Sidran: I will not give up the fight as long as I can breathe

Our real need is to call things by their name, and that battle continues today. It is about the violence being done to us by a usurping clique that has stolen the PEN Centre from us. This is not a personal conflict, it is about the interpretation of our history, said Abdulah Sidran at today's discussion on the topic "The Writer, Literature, and Literary Associations Today" held at Kamerni teatar 55, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

- That is the meaning of my fight, and I will not step down from it as long as I can breathe through this nose and these lips - Sidran said.

The discussion was organized by the Association of Writers of BiH, led by the prominent BiH writer Dževad Karahasan.

In his presentation, Sidran recalled the aggression against BiH in 1992, when many members of the then Association of Writers went to Pale. He then requested a congress to expel those who had left from the membership, but the idea did not pass.

- Goran Simić was appointed secretary of the Sarajevo branch, who referred to what was happening to us, the siege of Sarajevo, as "vandalism from the hills." We do not see anything remotely similar to the events from 1992 to 1995 - said Sidran, explaining why a new Association of Writers was necessary, and in May 1992, he organized a meeting at his home to compile a list of members who met literary criteria.

- A Charter was signed stating that aggression was happening to us and our country, and that we write in the Bosnian language - Sidran recalls.

During the discussion, Dževad Karahasan stated that the original Association of Writers was founded in 1945 within a pedagogical totalitarianism, and that today anti-pedagogical totalitarianism is on the scene.

- This can be simply seen in pseudo-nationalism (where it is believed that a person is primarily a national being, and then everything else), and in turbo-capitalism, where it is claimed that everything can be reduced to financial value and where the religion of consumerism reigns - Karahasan states.

Another speaker at this discussion was Sead Trhulj, who said that the gathering of writers during the war was a "contribution to resistance against the war."

- The time from the war to today has changed, community is disappearing, and that enthusiasm is dissipating. The Association of Writers of BiH is becoming more massive. Everyone who writes something thinks they must belong to the Association of Writers. Unfortunately, it is experiencing the same fate as all cultural institutions in BiH - Trhulj concluded.

Among others, the event was attended by Ljubica Ostojić, Ivan Kordić, Goran Samardžić, who shared their thoughts with the audience on the current state of the literary scene and associations in BiH, writes Patria.