Lost in the roundabout of democratic action

I must admit, I was a little frightened by the statement to the effect: if you don't do as we say, then we are not responsible for our actions... But, just a moment. Decades in and out of power, with tens, hundreds, and even thousands of officials at all levels of government from the BiH Presidency downwards, through prime ministers, ministers, mayors, to local community secretaries, and horizontally across all possible positions from doormen and counters to supermarket checkouts... and yet not being guilty of anything in the country, but only deserving, or rather, not being responsible for anything, which – on the contrary – ultimately had to result in a sincere statement indicating that someone else is always to blame for their mistakes. However, everything that might follow such a statement chills the blood a little... not so much because of the context, but because of the content, or vice versa, I'm no longer sure. Fear makes the eyes bigger.

Nevertheless, I am somewhat comforted and reassured by the fact that no highly touted and highly promoted, fanfare-welcomed and mockingly dismissed state-level (or pseudo-state-level) action – and I could list dozens of them in the last twenty years – has been realized in the real world. On the contrary... However, something else frightened me incomparably more, my inability to understand and arrange things into appropriate boxes. 

As a rule, every affirmation needs its opposite or negation, or something against which it will (self-)confirm itself. Therefore, if there is a "Bh. bloc", then there must also be an "anti-Bh. bloc"... If the "Bh. bloc" consists of parties of civic and left-wing orientation which, according to one of the ideologues, "fight for a civic BiH, a state of equal citizens and peoples," then who constitutes the "anti-Bh. bloc" and what do they fight for... If the "Bh. bloc" is accused of anti-patriotism, should it then, logically, be attributed ultimate patriotism to the "anti-Bh. bloc"... Or, if the "Bh. bloc" refuses cooperation with national parties, does that mean that national parties are the "anti-Bh. bloc"... Or, conversely, if the "Bh. bloc" enters into a coalition with some or all national parties, is that abandoning pro-Bosnian politics... (although I don't even know what pro-Bosnian politics is). Or, again, if in some coalition reorganization the "Bh. bloc" dares to engage one national party, and leave all others outside, will the parties of that new "bloc" become patriotic or remain unpatriotic, and what about the others... or is all this, after all, just another political adventure of the immature and unprepared? And so on...

There are many questions that arise from the seemingly careless use of language and pretentious and tendentious, glamorous, baseless, and still unjustified self-appointments and self-titles, and therefore, it is better to lower all of this by a few levels or at least a few steps to the level of concrete indicators, deeds, shares, work, and results. I am firmly convinced that language (as an organ), although locked by two gates (teeth and lips), was left slippery for some reason and that anything can easily slip from it... and that good intentions can only be shown through deeds. 

The anti-system or political (not politicized) state, built on foundations of personnel undercapacity, and crowned with the despair of not knowing what to do the day after (coming to power or losing power, it doesn't matter), is the only atmosphere in which the current setup of political subjects in Bosnia and Herzegovina makes sense and functions. Therefore, maintaining this state essentially suits everyone, partly because – as its creators – they feel most comfortable in it and have the illusion of necessity and importance... and partly because only in it do they control the two probably most significant levers of order, work, and discipline, i.e., the state: investigative and judicial bodies.

Practically, pragmatically, and expectedly in a political, media, and moral atmosphere where it is difficult to distinguish where the political dimension ends and the self-serving dimension begins, and where national interests are protected in all of this, it is easy to present any personal interest and concern as political, national, and vital interest of the people, and even easier to translate, interpret, and condemn any different thinking, opposition, resistance, or, rarely, criticism as an attack, (islamo)phobia, anti-Semitism(!), majorization, minorization, marginalization, belittling, and political and any other devaluation of an entire people. It is not important at all – it is consciously abstracted – that the central, largest, and/or most influential national parties do not represent, in any way, not only the people as a whole, or even their politically literate majority, but only their nationally conscious part, in the most ideal case, their own membership and sympathizers...

Perhaps the best example for the above statement is the formation of coalitions, the gathering of parliamentary majorities, and the formation of government without national parties after the 2018 elections, i.e., the collective and unanimous rejection of any cooperation with SDA at the cantonal level (5 cantons), and then the pretense of SDP and DF about whether their participation in power is a necessity, small or large, or a necessity at all, or withdrawal into opposition accompanied by lamentations about the exclusion of Bosniaks from political decision-making, the ignoring of the Bosniak voting will, and a conspiracy against Bosniaks as a people and Bosnia as a state... without mentioning that the majority of the conspirators are Bosniaks and Others, as well as former (and deceived) coalition partners and former SDA members. This actually undermines several totalitarian principles on which the policies of all national parties are fundamentally based: 1. that one party does not represent a people or nation, 2. that party interests are not national interests, 3. that accepting or rejecting cooperation with a party does not mean general (non)respect for the people/nation... and vice versa.

By no means and in no way negating or belittling national interests, their existence, and the need for their actualization, articulation, and realization, on the contrary, I actually want to point out the lack of awareness and will, and it is not excluded, knowledge about political elasticity, vitality, and flexibility, about the need for dynamic reaction, adaptation to the state and situation... However, it is not excluded – nor is it possible to exclude – and the always open possibility that it is simply a policy of not rocking the boat by rocking it and protecting the status quo... which completely suits all political subjects in Bosnia and Herzegovina at this moment... In other words, any different development of the situation, any change, external or internal, would make or at least contribute to the impression of outdated goals, ways of their actualization, articulation, and realization, and finally, of this kind of social, state, constitutional... organization.