Article published in magazine BH Dani
As a part of the Someone said Feminism? lecture series Gorana Mlinarević, a feminist, activist and a PhD candidate at the National University of Ireland and an adviser at Goldsmiths gave a lecture on Feminist critique of militarization of the everyday, at the Museum of Literature and Theatre Arts on 17th June. The series of feminist lectures is organized by the Sarajevo Open Centre with the partner support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the media support of magazine Dani. Gorana Mlinarević used this opportunity to speak about the extent to which militarism is present in all aspects of our lives, the deep roots militarism has in our society and the connection between militarism and neoliberal capitalism.
At the very beginning of the new series of Someone said Feminism? lectures Jasmina Čaušević from the Sarajevo Open Centre pointed out that because of the centenary of the beginning of the First World War 2014 has seen a lively discussion within feminist circles on participation and contribution of women in wars. Inspired by that, this lecture explored whether and how the feminist critique can challenge and shake the concepts of militarization and what happens to militarization today, in the age of neoliberal capitalism, when the roles of states are significantly different than before.
At the beginning of the lecture Gorana pointed out that militarism is a topic in her courses on women, security and war, but so far she hasn’t had the opportunity to explore militarism in BiH. At the beginning she said that she envisioned the lecture as a way to unpack the questions connected to this topic and as a starting point for further research of militarization in BiH, especially from a feminist perspective.
According to Gorana the armies rely on women despite their apparent masculinity, but those experiences are not always the same.
Gorana tried to contextualize these concepts in BiH. For her the interest in militarism lies in the fact that the BiH constitution is militarist. “Only the representatives of the warring factions participated n creating the Constitution, men with arms and representatives of other states which have powerful armies. Our peace agreement was signed at a military base and it was drafted in a way that promotes constant militarization of society and conflict between the identified ethnic groups which were later institutionalized thereby further encouraging increase in violence and conflict, which then justifies the hire of private contractors.”