Željko Komšić – First among Bosniaks

After Alija Izetbegović, no politician in Bosnia and Herzegovina has enjoyed such sympathy and support from the Bosniak people as Željko Komšić does.

The fact that one people prefers a politician from another people over any politician from their own people is a phenomenon in itself. Can we imagine Serbian and Croatian voters preferring a Bosniak in this way over Serbian and Croatian candidates?

Bosniaks have on several occasions testified that Željko Komšić, as a Croat and a Bosnian, is more important to them than many Bosniak politicians, no matter how Bosnian and patriotic they are. Namely, Bosniaks twice elected Željko Komšić as mayor of the Novo Sarajevo municipality (2000 and 2004) and twice elected him as the Croatian member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2006 and 2010). Despite very serious criticisms that Bosniaks are thus encroaching on the equality of the Croatian people by electing their own member of the Presidency for Croats, which legitimises separatist tendencies in western Herzegovina, Bosniaks re-elected Željko Komšić in 2010.

The result was triumphant, as Komšić won 337,065 votes (32.94% of the total number of voters from the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Brčko District, i.e., 60.61% of the total number of voters who voted for the Croatian member of the Presidency). In the reactions of 2006, and especially 2010, not only was the question raised about the electoral model that allows one people to elect a representative of another people, but the democratic credibility of Željko Komšić, who accepted to represent Croats by Bosniak, not Croatian, will, was also questioned. The incredible success of Komšić's newly founded party, the Democratic Front, in the 2014 General Elections – naturally, in areas with a Bosniak majority – confirmed Željko Komšić's status as a Bosniak leader, that is – first among Bosniaks.

If Komšić were Šaban

This case is unprecedented in the political history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and perhaps even further afield. What is incredible in Bosnia, that one people chooses a politician from another people as its leader, would be even more incredible in Serbia, for example, where Serbs could choose an Albanian leader, or Albanians a Serbian leader. In other Bosnian peoples, there is nothing similar to compare with the Bosniak obsession with Željko Komšić. Among Bosniaks, however, there are similar situations.

We remember, for instance, how Bosniak generals were quietly arrested and taken to The Hague, without provoking any reaction, any protests from the Bosniak community. However, when General Jovan Divjak was arrested in Austria on 3 March 2011, Bosniak patriotic consciousness flared up, demonstrations were organised both in the country and in the diaspora, and on banners Sarajevo was renamed to "SaraJovo", all out of love and respect for "Uncle Jovo". There is nothing controversial about this, except for the fact that Bosniaks did not defend Alagić, Delić, Hadžihasanović and others in the same way, nor did they, precisely in those March days of demonstrations for "Uncle Jovo", when the anniversaries of the deaths of Generals Talijan and Alagić fall, remember these two patriots.

On one hand, there is a justified voice of protest over the arrest of General Divjak, and on the other, absolute silence over the arrests and anniversaries of the deaths of generals and patriots bearing Muslim names. Surely the name is not the point?

And what if Jovan Divjak, by any chance, were called Šaćir Divjak? What if Željko Komšić, by any chance, were called Šaban Komšić? Would any demonstrators have risen over the arrest of General Šaćir? Would any voters, and to what extent, vote for leader Šaban? Here, let that Šaban Komšić have everything, even better qualities than Željko Komšić, let him be handsome, eloquent, combative, let him have a "Golden Lily", let him be from a so-called mixed marriage, let him also be in a so-called mixed marriage, let him not go to the mosque, let him be entirely tailored to multicultural and civic criteria. But, there is a flaw: his name is Šaban. Would that personal Željko Komšić, if he were called Šaban, achieve any electoral results? He would probably achieve some, but not these. If Bosniaks have made Željko Komšić "first among Bosniaks" only because his name is Željko, then this is a complex not only political, but much more a psychosocial problem reaching the question of discrimination and self-destruction as a phenomenon among victims of discrimination.
In these considerations, the patriotic and human credibility of Jovan Divjak or Željko Komšić is unquestionable. That is not the topic at all. The topic is that mysterious Bosniak obsession with people bearing non-Muslim names, who love Bosnia, Bosnians and Bosniaks, who are one of us. Why are Jovan and Željko more important in Bosniak perception than Šaćir and Šaban? Neither Jovan nor Željko are to blame for this, but rather some deep trauma among Bosniaks, due to which others are loved more than one's own. If it were at least equal, it would be bearable, but this way it is a factor of perversion that benefits no one.

A pig in a poke

The Bosniak choice of Željko Komšić has seriously endangered Croatian equality, and thus the stability of inter-ethnic relations, although Komšić's election was supposed to strengthen the ideas of togetherness and that one-sided Bosnianness. One flaw produces other flaws, and so it happened this time as well. The Democratic Front was founded in April 2013, as a result of Komšić's split with the SDP, and by October 2014 it had become the second or third party among Bosniaks.

On the pre-election scene, we could not witness the personnel quality of the Democratic Front, because it involved unknown or inexperienced candidates, meaning that voters voted for those they did not know, for whom the only guarantee was Željko Komšić. Objectively, it was difficult for Komšić himself to assess the personnel potential of his team in a short period, so, thanks to the Bosniak love for Željko's name, and also his work, we got a pig in a poke.

It is abnormal, and harmful, this blind voting, this giving of blank support to a candidate list solely in the name of support for one man. Negative effects will be felt when the Bosniak illusion, called the Democratic Front = Željko Komšić, confronts first principles, such as coalition with ideological and pre-election opponents. The question is whether Komšić's fans will understand anything even then, because they have not voted for him and his party over the past 14 years because of politics, programme, ideology... It was voting in the name of the trauma of being someone else.

In the phenomenon of Željko Komšić, multiple Bosniak historical traumas of identity are condensed, that tragicomic effort to testify to modernity by despising one's own and preferring others', which is nothing other than self-destruction nurtured precisely by convincing Bosniaks that they are a foreign body in the Slavic south. Therefore, this realistic enthronement of Željko Komšić as "first among Bosniaks" (a phrase that until now suited only the name of Alija Izetbegović) is, in fact, the final act of Bosniak self-destruction, according to which it is quite natural to feel that a Croat should be a Bosniak leader. And Željko Komšić is a leader among Bosniaks. The first after Alija.