so what I would like to talk to you
about is how diversity can sometimes be
very challenged in our societies as you
will hear I come from this very
disturbed region that suffered a loss in
a previous previous two decades but
diversity when translated into my
mother’s own Bosnian does not actually
means a lot to us we don’t use this word
much instead we use the words like
different a mixture multicultural
multinational multi dissing death so
there’s a lot of these Maltese in the
thing but none of these completely
encompasses what the diversity actually
stands for at least for me it is all all
around us it is everywhere wherever you
look you see diversity it influences us
in so many ways even though sometimes we
don’t actually notice this and we are
not so aware of it
thus diversity strikes us as a very
important thing yeah I come from a
country that was once very open
embracing diversity encouraging it in
all our everyday lives but then the
horrible war stopped stopped the whole
the whole thing so when the war ended
diversity now was not there appreciate
any longer
diversity was not encouraged and somehow
it was partly banned from from all of
our lives we had diversity in a
political lingual cultural historical in
all other ways but this was not longer
acceptable my two brothers and I we were
born in we were born into diversity my
mother’s side of the family has a
Christian Catholic background my
father’s side has a Muslim background
and many of our relatives come from the
Orthodox background we supposed to
embrace this diversity to promote it
wherever we go not to live it only for
ourselves but to spread it all over the
all over the town all over the community
in our classes it was not always easy
coming from a mixture was not always
acceptable and just few days ago Muslims
around the world
celebrated a wonderful holiday of AIDS
and even though my apartment is being
renovated and my mother could not make a
cake she went to the shop and bought one
and I asked why for the sake of things
we don’t have a place where to eat it
actually and she said simply why not
it’s a holiday and there should be a
cake on a holiday it was not a homemade
but still it was very delicious and I
have to tell you there is a funny part
of this story
most of our holidays we have cake so
when you combine them with all our
birthdays there should be cake roughly
every five days in a year so we are a
huge family embracing this diversity
made it possible for me to talk to other
people to travel around to meet others
to meet and other cultures to study all
over the Balkans which was not easy when
I was growing up this made my life more
exciting and most more more worth living
yep and I speak only about this small
part of my identity there’s so many
other layers we don’t often think about
diversity and what actually diversity
stands for if you imagine you’ve been
invited to a photo exhibition and you
enter this gallery and there’s 86 photos
hanging on the walls you look at them
and all of them look the same I mean the
photo is very beautiful you would agree
but who would waste hours of time to
look at the same photo all over again so
this is the essence and why diversity is
important in our lives without diversity
in all aspects of the things that we do
I think the world would be a very boring
place indeed where do we find this
diversity one definition states the
diversity is a range of different things
basically differences and differences
can be found anywhere we can find them
in our everyday lives we can find them
in our houses we can
I am just sitting with other people one
time I was doing a workshop with young
kids in a primary school in a secondary
school 18 18 15 to 18 years of age
around 80 of them I asked them I’ve
heard them talking about diversity and I
asked them to give me some time to
brainstorm with them then I put them up
on a piece of paper and draw the line I
asked them to tell me the differences it
was very easy they said that the note is
more populated the north is more cold
the north is more developed the north is
more open the north is more democratic
and so on and so on for the south they
didn’t have such a beautiful words
so the south is much poorer the south
has problems the South has so many
conflict so many wars and so many
negative things then I challenged them
with another map a bit closer to us bit
closer to our hearts and minds I asked
them to tell me differences between
these two parts basically the same the
East is less developed the East has
problems the East has migration crisis
they cannot handle the West is democracy
the West is developed the West is what
we strive for then again even closer to
heart safer separating Europe on what we
know as a South and North and they again
said the North is the one that bails us
always out the South is the one
depending the South has the problems
financial crisis South has all these
separate separatist movements South is
the one oh that always suffers and the
knoll is always one who fixed the
problem then even closer
we started zooming in to the Balkans and
then to Bosnia Herzegovina with several
lines I’m not going to tell you the
differences they told me at these
meetings couple of them because they’re
quite shocking and they come from the
from the legacy of war in the past 20
years whether where the transition
almost never happened we went on and on
and we finally
came to the community where people were
sitting and talking to me so if you
imagine this small town with 15,000
people it’s quiet it’s a quite a small
place and I drew a line because I’ve I
had no idea what the town looks like who
lives where and what what goes where but
apparently they did they said in this
case that the north is more developed
because mayor lives there most of the
City Council comes from this place even
though most of the kids who go to school
are from the south the school is in the
north and there is no bus from the south
the pavements are much nicer in the
north there is a tree lines there is
parts there’s everything that you need
to live while the sound is being
abandoned to some extent so even in this
small community they found a huge list
of differences and then I asked them to
imagine a line in a room when they were
all sitting so if I would ask you now to
imagine that there is a line in the
middle of the room and to start thinking
about the differences naturally they
found many again but this time they were
a little bit more positive and more
personal because there was no more
political and strategic approach to all
of this at this point they actually
figured out where I was going with all
of this it is easy to find differences
because they exist everywhere some of
them are geographical and some of them
are natural which is fine
but most of them are social the ones
that we create as a human beings they
are everywhere but what is important to
remember in all of this was that they
all agreed 95% of differences that we
found were actually the negative ones
this means that when we look at
diversity we try to find things that are
differentiate us from them we found them
and we found them always negative ones
this is how this very bad definition of
diversity came into our society not only
bosnia-herzegovina by the entire region
at some point the diversity started
becoming a synonym for something that is
not ours
that we have to stay away from that we
have to keep distance from something
that was not desirable we started giving
negative connotations and meanings to
sometimes diversity in
bosnia-herzegovina can be quite funny
for all of you who understand the Slavic
languages you will see we have three
official languages Bosnian Serbian and
Croatian and this is how the look the
pack of cigarettes looks like it’s
basically says smoking kills the first
language is Bosnian second is creation
and third is Serbian or Croatian Bosnian
and serbian it doesn’t really make much
of a difference the only difference is
that Serbian language is written in a
Cyrillic
basically saying the same thing and this
is what we have in all our institutions
all our buildings all our roads every
wherever you go you will see everything
written in triple languages we know that
they are not so much different but we
still appreciate this diversity and we
are lucky to have all three of them so
when I tell you later on coffee that I
speak six languages five of those are
actually from the Balkans and then
English apparently there’s something
else that happened to me this is this is
not a good side of diversity and how
Bosnia Herzegovina suffered from from
the war one time I was in a meeting with
several Europeans coming from all over
Europe and we were talking about our
experiences and the girl who I’ve met
quite Lucent Lea she introduced herself
as an engineer and as soon as I’ve heard
the word an engineer me being a lawyer
by profession I stopped listening
I left my mind to wander away I couldn’t
actually care what she was saying
because I thought she’s not like me I
don’t have anything to talk to her so I
just sometimes very unconsciously
ignored her for a couple of days and
then in one of the workshops
she actually said what she does as an
engineer is she builds planes the ones
that you can actually operate and since
I like to fly and I like the planes
and I like to play still yeah with the
toys I started listening I engaged my
brain again and then that was the moment
where I actually learned things where my
mind went beyond this one small
difference and started seeing what this
person really is this love for planes
and a very small thing and toys started
connection that now means a lot she does
not only build planes but she uses these
to make connections between kids in the
Balkan region she uses planes as a tool
to make them socialize to do something
with their head and hands and in their
minds with their hearts and their minds
to make something positive another story
that comes to my mind is some time ago I
was in a town in Bosnia Herzegovina
where they used to really clatters as
the first one and this is something very
common for Bosnia we used to really can
let him equally most everywhere
unfortunately but then all of a sudden I
was going through my slides the topic
was volunteerism and slides were in
Latin except this one big slide which
was a photo and I have to be honest I
didn’t transcribe it translated because
I would I was too lazy it was a huge
thing and I didn’t find time just do it
in in Latin words and as soon as I
started reading from the slide from the
wall there were a couple of questions
couple of hands raised I stopped and
asked them and the thing was that they
did not believe that I know the SI
relics because of my background and my
surname they just assumed that I’m from
another part and there’s no way I can do
this and they followed with the
questions is it really you reading the
spheric or someone told you what is
written in there is it’s really reading
or there is a somewhere this small piece
of the cheating piece of paper yep they
couldn’t believe what they were actually
hearing and seeing so I continued
talking them to them how all of this can
be
used in our everyday lives and how they
should not assume something’s are right
or wrong or yes or no the discussion
followed in so many other directions but
basically they started understanding how
diversity is part of all of us this
brings me to another thing this one
thing diversity has a lot to do with the
perceptions and there’s always a problem
with the perceptions how I see things
how you see things and how other people
see the same things and how this view of
this one thing is actually changing when
you change the perspective if you move
from this side of the room to another
side you will see this stage completely
differently try to think about it and
this is what I carry with me all the
time this is what I try to tell people
wherever I go I work with thousands of
people every every year so it’s a loss
of young people from ten to twenty eight
years of age when I’m which I’m trying
to teach or to enable them to learn that
differences are not always negative
differences can be positive and we have
to find a way to make ourselves aware
that we have a different perspectives
perceptions so basically this is like
problem-solving
you can either one trying to find a
person to blame for all of this so I can
blame people for my prompter not working
so they’re quite yeah quite there so
it’s their fault or I can be a person
who can actually try to find the
solution how the things can work in map
for my benefit how I can use this
diversity this challenge this this small
problem that we have to actually get
something beneficial for all of us and I
always choose the second I always
embrace diversity and I think everyone
else should thank you
you [Applause]
about is how diversity can sometimes be
very challenged in our societies as you
will hear I come from this very
disturbed region that suffered a loss in
a previous previous two decades but
diversity when translated into my
mother’s own Bosnian does not actually
means a lot to us we don’t use this word
much instead we use the words like
different a mixture multicultural
multinational multi dissing death so
there’s a lot of these Maltese in the
thing but none of these completely
encompasses what the diversity actually
stands for at least for me it is all all
around us it is everywhere wherever you
look you see diversity it influences us
in so many ways even though sometimes we
don’t actually notice this and we are
not so aware of it
thus diversity strikes us as a very
important thing yeah I come from a
country that was once very open
embracing diversity encouraging it in
all our everyday lives but then the
horrible war stopped stopped the whole
the whole thing so when the war ended
diversity now was not there appreciate
any longer
diversity was not encouraged and somehow
it was partly banned from from all of
our lives we had diversity in a
political lingual cultural historical in
all other ways but this was not longer
acceptable my two brothers and I we were
born in we were born into diversity my
mother’s side of the family has a
Christian Catholic background my
father’s side has a Muslim background
and many of our relatives come from the
Orthodox background we supposed to
embrace this diversity to promote it
wherever we go not to live it only for
ourselves but to spread it all over the
all over the town all over the community
in our classes it was not always easy
coming from a mixture was not always
acceptable and just few days ago Muslims
around the world
celebrated a wonderful holiday of AIDS
and even though my apartment is being
renovated and my mother could not make a
cake she went to the shop and bought one
and I asked why for the sake of things
we don’t have a place where to eat it
actually and she said simply why not
it’s a holiday and there should be a
cake on a holiday it was not a homemade
but still it was very delicious and I
have to tell you there is a funny part
of this story
most of our holidays we have cake so
when you combine them with all our
birthdays there should be cake roughly
every five days in a year so we are a
huge family embracing this diversity
made it possible for me to talk to other
people to travel around to meet others
to meet and other cultures to study all
over the Balkans which was not easy when
I was growing up this made my life more
exciting and most more more worth living
yep and I speak only about this small
part of my identity there’s so many
other layers we don’t often think about
diversity and what actually diversity
stands for if you imagine you’ve been
invited to a photo exhibition and you
enter this gallery and there’s 86 photos
hanging on the walls you look at them
and all of them look the same I mean the
photo is very beautiful you would agree
but who would waste hours of time to
look at the same photo all over again so
this is the essence and why diversity is
important in our lives without diversity
in all aspects of the things that we do
I think the world would be a very boring
place indeed where do we find this
diversity one definition states the
diversity is a range of different things
basically differences and differences
can be found anywhere we can find them
in our everyday lives we can find them
in our houses we can
I am just sitting with other people one
time I was doing a workshop with young
kids in a primary school in a secondary
school 18 18 15 to 18 years of age
around 80 of them I asked them I’ve
heard them talking about diversity and I
asked them to give me some time to
brainstorm with them then I put them up
on a piece of paper and draw the line I
asked them to tell me the differences it
was very easy they said that the note is
more populated the north is more cold
the north is more developed the north is
more open the north is more democratic
and so on and so on for the south they
didn’t have such a beautiful words
so the south is much poorer the south
has problems the South has so many
conflict so many wars and so many
negative things then I challenged them
with another map a bit closer to us bit
closer to our hearts and minds I asked
them to tell me differences between
these two parts basically the same the
East is less developed the East has
problems the East has migration crisis
they cannot handle the West is democracy
the West is developed the West is what
we strive for then again even closer to
heart safer separating Europe on what we
know as a South and North and they again
said the North is the one that bails us
always out the South is the one
depending the South has the problems
financial crisis South has all these
separate separatist movements South is
the one oh that always suffers and the
knoll is always one who fixed the
problem then even closer
we started zooming in to the Balkans and
then to Bosnia Herzegovina with several
lines I’m not going to tell you the
differences they told me at these
meetings couple of them because they’re
quite shocking and they come from the
from the legacy of war in the past 20
years whether where the transition
almost never happened we went on and on
and we finally
came to the community where people were
sitting and talking to me so if you
imagine this small town with 15,000
people it’s quiet it’s a quite a small
place and I drew a line because I’ve I
had no idea what the town looks like who
lives where and what what goes where but
apparently they did they said in this
case that the north is more developed
because mayor lives there most of the
City Council comes from this place even
though most of the kids who go to school
are from the south the school is in the
north and there is no bus from the south
the pavements are much nicer in the
north there is a tree lines there is
parts there’s everything that you need
to live while the sound is being
abandoned to some extent so even in this
small community they found a huge list
of differences and then I asked them to
imagine a line in a room when they were
all sitting so if I would ask you now to
imagine that there is a line in the
middle of the room and to start thinking
about the differences naturally they
found many again but this time they were
a little bit more positive and more
personal because there was no more
political and strategic approach to all
of this at this point they actually
figured out where I was going with all
of this it is easy to find differences
because they exist everywhere some of
them are geographical and some of them
are natural which is fine
but most of them are social the ones
that we create as a human beings they
are everywhere but what is important to
remember in all of this was that they
all agreed 95% of differences that we
found were actually the negative ones
this means that when we look at
diversity we try to find things that are
differentiate us from them we found them
and we found them always negative ones
this is how this very bad definition of
diversity came into our society not only
bosnia-herzegovina by the entire region
at some point the diversity started
becoming a synonym for something that is
not ours
that we have to stay away from that we
have to keep distance from something
that was not desirable we started giving
negative connotations and meanings to
sometimes diversity in
bosnia-herzegovina can be quite funny
for all of you who understand the Slavic
languages you will see we have three
official languages Bosnian Serbian and
Croatian and this is how the look the
pack of cigarettes looks like it’s
basically says smoking kills the first
language is Bosnian second is creation
and third is Serbian or Croatian Bosnian
and serbian it doesn’t really make much
of a difference the only difference is
that Serbian language is written in a
Cyrillic
basically saying the same thing and this
is what we have in all our institutions
all our buildings all our roads every
wherever you go you will see everything
written in triple languages we know that
they are not so much different but we
still appreciate this diversity and we
are lucky to have all three of them so
when I tell you later on coffee that I
speak six languages five of those are
actually from the Balkans and then
English apparently there’s something
else that happened to me this is this is
not a good side of diversity and how
Bosnia Herzegovina suffered from from
the war one time I was in a meeting with
several Europeans coming from all over
Europe and we were talking about our
experiences and the girl who I’ve met
quite Lucent Lea she introduced herself
as an engineer and as soon as I’ve heard
the word an engineer me being a lawyer
by profession I stopped listening
I left my mind to wander away I couldn’t
actually care what she was saying
because I thought she’s not like me I
don’t have anything to talk to her so I
just sometimes very unconsciously
ignored her for a couple of days and
then in one of the workshops
she actually said what she does as an
engineer is she builds planes the ones
that you can actually operate and since
I like to fly and I like the planes
and I like to play still yeah with the
toys I started listening I engaged my
brain again and then that was the moment
where I actually learned things where my
mind went beyond this one small
difference and started seeing what this
person really is this love for planes
and a very small thing and toys started
connection that now means a lot she does
not only build planes but she uses these
to make connections between kids in the
Balkan region she uses planes as a tool
to make them socialize to do something
with their head and hands and in their
minds with their hearts and their minds
to make something positive another story
that comes to my mind is some time ago I
was in a town in Bosnia Herzegovina
where they used to really clatters as
the first one and this is something very
common for Bosnia we used to really can
let him equally most everywhere
unfortunately but then all of a sudden I
was going through my slides the topic
was volunteerism and slides were in
Latin except this one big slide which
was a photo and I have to be honest I
didn’t transcribe it translated because
I would I was too lazy it was a huge
thing and I didn’t find time just do it
in in Latin words and as soon as I
started reading from the slide from the
wall there were a couple of questions
couple of hands raised I stopped and
asked them and the thing was that they
did not believe that I know the SI
relics because of my background and my
surname they just assumed that I’m from
another part and there’s no way I can do
this and they followed with the
questions is it really you reading the
spheric or someone told you what is
written in there is it’s really reading
or there is a somewhere this small piece
of the cheating piece of paper yep they
couldn’t believe what they were actually
hearing and seeing so I continued
talking them to them how all of this can
be
used in our everyday lives and how they
should not assume something’s are right
or wrong or yes or no the discussion
followed in so many other directions but
basically they started understanding how
diversity is part of all of us this
brings me to another thing this one
thing diversity has a lot to do with the
perceptions and there’s always a problem
with the perceptions how I see things
how you see things and how other people
see the same things and how this view of
this one thing is actually changing when
you change the perspective if you move
from this side of the room to another
side you will see this stage completely
differently try to think about it and
this is what I carry with me all the
time this is what I try to tell people
wherever I go I work with thousands of
people every every year so it’s a loss
of young people from ten to twenty eight
years of age when I’m which I’m trying
to teach or to enable them to learn that
differences are not always negative
differences can be positive and we have
to find a way to make ourselves aware
that we have a different perspectives
perceptions so basically this is like
problem-solving
you can either one trying to find a
person to blame for all of this so I can
blame people for my prompter not working
so they’re quite yeah quite there so
it’s their fault or I can be a person
who can actually try to find the
solution how the things can work in map
for my benefit how I can use this
diversity this challenge this this small
problem that we have to actually get
something beneficial for all of us and I
always choose the second I always
embrace diversity and I think everyone
else should thank you
you [Applause]
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