Who doesn't need a Bosnian Cultural Center

By Edin Urjan Kukavica

In Prijedor, a Bosnian Cultural Center was founded a few days ago. Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats together decided to found – and founded – an association/organization that, financed almost exclusively by voluntary contributions from members and sympathizers, will be dedicated to the protection and nurturing of the intangible heritage and legacy of all peoples (and nationalities) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Around three hundred members and guests, including the Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to BiH and several honorary consuls of BiH in countries not exactly in our vicinity, elected bodies and organs based on the pattern of education, ability, and (inter)national affiliation, who will personally work on promoting a different image of Bosnia and Herzegovina than the one conveyed at political and commemorative gatherings.

The news, which – if there were any genuine interest at all in this country – would have resonated louder than any other in the regime and "independent" media, went completely unnoticed. There is no funeral, individual or collective, no prayer service or requiem mass that has not "deserved" a report of at least three minutes in the central and all other news programs on all televisions, public and private, controlled and "independent." The grave silence that overshadows any news about possibilities, successful attempts at restoring and reconstructing life speaks louder than anything else about the state of consciousness, the absence of conscience, and the complete lack of interest in Bosnia and Herzegovina as it was, or as it could be. Death in Bosnia and Herzegovina still takes precedence over life.

Something earlier, precisely four years ago, two obscure figures with a long political history and a significant background, both in a technical mandate, decided to abolish the Bosnian Cultural Center in Sarajevo (merging it with some other institutions), renaming it to the impersonal "public institution Center for Culture of Sarajevo Canton" and thus "expelling" the Bosnian, the cultural, and the center from the heart of Sarajevo. Everything ended literally with one piece of paper, two signatures, and the tacit consent of all political subjects, both ruling and opposition. Without delving into the motives of this act, which in my opinion was hostile, and for whose annulment and return of the Bosnian Cultural Center to Sarajevo it took almost two years of breaking through a jungle of bureaucratic and legal idiocies, I draw a simple lesson: what two idiots can ruin in an instant takes years to correct and fix.

The return of the Bosnian Cultural Center (to) Sarajevo also passed without any media or public interest. However, that is not such a big problem; not even all employees in the administration of the relevant ministry knew about the abolition of the BKC, let alone the residents of Sarajevo (since it was almost always addressed incorrectly but always arrived at the right address).

Time spent thinking about the topic: how did a former footballer, who has hardly ever heard of Sarajevo, earn the gratitude of this city or at least its mayor, and other topics like: who will play on the Live Stage next year... would probably be the most wasted time in the history of time... Therefore, let's say I don't care that the mayor of Sarajevo is fulfilling his childhood wishes and, at the expense of Sarajevo taxpayers, healing childhood traumas (his father also socialized with Peleon, so why shouldn't he, at least, with Figo). Let's say I don't care that people who are not distinguished in any way are being elevated at our expense (if you take away their ties, secretaries, and official cars, nothing would remain of them). Let's say I care about the aforementioned and all that is unmentioned as much as I care whether it is more correct to say stapler or hochstapler...

Bosnia and Herzegovina may indeed be an experiment of the international community, an attempt to find an approximate solution for problematic multi-ethnic countries and territories where accumulated personal frustrations and collective dissatisfaction could explode... Perhaps it is also a country of chance and a historical accident, a territory with special needs, a bargaining chip for regional territorial inadequacies, and a "Swedish buffet" for insatiable neighborly appetites whose mouths can only be filled by the earth... Since that time, Bosnia and Herzegovina has most often been led by people from the very edge of the definition of humanity, mental premature births, by-products of failed historical lobotomies with incurable brain tumors that press on completely non-anatomical centers... And it all began the moment two world-class scoundrels convinced them that Bosnians and Herzegovinians do not live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but some constituent peoples and completely unknown people who should share power among themselves, and that this is all that needs to be known and be.

Thus, in RS, (only) Serbs live, from Konjic or at best from Mostar southwards (only) Croats, and in the rest of the country, Bosniaks along with Others... All those who do not fit into this pattern (should) be oppressed and suppressed. Precisely because of this, I expected any media outlet to notice the irregularity in the matrix... but in vain.
Therefore, I believe that there are no innocent people in this country... the oppressed and suppressed who do not react to oppression and suppression are not victims but accomplices.