In cooperation with the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Rijeka, the Centre for Peace Studies, and the Delta Association, a series of lectures for final-year secondary school students in Rijeka will be held this April and May on the topics of the militarization of society and conscientious objection.
The lectures and discussions will take place at the initiative of Rijeka-based film director Igor Bezinović, who, in agreement with his collaborators on the film, decided to allocate the €10,000 Mayor Iva Rinčić Award—received in recognition of the international success of the film “Fiume o morte!”—to anti-war education for Rijeka high school students:
“I come from a city where the British industrialist Robert Whitehead first manufactured the torpedo, a city that was bombed during the First World War, that was under a fascist regime between the two world wars, a city whose port, shipyards, and factories were destroyed in the Second World War, and a city and region where around 40,000 displaced persons and refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were accommodated in the 1990s. Therefore, I believe it is important today to develop an anti-war sentiment and an anti-war community in our region, as well as awareness that oligarchs and military industrialists—who personally profit greatly from wars—are returning to Rijeka. I also believe that in the present time, when compulsory military service is being introduced in Croatia, it is important to inform secondary school students about their right to conscientious objection and to civilian service as an alternative to military service.”
The Head of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Rijeka, Associate Professor Marko Kovačić, expressed hope that the program will encourage other cities and counties in Croatia to organize similar lectures and discussions. In addition, he expects the City of Rijeka and the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County to support this initiative in their public communications and to highlight the effects of the militarization of society, as well as the importance of promoting peacebuilding as one of the fundamental constitutional values.
In the coming period, the organizers will contact principals of secondary schools in Rijeka with the proposal to hold lectures and discussions for all final-year classes. This would provide students with the opportunity to make informed decisions about their own engagement in promoting the ideas of peace and nonviolence, as well as about military service.