News from the Future
Materials: “News from the Future” prepared in advance
Exercise description
Read out the following three pieces of “news from the future”:
1. The Association of BiH Army Veterans welcomed the BiH Court Judgement convicting a commander of the BiH Army for war crimes. At the same time, the Association condemns the statement of the Croat Member of the BiH Presidency who commented on the Judgement saying, “This Judgement punishes the victims and rewards the aggressors.”
2. Today, a delegation of VRS and Serbia’s UBR veterans laid wreaths in Belgrade at the monument to the victims of genocide in Srebrenica and Prijedor and called on government representatives to support cross-border youth exchange programmes and peace camps organised by the Veterans’ Organisation, the Human Rights Organisation and the United Historians of the Western Balkans. The call was joined by numerous celebrities from culture and sports, including(list a few names of celebrities and people from the group and/or the training team).
3. The HVIDR (Croatian disabled war veterans) Association from Mostar released a statement saying that together with the Mostar Prison Camp Survivors’ Association they have successfully completed a fund raising campaign for a memorial room commemorating victims at the Heliodrom prison camp.
Discussion in the plenary
After reading the news, start a discussion in the plenary:
- What is your reaction to these news items?
- How do they sound and why?”
Notice:
Thenews items should be composed so that they are relevant to the group of participants. (This example was prepared for a very specific group of war veterans.) The aim is to think about what prevents some very human actions that could greatly contribute to advancing the reconciliation and peacebuilding process in the region, and to try to get a sense of what we could do to make such news items more likely.
Possible difficulties:
Related Workshops:
Workshop example: