In the scope of the ”DARE!” campaign, the EU Police Mission has invited prominent members of the BiH society to reflect on the situation in the country in particular with regards to crime and corruption. 

Their observations are being published through columns in daily and weekly print media. You can read this and all future features by clicking on the link “Columns” within the right-hand side menu of the EUPM website.

Some ten years ago, also in Oslobodjenje, I wrote about corruption as the great evil of societies in transition. Back then, however, I was motivated by experience I had gained in Georgia. It didn’t occur to me that, almost a decade later, the same could happen to the society I live in. It seems, unfortunately, that this is exactly what has happened. Not so long ago, I was abhorred at the results of the corruption surveys which Transparency International carried out in BiH in June this year. According to them, the greatest problems pressuring this exhausted country, at least as far as BiH citizens are concerned, are unemployment and poverty, crime, and, of course, corruption. The same survey also claims that the most corrupt are police, political parties, health institutions, entity authorities and judiciary. State institutions – primarily the parliament, executive and judicial authorities – are those least ready to confront this cancerous social occurrence. All this, however, is not the worst. The little country of Bosnia is, they say, even when compared to others, one of the most corrupted under the European sky. As for its immediate neighbours, nobody is even close.

What can be said about all this? If it’s about the European positioning of BiH, one could also be ironic. It’s good that we’re the first in something, the starved populace would say. If we go into the essence, however, we’ll see that the worst possible has happened to us. Which can only additionally accelerate the social collapse. The ancient Greeks treated corruption as the most recognisable form of moral deviation of a society, a pathological occurrence where the ruling political class puts its personal wellbeing above the wellbeing of the political community. Nowadays, in addition, it is also considered the reason behind an ineffectiveness of a country. For good reasons, undoubtedly. After all, what else could be the consequence of bribery which has become a lifestyle? Or, for example, abuse of public office for personal gain.

Why is BiH the European champion in corruption? Or, more specifically, why is it on top of the pyramid of the most corrupt European societies? What is it that makes BiH different than all others? As far as I’m concerned, there’s a classic construction error of BiH society. In democratic societies, people are different because they’re capable or incapable people, hardworking or lazy, good or evil, moral or immoral. All this is less important in BiH. Or, and not very rarely, completely irrelevant. The criterion of human values lies somewhere else – in blood cells, ethnic and religious categories. And that, therefore, means that, if you’re a ‘true’ Bosniak, Croat, or Serb, even the grossest moral deviations – corruption and all forms of crime – don’t really matter.

The unscrupulous plundering over the past 20 years says it all. The protectors of the ethnic interests have, in the name of those very interests, first transformed the social property, which the series of generations were producing during many years, into the state property, and then ‘privatised’ it in the Capone manner, leaving devastation behind. Everywhere else in the world, criminals spend their lives behind the bars, but here they became socially powerful overnight and, more ironically, respectable people, founders of the new social elite.

All these years, an ordinary citizen has been watching powerlessly. Let it end, maybe then it’ll be better. However, that’s not going to happen. Unless they are stopped, we’ll still be waiting for the end to come. Evidence of this exists today. What else can the attacks on the telecom and energy sector represent? Behind them are the rats who have robbed everything else. Those who should end up in prison cells. ‘Incidents’ also happen in the health sector every day. Who could possibly believe the story about hundreds of thousands of war invalids, currently retired and socially unburdened people, not rarely businessmen and owners of private companies, state bosses, ministers, mayors, and many others? Who charge BiH citizens for their own Croatian, Serbian, or Bosnian “national feeling”. Same is with currently anonymous reports about ‘improprieties’ in the higher education sector? And we are to believe that this sector represents the backbone of social conscience. 

Is there a cure? Of course there is. It is true though that the healing process is neither short nor simple. But it’s not impossible either. However, one precondition is necessary – the consent of the chief therapist. In this case that is neither the International Community nor God Almighty. In this case, it will not be possible without citizens of this country. Are they ready for this task now?

This column was published in Oslobodjenje on 4 November 2008. The author is professor doctor Slavo Kukic, political analyst and one of the most famous creators of social thought in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He holds a Ph.D. in social sciences and teaches at the Faculty of Economic Sciences in Mostar, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Dubrovnik. The author of 18 textbooks for universities and 11 studies devoted to the analysis of BiH society and state, Kukic published a number of scientific and research papers about the corruption in the light of BiH transition.