February 2015 Review

February 2015 Review

TransConflict is pleased to present a selection of articles published during February, plus selected articles from the TransConflict archive. 

 Suggested Reading Conflict Background GCCT

1) Serbia and Kosovo – businesswomen as drivers of change

TransConflict Serbia and Democracy for Development (D4D) from Kosovo organized a conference in Belgrade, entitled “Opportunities and Challenges in Business Cooperation between Serbian and Kosovan* Businesswomen – Businesswomen as Drivers of Change”, as part of the on-going project, ‘Creating a New Generation of Women Leaders in Serbia and Kosovo’, supported by the British Embassies in Belgrade and Pristina, respectively. Read on…

2) Law and genocide – lessons from the Balkans

Matthew Parish – An appreciation of the limitations of legal process in passing historical judgments may well have been uppermost in the minds of the Judges of the International Court of Justice, when they were called upon, in the aftermath of cruel civil conflict, to keep the tinders of ethnic warfare alight. Read on…

3) What next for Kosovo Serbs?

Gerard M. Gallucci – In light of the ongoing Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, the time has also come for Kosovo Serbs to seize the opportunity to address the practical needs of their community within the framework in which they find themselves. There are four ideas – including working together as a community and participating at all levels in Kosovo institutions – that might serve as guiding principles for their next steps. Read on…

4) The invisibility of gender violence in International Criminal Law – addressing sexual violence against men and women in conflict

Kirthi Jayakumar – Legislation and policy addressing Gender-Based Violence (GBV) have been vague at best, making efforts to address GBV almost futile. No legislation explicitly talks about sexual violence in appropriate terms. By packing them under the umbrella of “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity” or “torture” and “genocide”, these offences are not given the attention that they need under the ambit of international human rights and international humanitarian law. Read on…

5) The banality of evil in Republika Srpska – a victim’s perspective

Haris Subašić – Almost twenty years after the Srebrenica genocide and ethnic cleansing in Prijedor, the Republika Srpska government still broadly denies these traumatic experiences of Bosniaks and Croats through various forms of structural discriminatory policies. These exclusivist discriminatory politics are based on lingering Serbian nationalism that originated in the eighties. Read on…

6) Ukraine’s outlook is bleak

Wim Roffel – After initial enthusiasm the outlook for Ukraine’s Maidan revolution is turning increasingly bleak. In the East there is a war. Everywhere there is an economic crisis. There are hardly any reforms. Power remains in the hands of oligarchs and militia’s rather than parliament or government. And both the will for peace and the will for reforms are weak. Read on…

7) Israel – the ballot is stronger than the bullet

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir – If the Israeli Arabs want equal distribution of resources to improve their socio-economic conditions, fully integrate into Israeli society, and contribute constructively to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, they must now fully exercise their right to vote and not squander this historic opportunity. Read on…

8) The Vatican’s Challenges in the Balkans – Bolstering the Catholic Church in 2015 and Beyond

Matteo Albertini and Chris DelisoTransConflict is pleased to present an extract from a new book, ‘The Vatican’s Challenges in the Balkans: Bolstering the Catholic Church in 2015 and Beyond‘, by Matteo Albertini and Chris Deliso, published by Balkanalysis.com. Read on…

9) Participatory stimulus

Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir – Participatory stimulus in the form of human development projects is ideally suited to help shorten recessions and promote growth by creating economic diversity and increasing people’s ability to adapt to change. Read on…

10) Visual media as an impetus to youth violence in South Africa

Tendaishe Tlou – Visual media serves an impetus to violence in South Africa, with people constantly exposed to violent video games, news, movies and YouTube clips. Read on…

11) Boko Haram – the long shadow of Usman dan Fodio

Rene Wadlow – Although radically different in many ways, Boko Haram is part of the long shadow of Usman dan Fodio and the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest state in West Africa in the nineteenth century. Read on…

12) Naftali Bennett – a demagogue on the loose

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir – For Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, to become a Prime Minister, or even Defense Minister under another dangerously misguided Netanyahu government, is nothing but a kiss of death to the peace process and foretells the assured destruction of the Jews’ dream to live in a free, secure, and peaceful sanctuary. Read on…

From the TransConflict archive

1) Thoughts on community and commemoration

Dr. Orna Young – The question of representation is a key issue in the issues of commemorations, many of which have had their ownership taken by the very individuals who are viewed as embodying the antithesis of the communal spirit evidenced at such events. This ownership is seeking to emphasise the exclusivity of a community, while binding that exclusivity to dysfunctional rhetoric so many in these communities have sought to move beyond. Read on…

2) Bosnian Serb secession – could it ever happen?

Matthew ParishBosnia and Herzegovina’s political geography creates a perpetual propensity for the country to spin apart, and at the current time nobody has a realistic plan for mitigating the damage caused when this eventually comes to pass. Read on…

3) Ukraine – a stake for the long run

David B. Kanin – The West is stuck in reactive mode to what it perceives as a Crimean crisis; it needs instead to prepare for a strategic competition with Russia of unforeseeable duration for influence over Ukraine. Read on…

4) Is transitional justice a forgotten issue in Afghanistan?

Mariam Safi – Thirty years of conflict has left a history of war crimes, human rights abuses, and atrocities, for which many victims have never received justice. Read on…

5) The Ukrainian lesson – challenges for a new European peace movement

Gert Röhrborn – To use this chance means to define the tasks of a renewed, truly Pan-European peace movement; an integral movement reviving the best ideas of former Central European dissidents for healing human interaction on the political, personal and eschatological level and applying them to the Common European Home in its entirety, in both Eastern and Western Europe. Read on…


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