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Showing posts from July, 2012

CANVAS day 3 - thanks to Milan and Sandra

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Milan and Sandra, our trainers for the past 3 days are pictured below.  Milan is to my right (your left) and Sandra is right next to him.  Mladen, Elise, Tori, Will, Marie and Demi joined us all on the roof deck of our beautiful Hotel Prag, which also served as our conference room. We wrapped up today with lessons on: developing "the message" (for your campaign, movement, group) "Recruit-Train-Act" (recruiting techniques to grow your organization) perception analysis (what do we say about us?  what do we say about 'them'?  What do THEY say about us?  and What do THEY say about themselves?) - all designed to create your message and to counter "their" attacks on our credibility strategic planning and action implementation - developing goals and objectives, and making them happen  In keeping with the confidentiality of CANVAS, I am not about to divulge any of the action plans developed here in Belgrade!  If any of these happen in Boston or

The Man, the Legend, the 'Rock Star' of Revolutionaries

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I am speaking (in the title above) of the one and only Srdja Popovic.  Here he is with our group today: (from the CANVAS website): Srdja Popovic was one of the founders and key organizers of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor! Otpor!’s campaign to unseat Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic found success in October 2000 when hundreds of thousands of protestors converged upon and took over the Serbian Parliament, effectively ending Milosevic’s rule. After the revolution, Popovic served a term as a member of the Serbian National Assembly 2000-2003. In 2003, Popovic and other ex-Otpor! activists started the non-profit educational institution the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) In 2011, Srdja was named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the year's "Top 100 Global Thinkers":  CLICK HERE FOR FOREIGN POLICY Srdja joined our two workshop leaders/trainers, Sandra and Milan, to discuss one of OTPOR's most s

Revolution 101 - overthrowing a dictator or health-care for all

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Whatever your issue, whatever your cause, whatever your need - as long as you subscribe to attaining your goals and creating a better tomorrow through non-violent action, then CANVAS will be happy to help. CANVAS - the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action & Strategies - is the rebranding of the famous OTPOR, the Serbian youth group that planned and executed the non-violent overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Now CANVAS has helped dozens and dozens of organizations and movements around the world with their causes - most notably, Egypt.  See how that worked? I arranged for CANVAS to give our students a 3-day workshop/training program to help us understand how CANVAS and its like-minded revolutionaries around the world think, plan, operate, and execute their campaigns.  It was a strange beginning for all of us today - all of us knowing we don't have a dictatorship to overthrow.  But we all want to effect positive change in our world, so we went with it.  

BELGRADE - history and politics "on foot"

No pics today; my camera's batteries died :-( Students had the morning off (to sleep, mostly, after that long drive yesterday).  We met at 2 pm at the Hotel Prag for our walking tour of old Belgrade.  Mladen took the lead and I added my own information and guidance along the way.  We walked first up to St. Sava Temple, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world, named for Sava, who founded the Serbian Orthodox Church.  From there, and past the national Library, we walked past the military buildings that were bombed by NATO (and yes, by "us"/U.S.) in 1999, to a small park next to the Serbian Foreign Ministry.  That park is dedicated to Knez Milos (Prince Milos) who led the 2nd Serbian rebellion against the Turks (Ottomans) in 1815.  In this same spot, we heard of the March 2003 assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the founder of the Democratic Party of Serbia and a leader of the opposition against Slobodan Milosevic.  From here, down to the 'square

arrived in Belgrade, safe and sound!!

It took a while, obviously, but all is well in Belgrade.  Students are checked into the Hotel Prag (with A/C and wireless!).  Given the 11-hour journey (Moster to Sarajevo; 90 minute break in Sarajevo to eat, get luggage, say good-bye to Maja at Sokak; then 7 hours or so from Sarajevo to Belgrade) - given all that, I gave students the morning off tomorrow (to sleep or more likely, to explore the city) and then we meet at 2 pm to give them an overview and a walking tour of the old part of Belgrade.  So, that's it for now.  No cool pictures until tomorrow :-)

Mostar - divided city

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Mostar is still divided - mostly Croats (on the western side of the river Neretva), mostly Muslims (on the eastern side), with very few Serbs living here and there.  This gorgeous bridge was originally built between 1557 and 1567 by an Ottoman bridge builder, Mimar Hayruddin, student of the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent.  At the time it was built, it was the widest man-made arch in the world; it was an engineering "mystery" for years - how was the scaffolding erected?  how were the stones transported from one bank to the next? and bottom line - how the heck was it held together?!  There were no metal braces or suspension of any kind. The old bridge, "Stari Most", served the peoples of Mostar for 427 years until it was completely destroyed by Croatian forces on November 9, 1993.  Croatian military leaders said they destroyed it for "strategic military reasons."  That of course is bullsh**.   There was

Tito's bunker

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Awesome stop!  And a strange sense of "back to the future", by walking into the 1960s-70s.  In this bunker, you get the sense of what Tito and his generals were planning to do in the event of nuclear war - and that was to "hunker down" in a bunker, for up to 6 months, under a mountain.  The engineers claimed this bunker would withstand a nuclear blast up to 20 kilotons.  hmmmm .... having seen the insides and the "steel trap doors", I'm not so sure.  But I am glad the world never had to find out. 

"sayonara" Sarajevo ... for now

We're wrapping up our stay in Sarajevo today.  It seems like we just got here and that we've been here for months.  I'm not eager (not even happy) to leave, but can hardly wait to get to Mostar later today!  On the way to Mostar (only 2 hours away), we plan to stop at "Tito's bunker", an underground, top-secret (in the 1950s-60s) bunker designed to hold Tito and his top military and political officers, should there ever be need for it.  Think "Cold War", think "Balkans", and think "Tito's non-alignment" policies - all of which led Tito to think he would need a bunker in the likelihood (in his calculations) of a(nother) war. Mostar is a divided city - mostly Croats and Muslims.  It also has one of the most beautiful bridges in the world, albeit with one of the more sad aspects of the 'death' of Yugoslavia.  More on that in the days ahead.

Student blogs - check them out!!

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on the right side of this blog, run your cursor over the second box down from the right - you should see "Student Blogs Balkans 2012".  As students send me their URL (addresses) for their blogs, I will add them here.  the students have unique insights into much of the same thing I discuss - but then again, so much more!  Check them out when you can. While I'm "here", I'll post just two more pictures from July 9.  First, a picture of our meeting with Ambassador Rod Moore, former US Ambassador to Montenegro, career foreign service officer, and now works as the 2nd in command at the OHR - the Office of the High Representative.  OHR is essentially the "authority of last resort" in Bosnia.  We met with Ambassador Moore just after we witnessed the ceremony honoring the 520 souls who were to be buried today in Srebrenica.  Here is one more picture, below, that shows the flowers that were placed on the 3 semi-trucks, carrying the 520 coffins that were

Sarajevo - the "Jerusalem" of Europe?

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I've heard this comparison many times over the past week and a half.  And our visits with religious leaders reinforce the notion of a city of many faiths: Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, and all forms of secular, a-religious, non-religious, agnostics and others who form the fabric of this beautiful city .  (I haven't met an atheist yet, or if I have, they haven't declared it; I'm reminded that "there are no atheists in fox-holes", and from 1992-95, all Sarajevans were in a virtual fox-hole, living under siege.) Unfortunately, the "Jerusalem" comparison is not always positive, even as it remains apt, given the divisions that bubble up on the surface all too often -- because this beautiful city, and more so the "country" of Bosnia-Herzegovina far beyond the city, is riven with factions, rivalries, distrust, mistrust, and all the way down the road toward fear and hatred.  Yet, more than anything, there is life, hope, joy,

Srebrenica - our visit on July 6

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The people of Srebrenica, and the Memorial Center dedicated to the victims of the July 1995 genocide against Muslims of Bosnia, are preparing to bury the remains of another 510 or so victims next week.  Why 17 years later? Many or most of these bodies have already "seen" 2-3 other gravesites -- starting with the places where they were first buried, after being shot or otherwise murdered by the armies of Ratko Mladic.  Knowing that the world was discovering (in 1995) the extent of their genocide, Bosnian Serbs dug up the remains of their 8,300-plus victims (or most of them) and reburied them.  And often, they did it again.  And sometimes, they did it again.  One victim's remains were located in 4 separate burial sites. Now, for these 8,372-plus souls, their remains are finally together and can finally be laid to rest. Yet there are thousands more missing people from this period - Muslims mostly as well as Croats and Serbs - as we learned on "day 1" of

A Jewish President of Bosnia? Why not?!

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Today, we met Jakob Finci.  Finci is 70 years old or so; born in an Italian detention camp in WW2, after his parents were sent there (rather than Auschwitz).  They survived the war and the detention camp and returned to Sarajevo after 1945.  But the rest of Sarajevo's Jews were not so lucky.  85% of Sarajevo's Jews disappeared during the War.  Today, there are only 1,000 Jews in all of Bosnia; 700 or so of these are in Sarajevo.  And Jakob is their community leader. Jakob is a lawyer by training.  During the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo, he stopped practicing law and turned his attention to La Benevolencija, the Jewish community NGO that served as shelter, soup kitchen, pharmacy, and even post office to all Sarajevans, regardless of religion. After the Bosnian war ended, Jakob worked to establish Sarajevo's Inter-Religious Council.  He served as the Jewish representative, as there is no full-time Rabbi in the city.  He also served as the Council's first president (f

Bosnian President Izetbegovic and NU Dialogue

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As mentioned yesterday, we had a surprise visit at one of our meetings (with the foreign policy advisor to Bosnian President Izetbegovic).  Here are a few images from that visit. photo by Marie Hargitt

A surprise visit from President of Bosnia!

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We had 2 planned visits today – first, with  Elvir Camdzic,  the chief foreign policy advisor to  Bakir Izetbegović,  the Bosniak President of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH).    The presidency of BiH is a tri-partite entity, with one Bosniak (or Muslim), one Serb, and one Croat.  All 3 are elected at the same time and serve for a 4-year term, collectively.  All 3 people serve as “President” for 8 months at a time, on a rotating basis.  The current ‘troika’ of presidents was elected in 2010.  The politics of BiH are so complicated that even in planning our visits with speakers we have to work around the politics.  Should we meet with advisors to all 3 different presidents?  Even those advisors recommended against that – saying that such collective discussions with foreigners (like us) just doesn’t work.  So, we were very happy to have time with Mr. Camdzic.  We were only about 5 minutes into our 90 minute meeting and the door is pushed open and in marches the pre

Jumping into the "deep end of the pool"

Students arrived yesterday; we spent 90 minutes together last night to get them acclimated and prepare them for the week ahead. This morning, we met at 10:00 am to prepare them further for our very first site visit (see below) and to give them an overview of the complexities (understatement of the year) of Bosnian politics.  Dr. Esmir Ganic, of the American University of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), spoke at length about BiH politics, governance, and international relations.  Wow, is it confusing!  Even he was having some difficulty making sense (for us) of the seemingly non-sensical.  One "state" (BiH); two "entitites" - a "Federal entity" (51% Bosnia) plus Republica Srbska (49%), along with 10 "cantons" within the 51% Federal entity.  Oh, and there are 3 Presidents (so to speak) within BiH.  And there is a High Representative for BiH, an international official overseeing civilian governance.  (And this is the "short and sweet" descrip

Sarajevo - Balkans Dialogue begins

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Students (and their fearless leader, Dr. Will Lovely) all arrived safe and sound today in Sarajevo.  All are settled in their respective hotels (2 different ones, given that no one affordable hotel could fit all of us in one place).  We had a brief orientation to the program, and then students were free to begin their discovery of this amazing city. We have our first lectures tomorrow, starting 10 am.  More on all of those, and so many others, in the days and weeks ahead. Here's a quick pic of Will and me in front of an Austrian-style Church on the edge of the "East-West" (as in Ottoman-Austrian) divide of the old city.