Charity or tolerance? Debating moralities in the educational system of contemporary Serbia.

• Author: Tosic, Jelena

Abstract:

After regime change in 2000, the Serbian Ministry of Education introduced two new subjects in the schools: civic education and religious education. Representatives of local civil society associated the establishment of religious education in schools with a rise in nationalism and a split of the society into "believers" and "citizens". Representatives of the church, on the other hand, criticised the concept of civic education as redundant, and its establishment as merely the minister's "plot" to weaken the reintroduction of religious education. The paper discusses the debate on the new school subjects against the background of Serbia's socialist past, the rise of militant nationalism in the 1990s (respectively its recent ascension), and the democratisation and human rights discourse.

Key words: socialism, human rights, civil society, education

Introduction

This paper addresses an important development in the post-socialist and post-authoritarian transformation of Serbia, namely, the reform of the school system following regime change in 2000 (1) through the introduction of two alternative school subjects: religious education (veronauka) and civic education (gradjansko vaspitanje). Before, and especially after, these subjects were introduced in 2001, a heated debate evolved between representatives of the church, and among others, local NGOs. This debate can be understood as paradigmatic for the contemporary moment of social transformation, as it shows the fundamental contentions and similarities between civil-liberal and nationalist positions concerning an important aspect of the potential direction of social change: the education of young generations. The debate regarding the two school subjects can be seen as an expression of the contemporary discourse on morality, and the promotion of an "adequate" value system legitimized through constructing images of the past.

While advocating for religious tolerance and freedom within a secular state, NGO-representatives opposed both school subjects, arguing that they implied a break-up of society into "believers/Serbs" and "democrats/citizens". Advocates of religious education, on the other hand, rejected the subject of civic education as artificial and redundant, and claimed it was merely a politically imposed "counter strike" against religious education. In the course of this paper I will argue that teachers of religious education avoid discussing concepts of tolerance and human rights by means of an "argument of inclusion". This line of argument postulates the superiority of the traditional Christian values of love and charity over the allegedly redundant, artificial, and political nature of the "vocabulary of democratization". I will conclude by indicating a crucial commonality of the two positions--the neglect of the burning issue of the current decline in socio-economic rights and security, which were core values addressed in the socialist period--by reference to the "hypocrisy" or "godlessness" of Yugoslav real-socialism. In order to contextualize my analysis, I will start with a few remarks on religion in socialist Yugoslavia, and Serbia in particular. In this context, I will also briefly discuss the extent to which socialism under Tito had some features of faith, and afterwards will turn to the debate at hand and outline the main opposing arguments, and how their constructions of the past imply visions of a proper morality and a "healthy" future society.

The historical background: Titoism and Orthodoxy

Although Yugoslavia under Tito was considered to be less repressive of religious freedoms than most of the countries of the Soviet Block, there was a significant amount of control and repression of the church by the communist party. As specified in the 1946 constitution of the Federative Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, there was a clear division between the state and the church whereby the state was defined as secular. Religious education was banned from schools and even within the church was overseen by the state. Although the citizens were granted freedom of religion, which was considered to be a private matter, the state explicitly forbade "the misuse of the church and faith for political purposes and the existence of political organisations grounded on faith" (FNRJ constitution 1946, article 25; author's translation).

The ideology and institutions that existed at that time had a considerable impact on the everyday religious practices of Serbians. Many authors identify a significant decline in church attendance and religiousness in Serbia (unlike in Croatia), and often assume that Titoism served as a substitute for religion (Buchenau 2003, Mylonas 2003). The narration that underpinned the communist ideology in Yugoslavia was the "cult" of the liberating Partisan-battle against Hitler's Germany under Tito. The mythologized narration, based on the Second World War, focused on the heroism of the Yugoslav nation under the guidance of the unique, charismatic, and almost "messianic" figure of Tito, who not only liberated the country from Fascism, but managed to unite different nationalities through common struggle.

In the post-war period this narration invaded every aspect of the everyday life. It was constantly reproduced and enforced in students' homework, literature, official political speeches, history books, architecture, art, commemoration celebrations, the bestowal of decorations, the famous annual torch relay in Tito's honour, etc. The grand narration of "Yugoslavism" based on the dictum of "brotherhood and unity," with all its multifaceted aspects contained with it a "holy" and dogmatic aura, and as such, represented a rival to Serbian Orthodoxy. Although both narrations in some way implied the same "enemies"--the Third Reich, Ottomans, Habsburg monarchy, or Italy--one aspect made them diametrically opposed: the issue of nationalism. Specifically, while the Second World War narration constructed the authenticity of a new nation as a means for supra-ethnic cohesion and a suppression of ethnic differences and the potential for conflict, the grand narration of the Serbian Orthodox Church was, and is, intrinsically Serbian-nationalistic.

The autocephalous Serbian-orthodox church builds its legitimising narration on the grounds of the canonization of political rulers. The result of this process was the establishment and worship of the sanctified lineage of the Nemanjic-dynasty (2), done simultaneously as saints and as protectors of Serbian national identity and territory. Present in the frescos, the liturgy, and religious rituals on the family-level, as Mylonas notes:

"the Serbian congregation was formed both in heaven and on earth, reiterated by the liturgical commemoration of sanctified patriots that eventually evolved into a precious spiritual and exegetic referent (...)" (Mylonas 2003: 52). In that sense, according to Mylonas, (2003) Serbian orthodoxy can be considered to be the "sacralisation of Serbian national identity". One crucial aspect of the church's narrative is the Kosovo (3)-myth. This oral history tradition became incorporated into the church's nationalist narrative, and aides the cosmogonic reinterpretation of the defeat of the Serbs in a battle against the Ottomans into a moral victory. It postulates the territory of Kosovo as the Serbian holy land, and avers its crucial importance for the aspired unity of the nation.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the religious and historical values and images constructed by the Serbian Orthodox Church imply a nationalist anti-modernism, whereby the nation is considered to owe its existence primarily to the church, which guided and preserved the Serbian nation during difficult historical conditions. In this sense, an opinion one often hears in contemporary statements by church representatives is that modernism and secularization would not only pose a threat to Serbian Orthodoxy, but to the nation itself. Serbian Orthodox religion and the nation, the argument goes, are intrinsically linked to one another, and belonging to the nation is equated with being a Serb Orthodox Christian (Ilic 2005: 285; for the case of Romanian Orthodoxy see Rogobete 2004).

Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing throughout the 1990s, the Serbian-Orthodox church entered into a strange coalition with the victorious nationalist fragment of the Serbian communist party, which was later to become the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milosevic. The rise of Milosevic took place due to the exact issue that serves as the cradle of the Serbian orthodox mythical source of legitimisation: the Kosovo. Specifically, Milosevic not only pronounced himself the protector of the oppressed Kosovo-Serbs in the late 1980s, but also used one of the strongest symbols of Serbian Orthodoxy, the Kosovo myth, in his speeches in order to achieve his political goals.

The coalition of the church and this nationalist chronological successor to Yugoslav socialism was an ambivalent one until its end. The fact that Milosevic picked up crucial nationalist symbols enforced the popularity and role of the church. At the same time, through this tenuous coalition the church elicited considerable...