Religious Actors In The Bosnian War

Religious actors had several important roles in the Bosnian war, some good and some bad. Many religious leaders from all three religious communities sought to find ways to end the violence, or to separate religious intention from the acts of creating “ethnically pure” nations. In 1995, for instance, the Croatian Conference of Bishops sought to repent for their ignorance toward the suffering of people other than their own - they agreed to perform penance and to “proclaim a uniform Christian attitude toward victims and toward the guilty” (72). There were several religious actors who spoke out against the violence, and deemed it unethical, yet as is described by Appleby, “None of the religious bodies had developed a notion for peacebuilding”
(73). There was an enormous issue with the lack of religious education among Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Muslim communities alike, and each lacked the unification and political influence to make any real difference during the conflict, though many tried. This religious illiteracy severely impacted their attempts to promote peace: during the ceasefire of 1995, attempts at peacemaking were centered around the religious identities, yet these failed for lack of any history of collaboration and agreement between these faiths. On the other hand, religious actors also contributed to the violence itself, and in many ways justified it. By the time of the post-communist period and the religious revival that followed it, many religious leaders were deeply involved in the extreme nationalist identities that fueled the violence. The Serbian Orthodox Church made declarations for peace, but this was entwined deeply with the nationalist idea of a “just peace,” which involved the unification of all Serbs and Serbian land. This is one of many examples of how religious identity actually justified the violence. It also seems that many of the religious leaders who did speak out against the violence had some ulterior motives, seeing as none or few of them truly condemned the violence and violation of human rights as an entirety, but focused more on the suffering of the people within their own communities, in this way using their stance to further “other,” dehumanize and turn people against the other religious parties involved.