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Bosnian uprising awakes over the immense difference between rich and poor
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A hungry man is an angry man. He who sows misery, reaps anger. These are the yesterday written graffiti on Sarajevo's burned government and presidency buildings. Friday's violent protests ended up by burning buildings of the governments in many Bosnian cities, such as Tuzla, Zenica, Mostar and Sarajevo. Protesters also burned the buildings of the ethnic Bosniak and Croatian political parties in Mostar. This was done together by Bosniaks and Croats, who do not believe in ethnic division anymore, who are hungry, unemployed and tired of empty promises.
Bosnian protesters were mainly workers and unemployed youth, but today they are mainly presented in Bosnian media as "hooligans who destroyed cultural monuments"., Politicians try to divide the nation again through their media, those who are pro violence and those against violence, and they succeed in it. Survey on the biggest Bosnian news portal Klix.ba says at this moment that there are 6547 people who justify yesterday's violence and 5206 that don't. In foreign media nobody writes about hooligans, all of them report about overall dissatisfaction, unemployment, corruption and hunger. Those who destroyed the buildings yesterday are all unemployed youth, cheated workers and people with no future. Their bad future is being produced in the government buildings for ages. Last two decades authorities taught us to hate, taught us to bribe, taught us to keep silent, never saying anything against themselves and always directing to those who are supposedly a different nation. That's the Bosnian present situation. We are learned to hate and learned to destroy, nothing else than that. 50% of us are disempowered and robbed by those who sit in these burned buildings. Other 50% got their positions there, mainly through corrupted ways, without proper job procedures, without proper tenders and only thanks to relatives' connection, political parties' obedience and other corruptive behaviour.
Bad privatizations and no responsibility for them
When Sarajevo's Government building was on fire, my mom was across the street, looking at it and crying. At the same time she is 62 and retired after 40 years of working, but is still taking care of a friends' kid, because her pension of 160 € is not even enough for the house overheads. After the war, in 1996, company Magros where she worked remained in good conditions and could have continued working, owning four shopping malls in the city centre and loads of other facilities. Unfortunately, thanks to government thieves Magros doesn't exist anymore, along with many other companies that used to be in state ownership. Bad privatization took place all over the country and many of their employees even died waiting for justice. Nobody was ever sued or processed for these privatizations, and nobody even shed a tear for these companies. There has been no willing government to protect these workers over the last 17 years. There'd been hundreds, even thousands of peaceful protests after the war and none of them succeeded. The Friday's violent protests are just a sign that people are completely fed up with present ways of government disfunctioning. They have nothing to lose, nothing to care about, nothing to be busy with instead of destroying. My mom just remembered the war, but later on she realized that people in these buildings share responsibility for our bad past, catastrophic present and probably even worse future.
35 year olds who never worked and still live at parents
Those who are named as hooligans are either cheated workers, or youngsters in their twenties or thirties, born in 80s and 90s and have never had a proper job, never felt state responsibility and never met normal life conditions. Many of them still live at parents' houses and cannot even think about founding families, because of resources' lack and without any positive life perspective. None of them feels sorry for the buildings that are symbols of perennial robbery within the state's institutions. My friend who was protesting yesterday told me that at the beginning he shed some tears for the municipality building (which was collateral damage in the end), but when he remembered all the fixed tenders while he worked there, he stopped feeling sorry. Another one told me, after he came back from the protests, that he only feels sorry that Syndicate's building wasn't destroyed, because that's also a symbol of corruption and political obedience. Bosnian Trade Union, even though there are almost a half unemployed population, never organized any serious protests, never fought for workers' rights and never respected ordinary people. Syndicate members were on the political parties' payslips and never had a proper reason to stop obeying them.
The situation is so seriously bad that even though we survived the war, we still don't have a proper firemen's because someone stole the money for it. Government cuts teachers' salaries, they cut student expenses, cut firemen expenses, but they never cut their own salaries, which are the highest in the region, higher even than in EU member state Croatia, and twice as higher than in Serbia. To insure social peace, authorities keep taking loans from the IMF, and don't invest that money in factories, but for their own salaries, which is a non-sense, known only in The Balkans.
After these protests, nothing will be the same anymore. What will be the solution for the future, nobody precisely knows. Protesters don't have a leader and didn't form precise aims. People mention administration reduction, nullification of the Bosnian cantons and many other different things. Will it happen or not, we'll see in the coming months, but the fact is that Bosnian ordinary people will not suffer anymore by keeping silent. Two canton governments fell yesterday. Sarajevo Canton government fell few minutes ago. The next one is entity government. Let's hope for new elections and more serious approach to state affairs after this. There are plenty solutions for improvement. Maybe cyprisation is one of them, in the ethnically divided state, where people are hungry but still love their national symbols. He, who doesn’t want to join Bosnian South Cyprus, can also stay at North. But with the 80 € pension and cult of prime minister Milorad Dodik, who also suffers watching Sochi Olympic Games. Maybe this is his last trip.