Description
In 2025 Bosnia will celebrate the 30th year of the ending of a civil war which not only devasted the country but also represented one of the most outrageous cases of ethnic cleansing in contemporary history. One of the many challenges presented by the 1992-1995 war was the social reconciliation of a community that was left fragmented and severely wounded by all the violence perpetrated against all parties involved. Considering these events, the purpose of the present paper is to investigate which mechanisms were and have been applied to promote social reconciliation in the country since then and observe which contributions they have offered to the promotion of an interethnic community in order to protect the different ethnic communities of discourses of hate and violence. Our main argument is that the results achieved by the mechanisms applied vary significantly and that they failed in eliminating victimization discourses and ethnic boundaries between the groups. Moreover, contemporary Serbian far right movements are stimulating the resurgence of hate discourses that are opening old wounds and putting in risk the few positive effects social reconciliation processes were able to promote so far.
