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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way:
Local Civil Society and the Practice of ‘Bridge
Building’ in Two Post-Yugoslav Cities
: Active citizenship in the post-war Western Balkans has traditionally been stud-
ied in the context of either Western-style (and usually foreign-funded) Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs) or, more recently, protest movements. This chapter highlights a
wider range of better- and lesser-known forms of civil society in the contemporary post-
Yugoslav space. It shows how interest associations, student unions, religious groups and
online communities can all contribute to vibrant civil society, even if their work seems
distant from the post-war area’s current problems. This civil society, the chapter argues,
creates an environment in which the people of the western Balkans can enact their citizen-
ship and, little by little, ‘build bridges’, across ethnic lines and beyond.
Introduction
Active citizenship, as Fuller etal. () put it, ‘broadly understood, can
mean any form of productive contribution to society.’ In the Western
context, however, such ‘productive contribution’ has been usually seen as
connected to either economic activity (ibid.,) or engagement in the
political affairs of the country (Kearns; Marinetto). In the South-
East European context, the issue has been mostly discussed in relation to
protest movements, particularly the most recent ones in various cities of
Bosnia-Herzegovina in early and in other successor states of former
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Yugoslavia and in wider South-Eastern Europe since (Sardelić;
Štiks and Horvat).
In this chapter I look at a different type of active citizenship. I argue
that active participation in local civil society
can be considered to be a form
of active citizenship, even if the sector of civil society in which a person is
active is not particularly political. Or, rather, that it does not seem to be
of immediate political significance when considering the notion of politi-
cal in its narrow sense: related to party-politics, governance, formal pro-
jects of ‘democratisation’ and other endeavours of quantifiable outcomes.
Considering everyday practices, this chapter engages with theories which call
for appreciation of such practices, particularly the theory of micro-politics
(Goldfarb, ) and that of everyday peace (Mac Ginty). It
also draws close to the theory of acts of citizenship (Isin) and that
of vernacular cosmopolitanism (Bhabha).
Jeffrey Goldfarb’s theory of micro-politics stem from his study of stu-
dent theatres in Poland in the lates and of the forces which eventually
led to the fall of the communism in the lates (Goldfarb, ).
Goldfarb argues that the political changes that happened were catalysed
by a range of small and seemingly unimportant everyday behaviours and
events. Meetings of individuals in spaces of political privacy, for instance
by the kitchen table, and poetry events, which were condemned by com-
munist authorities, but during which participants ‘conducted themselves as
they would at any cultural gathering’ (Goldfarb, ) were according to
Goldfarb important catalysers of change. He convincingly argues that ‘people
acted as if they lived in a free society and a free society resulted’ (ibid.,).
In the context of quite different realms and problems Roger Mac Ginty
() points out that for post-conflict societies, seemingly small changes,
such as ‘storeowners painting their storefronts’ or ‘the resumption of cultural
practices that declined during conflict’ (ibid.,), can constitute a more
In this chapter I understand civil society in a (neo-)Tocquevillian manner, i.e. as
associational life in all its richness (To cqueville). However, in places, I also refer
to the understanding of civil society as the counter-balance to the state, as promoted,
most notably, by Antonio Gramsci ().
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
meaningful indicator of positive transmission than Human Development
Index, Gross Domestic Product and other formal indicators.
More theoretically, Engin F. Isin distinguishes between acts and actions
of citizenship (Isin). ‘To act […] is neither arriving at a scene nor
fleeing from it, but actually engaging in its creation. With that creative
act the actor also creates herself/himself as the agent responsible for the
scene created’ (Isin, ). And citizenship ‘involves practices of making
citizens – social, political, cultural and symbolic’ (ibid., ). While acts are
not practices (ibid., ), acts and practices are strongly bound and depend-
ent on each other. The practices which this chapter considers allow for
acts of citizenship, allow for creation of scenes within which citizenship is
enacted and in which under some circumstances acts can become actions.
Finally, we may perceive everyday active citizenship described in
this chapter as an instance of vernacular cosmopolitanism (as defined by
Bhabha). Such connection however needs to be made with caution. If
we take cosmopolitanism as, first of all, appreciation of (national) cultures
other than our own, then calling the ‘bridge building’ practices in the post-
war Western Balkans ‘cosmopolitan’ is likely to obscure the nature of these
practices rather than explain them. For in the area in question, unlike in
the Western Europe, ‘building bridges’ is often about appreciation of a local
culture which has been hybrid for centuries, rather than of ‘new hybridities’
(Beauregard and Body-Gendrot; Binnie etal. ), of well-known
rather than of unknown (for my short discussion on this see Goldstein).
While Nava () tells us that ‘ordinariness and domestication of difference
are the distinguishing marks of vernacular cosmopolitanism in urban Britain
today’ (ibid., ), talking of ‘domestication of difference’ in Western Balkans
would be inappropriate, if not for anything else, for that it would be hard
to say which of the cultures would be domestifying and which domestified.
However, if we consider cosmopolitanism more broadly, as appreciation of
human (and not only national/ethnic) difference, then we may point out
also here, within practices of Western Balkan active citizens, what Bhabha
calls ‘“vernacular cosmopolitan” negotiation […] between the “insufficiency
of the self” […] and the needs of modern, urban communities of interest
and inquiry’ (Bhabha). Such negotiation is an important element of
the ‘bridge building’ which this chapter discusses.
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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In this chapter I link the above theories to argue that the engage-
ment of individuals in the (broadly understood) civil society can be seen
as a sign of everyday peace, an important part of micro-politics, a field
for acts of citizenship and in many instances for what can be perceived
as vernacular cosmopolitanism. Or in other words, that this engagement
is worth appreciating as an important step on the region’s route to social
and political change.
Method and setting
This chapter is based on findings of mixed-methods research conducted in
Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Novi Sad, Serbia between and,
within two larger research projects. The research consisted of ethnographic
investigation with local civil society actors combined with interviews,
two questionnaire surveys distributed among both leaders and ‘regular
members’ of associations, and photography used as a research method.
The two cities, Mostar and Novi Sad, were chosen for a range of super-
ficial similarities that go in pair with profound dissimilarities which make
them an excellent setting to explore a wide range of challenges (and oppor
-
tunities) of contemporary post-Yugoslav societies. These two cities may at
first seem similar: each is in a way its country’s ‘second city’ (Novi Sad is the
second biggest city in Serbia, while Mostar is the capital of Herzegovina,
one of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s two historical constituencies); both cities are
multi-ethnic; both had important bridges destroyed during the Yugoslav
wars of thes; both are post-industrial and both have large student
populations.
However, everyday life in these cities is shaped by what makes them
very different. Mostar, once multi-ethnic and cosmopolitan, has experi-
enced all the atrocities of the recent wars. Its bridges, most notably the
centuries old ‘Old Bridge’, were destroyed in fighting between former
neighbours. The city still bears the stigma of war as it is hard to find a
building, particularly in the city centre, that would not be covered in bullet
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
holes, and war-time ruins are omnipresent across the city. Most importantly
though, the city is divided. Bosniak and Croat populations, once evenly
spread across the town now live separated by an invisible wall that runs
along Bulevar – a multi-lane road which used to constitute the front line at
the time of war. The two sides of the city are home to two city centres, two
universities, two separate post office companies, two electricity and heat
providers, etc. Citizens of Mostar sometimes smile when they say ‘there is
two of everything here’, but for many of them this truth is deeply painful.
Novi Sad is very different. It was established in, within Habsburg
Empire, as an effect of cooperation between local Hungarians and Danube
Swabians and a large Serbian minority and, despite large population shifts
after Second World War and throughout recent conflicts, it remains
multi-ethnic. Nowadays it is home to a Serbian majority and a multitude
of minorities, most notably Hungarians, but also Croats, Ruthenians,
Romanians, Slovaks, Roma, Jews and others. Unlike Mostar, it was not
affected by direct fighting. Its bridges were bombed, but not by locals, but
by NATO, an ‘external enemy’. It would be wrong however to think of Novi
Sad as untouched by war – many of the city’s men were incorporated in
the Serbian army and the huge influx of refugees became a root of many
today’s conflicts. The minorities experienced ‘low level violence’ (Bieber
and Winterhagen), but this was enough for incurring long lasting
resentment and mistrust.
Bridge building
During the wars of thes both Mostar and Novi Sad had important
bridges destroyed. The destruction of one of them in particular – Mostar’s
Old Bridge – was frequently used in the Western media as a symbol rep-
resenting divided communities (Bicic; Sudetic; Williams).
In the aftermath of the wars, the international community has sought to
rebuild trust and dialogue across communities in order to prevent a return
to the violence of thes. A key metaphor has been that of ‘bridge
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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building’, and civil society was viewed as having a key role to play in this
process. Civil society has been expected to foster inter-ethnic dialogue and
reconciliation, and to assist in many other tasks such as promoting minor
-
ity rights and gender justice, or healing psychological trauma.
The metaphor of bridges and bridge building, used by foreign media
and donor institutions, was probably even more powerful on the local level.
The post- cultural mythology of Yugoslavia was built on the symbol
of the bridge and Ivo Andrić’s Nobel-winning The Bridge on the Drina
() was the apotheosis of Yugoslav literature. The bridge described by
Andrić was not only a connector between places and people. It was also
a witness to events important for the surrounding communities, for men
and women, young and old, soldiers and civilians, educated cosmopolitans
and those who have never left the town.
Another metaphor is that of the Balkans themselves as a bridge: a
bridge between East and West, Eastern and Western Christianity, and the
influences of Islam and the Western world. In this context, (re)building
bridges can be equated with re-building not only the prosperity, but also
the international significance of the entire region.
In the aftermath of the inter-ethnic violence which accompanied and
followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia, it is easy to think of ‘bridge build-
ing’ in that region mostly in relation to ethnicity. However, there are also
other ‘bridges’ that need to be built. Tensions and discrimination based
on gender, age, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, or being local
or a newcomer to the city, are all vivid in the region. For many young or
elderly people, the generational conflict is the one that they need to face
on an everyday basis. For many of the refugees and the displaced, but also
for those who moved into a city for economic reasons, being looked upon
as unwanted došljaci (newcomers), supposedly more primitive than the
I am grateful to Dr Adelina Angusheva-Tihanov for this assertion.
These metaphors and their echoes were explored, for instance, by Todorova ()
and Goldsworthy (). For further analysis, placed in the particular context of the
destruction and rebuilding of Mostar’s Old Bridge, see Gunzburger Makaš ().
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
‘old settlers’ (starosjedioci /starosedeoci) of the city, is a significant trauma.
Thus, in this chapter I agree with Piekut etal. () who advise us to
‘shift the discussion on social diversity from ethnic diversity to broader
social diversity’. In line with this scope, I do approach work of civil society
actors that operate in the field of ‘broader social diversity’, and that actively
are involved with ‘building bridges’ across various, not only ethnic, lines.
Local civil society
The literature on Western Balkan/South East European civil societies is
often explicit in reducing the study of these civil societies to NGOs or,
even further, to foreign-funded NGOs (see, for instance, Dević, ;
Fagan, ; Kostovicova and Bojičić-Dželilović, ; Stubbs, v).
This is despite the fact that the authors often recognise that such reduction
is problematic. One of its consequences is that, as Denisa Kostovicova and
Vesna Bojičić-Dželilović put it, ‘a variety of traditional grass-roots institu-
tions, networks, practices and actors, with a potentially more construc-
tive input towards aims of post-conflict transition have been overlooked’
(Kostovicova and Bojičić-Dželilović, ). In this chapter I argue that
the part of civil society which has been overlooked is in fact much more
ample, and by no means less significant, than that comprised of NGOs.
Starosjedioci in Bosnian and Croatian and starosedeoci in Serbian. The tension
between starosjedioci/ starosedeoci and došljaci has been described, for instance, in
Paolo Rumiz, Maschere per un massacro. Quello che non abbiamo voluto sapere della
guerra in Jugoslavia (Milano: Feltrinelli Editore, , –) and analysed further
in Jansen ().
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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(Typical) NGOs
My research revealed that, at least for Mostar and Novi Sad, most people,
be they foreign researchers or local activists, define NGOs in a way similar
to Claire Mercer (). According to her review of literature on NGOs,
these are:
[t]hose organizations that are officially established, run by employed staff (often urban
professionals or expatriates), well-supported (by domestic or, as is more often the case,
international funding), and that are often relatively large and well-resourced. NGOs
may therefore be international organizations or they may be national or regional
NGOs. They are seen as different from Grassroots Organizations (GROs) that are
usually understood to be smaller, often membership-based organizations, operating
without a paid staff but often reliant upon donor or NGO support. (Mercer, )
This is a rather Western definition, which would be inappropriate, for
example, in Poland, where few of the NGOs are run by employed staff.
However, it seems to be accurate in Mostar and Novi Sad. By accurate I
mean that this definition in principle encompasses organisations which
would consider themselves NGOs and that would be regarded as such,
also by local and foreign donors, researchers, and other relevant players.
Of course, not all Mostar and Novi Sad NGOs employ staff on a full-time
basis; many of them are small and many are badly financed. However, the
general idea of differentiating NGOs from GROs, and seeing the former
as operating on a possibly larger budget, seems to have a large following.
While such NGOs receive a lot of academic, media and public criti-
cism, it is wrong to think that all such associations are corrupt, inefficient,
etc. Similarly, it would be naïve to perceive all other types of civil society
actors (as listed below) as automatically good and possessing all the quali-
ties that ‘typical’ NGOs are said to lack. What is more, there exists a mul-
titude of definitions and some of them would consider all types of the civil
society actors I analyse, to be NGOs, as they are non-governmental and to
a larger or smaller extent organised. Thus, for the sake of clarity, I refer in
this chapter to ‘typical’ NGOs as defined above, but also to associations,
which includes the full range of formal and informal civil society groups,
including the ‘typical’ NGOs. I use the term NGOs (without the qualify-
ing ‘typical’) whenever this distinction is of secondary importance.
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
Informal groups, movements, zero-budget initiatives
To register an NGO or in fact an ‘association’ or ‘association of citizens’,
since ‘NGO’ is not a legal term in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Serbia, takes
money, time and effort. The advantage of registering is that a registered
association is a legal entity and, among other things, can receive donations
or conduct business to raise funds for its activities and initiatives. However,
many groups see no need for such benefits and refrain from registering,
either not to waste time and money on what they perceive as unnecessary,
or in a conscious act of disengagement with the government’s bureaucratic
structures. Such groups tend to operate without money or rely on small
donations of those involved when there is a need to pay for something. For
instance, group members make donations to rent a hall for activities or to
buy audio equipment (Interviews, August, and, January,
in Novi Sad). In some cases they arrange in-kind donations.
It would be wrong, however, to think of such groups as always small
and insignificant. A good example of such an unregistered, yet significant,
initiative (or movement) is Novi Sad’s Inicijativa za Društveni Centar
(Initiative for the Social Centre). The initiative, calling itself ‘social move-
ment’ (Društveni Centar n.d.), was formed by ‘associations of citizens
[including ‘typical’ NGOs], informal groups and prominent individuals,
active in the field of creativity, education, humanitarian work, environmen-
tal protection, sustainable development, activism, working with children,
youth, persons with disabilities, Roma and other sensitive groups’ (ibid.).
Their idea was to transform the old abandoned building of an army bar-
racks, , m
in size and close to Novi Sad’s city centre, into a social centre,
a space that would ‘enable anyone who engages in activities of significance
for society, to accomplish his/her ideas and projects’ (ibid.). In practice,
this would mean that, for instance, ‘Ogledalo’, an independent theatre
which in over years of its history never had its own space for rehearsals
and performances, could finally find such a space in the barracks’ many
empty rooms.
I first learned about the initiative in mid-November, when a pro-
fessionally made film (Gmizić etal. ), nearly half an hour long, was
posted on YouTube, and promoted through Facebook. In the film, leaders
of various associations, along with some internationally known Novi Sad
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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artists and academics, spoke, mostly from within the barracks, about the
great potential of the place. Their contributions were interspersed with
shots from former military objects converted into social centres in Slovenia
(Metelkova in Ljubljana) and Croatia (Rojc in Pula).
About one month later, on December, around people
gathered outside the barracks, listened to a couple of short speeches (inter-
preted into sign language) and then entered the place in what they have
called ‘illegal but legitimate’ action. Armed with brooms and spades they
instantly started cleaning the barracks. Soon afterwards an intensive pro-
gramme of events started. These included crafts workshops, lectures,
discussions, film screenings, exhibitions, fencing classes for children and
adults, fitness classes, regular vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals cooked
by volunteers, dancing parties and late evening concerts among other
events. Everything was free to attend and only symbolic donations were
encouraged in exchange for meals. At the same time thoughtful organi-
sation and some fundraising were evident. For instance, soon after the
opening, two serviced mobile toilets appeared on the site. Such amenities
cannot be funded by small donations and must have been provided as an
in-kind donation by the enterprise managing these toilets. There were
additional signs of professionalism, efficiency and engagement on the
part of those involved in Društveni Centar: excellent media coverage, a
professional website, a power generator that allowed events after sunset,
and regular publically-announced letters of support from associations
and other institutions in Serbia and other post-Yugoslav countries. The
occupation of the barracks, and the intensive programme of events that
came with it, lasted days, until January, when the activists were
expelled from the buildings by military personnel. However, negotiations
with the local government and the engagement of many of the activists
lasted much longer.
The initiative could have registered and acted as an NGO, but those
who formed it decided not to register, despite the suggestion of Novi Sad
city council that this would ease the negotiations between the Initiative
and the city authorities. In the eyes of people engaged in the initiative,
keeping away from the government-operated register made them even
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
more non-governmental and confirmed their role as a civil society actor.
At the same time the initiative was well organised and gathered an impres
-
sive number of supporters. According to my interviewee, the initiative was
empowered by the work of about ‘active, loyal and persistent’ indi-
viduals, who between mid-December and January, when the
interview took place, ‘gave of [their] time’. It also had the support
and involvement of several hundred more people who, informed through
the e-mailing list, would come to participate in meetings and activities
(interview, January, Novi Sad), and of several thousand ‘friends’
with the initiative on Facebook ( on June).
The opportunities for active citizenship that Društveni Centar cre-
ated were at least of two types. First of all, the people who were engaged
in the Initiative made a very active and strong stand on how they wanted
the cultural landscape of their city to look like. They wanted change and
they worked towards this change, with their words, hands and brooms.
But also, those engaged created a certain ‘alternative reality’ in a broader
sense – one based on ‘building bridges’. A reality in which all generations
cooperated for common good, in which speeches were interpreted into sign
language, in which both vegetarians and meat-eaters were satisfied and in
which everyone felt that their voice counted and that their contribution
was important. Paraphrasing Goldfarb: they acted as if they lived in an
equal society, hoping that an equal society will result.
A different example of an active, well organised group which is unregis-
tered and operates without budget is Novi Sad’s FreeTeam Pokret (‘FreeTeam
Movement’). FreeTeam regularly organises not only weekly Free Hugs but
also Free Salsa, Free Yoga and Free Film Screenings. While this does not
sound particularly serious, projects like Free Hugs should probably not
be seen as insignificant in a post-war region where reconciliation and the
rebuilding of trust are still needed. Also organising Free Film Screenings
Informal communication with people involved in the Initiative, December –
January, Novi Sad. This indicates that these activists understood civil society
to be most of all the counter-balance to the state, as according to Gramsci ().
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can be seen as a manifestation of active citizenship. In neither Mostar
nor Novi Sad had cinemas. In Mostar the reason was clear – it could not
be decided on which side of the city the cinema should stand. In Novi Sad,
copyright piracy was usually blamed, yet some of my interviewees believed
that the lack of a cinema was also linked to local politics (interviews,
August, and, October, in Novi Sad).
Facebook and other online communities
Many NGOs use Facebook as a tool. Taking into consideration that ‘eve-
ryone has it’, it is excellent for communication and for spreading news
about new events. But at the same time Facebook has proved to be a useful
path for initiatives that only later, after a successful start-up as a Facebook
group, transformed themselves into real life projects. This was the case of
MOSTIMUN – Mostar International Model UN – supposedly the first
ever joint initiative of students from both of Mostar’s universities (the
Bosniak Džemal Bijedić University and the Croatian Sveučilište). In this
city, divided by invisible barriers along ethnic lines, Facebook appeared
to be a safe space to meet and plan a joint event. Online meetings soon
became real ones, bringing together not only foreign participants but also
young Mostarians from both sides of the Bulevar.
While some of the events started on Facebook later led to establishing
NGOs, others have remained in the form of on-line communities. This
does not mean that their activities are less ‘real’. Actually some of Mostar’s
and Novi Sad’s Facebook groups have a much larger ‘membership’ than
many of these cities’ NGOs and some organise events and activities on
a regular basis. One example of such Facebook group can be Novosadska
Kritična masa (Novi Sad Critical Mass) – a community group of over,
members which is the main forum for the organisation of monthly cycling
rides, many of which are attended by several hundred people. At the same
time these groups do remain ‘virtual’ – they have no employees, no run-
ning costs, have very horizontal (if any) leadership structures, are easily
accessible, can easily appear, and equally easily disappear. However, their
Cartographies of Differences : Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Ulrike M. Vieten, and Gill Valentine, Peter Lang AG,
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
role as counter-balance to the state or as places of encounter should not
be ignored. Similar roles are played by some (but by no means all) mailing
lists and other mediums facilitating online communication.
Religious organisations
Religious organisations are often omitted in research on the region’s civil
societies. This is understandable as including religion and its institutions
in a research project always brings in a whole new range of problems and
questions and this is even more the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia
where religion is considered the determinant of ethnic belonging.
The questionnaire survey which I conducted showed that the world
of the religious on the one hand, and of those engaged in all other associa-
tions on the other, are quite separate, and/or that religion is a taboo among
people engaged in the work of most associations. While only.percent
of my respondents clearly stated adhering to one of the region’s tradi-
tional religions, many others did not reply or provided evasive answers,
e.g.‘believer’ or ‘liberal’. What is more, of the respondents to my survey
whom I have reached through a range of channels, only two admitted to
belonging to a religious organisation.
However, through interviews I discovered that in fact many religious
organisations interact with other civil society actors, including ‘typical’
NGOs. This happens in several ways. First, many religious organisations,
especially multi-confessional or protestant, are in their nature and pro-
gramming very similar to (non-religious) NGOs: they have leadership
emergent from, or in another way close to the membership base, they have
budgets nourished by sponsors and/or membership fees, they provide for
the integration, education (in this case usually religious) and/or recreation
of the members, etc.
Second, many religious organisations are involved in
It was my observation (confirmed in interview, August, in Novi Sad) that
the choice of programmes and the way that Protestant and ecumenical organisations
operate is closer to that of NGOs than of Orthodox or Catholic groups, and that
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humanitarian activities and for specific programmes they liaise with NGOs
to use their expertise and field-related-experience. Third, religious move-
ments – like, for example, Taizé – are at the same time an alternative and
a ‘springboard’ for engagement in activities of NGOs. They are an alterna-
tive because even though they are not considered to be NGOs, they meet
the same needs for the individual: a chance to meet interesting people, to
travel together, to be involved in something ‘big’ and so forth. Therefore
they are able to attract those who are intimidated by NGOs which are
often criticised, or who simply feel better in a large and well established
community in which they can remain as passive and as anonymous as they
wish. Conversely, these movements can also sometimes be a ‘launching pad’
since through their meetings or pilgrimages, young people get accustomed
to being in a group, engaging in logistical planning, etc., and in this way
develop confidence in due course to take on NGO initiatives. By means of
training and activities with a ‘tag’ of a religious group participants become
active citizens and in many cases this acquired activism remains by no means
confined to their religious community.
this is mostly because of their more horizontal structures. The same idea was referred
to by Putnam who wrote that ‘all religious groups blend hierarchy and equality, but
networks within Protestant congregations are traditionally thought to be more
horizontal than networks in the Catholic Church’ (Putnam, ).
According to its official website ‘[t]oday, the Taizé Community is made up of over a
hundred brothers, Catholics and from various Protestant backgrounds, coming from
around thirty nations. By its very existence, the community is a “parable of com-
munity” that wants its life to be a sign of reconciliation between divided Christians
and between separated peoples.’ (Taizé n.d.) While the very Community is relatively
small, thousands of young people participate regularly in pilgrimages to the French
village of Taizé where the monastery is located or to other international encounters
organised by the Community, meet regularly to sing songs from these pilgrimages,
etc. Thus, one can talk about the ‘Taizé movement’ consisting of people engaged in
all these activities, those who organise local meetings, etc.
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
Student Unions
Student Unions, both in Mostar and Novi Sad, are bodies traditionally
attached to universities. Nevertheless, their activities and scope of work
are often similar to those of NGOs and other associations. Furthermore,
it seems that they have always been easily accessible (at least for students)
and for this reason several of the leaders of associations in Mostar and
Novi Sad mentioned activism in student unions as their first leadership
experience (interviews and, August, and, October,
in Novi Sad). In Mostar, where the two universities are among the most
visible manifestations of division between the different ethnicities, student
unions and their activities appear to play an important role in the process of
(re)building trust between young people of these different ethnic groups.
For example, Bosniak and Croat, the languages of the two universities and
according to many, the main reason for ethnically-divided education in
Mostar (Hromadžić, –), become a shared ‘naš’ (our [language])
when students from the two unions get together to put on a public speak-
ing competition (Interview, April, in Mostar).
Associations established in the time of communist Yugoslavia
Professional, interest-based and charitable organisations, such as asso-
ciations of poets, journalists, fishermen and dog breeders, chess clubs, or
associations of people with disabilities, existed in the times of communist
Yugoslavia and many of them still operate. However, they are rarely con-
sidered in the research on Western Balkan civil societies. Probably one of
the main reasons for that is that their status as civil society actors can be
easily questioned. In the context of research which is trying to establish
links between the work of civil society actors and processes of reconcilia-
tion and democratisation, associations of dog breeders or cyclists do not
seem worthy of serious consideration. However, one of the points which
this chapter is trying to demonstrate is that such associations should not
be seen as automatically less significant for the sought after processes of
‘bridge building’ than the ‘typical’ NGOs.
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A mountaineering club in Mostar, in whose activities I had a chance
to participate, is a good example. The club does not resemble ‘typical’
NGOs: it is not a think-tank, not an advocacy organisation, and it would
be difficult to trace any conscious attempts on the part of its leadership
to build any kind of bridges. Still, the mountain hikes that it organises are
a unique phenomenon in Mostar and it can be argued that they contrib-
ute to building numerous ‘bridges’. These hikes regularly bring together
Bosniaks and Croats, and also young and old, locals and foreigners, and
people of different social strata. The contrast between the cheap flip-flops
and old T-shirts of some participants, and the expensive mountain gear
of others, attracts the attention of people like myself but does not seem to
be a serious problem for those regularly taking part in the hikes. Without
declaring any pro-diversity agenda the club and the participants of its hikes
actively create a new reality. It is a ‘small thing’ – micro-politics – but an
important one at that.
Conclusions
This chapter examined how citizens of two post-Yugoslav cities actively
practise their citizenship by engaging in work of local civil society. It argued
that it is worthwhile to consider this civil society in its broad sense: as
comprised not only of ‘Western style,’ ‘typical’ NGOs but also of local
professional, interest, sport and charitable associations, informal groups
and movements, online groups, student unions and religious associations.
These actors dramatically vary in their engagement, or lack of it, in (tradi-
tionally understood) politics and in the type of opportunities they create.
Their commonality however is that they intend to change today’s, often
conflicted, reality.
These actors, these ‘institutions’ of broadly understood civil society,
provide for what we could see as acts of citizenship (Isin). They form a
setting for the ‘routines, rituals, customs, norms and habits of the everyday
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Everyday Active Citizenship the Balkan Way
through which subjects become citizens’ (Isin, ), a setting for ‘cul-
tivating citizenship’ (ibid.) and for ‘enacting’ it. A setting in which ‘sub-
jects [are] becoming activist citizens through scenes created’ (ibid., ). In
which acts may turn into actions. Many of them also allow for practices of
‘vernacular cosmopolitanism’ (Bhabha), in its broad sense, opening
to human other and negotiating common aims across (not only ethnic)
difference.
Theories of micro-politics and of ‘everyday peace’ direct us into rec-
ognising the value of seemingly unimportant actors and practices which,
little by little and often in a very unpronounced fashion, contribute to
changes on a larger scale. Time will show whether this is the case with civil
society (in its broad sense) in the post-war Western Balkans and whether
its ‘micro-efforts’ will contribute to serious change. Meanwhile, however,
we may appreciate that there are many citizens who decide to be active
citizens, to enact their citizenship, and who, through everyday involvement
in their associations, do create certain new realities.
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