We must have a common goal!

Written for NAP: Muamer Bandić, delegate in the KS Assembly and member of the SBiH Presidency

Today, more than ever, we live in a divided society. Moreover, our society is not divided exclusively along ethnic lines, but rather cultural-political divisions are artificially and deliberately created within Sarajevo Canton between citizens and peasants, believers and non-believers, left and right, all with the aim of breaking the political strength of the Bosnian state.

Only by doing so, by making us quarrel, divide, and break us into minor interest-political groups, can they rule this country without asking us anything. We are witnessing this today, from the suspension of the FBiH Constitution in order to form a government without the vote of Bosniaks, to some proposing today to exclude cantons from decision-making about our future, all so that Bosniaks are not asked anything.

Let's go back just a few years when the Coordination Mechanism was created, which will serve as a model for decision-making in the preparation of the Reform Plan for the implementation of the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, and where do cantons even come into this story?

Very simply, cantons are in the decision-making system at the insistence of the HDZ to be included, otherwise the Mechanism as such would not even exist. And this was accepted, to satisfy the HDZ, to move BiH's European path forward, and to avoid a systemic error of excluding any of the peoples from the process of making important decisions for the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Today, with the imposed government of the Trojka, Bosniaks have been brought into a situation where they most often use collective protection mechanisms, including this possibility to stop all systemically bad solutions for our people and country through cantons. Now, the same people who sit in their chairs primarily thanks to the attack on the constitutional order of FBiH and the few votes of deceived voters, want to take away the last protection mechanism from Bosniaks.

They can do this very easily, with the assistance of the HDZ. But the HDZ must also be aware of the fact that the moment they exclude cantons from the decision-making system, they will never be brought back. And all those political actors who truly love this country should not even discuss it, if they have good intentions towards themselves and their own country.

In such political polarization, with people sitting in institutions and representing Bosniaks, pretending to be falsely Bosnian, while working in Serbian and Croatian national interests, we are also facing the question of all questions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the issue of state property. In any normal society, this should not even be a subject of discussion, because state property is already defined by itself. As the term itself says, it is the property of the state, and the only state in this region is Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, we have a situation where one entity, which is constitutionally and legally part of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is taking over the competencies of the state and behaving like a state within a state, and this has been tolerated for decades, even though the entire reform process and European integration are stalled precisely because of the radical chauvinistic policy of a clientelist camarilla from this entity.

The senselessness and madness of this policy is best illustrated by the fact that even the unified emergency number 112, which is unique at the EU level, is being problematized, or the circus around the "Amber alert" system, used in cases of missing minors, which in BiH has been broken down into three separate systems, and only when activated is the search initiated at the entity or Brčko District level, as if kidnappers and criminals care about administrative borders. Moreover, the more of them, the better for them.

We are witnessing a situation where such diagnoses (because these are not policies) are being treated by constant appeasement and renunciation of one's own political, ethical, and moral principles and values. The result is the worst political crisis ever, a complete blockade of institutions, and as a consequence, an economic crisis in the recent political history of BiH.

What no one has tried, instead of spending on lunatics and their insane ideas, is to build the country from the bottom up, from our local communities, where there are no blocking mechanisms in the system of decision-making, planning, and policy implementation. There are development and infrastructure projects that we all need in Sarajevo Canton, regardless of whether we are citizens or peasants, whether we live in the center or on the periphery, whether we are believers or non-believers, left or right. We all need roads, parking lots, quality communal services, a clean environment, and a well-maintained space in which we live.

The Trojka has had complete vertical power in Sarajevo Canton for years, from municipalities, through the city and canton, to the top of the state, and they have failed to do even what they promised, let alone something that citizens need. They were not hindered by any parapolitical figures with their insane ideas, yet they chose to spend time and money on them, not on their citizens and their needs. Specifically, in Sarajevo Canton, with the new government, new figures with insane self-serving ideas have appeared, who were more important to appease than their own citizens.

Just as citizens cannot function without government, so government cannot function without citizens, and it is very important for any pluralistic and democratic society that citizens are involved in planning and decision-making processes. I will give you a concrete example from practice when I held the position of Minister of Labor, Social Policy, Displaced Persons, and Refugees of Sarajevo Canton. Five months after my appointment, I was the official proposer of the Law on the Rights of Persons Returning from Sarajevo Canton to their Pre-War Residence, which was adopted by the Assembly of Sarajevo Canton on April 29, 2013. We agreed on and harmonized that law with representatives of returnee associations because we were making that law for those people.

On this occasion, the president of the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica, Munira Subašić, said that such a law means a lot to returnees and that she hopes other cantons will follow the example of Sarajevo Canton. This statement was a personal satisfaction for me that we listened to the voice of our citizens and did what we could within our modest competencies.

From a distance of seven years, I still firmly stand by the position that every individual who loves this country, regardless of whether they identify as Bosniak or Bosnian, whether they consider themselves a citizen or a peasant, whether they are a believer or a non-believer, whether they ideologically see themselves on the left or right, therefore, every person and every organization must act within their capabilities and competencies to help people, modernize and improve our society, and build a country in line with 21st-century standards.

For that, we must have a common goal, regardless of our individual differences, or we will cease to exist. And to succeed in this, we must start from our local communities, because success can only be built on solid foundations. For this year, let our common political goal be that in the next four years, Srebrenica is not led by genocide deniers!