Pro-Bosnian politics, what is that!?

By: Rasim Belko, President of the Association "Guardians of Bosnia"

There is no system in the country, so what has been happening for too long and in continuity is just stirring up the dregs. Because, if there were a system and if it implied democracy and the rule of law, we would not have come to a situation where every larger family has the possibility of founding political parties and achieving some electoral results.

I do not believe that the system without a system is a product of chance or a consequence of political developments in recent decades. I am rather of the opinion that it is a projected quagmire in which we are kept politically ghettoized, just like in that part of the USA where African Americans live. There, gangs are organized that draw power from drug trafficking and other illegal activities, and then these gangs decide who from that voting pool will go to Congress and other American institutions.

Patriots in Bosnia and Herzegovina are already ghettoized, but in the most insidious way, so that they accept this ghettoization but do not notice it. Because of this, almost every larger town where patriots predominantly live has at least one, and often more, parties. Small, but greatly greedy and insatiable interest groups.

And that is essentially the main reason why we do not have a common political stance on crucial issues concerning the state and even the Bosniak ethnic community itself. There is no problem in the last decade around which all pro-state political groups have gathered to solve it. Mostly, it is divided into two, three, or more political blocs.

Two parties in that space are considered the largest - SDA and SDP. And around them, a political pool of smaller and small parties is being formed in an attempt to gain control of state or FBiH level government. At the same time, in cantonal or municipal combinations, the situation is much more serious and difficult, because every local leader wants their piece of the pie.

For example, 15 parties entered the Assembly of the poor Bosanskopodrinjski Canton after the 2022 elections. And already in the first days, we saw machinations, buying of votes, and similar processes that, two years later, led to changes in the assembly majority and government like on a conveyor belt.

It is not as drastic, but it is similar in every canton where patriotic forces are in the majority. In TK, we had weekend governments and their toppling, in USK the same, in ZDK such a scenario was attempted several times, only in KS was it calm because the interest group "Trojka" gathered more or less all the opportunists working for their own interest.

And then, for all the troubles that befall us as a society and for every anti-state campaign, we blame exclusively Dodik or Čović, or Zagreb or Belgrade. And we haven't moved an inch in our own backyard for at least a decade.

We are so stuck between political opportunism and personal interests that no one in all these years has dared to even try to gather a pro-state political bloc of parties and draw strategic red lines below which no policy from that pool should go. I do not count Trojka (SDP, NiP, NS) in this story, because they are a product of international activity aimed precisely at further fragmenting pro-Bosnian politics.

Besides the absence of a democratic system as the key cause, the blame for the complete collapse of pro-Bosnian politics on key issues also lies with the two leading parties, which in almost every situation behave like Hamas and Fatah, in order to please foreign interests, Serbian or Croatian politics.

Neither within those two parties has anyone cared or is caring about voters, the state, and that pro-Bosnian interest. I am not saying they have to have a joint appearance in post-election combinations, even that has proven to be a bad solution, but that a red line below key strategic interests had to be drawn, that is absolutely undeniable. And the leaders of those two parties were the first to draw it and thus create an axis around which everyone would gather and take responsibility that they would not go below the red line.

Because, geopolitical flows and paradigm shifts within the world order will inevitably affect us, and we, as a disbanded army, will not only not have a unified response, but we will again have a situation where a part of the pro-Bosnian bloc works to our detriment and the detriment of our state.

This must be stopped, and preferably before the elections and false election promises with which they poison the public space, and then after the elections they get amnesia and do the opposite. There are enough wise heads in this bloc who can and know how to draw that red line, the only question is whether there is political responsibility and willingness to do so in the interest of the state's survival.

Recently, in an analysis on social networks, I read that the main counter-argument to political opponents has become the word "betrayal". In the context of betraying the state. That is why I ask who betrayed the state in the last 10 years, and who defended it?

I have no doubt that more or less everyone, each in their own domain and degree of responsibility, betrayed the state, because I cannot recall a single problem around which pro-Bosnian politics united. True, there were those in that bloc who went the right way but were not competent or aware enough of the situation to lead others down that path, which is consequently as dangerous as those who went the wrong way.

If we want to survive in the territory we call the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and create a chance to survive turbulent times, and last year was the hardest since Dayton, we must think about where our red lines are, we must seek them from all pro-Bosnian political options, and we must arrange political priorities.

If we look at HDZ and SNSD, it will be completely clear what that path is and what the red lines are. Because, the policies represented by HDZ and SNSD have held those lines for 30 years and have not faltered, even in moments when they faced international pressure, threats, and sanctions.

Because, while Serbian and Croatian politicians are proud of sanctions for something they did for "their cause", pro-Bosnian politics behaves like a turkey on Thanksgiving, expecting Americans to spare it and do its job.

Therefore, before all political combinations and agendas being prepared, it is necessary to ask the question "pro-Bosnian politics, what is that"? If it is a continuation of the current political practice of small pens and beys at the doors of the same, then it is better to get rid of the illusion that it even exists in time and start looking for some third way!