Esad Duraković: My Dear Country

I wish you a happy Statehood Day - one of those in a series of past years, when some people persistently and in vain try to deny and cripple you. They don’t know the most important thing about you because in their arrogance, which is so pitiful, they believe that they can fight against you in whose dark womb are buried many who were much more powerful, and for hundreds of years were failing to invalidate you and finally deny you. They, in fact, in their political insanity do not understand the essential things about you; in their political blindness and ethical monstrosity they do not understand your virtues, the springs from which your miraculous longevity is fed.

I remind them - on this holiday that powerfully illuminates my mind and my heart - that you had dignifiedly sent to history powerful empires that seemed omnipotent and timeless: the Turkish Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and some other kingdoms. You outlived them all, and then how could you not outlive these poor political dwarves and moral villains?! Not so long ago, in the fascist flames that had engulfed Europe, you not only did not disappear in the flames of war and in the mud of nationalist hatred, but just then, in that fire, you forged and verified your being, dignity and indestructibility. You have certified Bosnianship as the most reliable pledge of your future.

They don't understand the most important thing about you:

By living in powerful empires and surviving them, you have matured as a country, and the country is difficult to destroy, if at all possible. At the same time, you were the mother to all your sons, nations - from Bogumil to exiled Spanish Jews and Milosevic's criminals. Stepmother to no one! You have survived changes as a state, as well as various names and cruel attacks on you, but - surviving them, you matured for hundreds of years as a country. And that’s what is most important and what some of your naughty, in fact, your cruel sons do not understand.

Even today: you are Bosnia and Herzegovina, but you are much more than that - you are the Land of Bosnia; not a stepmother but a Mother to all those who have so much humanity to respect and love their Mother.

I am proud of you as you were and as you are, in the firm belief that you will remain so. And I would be overjoyed to know that you can say the same for me.

Yours, Esad Duraković