We got used to it, and we shouldn't have: Our getting used to it is the key tool for killing Bosnia!

By: Rasim Belko

Bosnia and Herzegovina's greatest misfortune was never in those who attacked it. Its real tragedy has always been in those who stopped defending it when they put on diplomatic ties over their collars, settled into salon armchairs, and started turning the country into a folkloric ornament for international reports. The question of the forces that defended this country while it was bleeding, and then tried to turn it into a modern, functional state, getting used to it, and the simultaneous tiring of those who destroyed it with tanks, howitzers, and ethnic cleansing, and are today destroying it with laws, separatism, and destructive policies, is the question of all questions. It determines what Bosnia and Herzegovina will look like: a state or a territory under the rule of local thugs and foreign supervisors.

Dodik's latest offensive against the constitutional order of BiH has been going on for four months. Four months of stretching competencies, threats, open institutional coups, and political dismantling of the state from an entity that exists thanks to international guarantees and the blood of murdered civilians. And what happened? Nothing. Everything that at least resembled serious resistance at the beginning turned into a collective shrug and routine daily news. All serious people have given up. No one is even trying to bring him to his senses anymore, let alone to justice.

The only reason Dodik has not gone a few steps further in his attack on the state is not the wisdom of political Sarajevo, not the courage of institutions, nor the vigilance of the international community. No. He was prevented only by Serbian political discord, temporarily caused by a British diplomatic injection, which momentarily shook his intra-entity front. Had it not been for this discord, we would already be witnessing a proclamation of "peaceful separation".

And while that was happening, the politicians of Sarajevo were playing a kind of Užice circle of brotherhood and unity with the opposition from RS, which – let's be open – has the same aspirations as Milorad Dodik, just without the courage, backbone, and political muscle to openly express them and try to realize them. Instead of political Sarajevo forming a front to preserve the state, they were forming coalitions to preserve their own positions, present or future, without realizing the price the state would pay for it.

And to make the tragedy complete, Dragan Čović appeared, like an extra Valium for the already sleepy politicians of Sarajevo. A man who played with Dodik like Mate Boban played with Radovan Karadžić, and with the politicians of Sarajevo like Franjo Tuđman played with Alija Izetbegović. Instead of resisting him, they handed him all the levers of control over key segments of the state – out of political-diplomatic impotence, ignorance, or subservience. While Čović was creating Bosnian-Herzegovinian political chaos with Dodik, political Sarajevo was entertaining international officials with folklore about a multi-ethnic society and a false balance of power.

The greatest danger today is not in Dodik's attacks, but in our belief that the situation is under control. It is not. The danger is that those who were supposed to continuously defend and build this country have become accustomed to constant crises, constant blackmail, and constant threats. They have become accustomed to the fact that an attack on the state is routine, that separatist rhetoric comes in daily doses, and that it is responded to with a statement and two or three patriotic phrases.

We have gotten used to it. To our own powerlessness, to the systemic erosion of institutions, to the open trade of state competencies, and to the fact that issues of justice and sovereignty are topics for special occasions. At the same time, we delude ourselves that Dodik is tired, that he is isolated because "we don't want to talk to him." As if the problem is in the conversation, and not in the political strength to stop him.

In this country, the people who attacked it from 1992 to 1995 never got tired. They just changed methods. While we wait for them to get tired, they are resting. And we, tired, asleep on duty, are allowing what we defended with blood to become prey to daily politics and international hypocrisy.

Anyone who hopes that separatists will eat themselves is mistaken. Bosnia and Herzegovina did not survive because they gave up, but because we did not. It's just a question of whether we are ready to endure a little longer or have we finally admitted defeat through habit.