Bosnia and Herzegovina has been in a slow-motion crisis for so long that it has become part of the normal daily routine. A year has passed without any sign of a state-level government and on the surface life continues, but deep down, people are increasingly divided over the question of where BiH should be going.
Ethnic and social tensions are on the rise. Over the past few weeks there have been four violent clashes between football hooligans in different towns, the last one on 6 October in Sarajevo when supporters of the local team Zeljeznicar and Hajduk from Split (Croatia) clashed in the city centre. Scores of people and police were injured and numerous cars burned and upturned in one of the worst such incidents in many years.
Strikes are also spreading in local firms, with a massive protest planned by local NGOs on 15 October in Sarajevo and in a few other cities against the prolonged political, economic and social crisis. Though the environment is very different from the late 1980s and early 1990s, violence on football fields and unrest in city streets is eerily reminiscent of the final days of Yugoslavia.
Still, local politicians look unperturbed, civil society is inert, the international community divided and local media as divisive as ever. The EU has just published its 2011 Progress Report for BiH, which shows it halting or slipping in political, economic and all other key areas. It is the worst progress report BiH has received so far, so bad was it in fact that the EU should have called it the deterioration instead of the progress report. Incredibly, some politicians are trying to persuade their electorate that the recession is about to end and that a brighter future awaits.
For the past year colleagues have toured this country far and wide, identifying problems on different administrative levels and exploring their origins.
RS leaders have brought their own entity and the rest of the country to the edge of catastrophe by toying with nationalist sentiments, mocking international powers and weakening state institutions. Yet RS is not the only one at fault. It still takes at least two to tango, but in the case of BiH it takes three, four or sometimes even five. So instead of tango we end up with the local circular dance (kolo) with each dancer pulling in a different direction.
While Croats and Serbs are mainly focused on their national interests, most Bosniaks, as well as others who identify themselves with BiH, want to build up a civic state. Most of them have no tolerance for the views of most Croats and Serbs who prefer ethnicity-based entities. Nobody is willing to open a discussion on how to merge the civic and ethnic concept in a democratic BiH.
Nevertheless, three and a half years of war and 15 years of subsequent political strife have affected people across BiH. They no longer share a common view of the country’s future or structure, and some do not even accept the country’s existence anymore.
Six years of political, economic and social tensions are taking their toll and the country seems to me to be approaching economic and social, if not political and administrative, collapse. The BiH economy is halting and the entities are taking out new loans to continue to pay salaries, pensions and social benefits. The country is facing new difficult economic, social and financial challenges in 2012 when repayment of large international loans is due to start.
As the situation seems to be going from bad to worse, it is time for BiH citizens to think whether they care more for the packaging than for the content and to tell their leaders they want not only their national but also their economic and social interests protected. It is also high time for local leaders, NGOs, intellectuals and media to provide BiH citizens with what they need and stop promising them what they cannot deliver. Otherwise all may end up with what they want least: a collapsed state, economy, and maybe even more conflict.
