LOCAL PRESS
Coalition agreement of two Serb lists in Kosovska Mitrovica (Novosti)
If Oliver Ivanovic would win at the mayoral elections in northern Kosovska Mitrovica on 23 February, Ksenija Bozovic from his SDP Civic Initiative, who was elected the president of the Mitrovica Assembly two days ago, would remain in this post only two weeks. According to the coalition agreement between two Serb lists, the Serbian (Srpska) Civic Initiative and the SDP Civic Initiative, the president of the local assembly and the mayor can’t be from this same party. “If Oliver wins, I will resign to the post of the president of the Assembly. Accepting this post has additional significance for me, because I can influence the international community to release our leader,” Bozovic told Novosti. The SDP doesn’t think that the coalition agreement on distribution of posts and the already assumed post of the president of the assembly will influence their voters to “hand over” the mayoral post to the rival from the Serbian list Goran Rakic. They think that Ivanovic, even though in detention, can receive more votes than in November. “The coalition agreement between two most relevant lists in northern Mitrovica is good since unity is something they need most. They will preserve their town with it,” the leader of the Serbian list Vladeta Kostic told Novosti. “Our election headquarters is active, we have a door-to-door campaign and we believe this will result in Rakic’s victory,” said Kostic.
Fate of missing persons (Radio Serbia, by Suzana Mitic)
Under the auspices of the Red Cross International Committee the Working Group for missing person in relation to the events in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 held a meeting in Belgrade to summarize activities undertaken in 2013 and planned in 2014. Activities to shed light on the fate of 1,716 missing persons must be carried out much more intensively. Over the past year, 70 field operations were undertaken, exhumations carried out at 12 locations, and only 45 cases were resolved. Representatives of the Association of Families of Kidnapped and Missing Kosovo Serbs and Albanians have expressed concern over the limited progress and urged both sides to work faster and more efficiently. Representatives of Belgrade and Pristina have recognized the need to intensify efforts to obtain new information and committed to take concrete steps to accelerate the search, Chair of the Working Group Lina Milner told the press conference held after the meeting.
Veljko Odalovic, head of the Belgrade delegation in the working group, announced that in late March or early April, when the weather permits, the work on the grave site Rudnica near Raska, from which the two bodies have been transferred to the identification, will be resumed. This, as he explained, includes the demolition of a building erected on the site, and it is estimated that this activity will be completed within 60 days. He added that some other locations will be checked, such as those in the region of Bor and Kursumlija. The Serbian side insists on the search of some sites in Kosovo, including Livoc Lake near Gnjilane and Kosare. In addition, Odalovic pointed out, the results of an investigation into the trafficking of human organs are expected to help clarify the fate of missing persons. The remains of 351 unidentified persons are stored in the morgue of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pristina, and the identification process should be accelerated as well.
Head of the Pristina delegation Pajazit Nushi announced some of the locations in Kosovo which will be explored such as Streoce, Partes, Budisavce, Mamusa, Zvecan. There are 31 locations where graves might exist, Nushi said adding that those are all equally important, regardless of the ethnicity of the potential victims. The search and identification of missing persons should not be politicized, because it is a joint effort with the humane goal, said Nushi.
It was pointed out at the press conference that the report of UN Secretary General Ban Ki –moon, stressing the importance of resolving the fate of missing persons, gave a special, international dimension to this issue. The fact that the OSCE plans to have its representative for the West Balkans involved in this should add to efficiency of these activities. The session of the Working Group was attended by representatives of the embassies, the War Crimes Chamber in Belgrade, the Serbian Red Cross, and the International Commission on Missing Persons.
Radmanovic: There will be no early elections in RS (RTS)
Member of the Presidency of B&H Nebojsa Radmanovic said on Wednesday there would be no early elections in the Republika Srpska (RS). “The problems in the B&H Federation must not be imposed on entire B&H. We will not allow that. Although there have been such demands, there will be no early elections in the RS. Even though some of the parties in the RS, both those in power and in the opposition, would prefer early elections, we have to hold to a principle here, consider everything and see who proposes that and whether everyone in the Federation agrees on it,” he told Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS). “Regular elections are scheduled to be held in 2014, as the law states that they should be held every four years at the first weekend of October. The Central Electoral Commission will slate the elections on 5 May, according to the regulations,” he said.
Luksic to visit Kosovo soon (Novosti)
Montenegrin Foreign Minister Igor Luksic will visit Pristina on 27 February, Novosti has learned. On this first official visit, he will meet with Atifete Jahjaga, Hashim Thaqi, his Kosovo colleague Enver Hoxhaj and Radovan Miljanic, the charge d’affaires of the Montenegrin Embassy in Pristina. The Montenegrin Government unanimously recognized Kosovo as an independent state six years ago. This decision was passed by Milo Djukanovic’s cabinet only one day after the UN General Assembly voted on Serbia’s proposal to debate the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Djukanovic’s decision was not revoked even by representatives of the parliamentary opposition in Montenegro or citizen protests. Serbia’s first response was to deny hospitality to the then Montenegrin ambassador to Serbia Anka Vojvodic. In the meantime, Podgorica and Belgrade have forgotten frictions, so relations between the two countries have been moving upwards, and they are at the highest level presently since Podgorica renewed Montenegro’s state independence at the 2006 referendum.
REGIONAL PRESS
SDA supports continuing work of B&H Federation government, seeks Radoncic’s resignation (Oslobodjenje)
The SDA supports a continuation of work by the B&H Federation government, and the SDA will not participate in its destruction, said Bakir Izetbegovic, the SDA vice president and member of the B&H Presidency, at a special press conference after an urgent session of party leadership. He explained that they would support the Federal government in the functioning of the total system in the Federation, especially for the regular payment of pensions, disability payments, salaries, and they believe that the Federal government must continue to work. The SDA seeks the resignation of the B&H Minister of Security Fahrudin Radoncic and the affirmation of responsibility for the failures that, as Izetbegovic said, resulted in a great number of injured and enormous material damage. “We condemn the irresponsible behavior of the Minister of Security, who did not do his job in this situation, who with his statements failed to condemn the violence, and who discouraged the guardians of order and the law,” stressed Izetbegovic. He said that as the SDA believes that the current situation in B&H can be overcome only by holding extraordinary elections, therefore the SDA representatives will support the amendments to the law that will enable elections to be held in May this year. It is essential to secure the continued functioning of government where the cantonal governments have resigned. The SDA also seeks from the Parliamentary Assembly and Council of Ministers that they hold urgent sessions and seek to analyze the existing situation in the protests, and confirm responsibility for all those who abdicated the protection of personal and property security of citizens and state property.
SDS seeks early elections in RS (Fena)
The Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) proposed early elections in RS. The SDS leader Mladen Bosic expects that the RS government will pull moves that will enable these elections to be implemented in the shortest possible time and not leave a ‘vacuum’ of eight months that could have, as he says, serious consequences for everyone, Fena reports. “We call on Milorad Dodik as the RS President and the institutions, from the RS National Assembly to the RS government, to consider the possibility of resigning and in this way opening the process of early elections in the RS to prevent these unfortunate events across RS. Citizens are justifiably unhappy. This dissatisfaction grows every day and encouraged by the protests that they are seeing in the Federation. Even some citizens in the RS are in solidarity with the citizens in the Federation. But because of the feeling that they could be doing damage to the RS, citizens have not come out to the protests. This is an appeal and conclusion from the SDS Presidency to Milorad Dodik and the RS authorities to consider their responsibility for the coming events and take moves that could prevent them from happening. However, the SDS does not support amendments to the electoral law, proposed by the SDP, because this is about a transfer of responsibility from the RS to the B&H level,” Bosic told a press conference in Banja Luka.
INTERNATIONAL PRESS
Kosovo Starts Rationing Water as Lack of Rain Cuts Supply (Bloomberg, by Boris Cerni, 11 February 2014)
Kosovo started rationing water in the capital Pristina and other cities in the Balkan nation as a dearth of rain and snow reduced reservoir supply levels.
Supply shortages in recent months prompted “emergency measures to provide sufficient drinking water for the population,” Pristina Mayor Shpend Ahmeti said, according to the regional water supplier’s website. Water reductions started Jan. 21 and supplies to homes were further curbed last week, water utility spokeswoman Arjeta Mjeku said, according to RTK.
Pristina customers were asked to ration water as much as possible amid a continuing drought and lack of snow in the worst disruption of supplies in at least three decades, the broadcaster cited Mjeku as saying. RTK said the utility banned using water to wash cars, in gardens and for non-essential uses.
Kosovo, a predominantly Albanian-populated landlocked country of 2 million residents, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. It’s now in talks with the government in Belgrade as both countries push for European Union membership.
Macedonian Election Chief Doubts Accuracy of Roll (BIRN, by Sinisa Jakov Marusic, 12 February 2014)
With only two months to go before presidential elections, Macedonia’s election commission chief says he cannot vouch for the accuracy of the electoral roll.
The head of Macedonia’s election commission, DIK, Nikola Rilkoski, said the body cannot dismiss doubts that a large number of fictional or deceased voters remains on the electoral roll.
This is because the check-up is still in the hands of the police and the state statistical office, he says, so the commission has no way of overseeing what they do.
“We will be able to vouch for the accuracy [of the electoral roll] only once we are allowed to do the check-up ourselves,” Rilkoski told Balkan Insight.
The electoral roll has been a matter of controversy in Macedonia for some time.
The OSCE, which has monitored Macedonian elections in the past, has described it as unusually large for a country of just over 2 million people.
The OSCE said it suspected the roll contained numerous fictional and deceased voters and urged officials to check the list.
The opposition Social Democrats say the centre-right VMRO DPMNE party, which has won seven consecutive elections since 2006 – parliamentary, presidential and local – has an interest in concealing fictive or deceased voters on the electoral roll.
However, the ruling party has denied that non-existent votes are kept on the roll, and used to tip election results in the government’s favour.
Rilkoski, who was appointed to his post last November on the proposal of the opposition, said the government had ignored the commission’s call to undertake the checks itself.
The government spokesperson, Aleksandar Gjoriev, declined to comment on Rilkoski’s claims. According to him, however, the electoral roll is “clearly under the jurisdiction of the election commission, as prescribed by the law, and only they can confirm its validity”.
Rilkoski’s statement comes at just two month before the presidential elections. The first round of voting is set for April 13.
It has been rumoured that the ruling party and its allies may go for parallel early general elections, along with the second round of presidential polls on April 27.
In local elections held last March and April, allegations of irregularities linked to the electoral roll marred the vote.
The Social Democrats then accused the ruling VMRO DPMNE party of attempting to rig the elections in Skopje and in other areas in the southwest of the country by permitting organised voting by Macedonians from Albania who were allegedly given fake Macedonian residency permits by the Police Ministry and brought in to vote.
The ruling party and the police denied the claims.
However, a local TV station, NOVA, said it managed to film such people voting in Skopje’s Centar municipality in the second round of the elections.
Bosnians Mull Early Elections Amid Protests (BIRN, by Elvira M. Jukic, 12 February 2014)
After Bosniak MPs submitted a proposal to parliament enabling early general elections, the Bosnian Serb leader, Milorad Dodik, has indicated that he may now accept the idea.
Bosnia’s governing Social Democratic Party, SDP, has submitted a proposal to parliament to change the state-level electoral law and enable early elections; the current election law does not foresee that possibility.
The proposal made on Tuesday followed seven days of protests in numerous towns, mostly in the mainly Bosniak Federation entity. The prime ministers of four cantons in the Federation have since resigned, as has a senior police official.
Milorad Dodik, President of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, RS, said his party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, was coming round to the idea of “early” but not “extraordinary” elections.
“Extraordinary elections would imply that the RS is in a state of emergency,” Dodik said, adding: “If the opposition wants early elections, we are ready.”
Dodik has insisted that the unrest in Bosnia over the past few days has nothing to do with Republika Srpska and is possibly aimed at destabilizing the entity.
On February 11, he said his party would not accept changes to the electoral law, as they would undermine the right of the entities to call elections on their own territory.
“This is a hoax though which the SDP is trying to save its own skin as well as change the Dayton structures of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.
“It is of great significance that the citizens of the RS did not fall for provocations from the Federation,” Dodik added.
However, Mladen Bosic, head of the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, the largest opposition party in Republika Srpska – albeit in power at state-level – said the entity government should resign and open the way for early elections.
“It is possible that when this [unrest] is over in the Federation, something similar will start in the Republika Srpska, so we call on Milorad Dodik and on all institutions to resolve this situation and prevent such events from happening in Republika Srpska,” Bosic said.
Leading Bosnian Croat politicians have denounced the protests, saying they are directed against Croat institutions in the country.
Dragan Covic, President of the largest Croat party in Bosnia, the HDZ BiH, said social discontent had been used as a cover to carry out “brutal attacks” on state institutions in mainly Croat areas.
“Whoever dares to come to Mostar to burn a Croat flag will suffer the consequences regardless of who sent them and regardless of the number of their supporters,” Covic said.
Meanwhile, street protests have continued in several towns in the Federation.
In Tuzla and Sarajevo, so-called plenums of citizens have been trying to take the political initiative, following the resignation of their cantonal governments.
Bosnia protesters: “People are unemployed and hungry” (France 24, 11 February 2014)
Protests against government corruption and unemployment have continued in Bosnia-Herzegovina for over a week now. After last weekend’s violent unrest – the worst since Bosnia’s civil war ended in 1995 – activists are now demanding that the entire government step down.
The unrest began last Friday in the northern city of Tuzla. Groups of youths and recently laid-off workers rioted in the former industrial hub, setting off a wave of violent protests across the country. Rioters set fire to government buildings in four cities, including Tuzla, the capital Sarajevo, and Mostar.
The demonstrations have exposed a deep undercurrent of social discontent in the tiny Balkan state. Successive governments – which are fragmented along ethnic lines, often resulting in stalemates on key issues – have made little economic headway in almost two decades of peace that have followed the brutal civil conflict. As a result, many of Bosnia’s 3.8 million people struggle to make ends meet. Though the country’s official unemployment figure stands at 27%, it jumps to 45% once the informal economy is taken into account. According to the World Bank, youth unemployment is around 57%.
Now, so-called ‘plenums’ are springing up across the country: open-air forums with the aim of bringing people together to figure out a common plan of action. Our Observers tell FRANCE 24 that the goal of these citizens’ forums are to create a leaderless platform that “speaks for everyone”, as they believe opposition parties have attempted to hijack the protest movement in order to win votes.
“I was right in front of policemen that were pushing me back – me and my nine year old son,” said Valentina Pellizzer an Italian activist who has lived in Sarajevo since 1999 and has taken part in the protests.
What happened in Tuzla was like the fire that sparked the protests: the police attacked the demonstrators who were just unemployed people. Every day now there are protests: people usually start gathering around noon. Once, I was right in front of policemen that were pushing me back – me and my nine year old son. Wednesday we’re going to hold a plenum – an open-air meeting – for anyone who wants to help us figure out how to resolve the crisis. We don’t want a small group of self-appointed representatives deciding what happens behind closed doors.
The protesters have a range of demands. We want all the politicians currently serving in the government to step down. [The prime minister of the Bosniak-Croat Federation, which together with the Serb Republic makes up post-war Bosnia, has dismissed these demands, and has proposed holding early polls instead.] We want a government of technocrats chosen by the people to ensure the smooth functioning of the country’s institutions until we find a political system that works better. We want the police to stop provoking and arresting people [Editor’s note: activists contacted by FRANCE 24 accuse the police of arbitrarily arresting people without due process. This has been denied by the authorities]. People want transparency. They also want equal rights and services for all the citizens. The welfare situation is currently unequal. In certain parts of Bosnia you get nothing, whereas in other parts you might get 100 euros a month.
“The current pension is around 100 Euros a month. Can you imagine living on that?”, said Nikola Zilic, from the central Bosnian town of Travnik.
I have been protesting since Friday in Travnik, the municipal city of the region of Central Bosnia. On Friday there were around 1,500 people protesting in Travnik. The government building was being bombarded with stones and eggs. On Monday there were fewer people: around 800 came. Today even less came: maybe 200 at maximum. People are staying away because the police are everywhere, they’re scared. Some of my friends got beaten and arrested.
The reasons behind these protests are purely economic. It’s got nothing to do with ethnicity or nationality. Politicians have tried to emphasise our different nationalities to make us fear each other for years [Editor’s note: the three main ethnic groups of Bosnia are Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats and Serbs]. Meanwhile they privatized everything, which was catastrophic for our economy. The current pension is around 100 euros a month. Can you imagine living on that? For the last 20 years we’ve had nothing good. We just get into deeper debt through IMF loans. The money to pay for pensions is being directed from the coffers of the IMF. That’s catastrophic: it’s me and my children who are going to pay for that in the future.
“Some politicians have salaries dozens of times bigger than the average salary”, said Damir Imamovic a musician from the capital Sarajevo.
I’ve lived in Sarajevo all my life. My role during these protests has been to share information. I’ve travelled abroad and met people involved in protest movements around the world. They all told me that one of the most important things was how misinformed the public is. It’s crucial to spread information efficiently. People are connecting with each other through email, Facebook and Twitter.
I have lots of Facebook followers and Twitter contacts so I gather information about what’s happening and bring that to the attention of the public. It’s similar to what happened during the Occupy protests. The first thing that becomes difficult to manage is the media. In Bosnia, the media tend to cooperate with politicians to persuade the general public that these protesters have nothing substantial to bring to the table. They’ve even accused the protesters of taking drugs. The truth is that people are in the streets because they’ve been fired from their jobs – they’re hungry. Meanwhile, some politicians have salaries dozens of times bigger than the average salary.
Bosnia: ‘It’s just like Ukraine’ (Deutsch Welle, 10 February 2014)
Anti-government protests in Bosnia died down over the weekend. However, former German envoy to Bosnia Christian Schwarz-Schilling tells DW that the problems there won’t go away – for a long time.
DW: On Friday, protesters across Bosnia set fire to government buildings and battled riot police. As a politician, you know most of the places where the violence erupted: Did you see this coming?
Christian Schwarz-Schilling: Yes. Quite frankly, I’ve seen it coming for a long time. It was always ignored by the international community. And the consequence of that could be disastrous.
Many demonstrators are impoverished citizens who don’t have enough money to eat. They aren’t organized. Could a movement emerge from this that ultimately leads the country in a more positive direction?
A movement could emerge. There is enough firepower in Bosnia. And once the poverty level reaches a certain barrier, once pensioners no longer receive their pensions, when teachers no longer receive their salaries and policemen aren’t paid – which is on the horizon – then a violent movement is more than likely to emerge. Whether or not this will be positive? We can’t say that with any certainty now.
What should politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina do to bring lasting peace to the situation?
The politics that they have practiced must be stopped immediately. The privileges they have enjoyed for too long from old times now must be curtailed. But this would necessitate involvement from the international community. And I don’t see that coming.
It’s just like with Ukraine. There, the international community woke up only after a critical situation arose. The same thing will happen in Bosnia.
Unemployment in Bosnia is at an alarming 40 percent
What do you think the international community should do in Bosnia?
They have to take responsibility into their own hands. The Dayton Accords still give them the power to do so.
Security forces in Sarajevo were overwhelmed
To simply say it’s no longer necessary to be present in this region – this must be changed. It is imperative that measures be taken that include the application of mandates that go all the way to the [United Nations] Security Council. Above all, it must be shown distinctly that the international community is ready to act.
As long as this remains in question, as long as officials say that the problems are to be resolved by Bosnia alone – even though the international community played a large role in the formation of the current, ungovernable situation – then there can’t be any long-term improvement.
Christian Schwarz-Schilling (83) was the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and observed the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the Bosnian War on December 14, 1995.
OPINION: Why are the Balkans boiling again? (Al Jazeera, by Srecko Horvat, 12 February 2014)
The Bosnian protests reflect socio-political dynamics that are going on not only in the Balkans but the whole of Europe
During one of the first violent clashes in Italy’s student unrest of 1968, often known as “The Battle of Valle Giulia”, the famous Italian film director and marxist Pier Paolo Pasolini surprised everyone when he sympathised with the wounded policemen. But his logic is not to be dismissed: Pasolini stressed the fact that most of the young people belonged to the middle and upper classes, while the policemen were “children of the poor”, mainly recruited from the impoverished regions of southern Italy.
These days we were confronted by the following scene. A young woman standing in front of a police cordon in Sarajevo starts to shout, “Come on our side, come on our side…” At one point, a policeman starts to cry, and then her tears flow. Unlike in Pasolini’s times, the demonstrators in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not coming from the upper classes: Both the protestors and the police are from the impoverished classes of ex-Yugoslavia. At the time of its violent dissolution, the amount of Yugoslavia’s foriegn debt was $20bn. Countries born out of the break-up of Yugoslavia, today owe a more than $180bn[Sr].
It shouldn’t be a surprise then that the trade union of the Serbian police released a statement [Sr] warning that the “Bosnian Spring” could arrive to neighbouring Serbia as well. One remark in the statement is particularly striking: “The policemen themselves are impoverished and are toys in the hands of the government, without proper equipment, without housing, with families on the brink of poverty, cheated at every step in the political game of every interior minister who takes the post.”
The Serbian police trade union then states that it wouldn’t be the first time that people in blue uniform join the poor people on the streets, warning the government that if the “Bosnian spring” comes to Serbia, there won’t be anyone to protect them. Of course, it would be too optimistic to expect that the police won’t use force. The statement, however, is significant.
The Cafe – Bosnia’s Future
On the one hand, if the Serbian police is worried about the situation in the region, then it could be just a matter of time when the protests of Bosnia and Herzegovina begin to occur in Serbia and Croatia as well.
On the other hand, here we have an inversion of Pasolini himself: Instead of showing solidarity with the police, the police is showing solidarity with the protesters. And this is what is really happening in the current upheaval in Bosnia and Herzegovina: It is a protest of the working class, joined by young people who are the epitome of Italian economist Mario Monti’s “lost generation”.
True anarchy is the anarchy of power
Once upon a time, Tuzla, like Sarajevo and Zenica, was one of the most flourishing industrial cities not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Yugoslavia. Today, all former republics are completely deindustrialised and devastated by the so-called process of “transition”. It was meant to be a journey to the prosperous West. However, with the recent accession of Croatia to the European Union, it has become clear that there is no such thing as a “free transition” for the Balkans.
The unemployment rate among young people in Croatia is 52 percent, which brings it just behind Spain (with 56 percent) and Greece (with over 60 percent). It is no surprise that most of the people on the streets of Bosnia and Herzegovina today are young people – the unemployment rate is 57.9 percent.
Coincidentally or not, on February 5, when the protests in Tuzla started, was also the 20th anniversary of the first massacre at the Markale market in Sarajevo. So, on the one hand you have a country that still hasn’t recovered from war, and on the other hand you have the neverending process of “transition” and a deindustrialised state with one of the highest unemployment rates in Europe.
When desperate workers go on strike for several weeks and none of the entities or cantons, politicians or political parties react, the lack of response is not considered “violence”. But when the desperate demonstrators, young people joined by pensioners, start to throw rocks at police, and even burn cars and official buildings, then they are, as you might expect, called “hooligans”.
Here we have the same old story again. When in late 2005 the banlieues of Paris and 20 other cities were burning, we heard the same “epithets” thrown at protesters. Nicolas Sarkozy went so far as to call the Muslim immigrants racaille (“scum”) which has to be cleaned up with Karcher (a well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt).
In an article published in Liberation newspaper criticising the “French model”, the philosopher Jean Baudrillard noted that, “[F]ifteen hundred cars had to burn in a single night and then, on a descending scale, nine hundred, five hundred, two hundred, for the daily ‘norm’ to be reached again, and people to realise that ninety cars on average are torched every night in this gentle France of ours.”
Taking Baudrillard’s numbers, in 2005 more than 30,000 cars were set on fire in France under various circumstances, but surprisingly (or not), only 9,000 of them burned in the banlieues. Bearing this in mind we could pose the legitimate question: Why didn’t the French government proclaim a “state of exception” during the whole year? Why did it do so only when cars were burning in the poor suburbs?
Al Jazeera World – Sarajevo My Love
And the same goes for the current protests in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Why are the protestors condemned for being violent, if state power is even more violent, serving as an “invisible hand” – during the last 20 years – to the market and war tycoons? Why is smashing some windows called “violence”, and stealing some millions “business”? As one of the four Salo masters says to his slaves in Pasolini’s last movie, “true anarchy is the anarchy of power”.
The mirror of Europe
There is a saying in the Balkans that could sum up the recent upheavals in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Almost no one knows the origin of the phrase, but when you say “mirna Bosna” (peaceful Bosnia) everyone knows. It means an outcome of an event in which all parties involved are satisfied. When you don’t have a “mirna Bosna”, then the Balkans are boiling.
“Balkan Spring” is a lovely expression, but it does not reflect the complexity of the current situation. In the Balkans, you don’t have a Mubarak or a Ben Ali; there is no obvious “enemy”. What we have in the Balkans is a textbook example of “ordoliberalism”: Instead of helping the poor, the state is helping the rich. When a government falls in the Balkans, it doesn’t mean that monopoly capitalism falls as well. In fact, the system remains unharmed.
At this point, no one knows where the boiling Balkans are going. What is important to note here is that the Balkans are not the mythical “Heart of Darkness” of Europe where only violence can occur. In fact, the region is the mirror of Europe itself and the current upheaval reflects processes and movements that the whole continent is experiencing.
Srecko Horvat is a philosopher from Croatia. His latest books include “After the End of History.
