Meeting of government and protests of opposition in Republika Srpska that are scheduled for Saturday in Banja Luka, will not and cannot make any changes. Regardless of how many people will participate on them, any substantial political change is not going to happen. First of all, because neither meeting nor protests are not civil, but purely national, Serbian. This can be seen by visual solutions of event and slogans, as well as the euphoric messages of leaders of both sides.
In this kind of climate, there will be no change without a constitutional reform to rewrite the state. Protests and potential conflicts are only a temporary solution. They can introduce the matrix of changes of the political and social situation, which cannot be imagined without redrawing of Dayton Agreement. The other extreme is to maintain this politics, which inevitably leads to total collapse of the system and the state. Both extremes are the same, the real solution. The only question is time consumption.
On the side of the authorities, the nominal “social democrats” and “socialists” together with Serbian radicals are stating “With heart for Srpska – Stop the betrayal”. For the opposition, the political right wants to “liberate Srpska”. Common among these slogans and messages is, as we can notice, “Srpska”. This is what “Serbian-Serbian” ends the whole story of protests and meetings, and this is the reason why they cannot be civil.
If the majority population were citizens, and not “political Serbs”, today in RS would not prevail black and red pop-nationalism, nor would political ideas, such as Dodik’s, receive so much support. But, “political Serbs” hurts more the fact that “someone in Sarajevo” imposes “unitary BiH” to them and “disputes Republika Srpska”, than the fact that they are unemployed, uninsured, abandoned and indebted in numerous institutions.
After many appeals on ban of protest, the Ministry of Interior of RS approved maintenance of both meeting and protest, stating that about 2,000 policemen will be securing them. At the press conference, Minister Dragan Lukac announced that they expect about 100-150 buses of opposition and 150-200 buses of supporters of authorities.
Lukac noted that there is a danger of extremist groups coming from Serbia, Croatia and Federation of BiH. They will, according to him, be evidenced on the border and further monitored. Alliance for Change, however, is aware of the possibilities of intrusion of extremist groups and possible conflict, and they switched all responsibility for any conflict to the Ministry of Interior of RS.
Because of the general social conformity, it is not realistic to expect that the opposition will gather enough people to start a conflict or disorder. On the other hand, even if the present government can gather so many people, they will not start open conflict and riots, because they are the crowd that one Dodik’s speech can make peaceful. Potential conflicts and riots can only be caused by ethno-nationalistic and fascist extremists such as SNP 1389, SNP Izbor je nas and others. These conflicts could escalate from conflict with the police to conflict with citizens. In Banja Luka will be 2,000 police officers and probably the same number of police officers in plain clothes, securities in the property of the authorities and the domestic and foreign political tycoons.
(Source: Ljupko Miseljic/avaz.ba)
