An interview I gave for Epohi, Greek, publication close to Syriza on the elections in Bosnia, Bosnian left....

This is the original interview which I gave for the Greek publication EPOHI. 

Some (important!) things have been left out, if I am seeing it correctly with google translate. Unfortunately, I do not speak Greek. But the main message is there. 

1.     What is the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina now, at a political and social level?

Politically Bosnia and Herzegovina remains ethnically divided into two entities and is still effectively a Western protectorate. The highly complex decentralized state structure imposed by the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 has institutionalised rule by the nationalist parties and led to administrative paralysis in the face of permanent nationalist conflicts. Obviously, we cannot separate the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the increasing demand for its political centralization coming from the EU and US in particular, from what is happening in the Balkans more generally. BiH, like large parts of the region, is literally dragged between EU, US and Russian imperialism- the first two advocating centralization, Russia supporting Serb separatist tendencies. It is the conflict of EU-NATO with Russia that explains the acceleration of diplomatic initiatives to expand the EU and NATO in the region: from Bosnia and Herzegovina, through to the floating of terrifying ballons of territorial and population exchanges in the case of Kosovo, but also the shameful imposition of the Greek vision of Macedonian statehood and identity on the people of Macedonia, whereby the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has presented himself as the bearer of Euro-Atlantic integration and thus of NATO in the Balkans, thus openly supporting Western imperialism and nationalist parties in the whole game. Therefore, it is not possible to understand the inner political contradictions in Bosnia and Herzegovina without understanding the wider context that is as determining as the inability of the local elites to lead anything remotely resembling independent politics. This then obviously has repercussions for social issues in that it enables these nationalist, conservative, but (neo)liberal parties to confiscate, destroy and sell anything having a prefix public (i.e. privatized, sold, liberalized, put into public-private partnership and so on). In this sense, the political and social largely overlap.

2.     What do you think the elections of October 7^th will mean for the future of the Bosnia and Herzegovina? What do you think is the biggest stake in the election in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

I notice that huge portions of “liberal” media insist that these elections are “decidedly” “fatefully” “resolutely” important for the country. The importance of these elections goes hand in hand with promoting a more centralized Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Federation (the entity shared by Croats and Bosniaks), and decentralization in the case of Republika Srspka (the Serb entity). Mainly EU and US funded media go so far and ascribe catastrophic consequences if nothing changes with the usual ideological apparatus: we are backward, falling behind the EU stabilization and accession agreement, we will remain the black hole of the region. This ideological discourse is nothing short of blatant intimidation of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian population, and it comes from both sides: the EU and US led NATO coalition and openly Russian support for Republika Srpska.  Both are equally harmful and mirror images of one another. They both employ a war rhetoric (which is nothing new during elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina), and though the chances for war in the short term are I think absent, the long-term situation remains largely open as we are being dragged into situations by external powers and foreign imperialisms. Internally, there is also a question in the Federation of the absolute Bosniak-Muslim majority outvoting the Croat minority and violating their national and democratic rights by selecting the Croat representative to the three-headed Presidency. This remains an open question as well. Personally, I do not think that things will change much, despite there being some possibilities for smaller parties to enter the government in the Federation, or more precisely on the level of the Cantons such as Sarajevo. In principle, all of the parties agree on the fundamental issues, that is in principle they all agree to introduce more EU and IMF imposed demands: “fiscal stability”, more “fiscal discipline”, to privatize and liberalize our market more, to as they like to say, “bring foreign investment” and so on.

3.     For many years national issues have been central to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Has something changed now? Are there common actions?

As I have previously answered in my question hardly anything has changed in this respect. One part of the country in principle agrees about entering the NATO and the EU (Federation), the other part of the country actively opposes it (Republika srspka). But what seems more important is to understand how and why national issues overlap with the class question. Without understanding this, we cannot even start to think about prospects of opposing any of this. The unions and workers are divided across national and class lines, and the trade unions are divided between the two entities. The sooner we understand this, the better.

4.     Can you see any promising developments for the Bosnian Left? Do you think there are the right conditions for the construction of a strong Left in your country?

In short, for now the answer is: no. This does not mean that things cannot change. Let me explain what I mean: yes, the conditions are ripe and right, but the prospects of true Left organizing are close to non-existent. Moreover, in the last three years over 5% of the population (mostly young people) have left the country looking for work, which is also a form of protest. The largest used -to -be Left party is SDP (Social Democratic Party), historical successor of the Communist Party. They sold out very quickly and cheaply, and though nominally a multi-ethnic party, all they managed was to become just another Bosniak nationial party, more or less. The other liberal and left liberal parties were created by the people who exited the SDP and formed their organizations. Politically, they are all pretty marginal, though at cantonal levels, in particular Sarajevo canton they could perhaps have some success in the forthcoming elections.

An extra-parliamentary Left does not exist in a serious, organized, consistent way, so it is very hard to talk about it. My opinion is that, because of the regional dynamics and nationalist conflicts noted above, the development of the Left in Bosnia is, at least partially dependent on having an organized Left in and Croatia and Serbia. Thus far, nothing in sight, despite conditions being ripe- once again we should observe this through the nation-class prism I already mentioned. In the end, great revolutionaries teach us, it is not enough to simply have ripe conditions.

5.     The popular revolution of 2014 was an extremely important event for the movement, the Left, and the Balkans. What is the situation regarding movements today? And what are the prospects for the struggles against neoliberalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

As someone who has personally participated in and organized Plenums in Sarajevo, it is very debatable whether we can talk about popular revolution or whether we should in fact talk about politically organized groups of people, mostly manipulated by the two dominant Bosniak political parties. Unfortunately, the answer is the latter. Some of us understood this from the very beginning, and we managed, so to speak, to hijack their “wave”, to give the protests some direction and to have some ‘left’ demands (e.g. against privatization) adopted in mass meetings. And I think we did well given the political climate and circumstances. As a political experience in its breath and scope, it can hardly be matched by anything in our region. However there was no organized alternative, and this is still the problem.

As I wrote in my previous answer: there are no movements, at least nothing seriously politically organized. There are few small groups formed and politicized during the protests in 2014, but they lack clear political perspectives or traditions of organizing. As our region has always been strongly shaped by external political trends, left wing ideas tend to reflect the instability and crisis of the international left: yesterday the Indignados and Syriza, today Podemos or Corbyn, an incoherent series of contradictory models. Theoretically, there is no serious attempt to engage with the historical traditions of the left, and we move with the changing fashions of the Anglo-Saxon academy, from autonomism to post-colonialism and Neue Marx Lekture. But perhaps most importantly the left is shaped by the domination of the foreign foundations and donors of various types, from the Open Society Foundation  to the German left foundations (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Friedrich Ebert, etc): the lure of permanent funding and a middle-class lifestyle is not only corrupting but imposes the NGO-form of organizing, political accountability to donors and not members, and politics that are basically social movementist (but fail to inspire any actual social movements). Hence the new left ‘groups’ jump from one issue to another without ever integrating these into one total strategy, which can create the context and space for the left to grow, e.g. in the context of our IMF structural adjustment program, an anti-austerity movement. Hence prospects of struggle against neoliberalism are marginal - obviously, not because the population wants more austerity, but because there is no political force in the form of a movement or party that could transfer the rage of unemployed, precarious, employed, young, old into constructive politics, and that would be aware of the overlapping of national and class issues. On the other hand there are some mobilizations which show that we are not as dead as some would like us to be. Workers mobilizing to defend their factories, peasants mobilizing to defend our rivers (under threat by EU investors destroying our environment, taking our drinkable water and offering nothing to the local communities), and townspeople in Banja Luka protesting against the corrupt police murder and judicial cover-up of a local youth, the longest and biggest mobilization in Republika Srspka after the war. However in the last case, our problem is posed in the sharpest possible way: the local left group has not been able to politicize the movement or create a wider space for left wing ideas. So it is not the lack of struggle that is the problem.

http://epohi.gr/synenteuxme-th-tigiana-okits/