Can artists be cowards?

Bosnia and Herzegovina has never had so many conceptual and departmental artists, understood and misunderstood poets, independent and professional journalists, critics and commentators. There simply is no social phenomenon that is not subjected to analysis within 24 hours, turned upside down, viewed from all positions, and the public is given insight into the diagnosis, prognosis and therapy for every problem in no time.

This situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be compared to Ivančić's observation of the mass phenomenon of national heroes in Croatia, which this journalist called the inflation of the word 'hero', so present in the political and media field that one gets the impression that in the foreseeable future the number of national heroes in Croatia could equal the number of inhabitants.

If that is the case, then it is incredible that writer Martina Mlinarević Sopta remained alone in the public space of Bosnia and Herzegovina when, due to fascist attacks and public calls for lynching, she had to cancel the promotion of her autobiographical book 'Huzur', which was supposed to be held at the Evergreen festival in Čitluk this month.

So, it is not surprising that the writer, due to her criticism of nationalisms and primitivisms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, found herself under attack from the last scum of the right-wing lair, primarily that of the HDZ – although her book 'Huzur' does not speak about politics at all, but about breast cancer which the writer overcame – but it is very concerning that with the fascist outcry against Martina, support for the writer also waned, both from the festival organizers and from Martina's colleagues. Only a handful of friends supported her: journalist Dragan Bursać reacted with a column 'Martina, heroine full of grace', Srđan Puhalo also criticized the harangue, musician Damir Urban gave Martina a song, journalist Vojislav Mazzocco wrote 'No forgiveness for the scum that attacked Martina Mlinarević Sopta'. Director Dino Mustafić wrote that the attack on Martina is 'a dangerous step of ideological censorship that attempts to subdue and excommunicate an artist whose political and ethical views do not correspond to the bazaar majority'.

Regardless of whether someone liked Martina's literature, whether they supported her sharp tongue, the company she keeps and is seen with in town, it is incredible that the reaction came down to only a few journalists, one director and one musician, two or three international organizations based in Sarajevo, and no one from the world of literature. Did the minority this time overpower the majority, or is the majority just a well-packaged echo of the minority? And why does rebellion always begin and end with the reaction of the same people? How is it that not even one of the many artists who pass through the twenty-odd days of the Čitluk festival deigned to identify with Martina and cancel their own performance? Why, for instance, in defending Martina, did they not see it as defending their own freedom of expression? Does this mean that those who sell themselves to us as top artists, when push comes to shove, still prefer to pander to the fascist audience and narrow their own scope of action?

The inertia of that part of the thinking public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was believed would support the writer but did not, gives ethno-nationalist policies the right to say that a European and civic Bosnia and Herzegovina is not something worth striving for. Honestly, who can find a defensive and sluggish Bosnia and Herzegovina interesting?

The fact that Moroccan healer Meki Torabi examined more patients in three days in Zetra than four university clinical centers in Bosnia and Herzegovina diagnose in a month is the least fault of the ignorant populace. The Mlinarević Sopta case showed that the majority of Bosnian-Herzegovinian intellectuals, public workers, writers, artists of all kinds are still far below even Torabi himself, because they are absolutely unable to offer people even as much as the Moroccan charlatan offers them.