Duraković to Schmidt and the international community: You are under the spotlight of Bosnia and Herzegovina's patriots

(Patria) - High Representative, know that we will not give up on democratic and civic values, despite your passivity towards local attacks on those values.

This was stated today in Sarajevo by academician Esad Duraković at a public press conference opposite the building of the Office of the High Representative (OHR), organized by a group of intellectuals on the occasion of the anti-Bosnian activities of High Representative Christian Schmidt.

At the beginning of his address, Duraković stated that our country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which surprised the world by defending itself against simultaneous aggression from all three neighboring countries, is not being allowed by powerful international actors and their domestic political servants to finally embark on the path of progress and civic equality on which Western democracies are founded.

Instead, Duraković continues, these powerful actors are pushing our country into conflict-driven divisions of the population, even today pandering to the hegemonic aspirations of our neighbors. Therefore, our country is facing the existential question of survival and serious threats of a new war.

In order to overcome this severe crisis and knowing that our country is exposed to a serious threat of disintegration, Duraković addressed four recipients - High Representative Christian Schmidt, domestic politicians, members of the academic community, and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

- I am telling you, High Representative, and the international community which you destructively represent, that you are under the spotlight of patriots. It is evident how you are implementing a proven colonialist policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, dividing the population into peoples, i.e., into tribes, in order to antagonize them and then demonstrate your "governing power," and to act as crisis managers.


Photo: Patria

We are persistently fighting for those values that you have in your own countries, while you persistently and arrogantly impose segregation on us based on colonialist experiences. Therefore, your policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is deeply and fundamentally anachronistic and deviant, inhumane and anti-democratic. We know this well and we feel it painfully.

High Representative, know that we will not give up on democratic and civic values, despite your passivity towards local attacks on those values. With your behavior so far, you have degraded your own mission. You have, even these days, consistently, dishonorably, and destructively taken a negative stance. You are acting in this country against its successful future.

And you, domestic politicians, must not align yourselves with such destruction of the state and society! You must look deeper, beyond one election cycle to the next. You must not sell the future for the short-term comfort of your seats and a false sense of power. Be statesmen, not demonic politicians.

Nor are you, members of the so-called academic community, in your overwhelming majority, worthy of this historical time. Come out from under the eaves, from the lee, show through your public action that you are the conscience of society, as its intelligence must be! Without resistance to the destruction of the state and society, without a struggle for virtue, your titles and your ranks are essentially inauthentic. Gentlemen of the academic community, be the elite.

Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, you must all finally understand that our state is threatened, our path to democracy and civic values, and without that - an abyss yawns before us! Therefore, I call on you - I call on all of you - to snap out of lethargy, to resist indifference to your own destiny.

Become aware, because I assure you that the horsemen of the apocalypse are already galloping! Be sure that we can succeed if we are civically and patriotically aware and active. We can expect others to help us only if we clearly and constantly, if we resolutely make it known how much we care about a unique, sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina in which all its citizens on its entire territory are equal - as in European democracies - stated academician Esad Duraković in his address.