Prejudice and Discrimination in Bosnia
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Prejudice and Discrimination in Bosnia
We are often alarmed at the crimes and atrocities that befall humans, committed by others who often project their feelings of inequality upon others. This is the basis of prejudice and discrimination. Understanding and accepting the differences that separate us from one another is the key to living in tolerance, no matter what differences may exist. One element that causes separation is race. Most commonly defined by the color of our skin, hair, or facial features, race is something that human beings use to classify others into different groups. Humankind has used race to separate humans into groups from one another for eons as evident throughout the history of humankind. Although, separation does not stop here choosing to put others into classes feeds the negativity that produces crimes and atrocities often seen committed and left unpunished. In addition, Ethnicity is yet another way in which humans create division amongst the human race. Ethnicity is merely the ancestral connection of the individual to a specific culture or heritage in which there are different customs, traditions, and other belief systems that are often deeply ingrained in ones psyche. Religious and Spiritual beliefs have been the cause of many separations, conflicts and wars as seen throughout the history of humankind as the root of many wars and conflicts. Tolerance is the key to peace and harmony. When humankind can embrace the differences across race, culture, creed, ethnicity, spiritual, and religious beliefs then and only then, will humankind have opened the door to peace and harmony for the human race. The affects of such would be an evolution that humankind has never known.
The Population of Bosnia
Located in the Baltics, Bosnia is a small country whose population is 4,621,598, less than half of West Virginia and one-third the size of Switzerland. Bosnia has four major ethnic groups consisting of Bosniaks that represent 48 percent of the population and Serbs composing 37 percent while Croats represent 14.3 percent and the remaining 0.6 percent represented by other racial groups (CIA 2011).
Bosnian religious groups consist of Muslims that make up 40 percent, Orthodox that make up 31 percent and other religious groups making up the remaining 14 percent of the population.
History
The Roman Empire ruled Bosnia in the first centuries of the Christian era. Later, Romes successors and the Byzantines took power, and eventually the Slavs. Further, into the history of the country the Kings of Hungary took power until 1200 AD, when Bosnia won independence from Hungary. Bosnia, later conquered by the Ottomans became part of the Ottoman Empire, until the Ottoman Empire succumbed to the Islamic Turks.
With over half of the male population missing in action, wounded, or dead the Serbs took power and pressured all non-Muslims to convert with having them register as either Serbs or Croats. By the 1920s the Croats were embittered by the dictation of the centralist Serbian government.
Later in history, World War II erupted and the German Regime and fascists of Italy took power. The German Regime forced the Serbs to become Croats. During this time, the Muslims were considered Muslim Croats. At the end of World War II, Bosnia and Herzegovina reunited into a single state as one of the six republics of the newly reestablished Communist Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito. Tito died in 1980, and with growing economic problems and the fall of the iron curtain over the next decade, Yugoslavia began to become fragmented.
In Dec. 1991, Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia and asked for recognition by the European Union. In a March 1992, Bosnian voters chose independence, and President Alija Izetbegovic declared the nation an independent state.
Unlike the other former Yugoslav states, which were generally composed of a dominant ethnic group, Bosnia was an ethnic mix of Muslims (44%), Serbs (31%), and Croats (17%), and this mix contributed to the duration of its fight for independence.
Croatian and Serbian presidents wanted to divide Bosnia between themselves; with the help of the Serbian Yugoslavian