Between Patriotism and Enslavement - NUB BiH as a Symbol of Defeat: How the International Community Dictates Bosnia's Fate!?

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

All the paradoxes of the Dayton Peace Agreement and the post-Dayton political order of Bosnia and Herzegovina have loomed over Sarajevo today. Simultaneously being an ominous and sobering cloud behind which hides the light of a difficult truth.

So much has become intertwined and reached the steps of the National and University Library (NUB) of BiH that at least several volumes of books should be analyzed and explained in detail, breaking down all the factors. Because, in front of the institution that is the lifeblood of our education, knowledge, and culture, appeared a man whom many have called a savior for NUB BiH in recent days.

Christian Schmidt, personally and impersonally, stood in front of NUB BiH trying to wash away the sins and mud that the international community drapes over the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order to stifle it in its essence and preserve it in a form on glass legs.

Judging by the public's reaction, he succeeded. Unfortunately!

And he succeeded because our thought, politics, education, and culture have a short and disposable memory. If we go back just two years, the event in which this same Schmidt, at some podium, announced that he had changed the Election Law of BiH will come to life before our eyes. Six months later, Schmidt again announced from somewhere that he had suspended the Constitution. We know the course and consequences of all of it.

The patriots of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or those who present themselves as such, because now everything is under suspicion, have been left without their electoral will due to Schmidt's interventions, and the state vertically received a government that Schmidt chose. And what kind of government that is is best described by Schmidt's own address today, where he maneuvers and imposes decisions on how not to let our NUB BiH collapse!

And the dilapidated Sarajevo thought cheers him because, lo and behold, he saved NUB BiH for us, one of the key cultural institutions. And Schmidt, as the cunning manipulator he is, to further stun the Bosniaks, says that he expects those who have not resolved the issue of identity, culture, and education institutions for three decades to do so in two months.

And then we come to the key question - how right is Milorad Dodik when he claims that BiH does not function, that it is an artificial creation, and so on?

I dare say that Dodik is increasingly right, and we, in the skin of patriotism, are increasingly mistaken, thinking that one cannot lose an internationally recognized state.

When a state does not function, when its institutions are ruined under the pressure of interests, corruption, and whatnot, the state collapses through the very mechanism that should protect it and make it a state.

A state is also ruined when a vassal, vizier, prince, or similar modernly named appendage is invoked, which imposes or carries out arbitrary rule in a supra-institutional form within that state. And that is precisely what Schmidt is doing, and we in this country cheer him or boo him, depending on who gave or took more percentage.

We have reached a turning point where either there will be no Dayton and no Dayton vassals, or there will be no Bosnia and Herzegovina!

Paradoxically, we are a European country with the most governments and parliaments in its internal structure, yet we are so incapable and resigned to routine that an imposed vassal of the international community must ensure salaries for cultural, educational, or other workers.

Isn't it simpler, if we are afraid to dismiss Schmidt and the OHR, to dismiss all these governments, parliaments, institutes, and various wonders and say, let Schmidt or some similar figure be our ruler for the next 30 years, perhaps it will be enough for us to understand that it is better to rule the state ourselves!

Because, apparently, we do not want to, do not know how, or will not rule the state we bloodily defended! Yes, we would have to bow our heads when we don't like what Schmidt imposes, just as we bowed or tried to raise our heads in October 2022 or April 2023.

Today, all of this seems meaningless and unnecessary, because rebelling when the prince of the international community imposes what we don't like and cheering when he does it and we like it is a walk between the abyss of the enslaved and the disappearance of the free.

And that is exactly what we are. Brave enough to think we are free, and too enslaved to dare to stand up.

That is why Christian Schmidt stands on the steps of NUB BiH, draped in a savior's suit of something that has the premises of statesmanship, and that in itself has become enough for the stagnant Sarajevo intelligentsia to celebrate.

While forcing form over substance. Because, what use are libraries and books if we neither seek nor find in them the formula for changing our destined fate. Or the salvation of the homeland!