Bosnien | Bosnia - Part 10

posted by usha on 2005/05/25 23:28

[ Bosnien | Bosnia ]

Via Ian Sethres informative Newsletter "News from the Neighbourhood" (subscribe here) I learned that gay activists from across former Yugoslavia gathered in Sarajevo to develop a common platform for future advocacy.

Sethre spread the news at the top of his latest newsletter and included the entire article of Sarajewo-based journalist Mirjana Plasonić about SEE Q Network, the Southeastern European Queer Network. It is a regional network of LGBTIQ activists and representatives of approximately 20 LGBT organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo/a, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Slovenia.

Networking is most important for so-called minorities, as queer people are, although they are a "visible minority" in Bosnia. Nevertheless, Bosnia has been the last Yugoslav successor states to establish LGBTIQ association. It seems to be a fair signal that the cooperation partners of SEE Q Network met in Sarajewo to discuss their future program which will especially be concerned with gender and sexual orientation.

Despite different queer associations existed even before the 1990's in Serbia and in Croatia, vulgo, there are no queer people in the Balkans. Many people in the Balkans think that being queer is some sort of disease that came with the West:

In the conservative societies of the Balkans, fighting for such choice arouses suspicion and allegations of manipulation, especially manipulation by international organizations. "Most people in Bosnia," Djurkovic says, "say that homosexuality is something that came with the international community."
As reactions to the film "Go West", directed by Ahmed Imamović show it could easely be true that about three quarters of Bosnians are homophobic (according to the second article of Sethre's nl Prism Research carried out a poll on the subject; though, I could not find it on their webpage).

PS: Now, I could find the report, here, thanks to Olivera who is not dependent on the English version. The report has been published on May 11, 2005 in Bosnian. An English version is to be expected.


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