Bosniak Circle with Chalk

Who are we Bosniaks telling that we are for Bosnia and Herzegovina? What have we done with this Federation and the third, on which we were supposed to build an example for the state and a place of dignified life?

A quarter of a century after the war, genocide, and horrific crimes, it seems we are consciously forgetting our victims. For months, not a single word about the verdicts against Mladić, Karadžić, and the Prlić group can be read in the Sarajevo media. Where is our solidarity? Sense of community? Sense of justice for veterans? Of course, we are nowhere near what we were in the midst of the war, when, in the worst hunger and misery, we shared our last morsels. When we were ready for any sacrifice. A high-ranking security officer silenced me when I spoke to him about the heroism of the fighters from Gornji Vakuf, whom he had arrested for alleged smuggling in early 1995: "What heroes, stop that empty talk," he said, and I replied, "I know those people, but you have no idea about their heroism." We argued fiercely.

Today, unfortunately, a quarter of a century later, the state does not know exactly who its true heroes of defense were, and who were mere conscript numbers. Twenty-five years without a veterans' registry is a disgrace to the Bosniak authorities in the Federation.

What have we done with healthcare? Our top doctors earn less than the lowest-paid and mostly uneducated cronies in public companies. There is talk of young people leaving, but God forbid that these top doctors, on whom our lives depend, leave this country.

We are a nation whose members mostly look to get jobs in public companies and administration. The state encourages this by robbing the real sector with huge taxes, meaning those who produce and on whom the future of all of us depends. Everything is for sale and everything is bought, including jobs. Recently, a taxi driver complained to me that he gave all his savings for a license, which means existence for his family.

In primary education, we have turned children into cases. Primary school has become a place of terrible experimentation. A mother recently complained to me that her son, in the first grade, after only two or three months of school, was given tests to do, and immediately traumas, stress, and tears began. Our children go to primary school as if they are being tortured. This is where the competition with 15 to 18 subjects begins. New subjects are invented, new burdens are placed on their backs, and new stupidities are pushed into the heads of these children. In "backward and underdeveloped" countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, or Finland, students are not graded until high school. The last primitives have stolen our children's childhood.

Textbooks are a story in themselves. I read long ago that a cultural figure from the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina cited "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky as his favorite literary work. This is probably the most Islamophobic novel in the history of world literature. On one occasion, I was flipping through a high school reader and saw excerpts from The Brothers Karamazov. I looked at the imprint: a former madrasa student, a cultural figure, signed the reader in which he included an excerpt from "Karamazov." You don't need to destroy nations. Destroy their education, and the incompetent will rule. Let's look at the faculties in Međeđe, lower and upper. Faculty diplomas are practically being sold at local shops. One cannot believe that this is happening here, before our eyes, and in this country.

We do not read, we do not educate ourselves as much as we should after all the horrors we have survived.

For years, the same lies have been circulating on social networks. Recently, the news was published that in Tuzla, a mother beat her baby and threw it in a container. Journalists from the Raskrinkavanje.ba portal explained that it was a lie and that the baby in question was Jacob from Oregon, USA, and that the photo and event were more than a year old. But that lie is still circulating on the networks, and it is mostly multiplied and shared by Bosniaks. Judging by social networks, Bosniaks are the easiest to incite with fake news and deceptions.

The story of moral renewal is arduous. Politics has largely turned immoral individuals into respected Bosniak figures.

We have turned the judiciary into liberation forces. Where is our rule of law? How is such impunity possible? Given the enormous amount of corruption, how is such a large number of acquittals possible? Within prosecutor's offices and in court proceedings, the strategy of revisionism of the past war is evident. A Bosniak from Brčko receives the same sentence for a slap as a six-time murderer of Bosniak civilians. One could list for days what Bosniaks have done to themselves. And worst of all, what they have done to their destiny and the future of their children.