What is the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina for and whom does it serve: Why finance an academic institution that pretends to be dead while suspending the Constitution and destroying the state?

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

Independent intellectuals of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday told High Representative Christian Schmidt and the international community in front of the OHR building that they will not allow or passively watch attacks on Bosnia and Herzegovina and democracy within it.

At a public press conference, intellectuals free in their actions, without obstacles, spoke out clearly against the bad scenario that is clearly being prepared for our country. But, as much as the awakened intellectual voice brings optimism, one fact casts a shadow – that a bad scenario is being written for us through or with the help of institutions, while we believe they are important and state-building institutions.

The fact is that, apart from academician Esad Duraković and professor Aleksandar Knežević, who is a member of one of the Academy's committees, the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina was not present at the conference from which Bosnia and Herzegovina is being defended.

They were not institutionally present at the event from which a message about the survival of Bosnia, about opposing its collapse, and telling the world that intellectuals will not passively watch the disintegration of their homeland was sent.

So where is the ASABiH and its head Mirko Pejanović?

When I asked the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina about two years ago where they stood in the defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina and whether they had prepared responses to the SANU declarations, as well as to other attacks on BiH, they boasted about 30 publications on the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

But since then until today, I have not noticed them in any action to defend the statehood of our country. What is the purpose of an Academy that has no clear positions and answers to questions that, if not adequately answered in a critical time, can change the course and lead Bosnia and Herzegovina down the path of disappearance?

The impression I get is that academics are hiding under the cloak of formality and holding various forms of sessions, while avoiding any reaction to current socio-political events in and around the country.

Karst springs, artificial intelligence, mathematics... are important scientific and academic issues, but it is pointless to compare them with the issue of the state's survival. And the ASABiH seems to have renounced both the possibility and the obligation to consider issues of importance to the state and to direct steps towards the defense of statehood, democracy...

It is difficult to decipher what caused the complete disregard of the key academic institution for issues of importance to survival. But the silence in response to the question of what they have prepared and whether they have prepared answers to the SANU memorandums, from the first to the last, gives me the right and the opportunity to interpret that the ASABiH, with all due respect to individuals, has excluded itself from acting on the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If we add to this the fact that the president of the ASABiH, who should be among the most influential figures in the public narrative, is almost unnoticeable in public since the beginning of his mandate in 2021. And as an official and witness to the events during and after the aggression, he should have been the initiator and activated the ASABiH to create responses with the entire intellectual mass of this country and prepare strategies for a wider range of actions in defense of the state.

Because the entire Serbian policy that has targeted Bosnia and Herzegovina operates according to the strategic modalities of SANU, while the ASABiH deals with karst fields. Is the silence a product of an irrational desire for academic conformism or some other motives, let the intellectuals themselves clarify.

But something must change in the ASABiH, because that institution is becoming an end in itself. That is why I will dare to question the financing of an institution that has excluded itself from all processes and roles that must belong to it as the umbrella academic institution.

And yes, I know that one of the first questions will be whether this means favoring some private academies. But, to be perfectly clear, the abstinence from intellectual activity has brought the ASABiH to the same level as private or ethno academies.

And the answers as to why this is the case must be provided by those responsible in the ASABiH. Because, if they are not among the politicians and the people, if they remain silent about the suspension of the Constitution, the introduction of apartheid and attacks on democracy, if they remain silent about the appropriation of state property, if they silently observe protests in front of the OHR and Parliament, if they are not among the independent intellectuals, isn't the logical question – what is the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina for and whom does it serve?