A Friend from Herzegovina Knows That for a Better BiH, More Bosnians and Herzegovinians Are Needed

I hear the voice of Alija Izetbegović from the mobile phone in the hands of my friend from Herzegovina. He is exceptionally well-informed and well-read, constantly browsing the internet to surprise me with some new theory or information. He is pensive, his gaze fixed into the distance, and he tosses out: „Everyone is against the BiH I fought for.“

I hear from the mobile phone Izetbegović telling ministers in 1993 that BiH as it was is not possible. My friend from Herzegovina remembered a text written as part of the project „Famous Bosniaks“ which claims that the tragedy of BiH and its future lies not in the political naivety of Alija Izetbegović, whom the author considers exceptionally wise, but in the fact that it is „on the other side.“

For my friend from Herzegovina, that qualification is too harsh. He finds it hard to believe, and again he says he feels pain in a leg he doesn't have. He feels pain in his soul, because for years he has been wandering through Bosnia and Herzegovina hoping that one day he too will become a constituent people in his own country. But he cannot, because BiH, although whole, is divided exactly as Alija Izetbegović predicted in 1993. Predicted, or knew?! That is what troubles my friend the most.

From the video he watched several times, it is perfectly clear to him that Izetbegović already knew in 1993 that constituent status would not contribute to the integration of BiH. Everything said in the video practically came true after the war. „Ustashe and Chetniks,“ as Izetbegović called the future members of state institutions, constantly use the blocking mechanisms that the then-leadership of Bosniak politics agreed to. They tied flags with them before the war, and the successors of Alija Izetbegović's policy, after the last elections, delivered to them absolute control of the state's House of Peoples, and thus a blockade of the state.

My friend from Herzegovina could not help but rewind the video to the part where Alija Izetbegović says that a state cannot survive if there is no loyalty from a large number of people. Then he listens to his explanation that this state will be plundered and that everything will look like pouring water into a leaky barrel. While prominent Bosniak leaders, together with „Ustashe and Chetniks,“ filled their pockets, the hungry people were fed stories about the percentage of constituent peoples. Everyone talks about 52 percent Bosniaks, but it is rarely mentioned that they live on only 30 percent of BiH's territory.

Perhaps enough for politics, but for the salvation and integration of BiH in the true sense of the word, nowhere near enough. My friend from Herzegovina wonders if this is related to the meeting of Izetbegović's group from the Sarajevo Process, reinforced by his daughter, with Serbian academics led by Dobrica Ćosić, six years before the war began. At that meeting, they discussed the partition of BiH. This was kept secret until 1998, when it surfaced due to the carelessness of Armija BiH logistician Halid Čengić. In his opinion, it was a kind of Serb-Muslim Yalta. Čengić's measure of the Serbian academics' attention was the choice of a restaurant in Košutnjak that served lamb.

That brings my friend from Herzegovina back to the present. He remembers how Bakir Izetbegović also likes to meet with Serbian and Croatian politicians in taverns. For me, it changed; instead of lamb, they ate burek, but the principle remained the same: BiH was being carved up. Such politics plays into the hands of those who persistently repeat that BiH is an impossible state. Despite all the efforts of its enemies, BiH has survived, and how much of it there will be depends on politics. My friend from Herzegovina still believes that forces can and must gather to refocus on the values of a multi-ethnic society as the only paradigm against the encroaching fascism. My friend dreams of the day when every person in BiH will be a constituent people, and for that, everyone must become a little more Bosnian and Herzegovinian.

The first big test is the amendment of the Election Law of BiH. Those who truly believe in BiH must never again agree that anyone should be less or more legitimate. That legitimacy has long since killed democracy in BiH, so a minority can manage all processes in the state. Honestly, that has nothing to do with European principles based on human rights. It looks more like the Palestinian model, and there, the representatives of the people have handsomely profited from their suffering. The problem is that for 30 percent, or a little more, of BiH's territory, political alternatives to national divisions have also anchored themselves. Spreading the idea of a civic BiH across its entire territory will require much more mathematics than simply adding up the chances of individuals to preserve or win a mandate. One must work for the idea even without personal gain.