UNMIK ON AIR

Open University in Subotica

(By Sputnik Kilambi & Zoran Culafic)

Hello and welcome to UNMIK ON AIR.

Vojvodina may not be a land of milk and honey – but as an example of a truly multiethnic environment, it certainly stands out in the Balkans, especially in the light of the recent decade of bloodshed. Up to 20 different ethnic groups live in this autonomous republic in Serbia and have co-existed for centuries. Whatever other problems the people of Vojvodina have to deal with, bread and butter issues like their counterparts in other parts of Serbia, and indeed in the region, ethnic tensions are not one of them.

Subotica is a jewel of a town close to the Hungarian border. The elegant architecture and tree-lined streets bear evidence to its Austro-Hungarian heritage, indeed the atmosphere here is very much “UN-Balkan”. Cross the Danube they say, and you quit the Balkans.

The Open University is another of Subotica’s claim to fame – a 50-year-old institution that has weathered many storms, not least the breakup of Yugoslavia. Bosko Kovacevic, who heads the university, is clearly proud of the way the institution managed to stay true to its mandate, despite the closed, xenophobic and regressive order that prevailed in Serbia during the nightmare that unfolded in 1992.

People in Vojvodina tried and succeeded in preserving good interethnic relations, he says, despite attempts by some dominant ethnic groups to jockey for more power. It wasn’t always easy, Kovacevic admits, but the broad spectrum of multicultural programs on offer is proof that the fight was worth it.

Bosko Kovacevic: Let me say that this kind of confrontation exists even today. One must bear in mind that in Subotica, local authority was in hands of ethnocentric political parties and there was always a conflict. Our tactic was to overcome it through our public programs and concepts, not with the intention to be an arbiter in that conflict, but to overcome it and to offer new programs, which could defuse tensions.

The formula of the Open University, says Kovacevic, is not to arbitrate in the most sensitive issues, but instead offer other programs and issues of mutual interest to both sides.

Bosko Kovacevic: The multiethnic environment in this region did force us to profile an institution that would meet the needs of the people here. All these years it was very difficult for us to preserve the paradigm of multiculturalism, at a time when the whole system was based on national exclusiveness, on fragmentation and fixations based on nationality and ethnicity. We managed to supersede all that by affirming a multiethnic concept of living and communicating

In 1991, the Open University in Subotica published the first book in former Yugoslavia on the issue of Kosovo, which carried the first public call for Serbian-Albanian dialogue. The publication was based on a round table discussion by intellectuals from Albania, Kosovo and Belgrade.

Veteran journalist, Ljubomir Djordjevic, who works with the daily Suboticke Novine, is a long time collaborator of the Open University. He was a member of one of the first NGO delegations that met with people in Kosovo.

Ljubomir Djordjevic: My first big and nice surprise was that almost everyone knew the Serbian language. In the official part of the meeting, they were speaking Albanian, their mother tongue, we were speaking our mother tongue, but after that, we spent a lot of time in restaurants, sitting in the hotel terrace etc and we spoke in Serbian. It encouraged me very much because it gave me a sense of hope that although official links were broken, although the hatred is huge, although awful things happened in recent years, there was still a chance, even in small circles of people, even if they were NGO’s, a chance to normalize things somehow. But still, I did feel fear when I went there this year.

But there is a major difference between Vojvodina and Kosovo, Bosko Kovacevic points out – people in Vojvodina are mainly multilingual and speaking another language is not considered a provocation.

Bosko Kovacevic: The majority of inhabitants here, particularly the people who have lived here for decades, not to say centuries, communicate quite normally in both languages i.e. Hungarian and Serbian or Croatian, so we do have bilingualism here. What is important is that hardly anybody is bothered if someone speaks some other language. People find a way to understand each other and that’s very important.

But multi-ethnicity is only one factor – it isn’t in itself reason enough for inter-ethnic harmony, argues Zvonimir Perusic, director and editor in chief of the Croatian language weekly Hrvatska Rijec. Kosovo too is multiethnic, he says, but it is obvious that it does not function in the way it does in Vojvodina.

Zvonimir Perusic: I think there are two issues – first the historical heritage i.e. Vojvodina’s past is not linked with the Ottoman Empire but with the Austro-Hungarian one, and historically the level of education and everything else is not the same as in Kosovo. Furthermore I think it’s very important to stress that not a single foreign country has ever had territorial claims on Vojvodina. So, the borders were untouchable and everyone knew it, and in such an environment it was possible to improve or even preserve the existing multi-ethnicity in Vojvodina.

Perusic feels that the level of urbanization and the options open to people in Vojvodina made possible an environment in which people could plan their future, regardless of all the terrible events of the 90’s. The majority of people stayed on, particularly in the towns.

Another difference, he says, is that in Vojvodina, Bosnia and some other regions of former Yugoslavia people did live together as opposed to Kosovo, where they lived side by side, but never together.

Zvonimir Perusic: One of the indications of that are mixed marriages, in Subotica alone there was more than 1/3 of mixed marriages and they still exist. Again I’d like to recall the historical heritage and I think it’s something that you carry from the past. In Vojvodina we overcame a tribal way of life and thinking a long time ago, whereas in Kosovo, it seems to me, that still exists.

Many will argue that that’s not the reason for the troubles in Kosovo – that the difficulties between Serbs and Albanians are rooted in more recent history, the Milosevic years especially brought things to a head. The point is that it’s the present that counts – and history can teach many things, including co-existence. Vojvodina is certainly an example to draw inspiration from if not to emulate. Gabor Kudlik, president of the NGO Open perspectives.

Gabor Kudlik: Here in this place, for more than 300 years at least 12 big ethnic communities have lived together. That common life was not always tolerant, as we’d describe it today, historical events, wars and revolutions did leave an impact. Edit to 163 – the last 15 years were very hard. The ethnic mix of the population has also changed here in Vojvodina, given that more than 300.000 refugees came from Croatia and Bosnia, some 50.000 Hungarians left Vojvodina as well as tens of thousands of Croats. However, the native people here, and particularly the ones who belong to the majority community, were the link that made living together possible along with the hope that there is a future here for national minorities.

A hope felt by many in Kosovo too, people who see the place primarily as belonging to the people who live in it, regardless of ethnic origins.