The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

from a kind of socialism that was in no sense Stalinist, and was marked
by a high degree of citizens’ participation, to capitalism, took place here
very much earlier, at the beginning of the 1980s. There were two groups
of people who particularly suffered discrimination here: the Albanians
and the Roma. It is also notable that the Serbs always saw themselves
as the winners of the Second World War, and long before the development
of the violent conflicts, claimed predominance over Croatia and
Slovenia.
There are existential economic crises to be overcome: the famine after
1945, Stalin’s economic blockade in 1948, the industrialization of the
country, and the struggle against illiteracy, which at the outset included
80% of the population, the transition from the socialist-centralist system
to the Yugoslav model of workers’ self-management, to name but a few.
The economic crises in the ‘60s led to an opening of the borders and to
growing labour migration by Yugoslav citizens, who, with their transfer
payments, contributed to a great degree to the survival of the country,
right up until the outbreak of the war. In 1983, reforms were adopted
for the economic consolidation of the country, but they could not be implemented
because each republic and province was fighting for its own
particular interests. In this case, it is clear that at ethno-nationalism and
economic interests derived from domination were closely connected.
All this does not however explain how such an incredible outbreak of
hatred and violence, and genocide against the Muslim population, could
occur. In order to find even the beginnings of an explanation, the change
in the interpretation of history would have to be examined more closely.
The common Yugoslav identity rested on the history of resistance
against Hitler and the liberation of the country by the partisans. Under
the surface of this common identity and its great historical narrative,
there was evidently the history of a bitter and violent nationalism, especially
of the Croats and Serbs, before and after the First World War. This
nationalism in turn overlaid the history of Habsburg rule, and the struggles
against the Ottoman Empire. And perpendicular to these historical
data, which can be ever updated and reinterpreted, run the boundaries
between the religions: Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Particularly in
the Christian churches – unlike among the Muslims – the development
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