The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

The winners of this war are the nationalists who have implemented their
goals. The new governments claim to have nothing to do with the crimes,
but they are willing to take the spoils of the war. The relationship of the
religious communities to the crimes is also telling. All religions condemn
them, but each justifies the crimes committed by its own community.
As new small states, all the former Yugoslav republics are undergoing
deep social and economic crises. The road to confidence-building is very
long and complicated. In order to start social and personal healing, it
would be urgently necessary to remove the taboos from the stories, and
disclose the past, both for the victims and for the perpetrators. That will
require much knowledge and a common will – and important support
from the outside. The foundations of change must be human rights.
They apply everywhere; they are universal.
Only after what has happened has been dealt with can it be called past,
can it have no more meaning, no more power over people. History cannot
be corrected. People have committed many crimes. How can the
horrors of our ancestors be compensated for? At the level of the citizen,
living together is successful everywhere in the world. In the fight for
power and territories, the political leaders develop a different attitude.
For them, membership in different ethnic groups, coincidental ties, become
the highest of all things, to be defended against all higher values
– against humanity, against the living together of people of different origins
or denominations, against the civic principle, against everything
which connects us. An attack of the darkest past is then launched
against a liveable future.
In our world of today, we are at a historic crossroads. We can develop a
new responsibility from the universal experience of people, and respect
the moral message that emerges, or we can make the same fatal mistakes
again and again, and close our eyes to the evil of contagious nationalism.
The hope of defeating what threatens us continuously springs
only from human understanding, from which solidarity and the desire
for understanding and a common life arises.
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