Duraković on the biggest institutional blow to books: A society on its deathbed!

By: Esad Duraković

The National and University Library (NUB) has ceased operations, it is closed due to an unresolved status, denial of funds for operation, so its employees have not received salaries for months.

They suffered not only existentially but were also humiliated individually and institutionally by such a relationship. The NUB is – it is important to always keep this in mind – a state institution of paramount importance, and it is extremely important for some scoundrels in political structures to humiliate and devastate all state institutions, to destroy them, because every success in this is an exceptional step towards the destruction of the state. There are quite a few "candidates for scoundrels" in those political structures (nothing is wrong with calling them elites!) – these are those who, in political maneuvering for positions, agree to the fatal devastation of both mechanisms and symbols of statehood (NUB, ANUBiH, etc.).

The latter are more dangerous! We know who the former are, what they are like, what they want, but the latter deceive, mislead the people/voters because it turns out they are ready to sell even the greatest sacred things – even the future itself – for short-term, more or less comfortable seats. Turn on the spotlights – look at their chameleonic nature!

By literally suffocating the NUB, our beautiful but unfortunate country, due to those scoundrels but also to us who do not prevent them, is sinking into civilizational darkness. I fear that the wider public is not aware of what this means.

This is the biggest institutional BLOW TO THE BOOK as such, to literacy, to enlightenment, to education. A plunge into cultural and civilizational darkness! With the closure of the NUB, the possibility of publishing books ceases because everywhere
in the world, including here before the closure of the NUB, a book must obtain a CIP and other codes that denote its identity at the NUB before going to the printer, and only then can it enter global databases.

Without it, it is illegal and cannot enter these international databases. Therefore, the scoundrels are consciously pushing us into desolation and shame before the world. Into a dark realm.
But – I said a moment ago that we have known their names, the names of their parties, and their programs for the destruction of BiH for a long time. This is not a surprise. However, the real question is what are we from the academic community (and the people in general) doing to resist this fatal and barbaric devastation.

Mostly, we are cowardly and unawarely silent, accepting every injustice. Most say: Well, our job is to do scientific work.

Such people do not understand reality at all and have reached such a level of dullness that they cannot even publish their scientific works. Today, UNSA alone has more than 30 constituent members. This means that at UNSA alone, there are nearly 900 participants in teaching (full and associate professors, docents), about 500 collaborators (assistants, etc.), and I don't even know how many thousands of students there are.

Teachers cannot publish books due to the closure of the NUB, and without published works/books, they cannot be elected to university positions. Students are institutionally denied access to new literature/textbooks (they cannot be printed). This is truly a catastrophe! Instead of all those involved in teaching (both lecturers and students) raising their voices as loud as they can (I was a "sixty-eighter") and strongly protesting against these dark figures, against these cockroaches that feel best in darkness and dampness, the vast majority are silent, wanting to (supposedly) only engage in scientific work, and this is – they say – politics they do not want to get involved in.

It should be repeated at the end: Not only politicians are responsible, but even more so those who should have, but did not, resist the extinguishing of the light.

Such neglect, such terrible negligence towards the future, actually indicates that we AS A SOCIETY are on our deathbed.