Bosnia is on the brink of war, we need Europe's help

On the opening scene of the film that Oscar won from Danis Tanovic titled “No Man's Land” [ No Manés Land, referring to the war in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995, a Bosnian Army soldier was reading the newspaper in a trench. Concerned, he calls out: “Look at what the fuck he's doing in Rwanda. ”

This scene is said to be based on a real annex that entertained viewers.

Even if you did not laugh, you could read that sentence in two forms. First, as a testament to Bosnians' ability to feel the misfortune of others, even amid their terrible circumstances. The second reading is less good: Should the unnamed soldier be so insensitive to his desperate situation, death, and destruction that defined the first days of his country's independence that the genocide in Rwanda seemed greater?

In Sarajevo in 1992, I celebrated my eighth birthday just weeks before the battle began. My parents threw me a party, unintelligible to the fact that in eastern Bosnia and the Drina Valley, the natural border between the Bosniak socialist republics and Serbia, the Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, were ethnically cleansing by the nationalist Serb forces.

At the beginning of that winter, neither the horrors of the Vukovar battle in Croatia's neighbouring state had stopped Sarajevan families from taking their children to skiing. It can't happen here, it can't happen to us,” became a daily mantra. I remember how, at my birthday party, the father of one of my friends, a colonel of the Yugoslav People's Army, took my parents aside and blamed them for the imminent threat to us. His parents calmly listened to his warning words. Later that evening they laughed at him as if he were thinking. “War is impossible here,” had thought, convinced that Bosnia's characteristic, plurality, would be our redeeming grace. Besides, we lived on the Brotherhood-United Way.

Besides, they were wrong. Our two-week trip to visit my uncle “until things gradually calmed down” turned into a four-year refugee operation, while my father was at home. Meanwhile, our Sarajevo was surrounded. Bosnian Serb snipers made no distinction between soldiers and children playing in the streets. Farther south, the city of Mostar had experienced the same fate. Banja Luka, the country's second largest city, systematically was being cleared by non-Serbs and all mosques were being destroyed, including Ferhadija, a cultural site under the legacy of Isko. The country witnessed torture camps, the use of violence as a means of war, mass executions of prisoners, including children, orgies of violence that culminated with genocide in Srebrenica, where thousands were killed in just ten days. And the message from the world seemed to be that we had to endure all that was just happening to the brotherhood and the life that we were being reminded of.

My family was reunited in 1996. Our apartment was destroyed, and my father had narrowly escaped death after a bomb ripped his stomach apart at the end of the war. Like many others, he became paralyzed. According to the measurements made, between 400 thousand and 1.7 million Bosniaks suffered the PTSD disorder (Post Traumatic Stres Disader). If they were lucky to save you.

One of my most vivid memories of our return was seeing the city cemetery for the first time in almost four years. It was a sea of marble pillars scattered throughout the hills, each monument to one's tragedy. With 130 thousand dead and 2.2 million refugees, no one was left untouched by the conflict. But people focused on rebuilding their homes, their lives and their country. The flower bath could be seen on every balcony on any threshold in those days. Bosnia participated in the Olympics and Eurovision.

Yet, where peace was decided to prevent further horrors and war had no clear winners, there was no happy ending. A heavy state machine with 14 levels of governance and no clear strategy of reconciliation opened the door to dangerous ethno-nationalist games and to the cosmic corruption. The privatisation of state companies was followed by nepotism, clientlorism, and terrible misuse. Youth unemployment has increased in the past five years, reaching 57.5%.

Nearly 25 years after the end of the war, Bosnian citizens are suffering badly, with 23% of them estimated to live below the border of extreme poverty. This has led to a new mass ecstasy. In 2016 alone, 80 thousand Bosniaks were estimated to have received work permits in EU countries. Finally, hundreds of thousands of people are abandoning Bosnia every year. And they won't come back. Toxic nationalism is still present. Rhetoric séscisionist is being again distributed by Republika Srpska's entity [ RS] by Bosnian Serbs, whose leader is increasingly insisting that the breakup of Bosnia is inevitable.

Neighboring Serbia, led by Alexander Vuciqi, continues to expand its military arsenal, while RS's efforts to form a military police have alarmed many people, including the UN Security Council. The Croatian government was involved in a scandal after its intelligence services reportedly have tried to arm small Islamic groups in Bosnia, in order to verify the unaccompanied claims that Bosnia was “tra of terrorism in Europe”. History is being rewritten as well. In Croatia, there is a disturbing trend against eliminating the infamous history of pro-Nazi Usstaces during World War II. Meanwhile, the RS government is manipulating the truth about genocide in Srebrenica. Much of this political revision is being backed by loving and foreign actors, including Russia. The mild European answer is not doing anything.

For those who still believe in a single, unified Bosnia, the days of that misguided inactivity are over. After the recent war's severe experiences, Bosniaks are aware that this multi-cultural and multiethnic project is under serious danger. More than ever, we missed Europe's help. If Europe allows Bosnia to fall victim to the ethno-nationalist forces, I will thereby seal its fate and destiny. /Periscop translated from The Guardian