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The Post-Yugoslav Peace Academy, which is a special educational program that strives for active peacebuilding and a culture of nonviolence, will this year take place for the fourth time. This year's program is intended primarily for activists from the fields of human rights and peacebuilding, students, researchers, theoreticians, and journalists who are engaged in peace work and are interested in themes that the Peace Academy offeres.  The Fourth Peace Academy will take place in Sarajevo from 17-26 July.  We talked with one of the founders of the Academy, Tamara Šmidling about the goals of the Peace Academy and this years courses and lecturers.  

Radiosarajevo.ba: What ideas led you to forming the Peace Academy and have some of your expectations been fulfilled in the three years of the Peace Academy's existence?

Šmidling: Already in 2006, eight of us from four different peace organizations in Sarajevo came to the idea of forming the Peace Academy, based on the desire for including a program of peace eudation in our activities, different from normal trainings, seminars intended to develop various skills, learning about project writing, and other similar forms of edcution.  We wanted something that would more deeply engage the problems that we encounter in our work: nationalism, prejudice, borders, opposing narratives, ideological misue of language and symbols..., that will at the same time be removed from academic elitism or the mere desire to fill one's CV.  The guiding idea was for a program that would connect activism and the need for action with theoretical/critical questing of our presence and our work, a place for activism and theory to meet.

The Peace Academy was thought up as a type of summer school that would each year offer participants three courses with lecturers who are engaged in the previously mentioned problems.  The first Peace Academy took place in 2008, and now we are preparing for the fourth. The courses' themes in the last three years have ranged from nationalism, ethnic identity, understanding of collective violence and crime that took place in this region, in the context of identies and their misuse, to collective memory, history of world peace movements and activism in the Former Yugoslavia.

Until last year, we worked as an informal group, but just in August, prompted by practical problems, we registered the Peace Academy Foundation.

Tamara, Radiosarajevo.ba

Picure: Nermin Čolić

Article Link: http://www.radiosarajevo.ba/novost/53816/mirovni-aktivizam-tamara-smidling-za-radiosarajevo

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Ubleha for idiots

  • ACRONYMS (in general)

    One of the important criteria based on which the level of ublehahood is instantly determined. According to this criterion, there are the following levels: The first (highest) level: a person in his/her written communication does not write sentences containing more than 7 words,  where at least 3 words are acronyms. For example: "See. Att. FYI. TBC. Send me your CV ASAP to prepare TOR." In normal language, these two sentences would go something like this: "Attached please find some fudge that is of no benefit to anybody but do keep it so you may show it in case we are  happen to be asked if we considered it.   You may doodle  on it a little and write some comment if you can grab some time.  Most likely, some jerks pulled it out of their asses as it has nothing to do with anything. By no means, if you do happen to read it, take it at face value.  You are still on probation here although half a year has already passed . Write some good CV of yours and backdate it half a year ago and do try to make it compatible to what you have allegedly been doing for us over the past six months. As soon as I get it and find some time, I will rewrite it a bit and name it your job description –just to have it on hand, in case those spooks from above come by. Poselami amidžu (See) and tell him that “ that thing” is OK. " Obviously, the advantages of acronyms are unmistakeable. Time saving, confidentiality of data and transparent professionalism and perfection in technical language usage. Every layman simply has to be fascinated and has to give his/her moral approval for the high salary for the speakers in question.

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.