This is now an opportunity to fix things. If mistakes are made and they were not deliberate and systematic, if they were not organised, if they happened because BiH’s transition process was extremely difficult and because BiH is truly unique in comparison to other countries due to its multiculturalism and all the people who live here, as well as its geopolitical position, this is now an opportunity for the international community to demonstrate that it will stand with the citizens, not with the political actors who are the producers of the conflict.
Podcast from the Heinrich Böll Foundation in BiH: DO WE HAVE A CHOICE?
Nermina Mujagić, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo
Nermina Mujagić is a full professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo. Her research interests include social and political conflicts, civic virtues, mythology, human rights culture and civil society, media, and public sphere democratisation. She is the author of the following books: Pro et kontra ustava, Komparacija američkih i bosanskohercegovačkih politika, Višegrađanstvo, Analize i nove teorije na relaciji država - građani i društvo, Politika kao spektakl, Bacanje mreže u susjedov ribnjak, Tihi govor Bosne, Izvan politike, Politička de/resocijalizacija i mediji.
Nermina is a member of the Political Science Committee of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In this podcast, she discusses the possibility of Bosnia and Herzegovina becoming a civil state.
HBS: Your name is constantly associated with the word ‘civil’ whenever it is mentioned. What does this entail in practice, or what would it mean for BiH to become a civil state?
NERMINA: Yes, even as a student, I was infected by the idea of citizenship, which is why I switched from Communication Studies to Political Studies, because I saw citizenship as a political ideal in which people can achieve success within one social community while simultaneously carrying multiple identities. When I talk about practice, I mean equality before the law, regardless of social status, which is important to emphasise because, at one point in history, your opportunities were determined by your social status and whether you belonged to the working class, the elite, or the aristocracy... Citizenship ignored any type of social divide that might emerge inside the community, such as village vs. city, urban vs. rural, and so on. When it comes to political affiliation, regardless of which political option you belong to, left wing or right wing, politics is linked to constitutional equality, and citizenship has the value of preserving ideals of the republic that know neither left nor right options, but recognise actors who are enemies of the democratic regime. Citizenship validates two methods that I have followed since my early youth. The first is civil disobedience, which implies that citizens are guaranteed by the constitution the right to overthrow any government that is not democratic, and the second is civil intolerance, which is a term coined by the great author Danilo Kiš and implies the right of citizens to loudly and clearly oppose nationalist and fascist ideas that have throughout history demonstrated that they are not plural, are destructive, and insist on divisions. Citizenship also necessitates a set of common, universal values, such as freedom, justice, and equality. Then there is Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its ethnic or religious identities. Citizenship is indifferent to these issues; ethnic identity is a reduced form; being a citizen does not preclude you from having the right to ethnic affiliation or to express your religious identity; however, within a political community of constitutional democracy, those identities are important only if they are truly threatened, if someone forbids you from expressing your religious feelings or going to places of worship. In such a case, citizenship demands that such rights be respected in the interest of doing justice to an individual. In any other case, these rights do not take precedence – ethnic rights cannot be in conflict with political, i.e. civil and modern rights. That is why I held committed to that idea, and I am really proud of it because there were times when that term was not even used in public space. There were well-intentioned colleagues who thought I had gone astray theoretically since the concept of citizenship and multiculturalism was endangered on the global stage at one point, but I could not find a better, more purposeful, and more valuable political ideal in theory. Citizenship is something that theoretically inspires and forces me to engage in political practice as much as possible, and I believe that it is the most ideal form for BiH, considering who lives here and what rights everyone should demand, which is especially important in relation to governments and policies that have not proven capable of solving the accumulated problems in the country.
HBS: How far is BiH from that right now?
NERMINA: Unfortunately, we are far away! I often mention the war because it appears to me that the idea of citizenship was more present during the state of emergency, which makes me extremely sad because I thought wars destroyed that idea, and I came out of the war deeply confident that the civil state of BiH would win. Throughout the war, we linked that narrative to the concepts of civil society and the state, as well as to all of the cultural, artistic, economic, and media activities that took place in wartime Sarajevo and were motivated by the idea of citizenship. After the war, BiH somehow renounced it. Citizens were supposed to recover from the war, but no one worked with them, they did not go through the process of rehabilitation or resocialization, while the political elites skilfully exploited the peaceful situation, turning the narrative of defence into the narrative of political parties. They stole that narrative from us, and it was initially challenged by pro-BiH political structures. They began to steal key ideas, which saddens me since I recall the Party of Democratic Action claiming to have planned the city’s defence, and then came the Dayton Peace Agreement and the BiH Constitution, and we institutionally rejected the idea of citizenship. Just think of the three-member BiH Presidency, the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, and the Election Law that was passed shortly after the Dayton Peace Agreement. I remember the discussion and criticism of domestic lawyers who claimed that BiH cannot have such an Election Law because it gives primacy to ethnic groups and their representatives. We embraced the paradigm that every BiH citizen acquires relevance as a member of an ethnic people. I believe we have lost a significant amount of time. Now, 28 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement, there is an oversaturation of the term in the public space, which is utilised by certain political structures that do not understand the concept of citizenship. Sometimes I think we should freeze this idea and wait for the public and political structures to learn what constitutional democracy is, what the principles of citizenship are, what the specific value framework is, because value is very important, and what qualities a citizen should have in order to be a citizen, not just a voter, as citizens have become today. The general public is absolutely passive. The little resistance that exists is not loud or strong enough; the non-governmental organisations that attempt to highlight these issues are divided; there are many of them and their abundance has rendered them dysfunctional; there is no support from them. I am afraid that the actor – the BiH citizen – is currently sleeping and we must wait for a climate in which they can be awakened, as I am confident that they will know what to do.
HBS: Based on everything you have said so far, can you comment on the judgment in the case of Slaven Kovačević v. BiH
NERMINA: That judgment, in my opinion, is first and foremost historical, and I would like to use this occasion to congratulate citizen Slaven Kovačević for finding the courage, time, and energy to sue Bosnia and Herzegovina. If I had known he was going to to start this process, I would have joined him and invited everyone who uses logic to do the same. That judgment is significant and historic because, unlike the five previous European Court of Human Rights judgments, it addresses the active right to vote, which is seriously threatened in BiH because our Constitution discriminates against our citizens. For me, Roma, Jews, Czechs, Ukrainians, Poles, and members of all 27 national minorities, who are called that because we have a legislation that requires them to be counted and referred to as such, are citizens of BiH. I see them that way, and I cannot place them in minority groups; I can only place them in minority groups because they are in a discriminated position, and we need some process to detect which groups do not have all of the rights that belong to them. The Kovačević judgment is unique as it finds that Kovačević’s active right to vote was violated, and indeed it was. They say that judgments should not be discussed but rather implemented, but if we go back to pre-political times, it is the most noble judgment that the Court of Human Rights has ever made. It not only brought hope to BiH, but also to Europe, which is lacking in several fields, such as human rights, understanding of democracy, and representative democracy, which is in crisis owing to populism that affects both Europe and the EU. Not only is there ethnic discrimination in that you cannot be elected if you do not belong to one of the three peoples, but there is also territorial discrimination in that you must live in the FBiH or the Republika Srpska in order to run for office in the BiH Presidency or the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly. The fact that the House of Peoples is constituted indirectly, that political parties choose their candidates and therefore constitute the Parliament, has rendered that institution unrepresentative in terms of democracy. That is not a complete and genuine democracy. What type of democracy is it when you cannot directly elect your representatives and they cannot be held accountable directly to you for their actions? Unlike Slaven’s understanding of democracy, I deeply believe that political parties have created a design that strengthens their political power rather than democracy, and we need a framework that limits the political power of those actors who have kept us in the dark for 30 years, and I want to believe that we do not deserve that darkness.
HBS: What is the role of the international community under whose auspices the entire political life in BiH has been taking place since 1992?
NERMINA: Well, here is the opportunity. If we are not going to generalise and say that the international community, including embassies of the USA, Germany, and other countries, the OHR which is a new political institution in BiH, the OSCE, international military forces, and international police forces, did everything wrong, and I want to believe that it had the best intentions, but mistakes were indeed made, both in media reform and in legislative and judicial reform, this is now an opportunity to fix things. If mistakes are made and they were not deliberate and systematic, if they were not organised, if they happened because BiH’s transition process was extremely difficult and because BiH is truly unique in comparison to other countries due to its multiculturalism and all the people who live here, as well as its geopolitical position, this is now an opportunity for the international community to demonstrate that it will stand with the citizens, not with the political actors who are the producers of the conflict, because we have demands and pleas from the international community that our political actors come to an agreement. How will they come to an agreement if they create conflicts and build their political legitimacy on them? If they agreed, those conflicts would cease to exist, and I cannot believe the international community does not see that. I am sure they see it because these are people with political, diplomatic, and life experience who have been in different places and hotspots, and of course they see it. This judgment is an opportunity that should not be politicised, and I see in the media that it is being politicised as if it is up for discussion. This judgment should be implemented urgently.
