the large graffiti on the grey outer facade of the school building: "Together we can do it!" According to ethnonationality the students do not want to be separated. Because they are sure: "Otherwise this country has no future".
While the students at one end of the world revolt against the world views of the older generations in order to create community, at the other end of the world a father stands up for his daughters. For even behind the Hidukush, in Sharana, a small town in Afghanistan, there is an answer to the question "where do you belong". But the answer here is: to school! Mia Khan lives in Sharana. The tall man with blue eyes and a long black beard and turban drives 12km every morning to bring his three daughters to school. This alone is perhaps not worth mentioning. There are many fathers, in Germany and elsewhere, who bring their daughters to school every morning. And for many parents as well as children the way to school can be endless - or just seem incredibly long... Distance is, like so many things in life, relative. But unlike most fathers and mothers in Germany, Mia Khan not only brings his daughters to school, but also waits all the time until school is over.
Then he can give his three daughters a ride home. "I am uneducated," Mia Khan says of herself. "I'm a day laborer. But my daughters' education is very important to me, because there is no doctor in our region." According to Médecins sans Frontières, more than half of the Afghan population currently lives below the poverty line (i.e. on less than one dollar a day). About 10 million people have little or no access to health care. The education rate is also one of the lowest in the world. According to UNESCO, only three in ten adult Afghans over the age of 15 can read and write. Every fourth child helps his parents by working and earning money instead of going to school. But Mia Khan sends all his children to school despite the financial challenges. Even his three daughters: At the Nooraniya School for Girls, which his three daughters are currently attending, 220 students are taught up to the sixth grade. And a light wind of change is blowing through the country, which in many ways is considered a place of hopelessness. Because for Mia Khan, the family man, one thing is certain: "It is my greatest wish to educate my daughters the way I have educated my sons."
In Michigan, USA, the question "where do you belong" knows yet another answer: to people who love you. A group of kindergarten children made a rather untypical trip with their kindergarten teacher: they visited a courtroom. Because there Michael, their kindergarten friend, got a new family at the Adaptation Court. And while the judge went about the legal procedure, the and five and six-year-olds sat on the benches and held up their home-made hearts in the air. Michael, a little boy, was ceremonially adopted by his foster parents. The fact that the child and his parents were of different skin colors did not matter. For where do you belong is not a question that can be answered on the basis of religion, ethnicity, race or gender. The answer is much bigger than any category man can invent. The answer goes beyond any culture or nationality. And once you have found the answer, not in your head but deep in your heart, it touches you and and moves the world.