Representative in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dennis Gratz said today in Sarajevo that the idea of civil Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only idea, in fact the only model that guarantees not only the equality of citizens, the rule of law, freedom, active and passive voting rights, the enjoyment of all the benefits of modern society, but above all the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign and independent state.
At the press conference before the Circle 99 session, where he was the keynote speaker on the topic “A lost battle, but not a war for civil BiH”, Gratz said that the civil state is the denominator, the smallest basic factor on which we can all agree that it is which is indisputable – “that’s what we have in identity cards, passports, the only thing we don’t have to argue about in this country where arguments have become the basic model of thinking, is that we are citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
According to him, we must, should and can discuss everything else – how to regulate our mutual relations, how to regulate the relations of ethnic groups, religious groups, peoples…
“We need that discussion. We hereby introduce it as a serious dialogue with the public, with the international community, with colleagues from other political options, not only those who advocate a civil model of society, but also some other model of society. However, we should not discuss BiH as a state anymore. I believe that we should really seriously deal with what is still unresolved by the Dayton Peace Agreement, which is the arrangement of this country,” Gratz emphasized.
He says that he does not want to live in any country where his rights will be valued and where he will feel like a human just because he is the majority.
“If we change that discourse, and we can only change that discourse through the civic model of society, I think we are a big step forward,” Gratz believes.
According to him, this is something that is normal and a practice in every country in the world that prospers, in countries that have a large number of inhabitants who do not even speak the same language, who do not look the same, who have a different race, a different affiliation, etc. people still function, work, hang out, live a dignified life.
“We want to talk decently, with dignity, especially bearing in mind what is being planted against us, bearing in mind what kind of government was formed, under what circumstances, with what imposition, with what games and with what perfidy we devalued the electoral will of the citizens. We will continue this dialogue, not only in the parliamentary benches, but also within the academic community. It’s time for intellectuals to wake up and talk about this topic,” said Gratz.
He added that he is glad that “civil Bosnia and Herzegovina is no longer the specter it was maybe ten or fifteen years ago, but is now a relevant topic that we must discuss if we want to stay living here”.
Asked to comment on the report of High Representative Christian Schmidt before the UN Security Council, Gratz said that he thought the timing of his justification was a little late.
“He did not unblock anything, he violated the Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by ignoring the will of one of the vice presidents. Just by unblocking it. We have the government we have now. Any decisions of that authority will be highly contested. However, I think he himself is aware of what he did and for whom he did it,” Gratz assessed.
He believes that all the changes from October 2 last year and in April this year “in practice show that they benefit all ethno-national parties – SNSD, SDS, SDA in terms of counting where they are the majority, but above all it goes to hand to the HDZ BiH, which worked very openly on this”.
