OSCE presents wining theatrical performances on countering violent ex-tremism in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Four student teams from Universities of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology were on stage on 13 March 2018 in Sarajevo to perform the winning plays of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)’s drama contest on countering violent extremism. 

The first prize was awarded to a play entitled Dead End, which addressed religious extremism in the context of disturbed family relations as a risk for radicalization. “Creating this play was hard but a great pleasure for me and my colleagues,” said Minela Osmanovic, a pedagogy student, who performed in the play. “We were all equally engaged on all aspects of production, from script writing, filming to designing costumes, even in times when we were overwhelmed with our studies.” 

Arma Tanovic-Brankovic, professor at the Sarajevo Academy of Performing Arts, who assisted the students during their preparation of the plays, said: “The OSCE Mission to BiH recognized the power of theatre as a communication medium for sensitizing people to current issues and these plays confirmed that even an issue such as countering violent extremism can come close to young people via theatre. All the young people who participated in this project showed commitment, creativity and work ethic and as their mentor I am very pleased with the results.”

Prior to the contest, the Mission had organized two expert-led workshops in Sarajevo and Banja Luka to help prepare the students for developing a script representing their view about an individual’s path to violent extremism and different types of radicalization.

“We encouraged the students to do further research and reading before writing their script,” said Selma Zekovic, acting head of the Security Co-operation Unit of the OSCE Mission to BiH.  “We want the students to learn more about radicalization to violence, hate crimes and bias motivated incidents, the psychological aspects of radicalization, and the role of faith, religion and ideology in preventing and countering violent extremism.”

The contest Countering Violent Extremism Dramatic Production was supported by the United States Department of State.