Democratization and reconciliation strategies in South-East Europe: redefining ineffective policies

The IECOB, with its staff and the participation of several professors and researchers of the University of Bologna and the Punto Europa/Europe Direct Network in Forlì, takes part in the three-year Jean Monnet Network “Democratization and Reconciliation in the Western Balkans” project, which started in September 2017.


The aim of the network (composed by the leading team of the University of New York Tirana, together with the teams of the University of Dubrovnik, the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, the European Movement of Serbia and IECOB) is to gather academic, research and civil society actors in order to reflect upon the challenges and possibilities of reconciliation in the region.


The 6th Study visit of the project took place at the University of New York Tirana from 7-8th December 2019 and brought together the representatives of all partner institutions to program the eventful final year of the project. The participants discussed the most pressing organizational issues concerning the project outputs such as the preparation of the collection of essays based on the presentations at the first two conferences in Tirana and Sarajevo (held in 2017 and 2018 respectively) as well as the publishing prospects of a textbook on democratization and reconciliation intended for university students. Other important topics discussed concerned the exhibitions of students’ photographs organized at each partner venue as well as the publication of a book on Serbian-Albanian friendship distributed broadly in both languages. The title of the publication is “When Serbs and Albanians Loved Each Other”. The Serbian edition was disseminated in Belgrade in 25.000 copies on December 28, 2019.


In mid-January 2020 we published an Albanian-Serbian edition in Prishtina.

The following most important project event was the Winter School “Democratization and reconciliation strategies in South-East Europe: redefining ineffective policies“, which took place in Dubrovnik from 9-16 February 2020 (for CfA please see: Democratization and reconciliation strategies in South-East Europe: redefining ineffective policies).

As part of the Jean Monnet Network “Democratization and Reconciliation in the Western Balkans”, the exhibition “Images of diversity” was opened by IECOB on 5th December 2019 at the Campus of Forlì.  The exhibition opening was followed by a lecture given by Lucio Caracciolo, the editor of the journal Limes, on "Europe, a land of contention: the role of the old continent in the new world disorder", which was moderated by professor Stefano Bianchini.

The exhibition "Images of diversity" presents interesting photographs by young people reflecting upon the topics of democratization and reconciliation in the Balkans. The Forli exhibition brought together two projects – the Jean Monnet project "Democratization and reconciliation in the western Balkans" and the Forli-based project "Music: a bridge between people - 2019 Music schools for peace" coordinated by professor Teresa Indellicati and Lidia Pitarresi of the Association No.Vi.Art of Forlì-Cesena. The works of young photographers suggest that the means to reconciliation and democratic participation have to rely on intercultural communication, creativity and friendship.

Link to the article about the 1st exhibition in the local newspaper Forli Today (click here to read the article)
 
We thank Martycam of the Student association HIKMA for all the photos of the first Forli exhibition.

The second occasion for the citizens of Forli to see the exhibition “Images of diversity” was planned for March 2020.
The exhibition was actually  open in the Sala Albertini of the Municipality of Forlì on 6th of March 2020. Later, however, it had to be close because of the restrictions imposed by the Covid/19