1. Case Study No. & Title:
No. 171. New forms of ecumenism for maintaining and promoting positive relations between Serbs and ethnic Hungarians in the municipality of Ada, Vojvodina, FR Yugoslavia during the war in Croatia (1991) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992).

Keywords:

3. Author information
2.1 Author’s Name:
Tibor Tajti

2.2 Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details:
Central European University Budapest
Legal Studies
October 6 street, No. 12, 7^th floor
1051 Budapest
Hungary

Fax +36 1 327 – 3198
Tel. + 36 1 203 6855
E-mail: ttajti@excite.com or lphtat01@phd.ceu.hu (contact by email preferred)

2.3 Date recorded:
September 25, 2000

3. Good Practice Information Sheet
3.1 Local Level Good Practice:
Following the initiative of the local government and with the efforts of the priests of the Serb-Orthodox community and Catholic-ethnic Hungarian community, interethnic relations have been maintained in the municipality during the worst days of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina through regular and innovative forms of ecumenical co-operation over the course of nearly two years. The most important new practice was the series of ecumenical masses held for the first time in the city hall, then each Thursday, with the Catholics (ethnic Hungarians) going to an Orthodox church-service one week, and the Serb-Orthodox community going to a Catholic church-service the next week. Unofficial meetings were also held (e.g., sharing of humanitarian aid). The practice was unquestionably an important factor that contributed to the lack of serious atrocities in the municipality (which has 25,000 inhabitants) during the extended war.

3.2 Location:
The good practice, unfortunately, could not spread outside the borders of the municipality ‘Ada’, located in the northern province of Serbia called ‘Vojvodina’. More than 70 per cent of the town’s population (approximately 25,000 inhabitants) are ethnic Hungarians, whereas the remainder is predominantly Serb. Ada is the biggest settlement among the six that make up the municipality, also called ‘Ada’ (meaning ‘island’ in Turkish). A municipality is the smallest administrative unit, and thus in Serbia this is the true local government. The traditional organs of municipalities are the municipal government, cabinet and the office of the mayor. Dating back to the first multiparty elections in 1990, and until 1996, the majority of seats in Ada’s parliament, and thus also those of the elected officials of the cabinet and the mayor himself, were held by the party Democratic Community of Hungarians from Vojvodina.

3.3 Minority/Target Groups:
Minority: ethnic Hungarians
Target groups: the community of ethnic Hungarians in the municipality Ada, FR Yugoslavia, primarily though by no means entirely limited to practising Catholics from this minority (the fear of war persuaded both the organisers and the participants to label and run the program as a non-traditional series of religious events, thus a considerable number of atheists were also involved).

3.4 Major Actors Involved:

3.5 Budget allocated by local government authorities and/or by other actors:
Modest budgetary support was given by the local government, essentially encompassing only the funds necessary for the masses outside the churches. Precise data are not available. The masses (both in and out of churches), meetings, the sharing of humanitarian aid etc. could have been financed from the running accounts of the local government and/or the churches.

3.6 Timeframe:
The initiative was proposed, officially launched and put into practice in the course of autumn 1991 and continued until autumn 1992. I could not establish the precise date of the beginning or termination of the program. What I have been told was that it started soon after the outbreak of the war in Croatia and it lasted until the war in Bosnia had subsided (thus, not until the Dayton agreement).

3.7 Local level good practice relation to national level ethnic policy:
This was an entirely local level initiative, supported and initiated by the political party of ethnic Hungarians that had the majority power in the municipality. The project was criticised by the Serb Socialist Party and other unofficial Serb groups and individuals (it has to be borne in mind that the substantial part of the Serb population supported the Milosevich ‘Great Serbia’ war at the very outset of the wars on the Balkans).

4. Good Practice Description
Albeit no direct warfare has been conducted on the territory of the municipality ‘Ada’ during the last ten years of Balkan wars, the raging of Serb chauvinism along with the indirect effects of war, had seriously undermined the peaceful co-existence of ethnic Hungarians and Serbs in the town. Many Serbs, blinded by the Milosevich propaganda-machine’s (or simply because they shared the views that underlay Milosevich’s politics) tales about the ‘heavenliness’ of Serb people and hate-speech, were not eager to face the anti-war attitude of ethnic Hungarians, who have been able to receive information about what is actually going on in Croatia and later in Bosnia and Herzegovina also from Hungarian media. The forced mobilisation (hunting down of draft-age men) and the fear on the part of the Hungarian population that they might be the next target of atrocities (some politicians in the Serb parliament had openly proposed that all Hungarians should be simply driven off to Hungary; the more lenient ones were ‘even willing’ to bestow a lump-sum on each Hungarian family in recognition of the belongings they would thus leave behind) led to major anti-war demonstrations in Ada in the autumn of 1991, which was brutally crushed by police and armed forces in the absence of prompt international intervention. Soon reports on atrocities against the non-Serb and non-Montenegrin population within Serbia itself were reported. In such a climate it was of utmost importance somehow to maintain the relative stability of inter-ethnic relations, especially because the institutions and forms of inter-ethnic relations have been misused by warmongers. Hungarians were terrified that their Serb neighbours would suddenly paint messages like ‘Hungarians out of Serbia!’ or ‘Serbia reaches as far as Budapest’ on house walls.

Under such circumstances the idea of new-forms of ecumenism was launched by the local government. The practice encompassed a number of completely new practices, unheard of earlier and unfortunately, not followed elsewhere in Serbia. The most important innovation was (1) a series of regular ecumenical masses lasting essentially until the war in Bosnia had subsided (the war in Croatia had subsided earlier) i.e., almost two whole years. Thus, each Thursday there was a joint mass, once in the Orthodox (Serb) Church, next time in the Catholic Church (Hungarians). The two priests performed the ceremony jointly, the other participating in his own or the other’s language (depending on the characteristics of the given part of the ceremony). Most of those attending saw the ceremony and/or the church of the other congregation for the first time in their life. As the majority of devoted believers belong to the older generation (many of whom had survived the atrocities of the Second World War with the two nations as enemies) and do not even speak a word of the other ethnic group’s language, the new practice was, indeed, something absolutely new. It has to be added that there was certain fear also on the part of the Serb population of potential atrocities coming from the other side (since the Serbs are in minority in Ada and much of northern Vojvodina), especially because such anti-Hungarian propaganda was an open every-day subject matter in Serb media for years. (The Serb hate-speech began with Slovenians, followed by Croats and Muslims of Bosnia, Albanians and to a lesser extent Hungarians were also the target of very vicious attacks during the whole duration of the Milosevich regime.) It is also part of the truth that the segments of the population participating in this ecumenical practice are those individuals who have had the least contact with the other group, and were thus the most susceptible to nationalist influences. The importance of this factor has increased substantially due to the significant role the churches regained right before the beginning of the Balkan wars as the consequence of the crash of the communist-socialist ideology. To put it simply, at that time religion had become probably one of the most important factors in people’s life. Contrary to many in the Serb Orthodox church, who spoke openly in favour of the war, the leader of the Serb Orthodox church in Ada took a different path and joined the initiative.

A second important facet (2) was the innovative practice of having occasional ecumenical masses in the city-hall of Ada, thereby enlarging the number of participants with those (primarily atheists) who refused to go to church for one reason or another. The first ecumenical meeting, indeed, took place here; it was thought that the neutral forum might persuade the two congregations that it is possible to disregard the differences and to continue with the practice to the benefit of both communities. The official side of the co-operation was supplemented by (3) new form of unofficial contacts, like the sharing of humanitarian aid with the other community, which was also something exceptional, especially at that time. From all this one can see that this practice was not just a one-occasion event, but an important factor in making it the case that no serious atrocities occurred in Ada; unlike other places inhabited by non-Serbs and non-Montenegrins. The leaders of the two religious communities have been guests of honour at important religious event in the other community ever since. The whole practice has in fact has been revived during the NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

Undoubtedly, credit for the present practice must be attributed to the ingenuity and courage of the local government’s leaders and to that of the heads of the two religious communities. However, the practice could be followed not just in wartime but also in times of peace to prevent possible conflicts. The practice is also important because the target groups belong to segments of the community (at least in Ada, but I believe also in other parts of Serbia), that are typically not covered by other local governmental or NGO activities. As the practice proved, the indirect effects were equally important. The spread of direct information and first-hand impressions about the other community was very important. The beneficial effects of the practice, the main form of which endured for almost two years, would have made an impact upon everyday life. One such episode might properly illustrate this. The event was told to me by a close Serb friend. As part of the co-operation different kinds of humanitarian aid were shared by the two religious communities. At one such occasion the Catholics (Hungarians) received a contingent of commonly-needed medications, a portion of which was transferred immediately to the Orthodox community. However, during the distribution an incident occurred: an older woman started shouting and cursing trying to persuade people not to accept any of the medications because, as she claimed, the Hungarians were giving the medications to poison the Serb population. In normal times nobody would pay attention to such nonsense, but in the era of vicious hate-speech campaigns, this could have had serious consequences had it not been for the prompt and efficient intervention of the Serb community itself. It has to be added that the police forces in Serbia were (and still are) the main enforcers of the Milosevich regime. As such the ranks of the police were cleansed to get rid of those not being fully – probably it is more appropriate to say blindly – loyal to the leader and to Serb nationalism. Consequently, such police forces were keen to pursue the overwhelming Hungarian draft-evaders, but less willing to fulfil their normal duties when a perpetrator was a Serb. In other words, the police would probably not intervene in a situation like the one just described.

In sum, the ingenuity and courage of some officials of the local government and the heads of the local churches gave rise to a unique practice, that was implemented with minimal cost, and substantially contributed to the maintenance of peaceful inter-ethnic relations among believers from different ethnic groups. The series of masses held interchangeably in the two denominations’ churches, the masses in the town hall, the sharing of humanitarian aid and the maintenance of close contacts with the other congregation – both officially and unofficially – was undoubtedly a specific kind of ‘conflict resolution mechanism’, which was unique, in that it addressed the (very particular) religious and ethnic groups of both Serbs and ethnic Hungarians. Traditional conflict resolution techniques do not attempt to approach the inter-ethnic question from a religious or quasi-religious point of view, albeit as the Balkan wars have shown, religion has played a significant role in the unfortunate developments in the region. The practice is unique also because it was a fruitful co-operation of religious and secular social institutions requiring minimal financial investment. Although, the practice gained a relatively wide media coverage within the country (primarily Hungarian- language media), as far as I know, the practice has not been followed elsewhere.