Duraković: Happy Birthday, dear Homeland

By: Academician Esad Duraković

In my beautiful country, in my great Homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost nothing is like in other countries and homelands. While some of its sons appreciate its beauty as a gift from God himself, some others hate it precisely because it is unique and beautiful. In the first case, these are normal feelings, and in the second case, it is a disease, a pathology – a feeling of extreme intolerance towards such a beautiful country and Homeland, which is, nevertheless, resistant to numerous destructions of its integrity, which represents a special kind of beauty.

There are quite a few people in the world who simply have an extraordinary gift for hatred and destruction, for turning every beauty into ugliness. And every Homeland is beautiful as such, to everyone who feels it as such, but it is a torment – it is a torment with that pathology in which one destructively hates one's own Homeland...

On the first of March, it is your birthday, dear Land and dear Homeland. Although everyone knows about this birthday, because it is registered in the most important place in the world (in the UN Registry Office), some of your sons do not recognize it, but try to humiliate and insult You precisely on that day. Your sons are sick. They have literally – oh, what monstrosity! – riddled You with mass graves, and even today they will not stir, will not come to their senses and utter the name of their crime, which the World has long been uttering loudly.

Yes, it is a disease, because You are their Homeland too, even though they mutilate and hate You. And not only that – they are at Your very helm, abundantly using Your resources and at the same time preparing Your execution. You have the right to feel unhappy because of such deformity, such treachery that is incomprehensible to normal people.

But – we, here, give You love for Your birthday, all the more love because we know, because we see how some of Your sons are plotting against You. This is the principle of contrast: the more they hate You and the more they plot against You, the more we love You and trust in Your goodness. Thus, we are more aware of Your value. Our love – according to the same principle of contrast – so convincingly illuminates that sick hatred towards the Homeland, which it is simply not normal to hate. They want to make everyone around them unhappy with that fundamental destruction, because they themselves are already deeply unhappy with their own hatred and destruction.

Do not resent these emotions, because – emotions are also Truth, especially positive ones like love for the Homeland. If it were not as it is, I would not be writing to You with such warmth, which I myself find overwhelmingly exciting. Do not resent the tidal emotions, because birthdays are always an occasion for emotions, especially when it comes to You, who in Your splendor and longevity are exposed to poisonous reptiles and all sorts of other threats...

It is spring... A wonderful time for Your birthday...

Be happy and long-lived for all those who know what the value of a Homeland is. Be so for the descendants of those who have sinned against You with unimaginable disgrace, and still do so, even though You are their mother...

Your Esad Duraković