Some background information to Milorad Dodik's address entitled “An American Foreign Policy Success Story: The Dayton Accords, Republika Srpska, and Bosnia’s European Integration” at the Columbia University in New York

On October 25^th 2011, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik was scheduled to deliver an address entitled “An American Foreign Policy Success Story: The Dayton Accords, Republika Srpska, and Bosnia’s European Integration” at the Columbia University in New York. On the day of the event some persons who had their RSVPs confirmed earlier were denied access to the Faculty Room of Low Library where the event was to take place with no explanation given. The invitation read: “To RSVP, please contact Ms Catherine Brooks at kab2194@columbia.edu” Now, I do not know whether Ms Brooks was on hand to give an explanation to people who were turned back from the door, but it seems not to have been the case. In absence of any official explanation, suspicions were raised that those turned back from the door were persons with non-Serb names.

Going back to the invitation, it read: “On behalf of the Harriman Institute and the Njegos Endowment for Serbian Language and Culture at Columbia University, we would like to invite you...” As for the Njegos Endowment for Serbian Language and Culture, we learn from its newsletter dated March 14, 2003 that “[t]he meetings that we host are most often initiated and organized by Professor Radmila Gorup... and by Harriman Institute Assistant Director Gordon N. Bardos.” Now, let us assume for a moment that the persons were indeed prevented from attending this talk based on their ethnicity and look at what Harriman Institute Assistant Director Gordon N. Bardos recently had to say on the issue of ethnicity in Bosnia and Herzegovina in general and the issue of mixed marriages in particular.

In his article “In Defense of Richard Holbrooke” published by Transconflict on March 2^nd 2011 (http://www.transconflict.com/2011/03/in-defense-of-richard-holbrooke-023/), Gordon N. Bardos writes: “... That the “ethnification” of Bosnian society happened long before Richard Holbrooke came along is most apparent in the record regarding the most intimate of human relationships – marriage. Despite the myth of high levels of interethnic marriage in Bosnia and Herzegovina frequently expounded in the media, Bosnian social reality has throughout history been quite the opposite. In nineteenth century Bosnia, mixed marriages were completely unheard of. As late as 1988, ninety-three percent of Bosniacs married endogenously, and Croats and Serbs were not much more inclined to marry outside their ethnic groups either. In 2001 in the Herzegovinian town of Mostar, out of 176 recorded marriages, not a single one was between a Croat and a Bosniac...”

Next, at the panel discussion on the book entitled “Bosnia Remade” by Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman, which took place on April 19, 2011, arguments made by discussant Gordon N. Bardos were summarized by Gerard Toal as follows (http://bosniaremade.wordpress.com/): “The authors hold a constructivist position that underestimates the power of ethnicity. While ethnicity was not the primordial axis of life in BiH it was the primary one. Ethnicity predicts two-thirds of the time who one will marry, what attitudes one will have, etc.” Bardos revisits the issue of “interethnic marriage” in his article for National Interest entitled “Fetishes and Fantasies in Bosnia” published on August 11, 2011 (http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/fetishes-fantasies-bosnia-5748). Bardos uses almost identical language as in the Transconflict article arguing that “[m]ixed marriages in nineteenth century Bosnia were unheard of, and despite the myth of high levels of interethnic marriage propagated in the 1990s, remained rare throughout Bosnia’s twentieth-century history. As late as 1988, for instance, 93 percent of Bosnia’s Muslims married within their ethnic group, and Bosnia’s Croat and Serb Christians were not much more inclined to intermarry...”

With this kind of background information, it seems quite likely that in this case ethnicity predicted who will attend RS President’s talk entitled “An American Foreign Policy Success Story: The Dayton Accords, Republika Srpska, and Bosnia’s European Integration”. And who will not.