Multiculturalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Multiculturalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author(s): Mirza Smajić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Sociology, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies, Politics and Identity, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Институт друштвених наука
Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina; Dayton Peace Agreement; political elites; multiculturalism; unconsolidated democracy
Summary/Abstract: In this text, the author starts from the view that the post-Dayton period of the construction of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been characterized by certain social and political specificities originating in the state and legal structure established by the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such ambiance ultimately produced certain antagonistic counter-norms and polarities in public and political spheres and discourses, reflecting on the elements, factors and processes of democratization and the implementation of democratic principles and procedures in the daily life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The final result of such processes has led to ethnicization of political, legal, public and every other area, and the creation of a framework and conditions for the maintenance of the political and social status quo on one side, with widespread and systematic discrimination and violation of basic human rights and freedoms of certain social groups on the other. In this context, author confirms the premise that the ruling political elite, using the ethnocratic mechanisms of creating and maintaining authorities, create an apparent impossibility of building a contemporary Bosnian identity, valuing everyday life through certain counter-polarities, i.e. the matrices of “our” and “their” existence, simultaneously resenting diversity and difference. In such conditions and environment, social reality was not marked by the existence of civic-cultural determinants, i.e. multiculturalism in its original sense, but rather the existence of collective and individual frustrations that represent fertile ground for political, social, economic, cultural and all other manipulations of the broad layers of the population belonging to various ethno-confessional provenances, thus creating the state of the absence of conflict, rather than the stable peace. The twenty-two years of experience since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords has shown Bosnia and Herzegovina to encounter serious problems in securing minority rights, as well as human rights in general, and these problems mainly amounted to discrimination of citizens by slowing down all elements of the process of democratization and the application of democratic principles and procedures in the public sphere.

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