CRISP - Project

Project

Fighting Right-Wing Radicalization (Banja Luka)

In the frame of the “Bosnia-Herzegovina Resilience Initiative” program, CRISP conducted a project that addressed topics of nationalist radicalization, extremism, right-wing populist rhetoric and hate motivated violence.

Quick facts

DURATION

October – December 2019

LOCATIONS

Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina

PARTICIPANTS

25

The project took place in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina and consisted of three parts. The project aimed to help local youth better understand local situation, identify different conflict lines, and connect the general characteristics and manifestations of right-wing populism and extremism to the local context of the participants. They also played simulation game “Vulkania” where in addition to analyzing the conditions of success of right-wing populism, it offers a platform to think about strategies to deal with this issue.

Project Goals

The project aimed to reach the following goals:

  • Raise awareness about the topic of nationalist radicalization, populism, hate motivated violence;
  • Strengthen the ability to recognize violence as such (hate speech, structural discrimination, physical violence, etc.);
  • Develop a policy paper that can be disseminated beyond the target group of the project, and that summarizes the learnings of the group.
Target Groups

The project gathered 25 university students in their 3rd - 4th year of studies, from Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Tuzla und Mostar (Bosnia and Herezegovina). These were young people with different social-cultural backgrounds interested in learning about and working on the topic.

Activities

The project consisted of three workshops that took place in Banja Luka from October to December.

During the first workshop the participants were introduced to CRISP, its methodology and the goals of the project. They also got an intro to the topic and terminology surrounding nationalist radicalization, populism, hate motivated violence, discussed local situation in terms of conflict analysis, and talked about conflict sensitivity.

The second part aimed to start creation of the policy paper, connect the general characteristics and manifestations of right-wing populism/extremism to the local context of the participants, and introduce them to the methodology of simulation gaming. The participants played “Vukania”, a game on right-wing populism, and got personal experience on how right-wing populist parties function.

Working on the policy paper continued during the last, third workshop of the project. The participants finalized the paper and developed a plan for dissemination, publication and usage of it.


Partner

This activity was implemented in close partnership with


Donor

The project could be realized thanks to the kind support of the USAID