The author, who directs Soul of Europe, a mediation project working in the Balkans for the last fifteen years, assesses the changes that have taken place in Bosnia – ‘a broken country’. He contrasts the thoughtful creative work of community-based people’s plenums with the crushing uncaring bureaucracy of international agencies, particularly via the EU – the latest imperial power. It is, he argues, the clarity and practicality of the plenum movement’s demands in dealing with corruption and the need for justice that puts it in the political vanguard.
This refers to the work of Soul of Europe, which tries to follow Mandela’s advice that if you want to make peace do not speak to your friends but to your enemies, so they become your partners. A Tender Bridge: a journey to another Europe, written by PelzPeterReevesDonald, was published in 2001 by Cairns Publications.
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Plenums developed out of recent student movements in Serbia and Croatia. They are citizens’ assemblies where any matters can be raised, voted on by a show of hands and demands formulated.
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the white house: from fear to a handshake by PelzPeterReevesDonald (O Books, 2008) describes the process of talking to victims and perpetrators at the killing camp of Omarska in 1992, as the first steps in creating a memorial to the dead.
