Bosnian Nation-State, Politics, and Identity

By: Senadin Lavić

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Bosnian Nation. The formation and development of a modern Bosnian nation is a politically meaningful task of our time, in which the ultimate demand for the freedom of the Bosnian people is expressed. The Bosnian nation is conceived as a community of free citizens, regardless of their ethnic, class, gender, sexual, racial, religious, or any other characteristics. It is a civic nation that transcends ethnopolitics and its ethno-religious exclusivism. It implies a secular state and the rule of law, political unity, and independence. Bosnian national identity is built on the basis of citizenship or belonging to a state form. One is not Bosnian because they speak the Bosnian language or because they are Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox, as that is their ethno-identity determination "above" which the nation-state stands. The nation is a unifying political and general interest of citizens, not a space for the individual interest of some ruler, priest, ethno-oligarchy, or socio-cultural group.

The historical-political meaning of the civic nation is constantly undermined by ethno-religious demands in which conservative consciousness perpetuates several characteristics of the collective and imposes them on the social group as eternal, definitive, and unchangeable contents. In the concept of the civic nation, differences in ethnic groups in language, worldview, ethnic origin, belief, historical memory, and similar determinations are overcome. Cultural-historical markers are not imposed on the political-legal concept of the nation-state.

The nation is an "imagined community" (B. Anderson) that, at some point, begins to perceive itself as a homogeneous body. This has become almost self-evident. Following Gellner's assumption that nationalism does not bring nations to self-awareness but invents nations "where they do not exist," we acknowledge the role of nationalism as a political ideology responsible for the process of "nation-building." Thus, the nation-state arises because nationalism, through ideologues-propagators-founders, shapes national consciousness and directs it under the umbrella of the nation. The nation does not appear on its own, like some biological form; it is a purely historical-political construct of a group of propagators, patriots, and followers.

Obstruction of the establishment of Bosnian consciousness as the basis of the Bosnian nation-state. Since the 19th century, a planned transformation of consciousness among the population of Bosnia has been carried out, starting from religious differences. Religions, at a certain historical moment, serve as infrastructure for spreading national ideologies. It is evident that religion has remained the main characteristic of ethnicity and national programs to this day. The processes of nationalizing Bosnia have led to a "paradox" that is considered truth in ideologized narratives and pseudo-scientific constructs, namely, that throughout the 20th century, it began to be said that Bosnia has no native "people." This lie was an expression of the power and knowledge relations in these regions.

From the second half of the 19th century to the present day, there has been a planned obstruction of the development of Bosnian consciousness in freedom at all levels of human socio-historical action. For these purposes, systems of education, police, army, courts, military force, crimes, and persecution are used. That is why we have reached a state where we "do not know" that today's state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a nation-state, that it is systematically treated as a "state without a nation" which is merely a space for technical demarcation between Serbian and Croatian nationalism. That is why priests and ethnopoliticians are the main speakers of every narrative about the meaning of life or the truth of history. Bosnia has been prevented from developing as a nation-state; it has been constantly reduced to an ethno-religious community of ethnic groups fighting for territories in the name of neighboring states, and the powers in Belgrade or Zagreb have carefully ensured that no idea or political narrative about the Bosnian nation develops. Such an idea has been rejected in advance as impossible, meaningless, illusory, naive. The most visible example of the denial of Bosnia is the propaganda cliché of the "dark land."

Absence of Bosnian politics. Ethnopolitics in Bosnia for the last thirty years has perpetuated conflict as a mode of existence for ethnic groups. Since the 1990s, ethnopolitics has been inaugurated in Bosnia and has dramatically suppressed any possibility of Bosnian civic politics.

Within the ethnopolitics of Serbdom, Bosnia is "understood" as a new creation, or rather, as a state that was formed in Dayton in 1995 by assembling the ethnic "territories" of Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. This is an ethno-trinity that ethnopolitics blindly follows. According to it, the entirety of Bosnia and Bosnianhood must constantly be reduced to "three peoples" – this is not found anywhere in the European political world today in such a primitive way.

Ethnoterritorial nationalism directly denies the state, sovereignty, Bosnian identity, and any idea of Bosnianhood. It systematically undermines the entire state of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the Bosnian nation-state! Behind all the talk of ethnic territories in Bosnia are neighboring states that pursue their hegemonic plans through them. They are assisted in this by comprador political parties.

The peoples in Bosnia today are trapped in a deep past. Bosniaks invoke Tito and the Partisans, Serbs have rehabilitated the quisling general Draža Mihailović and the Chetniks, Croats have revived the ideas of Pavelić and the Ustaše. Unfortunately, there is no decisive Bosnian political vision for the future. It can only be created by sophisticated Bosnian political philosophy.

Alienated Ethno-oligarchies. An unorganized state of Bosnia creates space for criminal groups at all levels of the system to carry out illegal activities unhindered and to profit from fraud. Ethnopolitics creates controlled chaos on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina – this ethnopolitics, led by ethnic oligarchies, was based on agreements behind or above the institutions of the system, legal regulations, and legal solutions, reducing the political system to the application of an ethnic key from the gatekeeper to the state presidency.

In order to maintain hegemony over Bosnia by neighboring states, dominant ethnopolitics convinces us that the ethno-religious is more important than a civic, secular, rational society, that Bosnian Serbs must seek wisdom in Belgrade, and Croats in Zagreb, or that Bosniaks should go to Istanbul to the "Sultan" for opinions and must not even think about developing a republican state of Bosnia. In such a context, people must live divided into tribes that must not even think of a Bosnian nation-state. Ethnopolitics imposed from Belgrade must understand that Bosnia can no longer be ruled from Serbia – that time is irrevocably passing!

Bosnia must continue its path towards Euro-Atlantic integration. To create a strong and powerful state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is necessary to develop Bosnian civic consciousness, Bosnian identity, Bosnianhood in citizens, and a republican spirit. The Dayton Agreement is not a historical and definitive framework for the future and political development of Bosnia, as some would like, who believe that positions achieved through war must remain permanent and unquestionable. It is completely clear that Bosnia, as a state, must tie its future to Euro-Atlantic integration.

Serbia today directly influences processes in Bosnia. Today, Serbia is implementing its hegemonic program in Bosnia through Memorandum II. With the help of the entity division of Bosnia, neighboring Serbia directs the policy of Bosnian Serbs. From Belgrade, there is an open influence on processes in Bosnia today. The administrative division of Bosnia through the Dayton Peace Agreement is not just a mere "administrative organization of the state." This division clearly shows the intentions of Greater Serbian hegemonic policy towards Bosnia. Based on this division, Serbia has the opportunity to directly interfere in the internal affairs of Bosnia and, as a great "protector" and "peacemaker," to manage every action of Bosnian Serbs. Serbia plays the role of a great peacemaker after the failed wars of S. Milošević! It regularly gathers Bosnian Serbs in Belgrade and gives them instructions on how to boycott and obstruct the functioning of the state of Bosnia. In doing so, Serbia gives itself and builds the role of a great and main state in the Balkans, superior to all other states. It does not respect the territories of other states and develops the stance that Serbia is wherever Serbs live. Today's government in Serbia continues where Milošević left off, but only with different, peacetime means.

It is continuously denied and concealed that the Serbian army, through military conquests and genocide against Bosniaks in the Republic of BiH, created a "Serbian territory" which was transformed into the "RS entity." Greater Serbian policy, as a "peacemaking form," convinces us that the Constitution adopted in Dayton after aggression and genocide is, in fact, definitive, untouchable for change, the final expression of the legal order in Bosnia, completed, unquestionable. Citizens of Bosnia, therefore, according to the Greater Serbian interpretation, must remain trapped in the straitjacket of nationalist exclusivity. This is a continuation of the history of denying everything Bosnian. Today, Bosnia and Herzegovina is, unfortunately, a state trapped and stalled in development, where politics is conducted according to an ethno-religious key.

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* Senadin Lavić is a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo

* The text was presented at a session of the Association of Independent Intellectuals - Krug 99 in Sarajevo