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After the successful implementation of the pilot project in Sri Lanka (February 2007), "Peace Counts on Tour" continued in Macedonia in October 2007. The on-site partner was the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Their "Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje" was initiated in 1992 and is the longest lasting mission of the OSCE.
Macedonia is considered to be an example of successful conflict prevention, and particularly because of international organizations like the OSCE. At the same time, Macedonia still carries with it a high potential for conflict and the peace groups and networks (both inside and outside of Macedonia) need continued support and encouragement. The violent riots between Albanian rebels and Macedonian police and the army escalated in 2001. However, because of intervention on the part of NATO, the EU, and the OSCE, the violence could be dampened. With international pressure, the conflict parties were able to agree on the "Ohrid Framework Agreement," in which improved rights for minorities were the focal point. This was achieved through changes in the constitution.
However, the constitutional changes from the Ohrid Framework Agreement were questioned. The Macedonian minorty viewed them as harmful to their national rights because the reforms called for "positive discrimination" in favor of the Albanian minority. This led to a large divide between the two groups, which still characterizes Macedonian society today. The Macedonian educational system can be analyzed as an indicator (and also a cause) of the persisting ethnic tension. Previously ethnically mixed schools were separated, and the teachers are highly politicized. The number of people who know the national language of Macedonian within the Albanian minority is decreasing. Those schools which are ethnically mixed are lacking teachers. Such a deep divide often has the effect of creating prejudices in young children and negative social models of behavior.
Furthermore, the Ohrid Framework Agreement ignores the Roma minority. As in most eastern and southeastern European countries, the Roma also belong to a greatly discriminated minority in Macedonia. Despite the Ohrid Framework Agreement and its implementation, the situation in Macedonia is still very tense. An additional strain on the country is the high unemployment rate, which is over 30 percent.
Successful Peace Education Workshops
The exhibition and the workshops took place in the National Gallery "Mala Stanica." The exhibition was presented in English, and the visitors received a brochure with translations of all the text into Macedonian and Albanian. The German ambassador in Macedonia, Ralf Andreas Breth, and the Director of the OSCE, Ambassador Giorgio Radicati, participated in the opening ceremony.
Many workshops were conducted with different target audiences over a span of ten days. Among those groups were:
- Sociology and social studies teachers from different schools from Skopje, Makedonski Brod, Vinica, Kumanovo, and Tetovo;
- International personnel responsibile for training the Macedonian police;
- OSCE ("OSCE Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje") personnel;
- Members of the international student group AIESEC;
- Members of the Macedonian Civic Education Center, MCDE;
- Members of the Youth Educational Center Skopje.
For the program of the peace education workshops, different focal points were chosen from four different modules.
Module 1: What does "Peace" mean? Introduction to the topic and viewing of the exhibit
- Method: Choose a picture "Which picture best expresses your understanding of peace?"
- Materials: Exhibit; photographs on A-4 paper
- Goal: In the plenary session, dealing with the different meanings of "peace" while using the chosen photographs. Evaluating these definitions using individual experiences and building on these with definitions from peace and conflict research.
Module 2: A Culture of Conflict: working on the topic "Dealing with Conflicts"
- Method: Working in small groups and in a plenary session with well-tested photo stories.
- Materials: "Culture of Conflict" picture box and "Conflict Stories" picture box from the Institute for Peace Education
- Goal: Inspiration and Motivation to perceive, assess and interpret conflict situations using the nine levels of conflict escalation from Friedrich Glasl. Discussion about different possibilities to act in conflict situations.
Module 3: Paths away from violence: Exploring in more depth the best practice examples from the exhibit
- Method: Multi-media presentation, small groups, plenary session
- Materials: CD-ROM "Peace Counts. Success Stories from Peacebuilders Worldwide. The Best Stories."
- Goal: Show different paths out of the spiral of violence. Apply the best practice examples to one's own conflict.
Module 4: How people build peace. Identification and discussion of possible capabilities and competencies for peace research
- Method: Multi-media presentation, discussion in small groups, plenary session
- Materials: "Ten theses - How can individuals build peace"? (Peace Counts)
- Goal: Critical analysis with the "ten theses"; self-reflection of one's own capabilities and competencies; application of the best practice examples to one's own conflict.
The design of the individual modules allowed the workshop to be flexible. Not all modules were used in every workshop. Individual programs were created according to the target audience, the interests and the time available.
The participants of the workshops gained a deeper understanding of the chosen reports after spending some time viewing the exhibit. The story of the "School for Peace" in Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam (in which a time-tested model of dialogue is used between conflict parties) proved to be particularly interesting to the participants. A recurring quesiton in the workshops was: how encounter and dialogue between the Macedonian minority and the Albanian minority can be promoted. The "School for Peace" offered valuable insight here. In the workshop with the international personnel responsible for training the Macedonian police, the report about the organization "Viva Rio" in Rio de Janeiro and the use of the "Community Police" was extremely interesting.
Just as in Colombo/Sri Lanka, the participants particularly appreciated the picture boxes, "Culture of Conflict" and "Conflict Stories," developed by the Institute for Peace Education. All groups showed great interest in networking and working together in the future as well.
Feedback from the participants
- "I like the exhibition and the workshop very much because all the pictures helped me to start to think about peace in a different way. Peace was usually just a word I thought that I can't learn much more about it. Especially the workshop we had after seeing the exhibition was amazing. It was a new interactive way of talking to these other young people and just getting to know more about peace in a way I hadn't thought that I could learn about peace before."
Olivera Aritonoska, AIESEC Macedonia