The idea of a “civil,” that is, ethnically undivided Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the West imagines it, seems hardly viable. The only factor restraining the residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina of all nationalities from seeking an alternative to the existence of a single state is a real reluctance, even a rejection, of the prospect war by all who remember it, Ekaterina Entina writes.
The collapse of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s took two different forms: in some cases, measures were implemented to form mono-ethnic states. In some places, like Slovenia, it was done with minimal casualties. Elsewhere, as in Croatia, it was de facto accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian population. The other form was an attempt to preserve a multi-ethnic state and provide security guarantees and formal sovereignty in exchange for an agreement to live together, as, for example, in Macedonia. At the time these events unfolded, the formation of mono-ethnic states was perceived as a counter-trend in the development of European society. It would seem that the EU countries should have been interested in rooting their model of political development, which consisted of uniting sovereignties and overcoming interethnic disunity and hostility through the establishment of supranational structures. However, in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, a slightly different logic was adopted.
In general terms, it can even be explained. Socialist Yugoslavia, which for a long time governed according to the concept of the inevitable withering away of the state, made significant efforts to form a supranational, Yugoslav identity as the foundation for a future self-governing society. In essence, the formula for a supranational Yugoslav identity was little different from the Soviet or supranational European one. All three, each in its own way, were built on an anti-war idea. The idea of the Great Victory of the entire Soviet people, the victory of the partisans, both in the civil war and in World War II in Yugoslavia; and the inadmissibility of revanchism and a new war in Western Europe. In addition, the idea of supranational identity in all three spaces allowed and actually helped to implement large-scale modernisation and an economic breakthrough. It was close to people who had gone through the crucible of war and the challenges of accelerated modernisation shoulder to shoulder, but it worked far worse both in the SFRY and in the USSR in the following generations, when the need for emergency general mobilisation and the idea of working for the "common good" characteristic of it no longer existed.
The growth of crisis trends, primarily of an economic nature, in the socialist world rather quickly launched the reverse process of fragmentation, and the idea of the "supranational" naturally fell victim in the process of the struggle for power and resources. For the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, both today and in the early 1990s, it has become absolutely unacceptable, since each ethnic group linked its problems of integration into the new world order exclusively with this common past. At the same time, everyone linked the future with the European Union, competing with each other to see who among the Balkans was the most European. The European Union was completely satisfied with the perception of identity in the spirit of “a Montenegrin is equal to a European” and at the same time “a Montenegrin is not a Balkan” and “a Montenegrin is not a Serb”. For Brussels, this was a win-win situation: it was solving the problem of the collapse of its peacekeeping efforts in the first half of the 1990s by providing a mono-ethnic state, the people of which immediately sought to dissolve themselves in a supranational European unity. Since the above-described perception of identity is more or less applicable to all former Yugoslav peoples, their rejection of each other did not seem to be a serious problem for the EU – what was important was that they all did not want to be in a single and influential multinational state by European standards, the inclusion of which in the EU would clearly present a problem for internal governance. They consider themselves ultimately Europeans and strive to join the EU.
This is the logic that was applied to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Brussels certainly did not want to create a mono-ethnic state of Bosniaks, if it was even possible. It was impossible to form a multi-ethnic state without recognizing the autonomy of the Serbs and the special status of the Croats in the realities of the Bosnian war. The idea of a de facto international protectorate seemed quite viable: it stopped the bloodshed, formed instruments of international control over the reconciliation process, and gave Bosnia and Herzegovina the opportunity to integrate into the EU, which is what all its constituent nations wanted. Simply put, the thinking went, “even if you all don’t like each other, the main thing is that you all want to be in the EU,” i.e., share national unity on at least one strategically important issue. This logic fit harmoniously into the general logic of all European integration: Western Europe is united in the name of overcoming a conflictual past; Central and Eastern Europe – under the banner of overcoming a conflict associated with their allegedly artificial tearing out of the Western European tradition. Overcoming the conflict-ridden past in Bosnia in particular and in the former Yugoslavia in general should have become the most important part of the European integration of the Balkan countries. But something went wrong.
The territorial structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina itself, in the Western understanding, was supposed to stimulate rapprochement and interethnic dialogue. In reality, it has become an important element in explaining their absence. According to the Dayton Accords, the territory of the state was a conditional horseshoe, where the wings were the Republika Srpska, and the internal space was the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina . But the structure became significantly more complicated with the decision on the fate of the Brčko District, through which the two parts of the Republika Srpska are connected. The Dayton Accords did not determine the future of this small node. The Brčko District did not have a special status in socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina. But the balance of power in the theatre of military operations in the Brčko District was uncertain at the time the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina was frozen. According to the Dayton Accords, the border here between the Serbs and the Federation was later to be drawn by competent international bodies. But in the end, in 1999, on the eve of the bombing of Yugoslavia, a border was not formed, but de facto another entity within the Federation, which, of course, was a serious blow to the Republika Srpska since it became physically divided into two parts. The Serbs were unable to respond to such an attack in light of the bombing of Belgrade that had begun.
In the future, this design led to several consequences for the functioning of Bosnia: a) it intensified the struggle of Banja Luka to preserve its autonomous powers, because any attempt to modify them was perceived by the Serbian community as an attempt to outwit them by the Federation and the West, as had happened with Brčko District before; b) it convinced the representatives of the Federation to an even greater extent that the construction of a future Bosnia was possible not through mutual concessions, but through Western pressure on the Serbs ; c) in conditions of mistrust, it weighed on economic activity of any kind within the borders of the entity.
At the same time, the conditional Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, consisting of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, within which, it would seem, there are no borders, has not become an example of interethnic dialogue either. This was constantly hindered by the way representation is handled – it tries to combine the idea of a 'nation-building' group with both ethnic representation and election results from specific areas. The numerical superiority of the Bosniaks for all 30 years has led to the fact that their interests effectively eclipse those of the Croats, which categorically does not suit the latter and, in turn, stimulates nationalist, rather than civic parties. The same thing is happening with the Serbs, who by definition cannot strive to form genuine civic parties, since at the national level this would lead to a noticeable reduction in the opportunities to defend the interests of Serbian voters.
The cementing element of territorial division is also the economy, including foreign investment. During the Bosnian war, the warring parties had their "trustees" among external actors. The guarantors of the Dayton Peace - the USA, Russia, Germany, Great Britain and France - represent some of them, but not all. At a minimum, Turkey, the Gulf monarchies and Iran can be added to them. The presence of special ties also stimulates the emergence of selective investments aimed at the development of individual regions, part of the entities, etc. Bosnia does not have and generally has not had its own economic base, except for several military-industrial complex and agricultural enterprises, which are also today largely divided between the entities. Ideally, such a situation could easily be stopped by opening/transferring production from EU countries with mandatory quotas for jobs based on nationality, as is the case in the public administration system, but this is not happening, most likely due to high political risks. Thus, the economic basis for national unity in Bosnia and Herzegovina has not emerged over the past three decades either.
Finally, territorial and economic division closes the issue of local identity and attitude toward national symbols. In fact, only Bosniaks perceive Bosnian symbols as their own – unlike the Serbs and Croats, they simply do not have any other. At the level of local identity and among Bosniaks, everything is much more complicated. Some have retained their identity, primarily religious – according to the principle, as it was in the SFRY, where “Muslim” denoted nationality, and not just faith. Some have dissolved themselves in the close-knit, attractive and more solid identity of the Turks and the “Turkic world”.
As for the Serbs and Croats, everything is quite simple. They certainly associate themselves with their “mother” countries. The universal issuance of passports has dissolved the existing border. In addition, it is the Serbs from the Republic of Srpska and the Bosnian Croats who are considered the most nationally oriented in Serbia and Croatia. But even in purely utilitarian respects, a Bosnian passport is worthless compared to a Serbian or Croatian one.
This is an information machine for the reproduction of fear, which has been revved up to full speed over the last ten years, and an attempt to pass the banner of the “genocidal people” from the Nazis to the Serbs. There is no doubt that turning the page on the Balkan crisis of the 1990s and the role of Western countries in it was made easiest by saddling the Serbian people with the blame for its instigation and bloodshed. However, the question arises: how can the task of building a “civil” Bosnia and Herzegovina be combined with giving almost half of its population the status of a “genocidal people”? It is doubtful that Brussels does not understand such an obvious incompatibility. But since the 2010s, the non-profit sector of the country, the research network of historians, political scientists, sociologists, including local ones but working in Western universities, film, book and museum culture have been consistently working to highlight the suffering of Bosnian Muslims, while hushing up everyone else. This is done for the sake of the "repentance" ritual, which may result in the creation of a "civil" Bosnia.
Unfortunately, it is not difficult to predict what will come of the development of such a policy. All the instruments used by the West within the framework of the "repentance" program are called upon to work for the youth. But it is a blank slate, on which neither the delights of life together in one state, nor the horrors of civil war are recorded. Only bright, scary and one-sided pictures of films, odious reports, and derogatory accusations. The youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina are prisoners of a virtual verbal war, in which there is no fear of death, but there is fear and hatred towards others. This is the main result, thirty years after Dayton.
