This brief examines the pitfalls of border change as a possible solution to the Serbia-Kosovo problem, and addresses the question of integrity of the international community’s involvement into this discourse. It does so by confronting value-based and pragmatic-realpolitik arguments, essentially arguing that partitioning Kosovo is neither a guarantee for normalization, nor a step towards the EU for both Kosovo and Serbia.
The Belgrade and Sarajevo offices of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, together
with our editor Miloš Ćirić, have invited relevant voices to reflect on what was
achieved over the past decades in the fields of documentation, memorialization, and
processing of recent history. We wanted to learn which actors and factors determine
the cultural context, who could deconstruct the hate narratives, how nationalism
affects the culture of remembrance in the respective societies, and why the most
brutal of experiences did not lead to a better understanding of common history
in the region. In this volume, the role of the external actors is also critically questioned: what were Western donors able to achieve? Why has dealing with history never become mainstream despite the efforts of many brave, consistent and professional individuals? Is there even a need for a moratorium on dealing with the past so that new spaces for peaceful coexistence can emerge?
However, the goal is not to expose or mock these organizations but rather to better understand them and gain knowledge towards: human rights promotion for everyone and identifying how to oppose the hegemonic framing strategies, representation and discursive construction of women and sexual and gender minorities proposed by anti-gender movements.
