Objective: Students will better understand issues of ethnic identity, collective thinking, and the sociology of war.

Method: Students will watch the documentary in class.  This will be supplemented by links on the website (www.crucibleofwar.com) and additional readings selected by the instructor.

Checking for Understanding: Questions for Discussion

Combined Independent/Group Activity

Students will first work individually or in pairs. They will each be assigned a character.  The student should research more on the character’s country, nationality, and social background to assist with this activity.   In some cases, there may be additional interview transcripts or other information on the Crucible of War website.  In some cases, students may have to make educated guesses.  The characters include:

(a) a farmer who fought for his Croatian motherland, but now can’t find anyone willing to buy his wheat
(b) a Bosnian-Croat priest whose family was killed by Bosnian Serbs and whose house was occupied by Bosnian Muslims during the war
(c) a retired teacher who experienced ethnic hatred in World War II and again in the 1990s war because she was a Serb living in Croatia
(d) a young man whose parents are from two different nationalities, but are now living in a nationally homogenous community in Croatia
(e) a garbage man from Bosnia who fled the fighting during the war and has now returned home
(f) an American soldier serving as a peacekeeper in Bosnia
(g) a Roma (Gypsy) who begs on the streets of Sarajevo
(h) a veteran who fought for the Yugoslav Army in the Krajina and now lives as an internally displaced person
(i) a pacifist student from Belgrade who has been drafted into the Yugoslav Army to fight in Kosovo
(j) a 15-year-old refugee from the war in Bosnia who has relocated to the United States
(k) a foreign aid worker working with orphaned children in Kosovo

Individual Homework Assignment (Written)

Answer the following questions about your character: Where was your character born? Does he/she still live there? How does the character feel about that place? What does your character do for a living? How does your character spend free time? Does your character have a family? If so, tell us about them. If not, tell us why not.  How was your character directly affected by war in the Balkans? How does he/she feel about this?  What is your character’s hope for the future? Why?

Individual Class Presentation (Oral)

Each student will introduce their character to the class and spend 5 minutes telling the class how their character was affected by war in the Balkans. Other students will have a chance to ask questions.

Small Group Activity

Each character will be paired with another character at random. They will have to interview each other to find out five things that make them alike and five things that make them different. How do the characters feel about each other’s background? How do they feel about each other as individuals?  Students will reflect on this experience. How has it made them more aware of their own backgrounds and their similarities and differences with each other?

Closure

Dehumanization is the act of reducing people to objects that don’t deserve treatment normally given to human beings.  It is hard for many people to believe this was still possible in the 1990s, but it was.  Using several examples of people profiled in the film, why do you think this was possible in the Balkans?   What social control mechanisms were used to aid in this dehumanization?  Do you think that similar methods would ever be possible in your country?