Vojvodina's
Multiethic Character, a Resource of Integrative and developmental
potential
Novi Sad, June 5, 2007
06/19/2007 , HCHRS
The first out of four brainstorming sessions planned
under the project "Fostering Vojvodina's Multiethnic Identity" the
Helsinki Committee realizes with the assistance of the European Union -
the EuropeAid program - was held on June 5, 2007, in Novi Sad.
The session assembled twenty members of Vojvodina's
intelligentsia from Novi Sad, Sombor, Subotica, Kikinda, Backi Petrovac
and Simanovci, who placed on their agenda for discussion the issues of
transition, the society's radicalization, European integration
processes, and the civil sector's role in regional cooperation, as well
as tried to provide an answer to the question "What's truly European in
Vojvodina's identity?"
To start with, the participants in the session agreed
on the following common denominators:
- Throughout history Vojvodina has been and still is
the region of confrontation of different state strategies; any
ethnically motivated "appropriation" of Vojvodina is an attempt to
deprive the province of its political subjectivity and identity;
- Vojvodina's identity must be maintained and
advanced;
- The cancellation of the stabilization and
association negotiations with the EU affected the interests of Vojvodina
citizens the most;
- The Kosovo question strongly influences multiethnic
relations in Vojvodina;
- Inter-ethnic communication in the province is poor,
and its ethnic communities mostly behave indifferently;
- Regional cooperation is most important the same as
the role non-governmental organization can play in its advancement; and
- There is a tendency to manage Vojvodina through
consociation of ethnic elites.
The participants in the brainstorming session
concluded that Vojvodina, as Serbia's most pluralist part, needs
institutions capable of "managing" all tendencies of ethno-cultural
seclusion. Having underscored that Vojvodina's identity figures as a
major resource of integrative and developmental potential, as well as a
warrant of the safeguard of the province's multiethnic character, the
participants in the first session in the series put forth to relevant
institutions the following recommendations:
- The safeguard and advancement of Vojvodina's
identity should be present in all segments of their /authorized
institutions'/ work;
- All preconditions to the resumption of the
negotiations with the EU should be fulfilled so as to enable Vojvodina
to actively partake in European integration processes and productively
use its geographic position, resources, civilizational legacy, tradition
and culture;
- State bodies should do their utmost to counteract
adverse consequences of Kosovo's impending independence, and decisively
react at all manifestations leading to ethnically motivated violence,
violation of minority rights and insecurity of Vojvodina's citizens
regardless of their ethnic origin, religion, language and other specific
traits;
- Vojvodina's autonomy should be arranged in keeping
with European experience, which necessitates constitutional reform; in
this context the Constitution should guarantee Vojvodina's right to its
own legislation in the sphere of its autochthonous competence;
- Bearing in mind the significance of the civil
sector, its functioning should be regulated under the law following in
the footsteps of European experience and standards;
- Educational, information, cultural and other
subsystems should foster inter-cultural and other contents that hinder
ethnic distance and contribute to mutual understanding of members of
different ethnic communities; and
- All ideas, initiatives and actions designed to
secure better life for Vojvodina's citizens on the principles of
democracy, the rule of law, tolerance and multiculturalism should be
lent a helping hand.
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