The Statehood Day of BiH is one of those holidays that at the same time shed light on the idea of the country projected in ZAVNOBIH and what we see today. The Statehood Day is a reminder of the eternal struggle between the ideal and reality, desire and possibility.
When, after a two-day session on the 25th and 26th of November 1943 was adopted the Resolution of the National Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of BiH (ZAVNOBiH), 247 delegates from all over the then occupied country nurtured hope that BiH will survive until today. However, what they did not hope for is that their ideas about the country will be challenged half a century later, and that the spirits of discord will not calm even in the first years of the 21st century.
However, the spirit of anti-fascism, as romantic as it sounds, created a document at a time when optimism was expensive product, and which was charged by domestic traitors and followers of Nazism. ZAVNOBiH seems almost unreal from this perspective, and raises the question whether such optimism, made in famous three letters “i”, can be produced again today?
Marking the anniversary of the rebirth of BiH, then within a joint state of South Slavs, is a symbolic reminder that the community of seemingly different people can survive, and even re-occur, during and after the bitterest pessimism.
Pessimism is contained in the fact that half of our country will spend the 25th of November like any other working day. That the representative of the RS in the Presidency of BiH did not host the reception at the Presidency of BiH on this occasion. That the average salary has not exceed the amount of 850 BAM for years, that food is getting more expensive, but that pensions are staying same (if not late). And repeating these words for 20 years creates a collective tiredness.
For now, what we can honestly say to ourselves, is that citizens of BiH can really build their optimism at a time when it is not expected from them.
A clear proof of the accuracy of this statement is the very existence of our country despite all the opportunities that were directed against it for decades and centuries. On the table of political poker, the people of BiH always win at the end.
The new order of things allows change through democratic will of the citizens, and the truth that it is not here yet testify collective dream. ZAVNOBiH was not written by sleeping people, but awake citizens with a vision of the future, ready to renovate this small European country.
The vision of ideals can create reality.
