Multiperspectivity: Dealing with the Past and Transitional justice

The second dialogue meeting, within the project “Interpretation of the mutual history of modern time” was implemented on 13^th and 14^th of November 2020. The dialogue meeting was implemented via the platform ZOOM.

Through the implementation of the project, Peace Action and HTAM, continue to contribute towards reaching the project specific goal: The history teachers from primary and secondary schools from North Macedonia have strengthened capacities for: a critical perception of the ethnocentric narratives used through the history and the ways/models the history lessons are performed.

The Multiperspectuvity, Dealing with the Past and Transitional justice are key themes when speaking about peacebuilding partnerships. These topics were discussed and implemented through interactive workshops, by using techniques of group work, presentations, plenum discussions, associations and barometer.

This time, the ethnic identities were discussed about, through workshop on a theme: Our society’s behavior towards the past of ethnic conflicts. The ethnic identity is a focus theme, through which we discuss, share and are building trust within the group.

The approach that we use is inclusive, based on the experiences and the attitudes of the participants. These are shared within the group. This approach enables an open space for a dialogue when we speak about hard themes, we build trust and at the same time opens space for analyses about issues linked with ethnic conflicts. The main questions raised for discussion were: How is your environment behaving towards the past of ethnic conflicts? When speaking of this past what we talk, whisper/keep silent about? How do people react about these stories? How do you personally feel about all this?

Also, it was pointed out that we need to open the themes, that the History teachers need to discuss among each other, even more because of the fact that the students do not have any information about the recent past from 2001 in the history books.

The training team for this dialogue meeting was: Mire Mladenoski from HTAM, Emrah Redzepi and Boro Kitanoski from Peace Action.