Stolac is infinitely far from Sarajevo, except when mandates are needed!

Written by: Rasim Belko

Stolac is as far from Sarajevo as the silence of political leaders in the capital lasts. And that silence has lasted for decades. While in Stolac and other towns of the south, a systematic and indiscriminate persecution of Bosniaks is underway – through denial of rights, blocking of education, challenging of cultural and religious identity – Sarajevo stands by as a spectator. Leaders in the capital play at serious politics in front of cameras, while on the ground Bosniaks become citizens without any institutional protection.

Whose voters are the Bosniaks from Stolac, Čapljina, Neum? If their vote counts only at elections, and afterwards turns into silence, then it is clear that political Sarajevo is not their address. Sarajevo is theirs only declaratively, while in practice they are left to fend for themselves and at the mercy of those who have long been shaping the reality of the south to fit one policy and one man – Dragan Čović.

The example of the cemetery in Stolac perfectly illustrates this injustice. After being called out, Minister Nerin Dizdar offers funds from the FBiH budget, but the legal problem remains unresolved. The money was offered as a facade, as a screen for the essential failure to resolve an issue that touches the very core of human dignity – the right for the dead to be buried where they belong. Is this politics? No, it is cheap posturing, a cheap reflex to public pressure.

However, unlike Dizdar, who eventually reacted, most others either remain silent about the crisis or use it to score daily political points. And here, both political blocs based in Sarajevo share equal blame. The Troika (SDP, NiP, NS) because it promised change and because it holds power in the Federation, and the SDA and the rest of the opposition because through the institutions of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and the Stolac Municipal Council, much more could and should have been done, not only regarding the cemetery but the overall situation.

Let us imagine what would happen if the authorities from the RS tried to relocate a cemetery on the slopes of Sarajevo. Or if someone from East Sarajevo attacked a legacy of the NOB from World War II. It would echo in the UN, NATO, every international address. The decibels of noise would break through the ceiling.

Because, truth be told, that politics in Sarajevo has long been salon-style, tailored to a polished image that must be dusted off if it strays from the Baščaršija - Marijin Dvor stretch. That salon-style haggling over the fate of the people they “fight for” has brought Bosniaks to a position where, as a majority, they are politically belittled throughout BiH, and all their rights are violated wherever one of the other two constituent peoples dominates. As for those who declare themselves as citizens, there is no place for them in that story.

There are many examples; Stolac is the current one. But there are no emergency sessions, no clear reaction, no institutional protection. Only political posturing and a tacit message that Bosniaks in the south are a problem best ignored.

But silence is not neutral. Silence is complicity. It means that Sarajevo has consciously renounced part of its citizens in order to maintain the illusion of stability and not spoil relations with the HDZ. It means that Bosniaks in Herzegovina are left to an injustice that is normalized day by day.

How far is Stolac from Sarajevo? As far as that cowardly pretense of state-building lasts. And today, in translation, that means – infinitely far!