How long will we endure humiliation?

By: Muamer Bandić

"Yes, cry now like a woman, for the power you were unable to defend as a man!" Aisha el-Hurra told her son, the last ruler of Granada, Abu Abdallah es-Saghir.

Is there a shorter, yet more relevant lesson from history from which to learn today? The lesson in a longer version, for all those who do not understand the lesson's message, nor the historical moment in which we live, can also sound like this:

One morning we woke up and our country's flag was not on the flagpole. Those who ruled the country were silent. Only one of them said something, just to say something: What does it matter, it's a piece of cloth. The next morning, it was no longer our country. The third morning, none of us woke up. The few who did wake up no longer lived in their country, but cried for it in a foreign land.

This longer version of the lesson sounds harsh and frightening, but it does not differ much from countless testimonies of our people, in numerous trials for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in the period from 1992 to 1995.

The village bully, Elek, publicly boasts that he removed the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the flagpole on Jahorina. For days, no one from the authorities in Sarajevo has reacted to this terrorist act. Moreover, none of those whose job it is dare even comment on this barbaric trampling of the state, even though we are almost in a phase where this is no longer our state. What else can we conclude, when its flag is no longer allowed to fly on the flagpole?!

The fictional Prime Minister Nihad (m)Uk, from whom we are accustomed to silence, remains silent. If he opens his mouth, perhaps with an appropriate photo from his office, he might tell us not to walk around Jahorina because of the heat. Nermin Nikšić could tell us that one can live even under a dagger, as long as one drives a new Touareg, and that such a life as an ikebana is not bad at all.

The mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić, also does not speak, she dares not go against the views of the Trojka. For Katica, the minister hidden from his own department, Jasmin Šaljić is a problem because, lo and behold, he dared to seek a reaction from the minister whose jurisdiction it is.

Various figures who disturb us daily with their appearance on TV screens are also silent. There is no sign of those who, as Stipe Mesić once said, "jump out of a pâté every day." I will be very honest and say that no one expects a reaction from Forte, Nikšić, Ćudić, Magazinović, Kojović, and the like anymore, because for them, March 1st and January 9th have long been on the same level. Their attitude towards the state is already clear, and they couldn't care less about its content or symbols as long as they are in power.

We don't even have a minister for rolling eyes forward and backward twice, to speak out and hold a proper press conference, and then someone would ask him where our cantonal MUP minister is, is he hiding somewhere, or did the unfortunate Elek kidnap him with the flag? Is the debt to SNSD so great for the sake of power that one remains silent even about Dodik's cursing of the Srebrenica genocide, and now about Elek's desecration of the flag of our homeland?

If the minister had happened to be contacted by a "concerned group of our citizens from Dubai," I doubt they would have been deprived of the minister's performance. What truly surprises me is how our wartime commander, hero, and Golden Lily, Kemal Ademović, can watch all this silently?

This patriotic part of the Trojka seems not to be patriotic when it comes to raising their voice against SNSD or HDZ chauvinism! Their patriotism is reserved only for settling scores with Sarajevo political opponents, while outside the area of Ilidža – Baščaršija, they are not very interested in the state, nor in the people who live "somewhere far away" from their current fiefdom. And like all feudal lords, they know very well the limits of their principles and policies, and that one does not raise their voice against the earthly "Lord".

Where are they to at least tell us where and if that "red line" even exists, after all the almost daily humiliations that we, as a people, experience? Do we again, anew, have to reach the point of being slaughtered to realize that we do not have leadership that knows what it is doing, or that we do not have a state that will protect us?

It should be crystal clear to all of us that the moment we reach the tears from the beginning of the text, the process of breaking up Bosnia and Herzegovina will be irreversible, and the few lucky ones who survive will live scattered around the world, as a stateless people.

And all this because of a small circle of arrogant, but hungry, people who will slaughter a cow for a piece of meat without thinking about the consequences. In this case, who will give up the state just to rule Sarajevo. Such people will shed tears, but it will be too late!

And all of us must do everything in our power in this world so as not to cry with them.