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The Peace Academy organized a summer course, Resisting Nationalism and Populism: Lessons from the case of Bosnia & Herzegovina, from July 27 to August 28, 2020 in partnership with the University of Manchester in Great Britain and with the financial support of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The course was held via the Zoom online platform and examined the growing global phenomenon of nationalism and far-right populism, its enormous potential and power to polarize society, and the perception that it is a threat to a liberal social order and political tolerance. BiH and the region offered a dynamic case study, because despite the revival of nationalisms and populism in the 1990s and the divisions present during the wars in BiH and the region until today, there is still evident and continuous resistance to nationalist and populist programs. 

Listen to course participant Emina Frljak's reflections about the summer course.

Twenty-two students, activists, researchers and journalists from BiH, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, the United States, Canada, India, Zambia, Kenya, Congo and Lesotho studied together during the summer course. The course was divided into 6 different modules: Understanding Populism and Resistance, Feminism and Networks of Resistance, Everyday Resistance in the Workplace, Local-First Activism as Resistance, Resistance Within International Projects, and a Mostar Virtual Excursion. Lecturers included Valida Repovac Nikšić (University of Sarajevo), Zlatiborka Popov Momčinović (University of East Sarajevo), Jasmin Ramović (University of Manchester), Randall Puljek-Shank (Burch University) and Nejra Nuna Čengić (University of Manchester).

Participants wrote the following reflection papers after the summer school course:

Essays

Videos

Ubleha for idiots

  • Poselami amidžu

    Give my regards to your uncle. Originally: Poselami amidžu. Very colloquial greeting, intentionally formulated from two Turkish words, to emphasize the familiarity of the speakers and their strong connection notwithstanding their jobs and the public. In purely semantical terms, a phrase Pozdravi strica (which would translate the same into English) might be used, but it would not have the same conspiratorial weight. By using colloquial discourse, the speakers distance themselves pointedly from the language of ubleha and thereby quite conciously confirm the essence of ubleha as an autoreferential non-identity. It is also worth mentioning whether an „amidža“ exists in the family in a sense of one's father's brother is irrelevant and that actually, in most cases, he does not exist at all; however, the greeting performs its function which a greeting Pozdravi strica could not perform at all and would perplex the speaker.

from Ubleha for Idiots – An Absolutely non useful Guide for Civil Society Building and Project management for Locals and Internationals in BiH and Beyond by Nebojša Šavija-Valha and Ranko Milanovic-Blank, ALBUM No. 20, 2004, Sarajevo, translated by Marina Vasilj.