Where Have Our Nationalists Led Us?

Relations between ethno-national policies in the region and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last almost three decades since the wars of the nineties are still at the level: "If you attack me, I will retaliate with the same force."

Aleksandar Vučić quite madly convenes national security sessions every now and then, after which he regularly announces that it is only thanks to his sober and responsible policy that another war in the Balkans has been avoided, and then, Vučić stands up at the podium in front of silent journalists, puts on his glasses and blue jacket, and theatrically says: "This does not mean that Serbia can continue to be humiliated"! Serbia, the Serbian president tells us, will continue to take from the mouths of Serbian poor and invest in armaments against an imaginary enemy. From Vučić's speeches, we never learn who specifically is threatening Serbia and how.

Bakir Izetbegović's and SDA's response to internal and external enemies is quite predictable. SDA calls on the international community to react to the violation of Dayton and attacks on the territorial integrity and state sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adding that Bosniaks are no longer rootless, and that Bosniaks will continue to develop the defense industry - something for export and part for "God forbid". Then follows an even more predictable counter-response from Belgrade: "We told you we are dealing with Muslim unitarians. They want to arm themselves." It looks like that famous proverb: "A fool will first bring you down to his level, and then beat you with experience."

All in all, ethno-national, and increasingly kleronational policies in the region are not seeking a solution and rejection of any armed conflicts. On the contrary, they animate voters by invoking war, measuring military forces, pointing fingers at others and the different, even though not all bodies from the horrors of the nineties have been found and exhumed. One nationalism feeds another, and so in a circle and so upwards.

To be fair, Izetbegović is in a rather unenviable situation, because he has the Chetnik Vučić as a partner on the other side, whose obsession with uniforms is bordering on pathology. He is always on combat readiness. However, the responsibility of Izetbegović and SDA lies in not responding to Vučić's Chetnik rhetoric with radicalism.

SDA's reaction to the Sunday parade of Chetniks in Višegrad came late. Only after the event happened. For example, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not have intelligence information about the Chetnik celebration on the Drina, but SDA reacted to media reports. How? By calling on the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina to prosecute the barbaric policy in Višegrad, even though SDA knows that the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina is so mired in crime that it is more realistic to expect them to undermine processes against extremists in the event of any international investigation against the Ravna Gora movement. How many war crimes cases are currently stuck in the drawers of the Prosecutor's Office simply because political prosecutors do not want the truth about the crimes to be known? Why would anyone think that the Prosecutor's Office would launch an investigation against Chetniks? Haven't the media already reported that suspects for genocide in Srebrenica work in the State Investigation and Protection Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SIPA)? Isn't the advisor to the Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dragan Mektić, suspected of crimes in Zvornik? Which institutions from SDA are then calling to react?

No policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina can fight domestic and imported fascists on its own, so it would be more appropriate for SDA - because they have that electoral legitimacy and capacity for almost 30 years - to seek partners in the fight against fascism in the civilized Western world, which by its basic orientation fights against specters. Who are these Western partners with whom SDA in Bosnia and Herzegovina is working on the defascistization of Bosnian society, which is a burden not only for Bosniaks but also for other peoples in BiH? There are none! Does this mean that SDA is calculating in such a way that walking on the edge and having war in the air brings them electoral victory?