Sarajevo-Spirit, January 2016. Flickr/sundeviljeff. Some rights reserved.Twenty-five years after the outset of the war in Bosnia, it’s high time to end the bleak post-war period. In spite of some modest results, the country’s overall situation is depressing. Nothing really new, but meanwhile the regional and international context has changed considerably. Bosnia’s situation consequently begs reassessment.
At regional level, Croatia’s membership is neither enhancing Bosnia’s stability nor its integration. After decades of international intervention and anaemic strategies supposed to enhance regional cooperation, the results are unreliable and the territorial integrity of various Balkans’ states (Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo) should not be taken for granted. While Russia’s and Turkey’s influence in the region increases, the western block’s soft powers appear to be dramatically weakened. More worrying, the overall security situation in central and eastern Europe is endangered and our twenty first century bears a frightening resemblance to aspects of the 1930s. On top of this, experts and political leaders on all sides seem both disoriented and helpless.
This is not the best of all possible worlds for solving Bosnia’s problems. Art — that brings us closer to truth — should become the compass in difficult times.
