How to make the minority voices heard?
Sadikarijo dwelled on the issue of cooperation, noting that it is important to “find a big brother who will stand next to you,” such as the Jewish community of Bulgaria in the case he represented. “Ultimately, the big brother has to be at home,” reciprocated Gebert, emphasizing the universal approach to speaking about the challenges faced by minority communities. “One of the mistakes we often make as minorities is that we want to attract attention to what we consider legitimate demands by pointing out just how much we are hurt by those demands not being met. If we can show that the majority society is damaging itself, then possibly we can actually get action,” he explained. Dr. Barsch spoke of universal design of learning approaches to different groups and the shared authority approach in creating narratives. “The idea here when it comes to best or good practice is to make use of diversity,” he summarized.
The discussion included the issue of civil society voices in North Macedonia concerning the history of Macedonian Jews, the universalization of the memory of the Holocaust to such an extent that it is instrumentalized, the importance of including the minority representatives in narrating their stories, and the mechanisms of collective forgetting.∎