Corruption and apathy
By Msuja Sever Posted Jan 1 2003
Oslobodjenje, a Bosnian daily newspaper in Sarajevo, became famous during the 1992-95 war for Bosnia independence from the crumbling Yugoslavia, when its journalists continued to perform their duty of bringing the news to the people of the besieged Bosnian capital. They risked their lives on a daily basis as they gathered the news, printed the paper in the basement and then dispatched it around the streets of Sarajevo to get it to the readers. Many of its journalists lost their lives in the course of this process, and at the end of long Bosnian carnage, the building of Oslobodjenje remained as a living proof of the virus of madness that spread around the Balkans. Almir Terzic, a journalist for the newspaper continues to experience it.
The wars of former Yugoslavia have created many monsters. Only a few of them ended at the war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Most of them remained on the ground. Although the clouds of war had been hanging above the people of former Yugoslavia for more than a decade, for most people the switch from normality to the state of chaos and war was sudden and fast. I saw it happening on the ground – in many places it occurred in a couple of hours.
The cozy embrace between the media and the politicians of the former communist federation had a lot to do with the bloodshed through all the chapters of the wars of former Yugoslavia, and that embrace has not ceased with the formal end of hostilities in any of the newly established Balkan entities. Yet one thing is vivid – along with many monsters and war profiteers, there is also a substantial number of people who want and try to do it right. But the long walk back to normality is different and tough.
Switching from a totalitarian system to a free market democracy is a long process in itself. It is even more complicated when the country embarks on this path after a long, bloody war that exhausted the population and cut deep wounds into its most intimate and general human values. As their lives become again ruled by media and politics, many just don’t care anymore. Common people, the obvious overall loser in all the post-war Balkan countries, have become more prudent, less willing to speak up for what is right. They are also unwilling to offer their names and faces to stop what is obviously wrong.
The story of Terzic and Oslobodjenje is a typical sign of such apathy. In the spring of this year, the newspaper published stories describing possible corruption by a local politician, Mirnes Ajanovic, a leader of a small Bosnian party that is generally considered to be on the radical right, with extreme Islamic orientation. Ajanovic is a member of the Parliament of the Federation, which, according to 1995 Dayton Peace Accord, represents one of the two Bosnian entities, the other being Republika Srpska.
Terzic wrote several articles in which he exposed the corrupt practices of Ajanovic and accused him of misusing his political position to illegally obtain private ownership of two apartments. Terzic claims Oslobodjenje stories were backed with firm documentation and serious investigative work before being published. In a normal environment, such exposure would possibly lead to criminal investigation and involvement of judiciary and definitely lead to loss of public confidence.
But in Sarajevo, Ajanovic got away by misusing the podium of the Parliament of the Federation on May 22 to proclaim Oslobodjenje to be “the communist mafia.” He also publicly called Terzic a homosexual, a strong condemnation in the Balkans.. Oslobodjenje decided against filing a lawsuit because the current legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina gives complete immunity to parliamentarians. But the paper did try to raise the reaction and support of both Bosnians and the international public in its attempt to lobby for support to reject such uncivilized behavior between media and political actors. The bitter part of this story, according to Terzic, is that nobody reacted to this brutal verbal attack on a journalist.
The paper and its journalists continue to be exposed to very personal verbal attacks, both through political speeches and through “other well-paid and more obedient media,” as Terzic claims. In my phone conversation with him, he was especially bitter toward the international community that is still overseeing the developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says they did nothing and showed complete indifference, though they have all legal tools to react in such cases.
I did not tell Terzic of an earlier phone conversation I had with a diplomat in Sarajevo.. Otherwise well-informed, he had never even heard of the attack on Terzic.True, Bosnia, in the eyes of the world, brings out the vivid stories of war, where the arguments on the ground were usually and with extreme cruelty fought ad hominem, less ad rem. And it is also true that the global realities between media and politicians have often confused the rules of the public discourse even in more traditionally democratic environments. Maybe this is the reason why the obvious apathy and lack of proper reaction has seized both the domestic and international public when places such as Bosnia or Kosovo or Rwanda are concerned.
With war crimes still largely undigested, one more display of unacceptable behavior seems just a small drop in a big sea. Who would know that better than the people of Bosnia and the Balkans? But the common people remain, and accurate information is the only tool they have against potential monsters that can, if not stopped in time, turn the people’s lives upside down in a moment and turn the clock back decades on a track they could not have imagined in the worst nightmares.
The very basics of political culture have not changed that much since the age of Thomas Jefferson. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press do not happen or disappear overnight; each small drop matters. That is why it is important to make fuss, a lot of fuss, every time, at every drop, however small or distant it may seem.