When everything is said and done, for an ordinary observer of domestic misery in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and beyond, the whole story from Inzko’s Law on Genocide Denial, through Dodik’s panic reactions and provoked moves in RS, to the inauguration of the new OHR High Representative Christian Schmidt – the circle closes strangely, in disbelief: To the classic sliding coup d’etat carried out from the middle of the state, instrumentalized by a member of the Presidency, the High Representative has responded so far exactly as he presented himself on arrival. Political but not diplomatic. With a message to everyone, to stay relaxed! And an indirect clarification of the sweet-talking promise with the arrival, “to make himself superfluous at some point …” A concrete action with a reason, the nervous audience, is still waiting for.
In those ten days, concluding with Dodik in Belgrade, including a relaxed reception without him and his fellows in Sarajevo, various hints and information from “reliable sources” were arranged in the garden of the National Museum – the school of Bosnian statehood. General practice analysts compete wisely over them, recalling Dodik’s languid practice of tightening the rope to bursting out and shifting the ground beneath his feet, and then reversing the story and avoiding what he suspected. Both him and those who threatened would find a benefit for themselves in this tactic. The game is repeating itself, but it seems that completely new circumstances threaten it.
This time, the clash between the logic of “relaxed” and the scandalous reality that every textbook on the state and law defines this as a coup d’etat – has escalated to disbelief. Worst of all, with consequences that the Brussels bureaucracy does not seem to recognize yet. This fact, today, is in itself a reason to question how it is possible to silence all the scandalous and almost unrecorded provocations of Dodik in the EU, which are already unprecedented in the history of diplomatic insolence. It is therefore not strange that the question is spreading rapidly, especially after how Dodik acted in Belgrade: Will the OHR High Representative come to Dodik on Jahorina “because he agreed to see him as a former MP and Minister of Agriculture in Germany … “With a provocation: ‘I’m a member of the Presidency, and who are you?’ The thick line between political wisdom and dignity is blurred.
In this silence, while waiting for action, the mere office wisdom of the bureaucracy is no longer in question, nor the strategy of the highest conductors in the European reality. The same reality in which we have long been perceived as small until we disturb their interest. It is a logical and simple question that the people around ask: How do they remain without any meaningful, concrete, and quick answer of a targeted, clear, and public statement first by the “leader”, and then by a wider circle of henchmen in half of the BiH state around him. Starting with them saying that the genocide in Srebrenica did not happen, that the Republika Srpska will never accept it, that coexistence with Bosnians is not possible, to the fact that this is the last nail in the coffin of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that the Republika Srpska is forced to dissolve, not to recognizing BiH institutions in RS, etc …
How come, in the name of any political wisdom and tactics (if any), they remain without any response and insult of the lowest level by the member of the Presidency of BiH at the expense of the still high representative Inzko whom Dodik publicly tells, that he is a “cretin”, that his father was a Gestapo officer, that he received two million euros for the promulgation of the Law … Not to mention raising miserable provocation to the international level by claiming that behind everything stands “the German people who do not want to remain the only people of genocidal nature. ”
In the shady garden of the National Museum, for a full ten days from the beginning of this disgrace, for almost two full hours, guests – notably foreigners and guests of mostly mono-ethnic political and elite societies – spoke casually, first the coming, and then the leaving High Representative. Professional and many educated politicians explained with “diplomatic wisdom” why no one combed more directly and precisely about what is inside and what is outside that garden, is the essence of the whole story:
Where and how is the EU, this country, and this society going together if they do not say anything that every somewhat more normal inhabitant of Bosnia and Herzegovina says about all those terrible political provocations, but also human abominations unworthy of even a dirty tavern, let alone membership in the Presidency. Is this all a message to wait a little bit more? Relaxed. And can an ordinary, extremely confused citizen understand all of it?
In somewhat more normal conditions, “where it is needed”, such things are thought about and discussed with arguments that range from the old one that policy, is a whore, to the one about the objective sensitivity of the topic and space, today and here.
It is true that none of the foreign operatives, in the difficult business with the state, which they have formatted as it is with their interests, including support for its current “leaders”, think that the matter can change overnight. Not even by sudden radical measures. A lot of it is wrong and systemic from the very beginning. They ended the war, intentionally, without determining who was defeated and who was the winner. With the legalization of the continuity of power by those who devised the war, led it, and came out of it as bosses, with the introduction of institutional chaos with hundreds of ministries, dozens of governments, and constitutions. All in silence, before debilitating the system and mocking the mind, knowledge, and diploma.
In that situation, for politicians, both domestic and foreign, “relaxed” is a magic word. Especially if that relaxation through silence – after all those thunderous promises to change all the nonsense around non-papers and border changes, with crumbling institutions, mass departures of young and smart people – remains part of the long-term commitment and tactics. That wisdom of politics must be kept in mind though: The increasingly loud silence of the paradise on the non-responses of “politics and leaders” returns like a boomerang when the red line of humiliation and an empty stomach is crossed.
And here, we are close. So if those in Brussels really didn’t care what the folks thought of them here, on the trail of “relaxed” politics – from the war until today – including all these “don’t rush” tactics, “status quo” strategies and proofs that they succeeded through ” there is no shooting “, they have to recognize that the end is dangerously close. Silences like this now, on the occasion of attempts to defend the genocide of individuals, groups, and kidnapped policies (no one wrote against the people and the state) in the name of preserving their own criminal and ruling positions, are no longer in play. Nor does persistence on many “leaders” here, whose contractual crime tensions, suit the agenda.
This is a matter of notorious facts, no matter how normal the mockery of facts has become: the Balkan Barometer of the RCC (Regional Cooperation Council), founded in Sarajevo after the war by Americans and Europeans together, published a new survey on BiH citizen’s support for EU accession. In a large sample of respondents, only 50 percent are “for the EU”. Much less than EU confidence theorists expected. “Relaxed” policies, even on the occasion of current, traumatic scandals, were given a concrete answer.
The truth remains with the warnings. The policy is (ignorance) oriented towards reality and goals, and those over whom it is implemented are players who will sooner or later show whether this policy is on the right path. And whether they belong to her, as she is.
It is difficult, of course, at this hour to fathom all the wisdom with which Schmidt and his logistics headed to the Balkans. And whether the silence over the coup (no matter who called it) which Dodik – saving himself and his friends, doesn’t even sweep under the carpet, but is proud of – is a part of wisdom (hopefully) or not knowing the local reality. If it is ignorance, let them make an effort to learn as soon as possible what many diplomats here only sense at the end of their term and run away, leaving room for new ones who will only learn from the beginning what they did not dream of. Then it is not bad to visit the National Museum more often. And if the policy is “relaxation”, then I am sorry to say: The creators of this and such ideas, together with all European representatives, have the luck to make “themselves superfluous”, and it is closer than they think.
At the same time, it is a brutal reality that many here are already on the verge of redundancy for themselves and others. The humiliated will react to it sooner or later. And a policy that does not see that, and does not react to it, is defeated in advance.
