The new civic debate “Stories from Untoldville” was held on Wednesday, 3 June via the online platform ZOOM meetings. In the debate participated 21 young people from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. The topic of this debate was the coronavirus and its impact on the BiH society.
The workshop started with getting to know each other. They introduced themselves briefly, said where they came from, what they studied (which school they went to), what their hobbies were, and some interesting things about themselves. After the presentation and introduction, the participants shared their impressions of the survey they had filled out before the debate. They explained the ambiguities they encountered, and the facilitators thanked the participants for completing the survey.
This was followed by the main part of the civic debate with the aim of discussing topics that are not usually talked about enough or even not at all. The discussion began with the current topic of the coronavirus and situation during the pandemic. Since the participants came from different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, experiences from smaller and larger cities were heard. During the discussion, they linked the coronavirus situation to the events from the war. They searched for common notions in both situations. They came to the conclusion that in both cases words like fighting, heroes, enemies and many others were constantly mentioned. Themes of nationalism, manipulation, media, politics, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina also emerged during the debate. Participants pointed out that those were inevitable topics that needed to be talked about a lot more in order to develop critical thinking, but also to get to know the other side of the story in these topics.
After that, the participants were divided into five smaller groups, in which they came to the conclusion through mutual conversation what kind of theories of manipulation on people and society were used by the BiH authorities. Working in groups enabled them to get to know each other better and become closer. They then returned to the plenum where they presented the conclusions of their groups.
The conclusion they reached, which was one of the key goals of this activity, was that on the examples of coronavirus and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, participants were developing critical thinking and personal views on the mentioned situations.
B/H/S