The state is not defeated, but the state-building policy is: Bosniak and pro-Bosnian leaders lost a battle they didn't even fight!

By: Rasim Belko

It was difficult in February 2025 to even suspect how much the attack on the constitutional order of BiH with the ultimate goal of secession of the RS entity would have common points with a similar attempt in Spain in 2017.

Today, the epilogue of that attack orchestrated by the political leadership of the RS entity can be clearly seen. The attack on the constitutional order caused a crisis, but it did not destabilize the state to the extent that was the intention of Milorad Dodik, the leader of the RS, SNSD, and the attack itself. Ultimately, the appearance before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina of the ringleader of the whole story is proof that the state survived and that its system did its job. To what extent that job is a reflection of the interference of the international community and the interests of foreign factors, and to what extent it is a defeat of BiH's judiciary, primarily the Court and Prosecutor's Office of BiH, is one side of the story.

The other side can perhaps best be seen by comparing the processes that Dodik in BiH and Carles Puigdemont, the President of Catalonia at the time of the secession referendum, went through. The path they both took is exactly the same. Dodik passed laws that undermine the state and make the entity a state, the Constitutional Court first temporarily, and then permanently blocked those laws and effectively nipped the direct consequence of the attack on the constitutional order in the bud. It was the same with Puigdemont; the Constitutional Court of Spain banned the referendum on independence, Catalonia held it and declared independence in its local parliament, the Constitutional Court annulled everything, and the government in Madrid ensured that the separatists from Catalonia ended up in court.

The difference is in one thing – Spain convicted all its separatists and then pardoned them, while Bosnia and Herzegovina abandoned the trial after the de facto collapse of the separatist leadership in the RS.

However, the problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina is more complex than that of Spain, and that has muddied the waters in the whole story, making it difficult to even suspect the benefits of the defeat of yet another attempt to split this country. The questions and challenges we witnessed from February until the surrender of the leading separatist remain and await solutions, just as answers are awaited to the question of who, how, and why the final operation was carried out in this manner.

Nevertheless, in that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina that we call pro-state and patriotic, there is bitterness and a kind of frustration because Milorad Dodik remained free after all. But that bitterness is not a consequence of the defeat or surrender of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the separatists, as some are trying to present it in order to obscure the underlying causes of the bitterness.

The state defended itself, Dodik sat on the defendant's bench, and his laws were nullified. Therefore, we cannot speak of the defeat of the state, and we have the right to question the manner in which the final operation was carried out.

The defeated in this story are the Bosniaks, the Bosnians and Herzegovinians. And that causes frustration and bitterness which, due to the complete chaos in the political thought of Bosniak/pro-Bosnian politics, is being charged to the state. But the state can exist without Bosniaks; in fact, it did exist, didn't it?!

Therefore, the epilogue of the judicial prosecution of the separatists from Banja Luka should not be the priority for Bosniak/pro-Bosnian political thought, but rather the question of where all their leaders were during the past four or five months? And what were they doing?

The analysis of the role of the two multi-party political blocs from the state-building space must offer unambiguous and substantive answers to the question of why the most state-building nation was defeated in a struggle where the state nevertheless won!

Neither the questions nor the answers are difficult; only the momentum of initiating and the intention behind these questions are difficult. Because, realistically, the Trojka project, as the current ruling coalition, has not offered a single reasonable and purposeful answer to the separatism that has paralyzed the state in recent months.

Those belonging to the opposition political bloc also did not seize their opportunity to act as an alternative or shadow government for the sake of the people and the state. Everyone waited, called, begged for someone else to do their job.

And what did we get? That someone, whether it was the Americans, the British, the Europeans... did their job, and the fact that we don't like the epilogue cannot and must not be a reason for us to claim that the state was defeated, thereby giving the separatists the most direct arguments to justify their actions.

In summary, if the political leaders of the pro-state element had tried even one percent more to do something for the state within the political discourse to which they belong, the epilogue would certainly not have been what it is.

Therefore, instead of crying over our own fate, we should draw lessons and change our political approach. Change it in a way that finally stops crying from the role of victim and repeating prayers to foreign factors to solve our problems. Here they solved them in accordance with their interests, so isn't it clear to Bosniak/Bosnian leaders that this is most detrimental to Bosniaks, Bosnians and Herzegovinians.

Not to the state, because the state of Bosnia will exist after them as it did before them!

Think about it, solutions are much more acceptable in Bosnian than in English!