The Secret of the Bulgarian Train: Bosniak National Politics

By Sead Omeragić

There are not too many dilemmas after the engineers of the "Bulgarian train from SDA" openly and clearly showed their true face. Lounging in comfortable lives, detached from the people, deep in the mud of corruption and nepotism, who do our national leaders represent and where are they leading us?

"What do you need help with, God willing?" asks Asim Sarajlić, head of personnel and vice-president of SDA.
"God Almighty provides sustenance," says one of the participants in the corruption at the end of the agreement.

As that writer would say: "We fought long ago. Those who fought do not understand: Did they fight for this or against this?"

Politics cannot be honest towards its own people while ruling with corrupt methods, enjoying all privileges, and talking about justice and honesty. What's the point of deception? It is an open secret that party power brokers have been trading their political power for decades. They even sell jobs. Like at a market. When village faculties started opening, it was natural that diplomas would be sold in subsequent installments. And they are most common in politics. That's why an honest person won't go into politics, and they won't let their children attend village faculties.

Politics has become a field for the intellectually limited, for mediocrities. Village swindlers and petty bourgeois have long been pushing their way into politics. The situation is such "de facto and de jure." What can you expect from the incompetent other than corruption and scheming? For the ignorant and incompetent, corruption and scheming are their only usable weapons.

Even an ordinary football club seeks the best players to achieve success. Here, you join a party and immediately it's like: Everyone gets a turn, everyone will play. This country was defended by people who, on their own volition, went to defend it. There was no coercion in defending the homeland. People volunteered for actions and died or were maimed. A few days ago, a parent, a veteran, complained that his daughter, with a gold badge, watches as less capable students win rigged competitions in the judiciary. We have heard many such stories in recent years.

Do we, as a people, have the strength to renew and elevate the moral values with which we have survived so far?

The Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina had to react to that terrible video of SDA officials. Because those in the video also present themselves as believers. The IZ had to condemn it. Hypocrites will ruin every bit of good in every pore of society. I worked in a state-owned company where the director was a mediocrity from SDA, who swore by his honesty every day, every hour. Meanwhile, with an astronomical salary of ten to fifteen thousand KM, twice a year he would pocket a management bonus amounting to about 400 average monthly pensions, which is the entire PIO old-timer fund for a city neighborhood.

After the war, parties waited for volunteers and honest people. Then those from the basements stormed in. They still stink today of dampness and accumulated moisture. Bosniak politics has been enslaved by negative selection for a decade. It can't get any worse than this.

We need morality and honesty in politics more than ever. Every other good is born from honesty. Our youth are fleeing to the West because a corrupt society is, in translation, a rotten society. There is corruption in the West too, but corruption is easier to tolerate in a foreign country.

Who would have thought that we, a poor, wretched, killed and dismembered people, would elect the incompetent and corrupt. Who would have thought that a people who have experienced the greatest and most terrible tragedies and genocide would bring to power people with poor education and no morals. Those who, as soon as they speak, echo with emptiness and short-sightedness. "De facto and de jure."

Bosnia has never been more exposed to lies and slander than today. Today, lies are the strongest weapon in the hands of our neighbors against BiH. Political hypocrites cannot provide answers to these lies.

Who would have thought that this nation, for whose freedom and preservation of the state tens of thousands of the most wonderful youth perished, that this nation would elect a terrible spiritual and intellectual poverty. For our justice and truth to prevail, we must be clean before ourselves, before God, and before the world. Some of our future leaders must be above all politics and filth. Only the honorable and honest can keep us on this soil, in this Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only in this way, relying on honesty, can we stand tall in pride and survive the horrors that soon await us.

Do we not see today, faced with disappearance and new tragedies, that the incompetent and spiritually wretched in power are the greatest danger to our survival?