How to convince a young boy from Široki Brijeg that Jovo Lukić poses a threat when he is chanting his name along with thousands of other supporters? How to explain to a kid from Banja Luka that he should hate the national team whose goalkeeper is Nikola Vasilj? How to say to someone in Sarajevo, “hate on Sergej Barbarez because he is Sergej”? These things are impossible – as they should be! This is where the nationalists start to panic ahead of the new elections. Election year without the national panic is like a circus without the clowns.”
Around twenty guys in blue and yellow jerseys have done more in a week for Bosnia and Herzegovina than armies of diplomats, politicians, never-ending international NGO conferences, thousands of peace projects, round, square, and other such administrative tables, million-euro donations, and thirty years of big promises failed to achieve. These days, Bosnia and Herzegovina resembles a country that, at least for a moment, decided to breathe as one.
United Bosnia and Herzegovina – Nationalists’ Worst Nightmare
In the stands, a girl from Grude holds her hand over her heart as the anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina plays. Modriča celebrates Jovo Lukić’s goal, a guy originating from that city, and today scoring for the national team, which long ago ceased to be just a football national team. Sarajevo sings about Džeko. Bihać celebrates Kerim Alajbegović, an 18-year-old kid knocking on the doors of football giants. In Mostar, people are embracing people who, according to the country’s political scriptwriters, should be counting each other’s ethnic blood cells instead of goals. The same situation is happening in Jajce, Travnik, Bugojno…
Such Bosnia and Herzegovina is a worst nightmare for the professional hatred producers.
What is an election year without panic and fear? Because, you see, this is an election year, but how to lead a campaign to people who cheer together?
How to convince a young boy from Široki Brijeg that Jovo Lukić poses a threat when he is chanting his name along with thousands of other supporters? How to explain to a kid from Banja Luka that he should hate the national team whose goalkeeper is Nikola Vasilj? They are all chasing the same dream.
This is where the nationalist panic begins.
Nationalism never lived off love towards its own people, we know that. Its fuel has always been a fear of the other and the different. Without that fear, the entire construction is on thin ice. As soon as people discover they can celebrate together, cry together, rejoice over the same goal, there is no room left for those who initiate divisions.
This is why suddenly the same old tricks are being dug up again. Somewhere, a flag of Republika Srpska is set ablaze. Somewhere, wartime guards are pulled out of mothballs. Somewhere, homeland associations are redrawing war maps. News portals are feeding the public the same old poison. Some count flags, others count chants, while still others count the ethnic blood cells of players and supporters.
It all feels like a rehearsed choreography of hate, repeated a million times over.
It is not hard to guess why. It’s an election year, I said!
An Election Year without National Panic is Like a Circus without a Clown
Thirty-year-old political math on these territories is reduced to a simple equation: the less the unity among the people, the more votes for the “national heroes.” Every hug in the street represents a lost vote for those living off wartime trenches. Every joint chant takes a portion of the policy capital from the people who have spent three decades explaining that coexistence is impossible. Every child wearing a Bosnia and Herzegovina jersey, whose last name is Petrović, Marić, or Hadžić, knocks another brick out of the wall they so carefully built.
This is why these days we are witnessing political nervousness that has nothing to do with football.
The Dragons did something far more significant than just qualifying for the knockout stage of the World Cup—oh yes, they did! They achieved what is known in political theory as nation-building, only without the strategies, funds, seminars, and endless conference halls. All it took was a pitch, a ball, and the feeling of a shared goal.
Regardless of how paradoxical it sounds, the Bosnia and Herzegovina national team today represents possibly an institution that people from different parts of the world see as their own. Parliaments failed to achieve this. Presidencies failed to achieve this. International Envoys failed to achieve this. They failed because they did not want to achieve it. But the group of young men did achieve it, men who decided to play football for their country.
This is why Edin Džeko has long been more than just our striker. This is why Jovo Lukić has long been more than just a guy from Modriča who scores goals. This is why Kerim Alajbegović represents far more than just a great, youthful talent. The great Sergej, Sergej Barbarez, is not just a son of Herzegovina. They are becoming the shared idols of children who grow up without first asking someone’s name before celebrating a goal together.
This is exactly where the greatest value of this national team lies.
When Differences Are Not the Obstacle
The national team is not erasing the differences. It shows that differences do not represent an obstacle to shared happiness. On the contrary! Such a message is much stronger than thousands of political speeches.
Of course, no one with a grain of sense believes that ninety minutes of football will cure three decades of systematically nurtured divisions. One national team will not change the constitutional order or the election law, nor will it cure this country’s deep political diseases overnight. But it can do something equally important. It can show people what Bosnia and Herzegovina is like when it is finally allowed to be normal before the eyes of the Planet.
This is what nationalists fear the most. They are not worried about the national team’s defeat. They fear the victory of ordinary people over their own fears.
Because a man who celebrates a goal together with his neighbor will find it much harder to believe that this very neighbor represents a mortal danger to him. A child who has a poster of Džeko or Jovo Lukić on their wall will find it much harder to accept lessons about ‘eternal enemies.’ Young people who spent this summer together under the same flag, in the same environment, in front of the same TV or monitor, will be much less willing to let themselves be herded back into national pens this autumn.
This is why more noise will be raised in the upcoming months; expect it. There will be more and more professional patriots who will explain that unity is a dangerous, dangerous illusion. Because their entire political career rests on the belief that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be a shared home.
Are We Going to Learn Anything from the Dragons?
And then the Dragons appeared. And showed that it can absolutely be done.
They might not bring home the World Cup trophy. Maybe the very next match will mark the end of this magnificent sporting journey. Such things belong to football and to sport as such.
But one victory has already been recorded. For a few weeks, Bosnia and Herzegovina stopped resembling a collection of warring tribes in a certain territory and became a country of all its people, jumping for joy together after a goal and dreaming the same dream.
In a country where elections have been won for years by manufacturing fear, that is precisely the greatest possible revolution. And we will see if we have learned anything from these magnificent Dragons of ours!, Radio Sarajevo writes.
