Continuity of Crisis in BiH Does Not Come from Ethnic Conflict; It Is a Struggle of Civilization Against Barbarism

Written by: Rasim Belko

---

Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats did not wake up one morning as some wild tribes and decide to settle scores bloodily because of their ethnic differences at the end of the Yugoslav era. Nor were ethnic differences at the root of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is a wrong premise that has persisted continuously since Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence. The aggression stemmed from the imperialist dreams and desires of neighboring Serbia and Croatia, which, by imposing political puppets in BiH, also imposed the story of insurmountable differences and the impossibility of life for ethnic groups and people who had lived together in peace for centuries. 

Little has changed since that aggression. Few have adequately responded to the diagnosis that all problems originate and end in the tangle of these ethnic relations, so today, three decades after the start of the war, we have an identical narrative about the impossibility of life and coexistence with one another. Thus, a continuous situation of discord and quarreling is projected, although anyone who travels through Bosnia and Herzegovina outside their cocooned zone realizes that the truth is much different. Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, citizens and everyone else live, work and exist just as their ancestors did. Policies that benefit from disrupting these relations are the generators of all artificial crises presented as crises in inter-ethnic relations. 

In fact, the conflicts in and around Bosnia and Herzegovina have a clearly visible common denominator - it is a struggle for civilizational values, against barbarism with all its characteristics. In that struggle, our country has been suffocating much longer than Ukraine. Such was the armed struggle in which the right to existence of a sovereign and independent state, the right to life, the right to freedom was defended against the hegemonic, slave-owning and occupying plans of Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman and their criminal proxies. Just as Ukrainians today wage such a struggle against Vladimir Putin's 'Russian soul'. 

However, our struggle has lasted much longer than the Ukrainian one. In that struggle, we have often been left in the lurch by those who come to us as promoters of civilization, democracy, and the values of the normal world. Just as Ukraine was left behind when Crimea was taken from it, as it was left in the lurch when the DNR and LNR were created for it, so Bosnia and Herzegovina and its progressive force were left in the wind when barbarians and criminals were rewarded with the internal reorganization of a sovereign state and a territorial organization that recognizes occupied territory as a subunit with all the features and continuity of barbaric policies. 

This was essentially the basis for decades of hardship and suffering that would follow the false peace, and the real desecration of the right to sovereignty and independence. Since then, the struggle for civilizational values has been an everyday occurrence. And for that, neither Bosniaks, nor Serbs, nor Croats are to blame, but the policies that are continuously imposed on us, which are fed and financed from various centers of power to achieve goals not realized in the war. 

In the years of the post-war atmosphere, barbaric policies were briefly and ineffectively sanctioned, but never completely stopped. It was a time when the international community still had the strength to admit and try to correct its mistakes. It seems that this will lasted too short, and despite countless pleas and appeals to awaken it, we witness its absence even today. And again we are pushed into the mud of a continuous struggle with retrograde policies of dismantling Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose only goal is its disappearance and the annexation of parts to neighboring countries. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Again, these anti-civilizational policies have stoked the fires of conflict, using every sensitive issue to try to prove that after centuries of common survival and living together, the three ethnic groups can no longer be in the same state. 

The ethnic groups are not to blame for being forced into two schools under one roof, for their children being denied the possibility of togetherness and companionship. In fact, they are only guilty to the extent that they cannot resist these policies, but it is difficult to agree with the assessment that ethnic groups are the ones generating political crises and tensions. A Croat is not to blame for having Dragan Čović, a former camp commander, a slave owner who once banned Serbs, Bosniaks and dogs from entering Aluminij for his own interests, imposed as his political representative. That is not the choice of many Croats in this country, nor has it ever been. 

Just as there are many Serbs who feel this country is theirs and love their neighbors, they cannot be blamed for having Milorad Dodik, the executor of the 'Greater Serbia' plan, the 'Serbian world', separatism and the dismantling of Bosnia and Herzegovina, installed as the leader of their ethnic group's policies. If you travel through Bosnia and Herzegovina, you will meet many who condemn their crimes, but you will not notice them in public discourse because the story is continuously projected that everyone supports and celebrates criminals following the example of political leaders. Nor are Bosniaks to blame for having among them those who have removed numerous streets named after anti-fascists, named schools after fascists...

The struggle for the rule of law, democracy, freedom and a life worthy of a human being has been completely pushed into the background here. And that is not an inter-ethnic struggle; it is a struggle that the majority of citizens wage every day. Because they live in a system that suffocates them and with policies that neither can nor have the strength to offer them better. These are barbaric policies founded in the whirlwind of war, which would not survive more than 24 hours without the forcing of divisions. 

Therefore, it is high time that the West, as a guide of civilizational values, finally understands that within BiH we do not have a problem with our differences, but with the policies that they themselves encouraged and forced. It is time to understand that the struggle here is not against ethnic folklore, but against barbarism identical to Putin's, and such barbarism is destructive and dangerous even where one people or nation lives. 

And that is why it is finally time to sweep barbaric policies into the dustbin of history, because with their disappearance, the illusion of this inter-ethnic chaos will also disappear. It is time to clearly and effectively stand behind progressive forces, so that this barbarism can finally be suppressed and expelled. Only then will both the West and the East be able to understand that we do not have a problem with ethnic folklore, but with the promoters and bearers of anti-civilizational policies.