So, I have had another go at an on location video. I spent a really wonderful week in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina - in Republika Srpska, one of the country's two entities. It really is stunningly beautiful. And highly recommended for a visit. But one can't ignore the problems that Bosnia faces. But as I hope to show, the situation is a little more complex than either side (or any of the sids, if one also includes the Bosnian Croats) would like to make out. So, can the sides really learn to accept one another? Thoughts and comments below. (Apologies for the sound in the second half. I did everything I could to try to fix it. But it wasn't really as I would have liked it. Still, I hope that it is OK.)
Why are you so anti-nationalist in most of your videos? It almost feels like you are a globalist, which honestly is just as bad if not worse than nationalism.
Just hold plebiscite for Republika Srpska and Croat Bosnia. Modern Bosnia is pretty much tries to reflect the borders of the historical kingdom of Bosnia which last time existed in 1463.
I really appreciate your effort to film on site. It adds a level of empathy, humanity, and realism to the conflicts you're discussing. Elements that are unfortunately often missing from foreign videos on the Balkans and to a degree Eastern Europe more broadly that treat the place as some kind of fantasy realm inhabited by nationalistic militants. You filming on location helps communicate that many if not most ordinary people in RS and Bosnia more broadly are just trying to find a situation that works. The current system is hard to reform and work within, this is the real issue and I don't know the exact answer but more people are concerned with creating a functional country with decent services and jobs. In short, thanks for genuine attention. I hope you keep up the great work and enjoy your time in the Balkans with a good rakja and burek!
Thank you so much. I love doing these videos. I did one from Armenia in December and it seemed to go down well and so I thought I would give it another go. And it was so lovely to be back in Bosnia. I am very fond of the country. Indeed, I adore the Balkans as a whole - which rather helps given that I have spent so many years working on the region! :-) Seriously, though, you are absolutely right. They key has got to be on helping ordinary people with proper jobs and opportunities and good access to working government services. They are being let down at the moment. And I certainly did enjoy the food and drink. I am not a big rakija fan, though. (I'm a bit of a lightweight.) But burek is great. Then again, nothing beats good Bosnian cevapi. :-)
@@JamesKerLindsay professor, thank you for answering my question. I knew you would answer it and understand that it takes some time to read and answer the questions. Have a great weekend.
I blame the U.S. and the Dayton Accords that made Bosnia 🇧🇦 what it is now, they have obviously should have made Bosnia a more centralized government with a single leader.
@mobile printing They want a centralized caliphate just look what there doing to the Croats in the federation 15 years they can't elect their own representative it's good Republika Srpska protects Serb rights.
Anakin: I don’t think the system works. Padme: How would you have it work? Anakin: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what’s in the best interest of all the people and then do it. Padme: That’s exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don’t always agree. Anakin: Well then they should be made to. Padme: By whom? Who is going to make them? Anakin: I don’t know, someone. Padme: You? Anakin: Of course not me. Padme: But someone. Anakin: Someone wise. Padme: It sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me. Anakin: Well, if it works… Tito lol
@@nivlacsenoj6264 it's true that a dictator who is wise and not moraly bankrupt can do great things for his nation (libya being a terrific example) but dictatorships will always crumble once said dictator dies it doesn't matter I it takes 2 years or 40 the decline begins with each dictator after that becoming more and more bankrupt and paranoid.
Perhaps that was exactly it. A combination of upward economic mobility that keeps everyone busy, happy and fed with an added motivator of an OUTSIDE "enemy" like they've been programming all of us with here in the u.s. on the microscale of similar design as Tito used is the only thing that will work 🤷🏽♂️
Also, to note that Bosniaks only care about Bosniaks, Serbs only care about Serbs, Croats only care about Croats but NONE of those 3 care about Bosnians (citizens of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and so, they all try to cancel each other's policies out by voting against each other rather than against policies. In short, either the 3 groups make peace with each other OR all 3 of them split from the Federation.
The only real path to prosperity is to dismantle the 3 main nationalistic parties. They are all corrupt and selling stories to their people by enriching themselves in the process. There should be a party for Sovereign Bosnia which was always multi-cultural where all people have their religious rights without undermining anyone else's right and leaders should be put in place according to their ability and skills and not party affiliation. Until people agree about this and actually implement it, our lives may be just over...
that is not true. There are a number of Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks who vote for a person who puts the two ethnicities aside. I'm sure there are serbs as well but that is a smaller percentage.
@@rijadhadzic3396 only the Serbs have changed parties since the end of the war from sds to snsd the Croats stayed the same with hdz same as the Bosniaks with sda.
@@meopen1888 That's all in your head it's some kind of fear or something I have no idea what would you say about Albanians than that tore down borders between countries.
Serbs changed their party only becouse the all leaders of SDS are in prison for the crime of genocide. However whith the new party in charge they have not changed their politics of enjoying fruits od ethnic cleansing.
you take nationalism or tribalism away from the equation and that "experiment" will work. Who would've thought getting rid of supremacy ideals would conclude in mutual cooperation?
@@sanela5936 under Josef Tito, Yugoslavia was pretty much one unit all ethnicities and religions, were united and treated each other like fellow brothers. When Tito died thats when Yugoslavia fell apart.
Its not diveded because it was never unifed, its a comunity of 3 nations that were always forced by foreign powers to live together never by their choice.
bullshit. national identification with neighboring countries by the orthodox christians and catholics on the basis of common religion exclusively is a relatively recent phenomenon in bosnian history that occurred partly from intentional propaganda and manipulations and partly out of confusion about and conflation of religious, national and ethnic identity. that's how you have devout bosnian 'croats' with 'bošnjak' ('bosniak') as their last names for example.
@@vladimir-qx9sd There is no "bosnian history" when we speak about todays BiH, its not the same teritory and it was never formed as an etno-state of the Bosniaks. Those stories you can only preach among Bosniak nationalist like the 99 Cirlce etc. No one will believe it outside of this. 3 nations are forged and they identify as nations, this is the reality, myths that speak about "what happend in bosnian history" are only fairytales
@@vladimir-qx9sd Bošnjak is a historical term for all inhabitants of Bosnia. Only in 1993 after the historical meeting at the very historic centuries old Holiday Inn did you Muslims come up with the idea to rename yourselves Bosniaks
@@PanSerbism i'm not a muslim first of all. don't know why you assumed that. and i don't disagree with your comment-i don't think that the distinction between bosniak and bosnian was relevant before, but i was referring to how there is a distinction between how those terms are used now, whether one likes it or not. i personally don't care about the distinction but you cannot ignore it if you want to have a coherent discussion since many do use and understand those two terms differently.
As a Bosniak, I can only say we do not want war to return. But we do Love our Country. We need to talk and calm down our diferences. I say always we have more incommon than diferences. ❤️🇧🇦
Thanks. As an outsider, but one who knows Bosnia well and has been many times, I can certainly see solutions. But it does take mutual trust and understanding. Sadly, it’s still easier fur politicians to focus on differences to secure their power.
Good video, mostly objective. One thing that you said that is mostly incorrect is that many Bosnian Serbs see Bosnia as their homeland above Serbia. Bosnian Serbs acknowledge Bosnia, but Id say 90+% of people would tell you their Serbian identity is more important since Bosnian as a nation is a failed project. On the other hand, lots of people embrace their regional Bosnian heritage, but for Serbs it's similar to Posavina Serb, Vojvodina Serb, Šumadija Serb or any other region in EX Yugoslavia. Some deny they're being Bosnian (in regional sense) in spite of Bosniaks (which tried to make monopoly over the historical rights over Bosnia), but there aren't many of those. All in all, Dayton made a solid ground for stabilizing Bosnia, but the main problem is all three sides feel enraged over the war and mostly choose nationalist leaders that give them unrealistic hope for their side to prevail over the other two. Without Dayton there isn't Republika Srpska, but also there isn't any kind of Bosnia as well.
3:45 incorrect and one-sided reporting, present the US as a peacemaker in this conflict is extremely absurd and ridiculous. The American government tried with all its might to break up Yugoslavia to the last republic. Just one example is the 1992 Carrington-Cutileiro peace plan, which was accepted by all parties. In order for Bosnian Muslims to subsequently reject the plan at the urging of America. It was a turning point that sealed the fate of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The US government was ready to fight to the last Muslim, they are doing the same thing in Ukraine today. Also, the number of 8,000 Muslims killed in 1995 in Srebrenica was falsified and increased. Of the top 5,000 casualties Bill Clinton sought from Muslim authorities to help NATO intervene militarily (there are Muslim testimonies to that effect), a significant number of names on the list died earlier in the four-year war. To make matters even more absurd, many people from that list are still alive and well today, they simply escaped at the beginning of the conflict. You also deliberately or accidentally avoided the fact that during the Srebrenica massacre, hundreds of thousands of Serbs were expelled and killed in the western parts of Bosnia and Croatia. In the offensive that the American intelligence services planned and helped the Bosniak-Croat coalition. The road to peace is not one-sided reporting on events, promoting such nonsense only leads to the spread of hatred. Western journalists are masters at this game.
Just one simple question Nashud,who you know from Srebrenica? Those numbers and statistics that you recall are from that dude that even Jewish word council said that he should be ashamed.Now move forward from this crap that BiH is in, is too acknowledge what happened and take responsibility on all sides and save our beautiful country.Stop blame US of A or anybody else for poop that we are in.And stop celebrating convincted criminals and cheering "noz zica Srebrenica".And one thing that is true about Srebrenica that you don't know is this,Srebrenica was traded for towns around Sarajevo.Alija knew that is going to be some casualties but not 8k+.Gorazde was to be traded for Doboj but because Mladic vent rouge that fell a part.So RS is here to stay until Srbija is going to need something from West.Than that is it.They will sell you like they sold Serbs in Croatia.When that is going to happen.Well if Putin signs peace without changing regime in Kiev,RS is done.Cheers
I remember very well how war started in Yugoslavia and how it went from bad to worse. Germany had been recently reunified and Kohl government decided that Yugoslavia had to be dismantled. Simple as that. When french and uk governments were uncertain about what stance to adopt, with other countries of the former EEC, in the beginnings of the troubles not yet fully war, all of a sudden Germany recognized Croatia and Slovenia sovereign independent states, without previous talks with other EEC members. From this point on it was impossible to know if there had been possibilities for peaceful or at least less violent solutions like increased level of federalism and autonomies from serbian control inside Yugoslavia. It was no more possible. The german decision triggered the war in Bosnia, Bosniaks claimed too an independent state like fresh Croatia and Slovenia. Basically Germany insisted in splitting Yugoslavia in mono-ethnic nations. The mantra about the sacred right of self-determination and sovereignty was everywhere. Back then it was said that CDU had never lost the german imperial and revengeful atavism, which had been indeed kept alive by the fact that pro-eminent former imperial and nazi high-level civil servants were co-opted into Adenauer government (Hans Globke for instance and many others). Only few years afters, the creation of a multi-ethnic Bosnia made then no sense, it was the opposite of the mono-ethnic stance. Even less when considering that after in 1999 USA decided to cut off Kosovo and make it a sovereign nation, so singing again the mono-ethnic song.... Double standard .... For some reasons EEC with Germany leading, and USA, seemed to be doing just an anti-serbian policy in fact. Since then, geographic diversity of ethnies has failed, with populations tending to gather together in geographic entities along ethnical lines. Which, well, was what Germany and USA were advocating elsewhere in Balkans, and, in Kosovo. RS should just become part of Serbia. The problem is the small Brchko canton that seems to be kept more or less artificially diverse with Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, just in order to keep the Western and Eastern cantons of RS topologically separated, what became obvious over the years, is that Germany/USA/EU want to keep a small and weak Serbia, because the serbian-russian connection. and what is potentially trouble is NATO wanting Bosnia-Herzegovina in NATO, because bosnian serbians ie. RS are of course opposed.
"I remember very well how war started in Yugoslavia and how it went from bad to worse. " Are you sure? Do you remember how Serbian President Milosevic illegally annexed the autonomous areas of Tito`s Yugoslavia, i.e: Vojvodina & Kosovo? Do you remember how Serbian president Milosevic stole $1 billion USD from the joint federal Yugoslav bank located in Belgrade? Do you remember how armed Serbs started to shoot at Yugoslav police officers killing a dozen of them in May 1991, all this while Yugoslavia still existed? I guess not...instead you blame "foreign powers"...
@@northernstar4811 yes I remember. As I wrote: it went from bad to worse. It was bad but exterior influences made it worse. I am 55 and the husband of a first cousin of mine, now in his 70s, is from Skopje so he was yugoslavian citizen, then unsure, then macedonian. They used to drive to Skopje every summer and from our place Yugoslavia was just around the corner. In fact he became worried already when Tito died (at which time I was just 15, started just being politically concerned) and used to tell summer after summer: it's going to be bad. But then the policies from foreign powers made it worse. As I wrote: impossible to tell how Germany, France, EEC could have avoided full war, make people compromise. Three significant countries have different ethnies under one citizenship : Spain , Belgium and Switzerland. CH is the one with the most relaxed confederal structure. And these countries have more linguistical differences than Yugoslavia had excepted for albanian. So, a question was: could it be possible to transform Yugoslavia in something Swizz-like? the point with Germany is that they deliberately had the project to turn the rich northern part of Yugoslavia, into a zone of influence and economic sphere. The interest that EEC caused among slovenians and croatians, as an area of wealth compared to poor southern parts of Yugoslavia was used by Germany. Then the millenary old prejudices against Orthodox played in too. Basically EEC, specially Germany didn't try to play the confederal option that was at some point even proposed at least by Tudjman, in order to tame nationalistic inflation on both sides (croatian, serbian). When Germany forced EEC in a fait accompli, to recognize independant Croatia and Slovenia it was over: war would spread. then the referendum in Bosnia in 1992 was a very bad idea, because of course the 1/3 of serbian population wouldn't vote. Yet EEC and USA validated it and made B-H a UN member and then around the 2008/2010 a NATO candidate. Wtf , the country isn't even stable and run as a UE protectorate? And now what? 30 years after, the pluri-ethnic demographics of Bosnia it still there, just that it has naturally been "decanting" from mixed cantons to mono-ethnic ones and basically the country could be cut clean in three chunks: Croat, Bosniak, Serbian. When in the end 80's, Tudjman insisted in mono-ethnic Croatia it meant that Serbs and others would sing the same song. It hasn't changed. Again look at Switzerland: three languages, french, german, italian, with also mostly a topology matching the languages with some transitional hybrid/bi- or tri- lingual areas, yet a working confederation. What is different in Bosnia-Herzegovina is stronger religion difference catholic, muslim, orthodox. If this must be a key criteria then B-H is doomed and should just split.
@@northernstar4811 That is false, first, vojvodina was already part of the Allied Republic, second who was killing police offiers? Third what about foreing powers, it is true, how come all of them jist hurried to help carve it up,only causing more problems that we have to deal with today. If Tito was alive, Milosevic,Tudjman and other traitor scum would be dealth with by spending rest of their lives on Barren island.
@@northernstar4811 autonomous Area of Serbia not Yugoslavia, and how that only Serbia has autonomous areas but not eg Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vojvodina is 90% Serbs area why should be autonomous? Do you remember how TO of Slovenia, Croatia, BiH and police units start to attacking JNA (regular and international recognized forces of Yugoslavia) in their barracks, do you remember when Yugoslav police officers be captured in jail and discharged from duty cos they are Serbs?
@@DzIVDzAN "how that only Serbia has autonomous areas but not eg Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina," Well, you have to read history and look at some old maps to understand that. Kosovo was annexed by Serbia only in 1912, you can have a look at Serbia`s border from 1910 to see the original border of Serbia. What is called Vojvodina was part of Croatia & Hungary ( Austria-Hungary) before 1918. Serbia annexed this territory after 1918.
As a Bosnia Serb, I must say the analysis of the situation is very well done. Bosnia & Herzegovina could work as a country, RS is not the problem. Federation has been disfunctional since 2006 I think, I don't even remember when's the last time Croats and Bosniaks agreed on something in their entity. Everything was/is being resolved on the Canton level. For instance, if you need to go to a hospital or chance your inhabitance in a different canton, there's a lot of paperwork to be done. Feels like Bosnia & Herzegovina is divided into 11 entities. Serbian position is following: If you can't make your bloody Federal government work, with 2 of the constitutive peoples, how the hell do you expect us to believe that a government with 3 constitutive peoples with work. Bosnia with 2 entities is feasible, but if you can't make it work, don't expect us to carry that burden of all 3 sides on shoulders of one entity. *MUST READ * Another thing worth mentioning is the corruption of politicians of all 3 sides, whose only interest is to ripoff state money. Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian politicians often work together when it comes to talking shit. For instance, when people realize a politician is corrupt, that corrupt politician calls for aid from the other corrupt politicians who are not of the same ethnicity. So, when Bosniaks figure out how Bakir Izetbegovic is corrupt, Dodik (Serb) and Komsic(Croat) start talking shit and verbally attacking the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the Bakir would come to Bosnia's rescue as the defended of its constitution, and the Bosniak folk turn their eye from his corruption to what the Serbs and Croats are doing. Now, apply this recipe again, this time Dodik is the corrupt guy, and Bakir and Komsic will talk shit, making the Serb folk turn their eyes from Dodik's corruption to what Bosniaks and Croats are doing. And likewise for Croatia politicians. Current thing in that cycle is Croatian rights in the Federation. Once that gets boring, its gonna go towards RS disassembly, and then about RS independence... And that's how Bosnia works. No shit is done by the government, only shit is talked. And normal people get depressed and tend to migrate elsewhere.. mainly Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.
I was born in Ljubuski, I like to retire back home, I wish for peace no more war, I have friends on both sides, one thing I don’t like is arabs moving there
RS is highly centralized where Serbs have complete authority. Serbs are OK with with centralized government in RS but not on BiH level. Federation on other hand is very decentralized just like the whole country is. Problem is that Bosniaks want to make it more centralized like the RS and Croats naturally completely reject that. In fact everything you have said is proof that only strong centralized government can effectively rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Saying Bosnia is a single indivisible state is like saying Yugoslavia or the USSR, or the British Empire were single indivisible states. It’s a very faulty, end of history mentality mainly held by westerners who see the grand geopolitical status quo as good because it is good for their countries, and who thus seek to maintain it while working on internal reform only and avoiding territorial changes. While I’m not necessarily saying RS should secede, I’m saying that worldview is faulty. When do we decide that countries become indivisible? Did it happen when the USSR fell and the Cold War ended, when the end of history was proclaimed? Evidently not, we accepted the breakup of Yugoslavia as legitimate. Do we accept the new millennium as the cut off? No because we accepted the secession of South Sudan and Montenegro. Do we say the world should be frozen after that? Well what happens to the secessionist movements in East Turkestan, Catalonia, RS, Kurdistan, the Rakhine State, West Papua, etc? They all have widespread support and can be justified in one way or another. I highly doubt Britain or the US, for example, would complain if East Turkestan seceded from China because it supports the general geopolitical goals of the global west, namely weakening its main economic and ideological opponent, China. They would certainly oppose the secession of RS as they are fairly invested in Bosnia’s survival. China or Russia would probably have the opposite reactions, and many countries might say both regions have equal right to self determination and that both can legitimately secede. Most importantly, a lot of secessions, whether we think they should happen or not, can happen, and someone proclaiming that states are now indivisible doesn’t make it so. Bosnia can and very well may break. Many support it, many oppose it, the breakup, if it happened, would certainly lead to atrocities, but it CAN happen and both sides have moral arguments for or against balkanization that are justifiable. So saying Bosnia is indivisible and that people must accept that is a fantasy. Bosnia is divisible, just like any country, just like as much as Serbs claim Kosovo can never be separate from Serbia, it evidently CAN, the question is only whether it should, and in both situations there are legitimate arguments for both sides. I certainly have opinions on various separatist movements, but I am not deluded enough to think that history is over and that the countries that exist today will exist till the end of the world. I imagine the world map will be as strange in a hundred years to us as our world map would be to someone from the interwar era, and beyond that the world can and will be totally unrecognizable. So yeah, there is no question as to whether Bosnia is divisible, it definitely is. The question is merely whether it should be divided, and you are clearly of the opinion that it should not, which is fine, you just should not state that desire to see Bosnia survive in one piece as if it were an irrefutable law of the universe.
There is very contradictory theory: 1. Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire dissolution after ww1, is self determine and justice. But Sudeten people has no right of self determine ??? But Hawaii and Texas have no right of self determine ??? But Native Americans have no right of self determine ??? But British and French Colonies have no right of self determine (Colonies independence is after ww2, not ww1) ??? 2. USSR and Yugoslavia can dissolve, because of inalienable right of self determine. But Ukraine and Serbia can immediately deny the inalienable right of self determine of its victims (Donbass, Kosovo). 3. West support Kosovo, but against Donbass; Russia support Donbass, but against Kosovo; Serbia against Kosovo, but Serbia support Srpsk Republic; Kosovo support itself, but deny Donbass ??? 4. South Sudan and Bangladesh can be independent, but others can't ???? !!!!! 5. French colonizers dream of the indivisible France with Algeria, British Empire dream of indivisible 13 colonies. They all become to history. There is no indivisible sovereignty state, because every sovereignty state is based on defeating previous sovereignty states.
@@allianceofunitedcommunitie5541 I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean, but if my understanding is correct, I think you and I agree that the principles of self determination and of national indivisibility are often applied not based on a consistent set of moral values but based on what is geopolitically useful to the country in question.
@@bobmcbob9856 Yes. 1. Self determine is moral and justice and correct; national indivisibility is dog bit dog. Because UN charters and international law are passed by nations (slave master), how could possible for them to allow self determine (liberated slaves) ??? 2. When countries do anything, it is always their interests and benefits (geopolitics, money, oil, against competitor), it is never based on justice and moral !!!
THE COMMENTS HERE BY Bob McBob and Alliance of United Communities of Advanced are the "gold standard" of all comments on this page. The sentence above, (If I've placed my comment here correctly) is the "bottom line" which sums it all up nicely..."WHEN COUNTRIES DO ANYTHING, IT IS ALWAYS THEIR INTERESTS AND BENEFITS (geopolitics, money, oil, against competitor), IT IS NEVER BASED ON JUSTICE AND MORAL (values). I congratulate you both on your insights. (By the way, I am in favor of RS re-uniting with Serbia and parts of Ukraine re-uniting with Russia. "Bosnia", I believe is not going to have any longevity.
If I didn't know which country I'm looking at, I would have swore that this is Bulgaria, just 10 or 15 years ago. It's uncanny how similar we're here on the Balkan peninsula.
We are one nation, devided in many tribes by western countries. We should look our own interes, and work together. Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Bosnians…. we have same mentality, same blood.
Why is Bosnia so special and for example Sudan (South Sudan), Indonesia (East Timor), Serbia (Kosovo and Montenegro) are not? Why Ukraine teritorial integrity is important even if most of the people in Crimea (have status of republic in Ukraine) want independence or join Russia (Donbas too with those two republics) and Serbian is not? For example today Olaf Scholz german chancellor said that if Serbia wants to join EU it needs to recognize Kosovo's independence. Why Cyprus don't need to recognize Northern Cyprus? Why is important to brake Serbia, Sudan, Indonesia and not Ukraine, Bosnia or Cyprus, why is independence of Taiwan is important and independence of Somaliland is not? We have a lot of wars for independence (Nagorno Karabakh, Iraqi Kurdistan, Yemen etc...) and for some is ok to secide and form their own countries and for some is not aloved. Again why some people can rebel and gain indipendence after civil war and others can't. Answer is becouse of geopolitical interests of great powers, manly of USA and UK, it's as simple as that. And i think that UK is expert in playing with peoples lives, and USA was great student, aaand we are geting few more players. God help us all.
I think because Kosovo is 93% Albanian (with the serb majority parts being further in North in Kosovo so there can be negotiations there.) The population being so overwhelmingly non-serbian makes it hard for anyone to support Serbian claims over Kosovo. Do Serbs actually want these Albanians in their nation or do they want to ethnically cleanse them and take just the land?
@@Tribuneoftheplebs Same goes for RS or Northern Cyprus, Crimea, Somaliland, Palestine etc... And also those 93% are result of ethnic cleansing. The question stays, why is ok for Kosovo to get independence and Somaliland or Palestine is not? And about North of Kosovo, acording to Germans, USA, UK... it's non negotiable, Kosovo territorial integrity must remain intact.
That’s unfortunately just how the world works: Serbia and America haven’t got along since the late 80s, while Germany and Croatia have in various forms gotten along well for a hundred+ years. Thus the eventual result, following both the unification of Germany and rise to power of a Serb nationalism in Yugoslavia that threatened Croatian interests, was 30 years of Balkan policy from America and Germany designed to reign in Belgrade’s power and counter it by promoting Croatia’s interests. Repeated Serb political and military excesses didn’t earn them many sympathizers globally either. I do sympathize with the situation Serbia was in once the wheels started moving on Croatian and Slovenian independence, but let’s not be naïve about geopolitics.
From my point of view here in Latin America, I tend to be suspicious of the idea that tutelage of national politics by foreign entities will lead to more positive outcomes than native political arrangements. Maybe Bosnia is particularly messed up, but this mentality that people outside know the red lines better and define the right terms of dialogue seems to me to have proven to be, historically, mostly counter-productive.
Srpska and Croatian dominated areas of BiH would both prefer to split off from the Bosnian state but the American and the European imperialists wont allow that.
@@greatwolf5372 Bosnia would not be a viable entity if it was just Bosniak areas, see the map of Bosnia circa 1993, it would be just a few landlocked cities and river valleys
WOOOOOW !!! Becoming a travel vlogger + making such reports was an amazing idea!!! Well done, sir... Well done!!! Thorough research, objective point of view and a very well organized presentation. In addition to all that, now we are served with the delicacy of getting HD images and videos from the place referenced in the video. Professor, you are spoiling us!!! You are raising the bar very high for others in your category... I'm a big fan!
Thanks so I much! I’m really glad you liked it. Yes, I love the idea of doing some videos like this from time to time.(Even if it presents a lot of new technical challenges.) And thanks so much for the incredibly kind words of support about the channel! :-)
Hey James, I had already made this comment on your community post and wanted your opinion on my assessment; If Republika Srpska is abolished as a whole or is reduced it will mean the Serb conspiracists and ultranationalists are proved right in a justification to restart the insurrection. As domino effects tend to go; There's going to be no better way to unite the Serbian nation than to give us something to be afraid of, so if the US naturally were to back a weakening of Bosnian Serb rights and autonomy you could expect the backlash to perhaps go as far as tensions in Montenegro restarting & the Montenegrin people forcing the government to withdraw from NATO ASAP. If this were to occur I could also see Bosnian & Kosovo Serbs smuggling weapons in the same way they tried in the late 2000's for self defense when they were still legitimately afraid of being ethnically cleansed. Only this time they will be used in perhaps a new insurgency or at the very least used to destabilize the nation they've found themselves tied as part of. The current Bosnian system is undeniably terrible and unsustainable, it needs to be reformed. One of my suggestions in making administration easier is to make Bosnia more of an actual federation than 2 lumps forced together competing for power. What this means is maybe making Republika Srpska 2 entities for north and south, and allow the regions to do minor border adjustments to better match ethnic makeup and physical terrain. IMO a Croat entity is long overdue in its creation, aswell as border adjustments of the cantons. Even then though I know the government restructuring is more important than any domestic borders to the success of Bosnia it still should be considered. Sadly I don't see Bosnia succeeding in restructuring its government because the first thing the 2 entities will do is ignore what actually needs to be done and try to grab as much power as possible, I'm not sure Bosnia can be restructured without provoking conspiracists and ultranationalist tensions. Dayton is the only thing holding together Bosnia and Dayton is a system that will destroy Bosnia. There’s no good solution here.
Why do you think that in an event of someone questioning the existance of Srpska that the serbs in Bosnia and serbs in Serbia would not react with arms? The army of Bosnia is a weak mix that will not defend the country together. They could declare independance in a second and then they would probably either face sanctions or defend themselves from Sarajevo.
The sole entrence of Montenegro into NATO is against majority of Montenegrin population, so that problem was created long ago. There wasn't even a referendum on the topic. The thing is Đukanović and other serbophobes didn't care a bit since they thought Serbian factor (which is really prominent) can be silenced and overvoted as long as he wants to, but he know acknowledges he made a big mistake.
Should it come to war, no one will fight it. 3.4 million population figure is an illusion because people leave the country in droves. No one will fight for a deranged and failed state. Not to mention if by some miracle some conflict would happen, EUFOR is there in force, Austrians having sent hundrets of additional troops and Germany also planning to send more.
@@M-SRB Bosnian Army is definitely stronger than some angry serbs with weapons, if you were talking abt the Serbian Army then sure but Republika Srpska just barely has any means to defend itself.
Thanks. I’m really glad you liked it. I added some music in my Armenia video and it seemed to go down well. I thought to do it again and found a really lovely impromptu practice session by these musicians when I was in Banja Luka. :-)
Prof. Ker-Lindsey, thank you for the very informative material and great analysis. I would agree that the Dayton agreement is holding the country back, it needs to be updated, if that's possible. However, I doubt that abolishing the status of RS would solve the problem. In contrary, it would inflame nationalist sentiments in the region. As the unilateral declaration of secession by the RS authorities would. The Bosnian case is so complicated. The EU membership could be the answer. Yet, we know examples of secessionist aspirations and independence movements (Catalonia, for example ) within the EU as well. Meanwhile, I know you have made several videos about Kosovo, and I have watched them all, but could you please share your opinion on why the West is so persuasive in recognizing this region as a state? I read today that Olaf Scholz have said that if Serbia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, it will not be accepted into the EU. I mean, what's the political reason behind it? Is it because Yugoslavia was (and Serbia is) a Russian ally and the West wanted to split the former Yugoslavia into as many pieces as possible? Or is it because Serbia would be another huge country in Europe with a substantial demography and territory, had it kept or absorbed all Serbian-populated territories of the former? Thank you.
I also seen what Scholz said today in Belgrade he might as well rip up the Serbia path to EU paper work today I'm all for a fair political solution for both sides but that offer is a non starter.
Two big countries in the UN Security Council need to recognize Kosovo for Kosovo to be seen as a legitimate country- Russia and China. Russia’s views may be ignored given the current situation but China’s views can’t. As for membership to the EU, Spain will reject Kosovo’s membership without Serbia’s recognition because of what it fears about Catalonia’s independence.
It's not about recognition, it's just about finding a common ground and diplimatically find a solution. The problem is that Kosovo will not accept to be part of Serbia again. It's also not really in Serbia's interests to have two million Albanians in a country of not even seven million (that's almost a fourth of the citizens of Serbia that are fervidly anti-Serbia). How I see it is that there is simply no way that Serbia can find a beneficial diplomatic solution that does not involve recognizing Kosovo as an independent state (and I would say that Scholz would agree with me) It's really not because of Serbian-Russian relations (if anything, Albanians in Kosovo would vote against Russia) and it's not because they want to break it up either (it's counterproductive, Serbians look at Russia more since they don't feel welcomed by the EU). They simply don't want a potential war that could drag those two states down. They learnt their lesson in Cyprus: EU membership pushes candidates towards fixing their problems more than anything else and accepting them in before they fix them is harmful. In short, they don't want two messy states in the EU, and, to start negotiating, Serbia has to recognize Kosovo
When you come to the last point why republics in Yugoslavia (as well as Kosovo in Serbia) didn't follow the same concept - to stop questioning their secession from yugoslavia/serbia? Is this double standards then?
Thanks. It is important to note that the Yugoslav Constitution actually permitted the concept of secession. The problem was that it was not clear whether that right belonged to the Republics or the Nations. Serbia felt that it belonged to the Nations, and so all Serbs should ben able to live in a single state. The others felt that it belonged to the Republics. The matter was looked at by the Badinter Commission. It took a fairly clear line that Yugoslavia was disintegrating and that the borders of the new states should be the republic boundaries. This was actually a fairly uncontroversial position. The same thinking applied to the USSR, where only the top level soviet republics became independent with their borders. It also applies elsewhere. (It is something called uti possidetis in international law.) As regards, Bosnia the standard position is that substage units don't have a right to secede without the permission of the parent state. In this sense, the Yugoslav republics had a right to secede under the constitution. (Although his it exercised that right was open to question.) RS does not. This is a pretty standard understanding to anyone who looks at these issues. I full agree Kosovo represents a problem in all this. But I'm not the person to challenge about this. I have argued as much. www.delfi.rs/knjige/47027_kosovo_-_put_ka_osporenoj_drzavnosti_knjiga_delfi_knjizare.html The problem is that Serbs now judge every situation in the world against Kosovo and can't understand things. But it is actually very simple if you reverse it. Don't see everything as odd compared to Kosovo. Just understand that Kosovo was a stark exception to everything else!
@@JamesKerLindsay well if one stark exception was allowed , then why shouldnt another one ,i see no other way out of growing resentment. If you allow Croats to ethnically "clean" up the country of Serbs , if you allow Albanians to clean Kosovo of Serbs , and then recognize both as legitimate states , then why should RS where Serbs did the ethnic cleansing suddenly be under obligation to never declare Independence as to not reward ethnic cleansing , since it was already rewarded two times on Balkans , both in case of Croatia (Krajina) and Kosovo ?
@@JamesKerLindsay Thank you for your answer. I can't find whether you covered this topic, but if not It could be a good idea for your future video: - Legality of secession of former YU republics in relation to the Yugoslavian constitution, regardless what all sides 'feel'. I couldn't find the fact you mentioned that secession was alowed by it. It is just mention that federation is voluntary union of nations and not republics, but also the fact that boundaries of federation can not be changed if there is no permission of all republics. - Criteria on which Badinter commission made their desission. It is interesting - do you know that basis for their decission was not Yugoslavian constitution itself, but the right for independence of colonies I think in South America?? Is this comparable and justified in any way ? - Consequences of secession in exYu on the latter events in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as on the whole world. And thank you for the book and keep up good work.
@@JamesKerLindsay The Yugoslav federation consisted of six republics and one of them (Serbia) had two autonomous provinces. It was a constitutional state, however, each of republics (with arbitrary borders made by Communists illegally without any historic or any other evidence) had their own constitutions. The constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time, did permit secession, however, with permission of all three constitutional ethnicities (Croats, Muslims and Serbs). Serbs were, obviously, against the secession since that was not in their interest. Since their will was ignored the war started.
I really needed to add this... Most of the "boys and men" from Srebrenica were memebers of unit "28 divizija" who previously were killing Serb civillians for years (including kids, babies, women, olds...) in most brutal ways, and anyone were never convicted for that. I'm not saying that things happened in Srebrenica are not big crime and tragedy, but that everything happened there were expected and previously staged for obvious political reasons...
Regarding Srebrenica I would like to add few things that are very often being overlooked. 1. Srebrenica was a massacre. But not all 8000 were massacred. Majority of them died in battle, trying to break through Serbian line and in a war, solders fighting under a banner are not some innocent people being slaughtered and they do not count into a massacre number. 2. Serbs only killed men and military capable men only. 3. Reason for Serbian attack on Srebrenica was act of revenge and retorsion. More then 2800 Serbian civilians (including women, children of both genders and elders) were killed by Muslims from Srebrenica and basically whole area around Srebrenica was cleansed from Serbian civilians. Srebrenica was multiethnic township, and at very beginning of conflict was marked as a no-war zone and no weapons allowed zone, and even had UN peace keepers (Danish if I recall) to keep things as agreed upon. Nevertheless, for 3 years some idiots (who happened to be Muslims) kept killing Serbs all over area, than retreating into Srebrenica's safety while Danish were assuring Serbian military that zone is demilitarized and there are no terrorists inside. After Serbs found out that Srebrenica is basically Bosnian Muslims stronghold, that they are armed to the teeth, supplied by those exact peacekeepers and west they represented... Serbs snapped. I do not say that Serbs could have done it otherwise. But whenever someone fails to mention reasons of why Serbs attacked Srebrenica, what was the role of UN peacekeepers there for years and what was their agenda, twisted image of Serbs is being sent out to the world. We are not mindless beasts, but we can become beasts when somebody harm those we love. Also, not addressing Serbian civilians killed by Muslims prior to Srebrenica massacre while mentioning Muslims killed by Serbs for what they had done previously, is morally dubious.
I'll give you a "thumbs up" for your comment, Red Bird. Two wrongs don't make a right, but your explanations here make the Srebrenica story more understandable. And any story is more understandable if ALL the facts are known and what preceded this incident.
More lies and history revisionism. Executing men in captivity is a war crime buddy… also body remains of a 14 year old boy were found in 3 different mass graves, which tells you everything you need to know about who was killed and efforts Bosnian Serbs took to hide it.
The serbs killed boys as well in Srebrenica, and although you’re trying to paint it as a picture of a singular instance of revenge, keep in mind that it was just one massacre in a broader genocide that had been going for 4 years at that point.
I'm a bosniak and don't believe Srpska should be abolished despite everything. What we need is a de-radicalization of all ethnic groups so the democratic process can give us leaders who are competent and cooperative rather than fear-mongering, corrupt and provocative (Dodik's political career survives on provocating bosniaks with his nationalist rhetoric). The federation also needs to abolish its cantons and maybe even give the croats their own semi-separate entity. But most importantly the country needs a stronger national identity and a singular leader/president. The current tribal structure is hurting us politically, economically and is a destabilizing force. Personally I wish we could unite behind historic figures like king Tvrtko I Kotromanic, a roman-catholic king who proclaimed himself the king of the serbs and bosnia. He, in a sense, encapsulates all three ethnic identities and could serve as a unifying figure for a modern Bosnian state. Hope you enjoyed your stay, come visit us again. You should definitely see the mountains in central and southern Bosnia :)
The Bosnian Serbs are pro-Russian, the "Bosniak" muslims are pro-Turkish, the Bosnian Croats are pro-E.U ( pro-West). Now, how do you find common ground with these different political views? The only good thing the vast majority of people in Bosnia & Herzegovina do not want another pointless conflict in Bosnia, so I guess that is something positive to build on.
The only Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina are the 17-18th settlers that arrived from impoverished Dalmatia to work as serfs on the settlements of wealthy Bosniak landlords in Herzegovina. The first Catholic Church in Mostar was built by Turks in 1866. Croat fanatics, who have a monopoly on all teaching positions in the "social sciences" and "humanities" in Croatia, teach at their universities that Slovaks with the surname "Horvat" are "lost Croats" and that Slovenes are too. Of course you are pro-EU, and that is so out of necessity, as that is all you have going for you, but even they will throw you under the bus, assuming the EU does not collapse. 9/10 Germans associate Croatia with fascism.😁
I am literally writing an MA dissertation on Bosnia (specifically how the Dayton Agreement has impacted interethnic communities in Bosnia). The timing of your video and it's insightful contribution are of immense help to me. Thank you so much for your work.
Nas narod uopste nema probleme iz medju sebe, nego sa onima u vladi. Tjeraju nas da se svadjamo da nas drze u razdvoju, dok oni kasiraju. Kad ugasimo ekrane, pustimo malo pozitivne muzike i druzimo se zajedno vidimo da smo braca i sestre. A zamisli da radimo zajedno sta bi mogli napraviti, Balkan moze biti najjaca regija svijeta i najbolje mjesto za ziviti! Ljubav i veliki pozdrav braco i sestre 🇷🇸🇭🇷🇲🇪🇧🇦🇸🇮🇦🇱🇧🇬🇷🇴🇬🇷💙
takvo misljenje je najvise zatupljeno medju Bosnjacima, na zalost to nije slucaj kod drugih bas ne u mjeri gdje bi se mogle desiti neke promjene.. To se najvise vidi po komentarima inako se nekad cini drugaicje uzivo... ovdje pisemo ono sto mislimo
The problem with Bosnia is that it fundamentally inherited the same struggles Yugoslavia had, just switching up the ethnic dynamic. The problem can be defined basically as core-periphery tension. The “core” being the largest ethnic group which holds the capital, in Yugoslavia that was the Serbs, in Bosnia it is the Bosniaks, and the periphery being the other ethnic groups that make up huge portions of the population generally fear domination by the core group (in Bosnia’s case Serbs and Croats, in Yugoslavia’s case Bosniaks, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Albanians). The core will always push for unitary government and centralization as those provide a number of economic benefits to the country at large and give the core group the privileges it believes it deserves as both the largest group and the group that fought and bled the most for the country’s creation. The Bosniaks today behave much as the Serbs in both iterations of Yugoslavia did. The peripheral groups will always seek autonomy and decentralization as they seek to avoid domination by the core group which they often have some kind of historical tensions with. The peripheral groups tend to be reluctant members of the union who are not really invested in its continued existence. They may either be willing members who have since become disillusioned because of what they see as domination by the core (the Croats in both Yugoslavia and Bosnia fill this role) or completely unwilling members in the union who didn’t really have a choice and have wanted to be part of a different country from the beginning (Yugoslav Albanians and Bosnian Serbs are good examples of this, the Macedonians in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia are also a decent analogue). Of course there are differences, most notably that Bosnian Serbs are in the unique position of going from part of the core group in Yugoslavia to a peripheral group in Bosnia, which only makes the desire to leave even stronger. Now I’m not saying the core or the periphery is right in either state, I’m just pointing out the division. If Yugoslavia couldn’t work and its breakup was a good thing, then the breakup of Bosnia is also ultimately a good thing, though much like the breakup of Yugoslavia it can only be achieved through undeniably horrible bloodshed. Of Bosnia can manage to stay together, than a larger union like Yugoslavia is (and was) just as feasible if it follows/had followed whatever model Bosnia uses to survive. Now I have some pan Slavic leanings myself so a successful Bosnia as an example to build a new and improved more equal Yugoslavia from is an appealing idea, but I also don’t think such a thing is to be expected and is more akin to having a pet dragon than any realistic good idea. One thing of note that have yet to mention in the half of the video I’ve seen so far is the high representative. The HR is a foreigner appointed by a council of mainly western nations to oversee the implementation of the Dayton Accords. He essentially has the power to depose public officials, ban them from ever holding office again, and pass laws without the approval of Bosnia’s own legislative branch. And he is, again, a foreigner, a German, whose only real oversight is the US & EU. The existence of the HR has been criticized by all 3 ethnic groups and the council of Europe and generally, giving a foreigner near absolute power in Bosnia is seen as a horrible mess at best and an EU equivalent to a Resident in a British colonial protectorate at worst. There are many calling for the office to be abolished or to be occupied by a local. The HR is behind a lot of the reductions in Republika Srpska’s autonomy, which inspires a lot of anger among the Serbs. Not only are they losing autonomy, it is not even happening through the internal processes of Bosnia’s government but being imposed on them by a foreigner, a German no less (after fighting in 2 world wars to avoid political domination by German states, this is symbolically a big deal, and of course add onto that the more general anti western and anti NATO sentiment remaining from the wars in the 90s). That’s not to say there would not be cries of “Bosniak domination” and infringement on Serb rights if this was done by a local government, but the wounds would certainly sting less, and you can see this by how often Bosnian Serb politicians denounce the HR as illegitimate and his rulings as illegal.
The thing is that Yugoslavia was a federal state and federal states are supposed to be equal, which is why other people opposed Serbs rightfully. Take a look at United States, there are bigger and larger states, but they're all equally represented in the Senate and are united by the federal government. Bosnia is not a federal state. Sure it does have some elements of a federal state, but being internationally recognized in the war, the Dayton Bosnia is a successor of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is supposed to be a short-term state that will unite people who fought against each other until they overcome their differences and create their own constitution. This is of course idealistic even for today, especially for today when nationalism is on the rise again and this is exactly why the High Representative and the intervention of international community is needed. Additionally, not only that the agreement cannot be reached, but "peripheral" ethnic groups as you call them are doing their best to make the country dysfunctional which is an additional argument for HR. Also, it is a bit hypocritical to mention current HR and him being a German and connecting it way back to world wars. That is exactly the nonsense Serbs mention which gives me an inclination you're a Serb. First of all, past has nothing to do with it. Second of all, chetnik forces have collaborated with the Nazis if you want to talk about history. And third of all, previous HR's weren't German, it has nothing to do with ethnicity. One last misconception is that HR has no idea what is going on in the country, but he does. He's living in Bosnia and watching every political move that is made. Some don't like him because he's on their schemes. And don't tell me he's unwanted by all three people because Dayton was signed by leaders of those people and Dayton included HR's office.
@@pvtmcfinger3770 Yugoslavia was a federal state drawn up by a group of communist leaders in a closed room. There could have been a federal Herzegovina, a federal Dalmatia, a federal Vojvodina, a federal Slavonia as well. Or all these federal states could have had tottaly different borders. Borders are constructs of political moments in history not some heavenly bestowed truths or cosmic axioms. I don't see you saying state borders can't be changed in the case of Kosovo.
@@milebobic3458 no matter what federal states were made, there would be no chance for one state to have superiority, which Serbs wanted in order to create the greater Serbia. As for borders in general, I don't see how it's relevant to all this. Bosnia is not a federal state.
'Even if they joined Serbia they would be a provincial backwater' Complete bullsh*t! Banja Luka would be one of the top 4 cities along with Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš, the Podrinje region would become central and extremely integrated with what is now Western Serbia, while Trebinje in East Herzegovina would very much gain in strategic importance. We were outvoted when the country was forming, then forced to be part of it by the barrel of a gun, and then for 25+ years what little autonomy we had was constantly undermined. Serbs do not want 'compromise' anymore. We want out. It's as simple as that.
Keep “wanting”… Podrinje you talk about has been ethnically cleansed and genocide was committed. That will never be part of Serbia. You can accept that or start another war for it.
@@devilsadvocate7389 Podrinje was 50-50 split between Serbs and Bosniaks. You got Goražde, you got the whole of urban Sarajevo and you also got the Drvar Krajina which is almost exclusively Serb. As for wars, we don't even have to do anything in that regard. We just have to make Bosnia as dysfunctional as possible. Good luck stopping that.
RS "gave" parts of Brcko for the formation of a District spliting RS, also it gave many concessions, like the right to have an army. It all is not enough for the central government. Encourage by the West they want full control and an "end" to RS. Croats and Srbs are fortifying there position with the talk about more power or independence. There is a new proposal to take land and forest from RS that is the red line. Even if it happens on some paper it will not be implemented on the territory of RS. Than again why can Kosovo and RS can not? Why can Kosovo and Catalonia can't? Maybe the West need some reform to?
As you mentioned denial of attrocities commited by Bosniaks against Serbs is in full power, it's not one-sided as Bosniaks portray, everyone in West talk about Bosniaks as sole victims while it's far from truth. Thousands of Serb civilians died in that war by Bosniak hand, same for Croats. I accept that Serb Army commited war crime in Srebrenica, but it was a direct consequence of war crimes commited on Serb civilians in area around Srebrenica, which was under UN free zone area, UN not doing anything to stop those Bosniak army actions was the main cause for what happened im Srebrenica. Also UN/US were openly arming and training Bosniak army in that same UN free zone, West can't choose sides in civil war, that was the main mistake then and they repeat same thing in all conflicts around globe.
As a Serb l can not agree with everything presented because some important facts were skipped, however l can totally agree with the final conclusion of the video. Simply as it is Bosniaks and Croats need to accept fact that Republic of Srpska is there and that without it Bosnia will not exist, also Serbs need to accept vice versa that Republic of Srpska will not exist without Bosnia as a country. Main issue l see today is not ethnic relations. Key issue today is NATO. Serbs hate NATO and not wish Bosnia within alliance (naturally) while Bosniaks and Croats adore NATO and would join tomorrow if they could. Serbs not wish to participate in NATO conflicts while Bosniaks and Croats would. Solution for this could be simple by allowing NATO within Federation and having an NATO base over there excluding Republic of Srpska that will stay neutral but in exchenge will recive written assurence signed by all NATO countries that troops and equipment will stay out of Republic of Srpska without possibility for taking any of infrastructure in that part of Bosnia. Of course Bosniaks will not allow this simple solution because they want all Bosnia to follow what their majority wants and there is key of a whole problem.
Insightful analysis. Stability is the key, everything else should fit in as time progresses. We mustn't forget that we have a generation-long heritage of authoritarianism which resulted in the biggest crash in a long time. It takes time and effort to recuperate afterwards. They say three-generations-time is the minimum required for a healthy society to form after a period of ideological vacuum - if all the necessary conditions are met. One step at a time I guess. Thank you for the kind words about our mountains and your understanding!
As a Bosnian Serb from Republika Srpska I can say that everything is 100 % on point. Thank you for the visit and your objective analysis. Long live Bosnia,long live Republika Srpska.
Thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate it. It was great to be back in Bosnia and back in RS. It had been a few years. Hvala i Pozdrav iz Londona ! :-)
So many different in such a small space. It is good for people to be able to resolve their differences and tolerate each other. But if they do not want to live together, it is better to live apart. I do not understand the obsession of some for the opposite. Bosnia and Herzegovina is an artificial state like Yugoslavia, which I must say has largely succeeded, and that happened for a simple reason, because they wanted it to succeed. Since others, for their own geopolitical interests, have taken care to encourage the growth of various and dissolving tendencies, it is too late. And I am referring primarily to Germany. A Yugoslavia would be a strong force within the EU. and some did not want that, it was better to dismantle it, in order to better control the smaller states and to integrate them one by one later. But they did not calculate the human factor correctly ... Now it is too late for tears. Three peoples who do not want to live with each other, with three different religions and behind these three national entities to be stable, different Geopolitical interests. The solution is one, to live as all three peoples want and to reach a velvet divorce peacefully and quickly. But for this to happen, some geopolitical interests will have to stop their underground interventions in the region and leave it alone at last. Otherwise the ending will not be good, once again. A lot has happened badly and to be fair not only by the Serbs, who are hard to forget by everyone.
Thanks Pavlos. I agree. But, equally, constant talk of secession is also highly destabilising. In fact, there are some potentially interesting parallels if ever Cyprus is solved. Any settlement will have to be based on accepting a federal arrangement - even though some TCs will always want to break away, and some GCs will always resent the TCs having their own territorial unit.
@@JamesKerLindsay indeed totally on the same page, i can see many parallels for example the Serbian tendency to mess up the federation brings to mind the early days of Cyprus as independent nation and the way Turkish Cypriot leadership was behaved Oddly enough is that Bosnian Serb mentality you mentioned in the video, it remains me allot of the Greek Cypriot ones , they are " very Greek" but Greece is not their " mother land " that necessary want to be part of, Cyprus is their home Also I can't help myself thinking that the Bosnian government is over reacting a bit, some graphities and some politicians saying things that will bring them to the headlines does really means that there is a movement on the rise? I have my doubts
@@Pavlos_Charalambous Acctualy he got that wrong. We all love Serbia and would love unification. Problem is that we dont have leadership good enough to do it legaly without any kind of conflict. State is not functioning properly like this, mostly we cant stand each other same as you guys and turks. Split up in this country is best solution, as a Serb I truly know I can tell this for all of the Serbs in Bosnia.
Greetings from a Serbian from Bosnia! Both wars in Bosnia and in Ukraine are truly tragic. Brother vs brother, neighbour vs neighbour. However we pray for peace to come as soon as possible. Take care!
As a Bosnian Serb i must say that this video is really good. And message is pretty simple, namely both sides should accept reality, Bosnia is here to stay as well as RS, RS cant seceede but also cant be abolished. Thats it, even tho its only a start it would help a lot. However, this isnt the only problem on ethnic level since there is Croat-Bosniak problem, thats kinda bevoming worse with years. And that one is more than just Croats demanding 3rd entity, its also about the Croat member of presidency and how he is elected as well as how Croats should be elected in other central goverment offices or FBiH offices. I hope you will make a video about that too since not much people outside this area knows about this problem.
@@bilic8094 RS means Republika Srpska, if Sarajevo means they are achiveing something by calling it RS they are dead wrong. Its shorter this way, i do the same with FBiH.
@@biglebowsky6586 it cant seceedde but it can be abolished. Believe my it will happen soon. Bosnia was without entities for 1000 of years and will be again
One of the fundamental questions that needs to be answered to understand Bosnia is why are Bosniaks so keen to live with Serbs in the protectorate of Bosnia and at the same time were keen not to live with Serbs in Yugoslavia (at a price of a war even). Why would they prevent secession of people that are demonized in the Bosniak media (to say the least)? This equation can only be solved by an answer that they care not for the people (the Serbs) but the land the people are on. Remember, Serbs in Croatia went from about 30% to sub 5% in less than a century in a few easy steps. RS is, therefore, of crucial importance to the Serbs of Bosnia.
"Remember, Serbs in Croatia went from about 30% " What year were the Serbs 30% in Croatia? Can you quote the population census? In 1931 the Serbs in Croatia numbered 633,000 persons ( Yugoslav population census taken by Belgrade)..
@@neokorteks2009 The puppet"Independent State of Croatia" was about 115,133 km² in size, the current Rep. of Croatia is 56,594 km² in size. So of course the population size will be different too.
@Prof James Ker- Lindsay, You are right to finally acknowledge that RS is a real and authentic political entity which can never be abolished without bloodshed, but you still tend to repeat the reductive narrative about evil politicians who manipulate the otherwise perfectly passive public. You must also acknowledge that, while much of the modern politics in general certainly is manipulative, like anywhere else including the UK, there is a real agency and determination among the Serbs in Bosnia who are obviously ready to hold their ground and will not let their status be downgraded by the manipulative and openly hostile foreign meddlers, like in the past. Why don’t you look, for example, at the illegitimate way the High Representative was installed, or the illegal and absurd rulings of the Constitutional Court? There is much more manipulation to be found there than in the nationalistic rhetorics. Unless you can understand that, your reports will only help to perpetuate problems. As a political scientist, you shoud be more critical towards the dominant narratives and look for the facts. Otherwise, you are at risk of being seen as a mere agent of the political clique running your country and trying to do the same elsewhere in the world.
Thanks. But it isn't quite as simple as that. I spend a lot of time working on the Balkans. I know it extremely well. (My academic area of specialisation is in fact SE Europe.) Political patronage is still crucial. You need to belong to a party to get a job in many places. This is very pronounced in RS. This stifles opportunities for people to speak out in ways that might be possible in other countries. So, while you say that I might be accused of being a mouthpiece for my country, in fact what I say often stands at complete odds with the UK government. But interestingly, I see far fewer cases of people going so openly against the government line in many Balkan states.
@@JamesKerLindsay I truly appreciate that you took time to respond. However, please let me point out that I am not ignoring the fact that public life in Bosnia is marred by corruption and clientelism. However, the repeated attempts to downgrade the status of the RS under the guise of reform only give boost to the politicians who can use them as a proof that the national interests are in danger and thus mobilize support despite their own wrongdoings that are simply seen as a problem of less importance. But this is not just a simple manipulation (although to an extent, that too plays a role). There is a very real pressure by the UK, US and others to change the terms of peace and there are only few Serbs who would deny it, not because they are afraid of the nationalists, but mostly because that is their well paid job in NGO’s or because it helps them win a grant. I hope you didn’t speak to them only. Ordinary people clearly see RS as a vital resource and this is why all the Serb parties stand united when it comes to resisting attempts for a stronger central government. Also, you are perhaps right to claim that the international patronage is still necessary. But this is not enough to explain why you completely ignored the very powerful arguments of the Serbs about the legitimacy of the current High Representative as well as the Constitutional Court. Why do you also ignore the usurpation of the B-H foreign policy by its Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the UN who act against the law, overstep their authority and promote the Bosniak interests only? Let’s accept it is not because you are a soft power agent on behalf of your government but an honest scholar. As such you would need to include the Serb argument with more sincerity and attention into your analysis. In fact, this would help you establish authority in this field, which can’t be secured by simplistic claims coming out of political narratives rather than scholarly field work.
@@josefowitzer Thanks. I thought I spelled out Bosnian Serb arguments, including the view that Bosniaks have always wanted to get rid of RS. But equally I’m not going to pretend that Dodik isn’t a serious problem - a view made clear to be many times in Belgrade. They also see him as a trouble maker. Serbia is trying to pursue EU membership and deal with Kosovo and yet it is finding itself dragged in to Bosnia, with various outside voices insisting that it is behind Dodik’s talk of secession. It isn’t. It just wants a live and let live approach. Bosnia exists. So died RS. That was my point. And on that I don’t think Belgrade, the EU and the US are actually that far apart. Really, the frustration at the way *all* Bosnian sides are behaving at the moment is clear. But Dodik’s threats to collapse the state entirely are particularly destabilising.
@@JamesKerLindsay Again, Dodik doesn’t seem to be a mere maniac who wants to destroy his country. He is acting in reaction to an attempt, sponsored by the US, UK and other patrons, to curb the RS by transferring its ownership of the land to the central authorities, a rather baseless, non-constitutional move. I’m sorry to therefore find your response invalid, as instead of pointing out how you took into consideration the specific grievances of the Serb side which are sitting in the centre of the current crisis, you turned to Dodik as if whatever he says justifies breaking of the peace agreement and the constitution. Besides, Dodik himself always used the conditional tenses and on multiple occasions stressed that his goal was not to break up the country, but to preserve the RS autonomy as defined in the Dayton Agreement and its Annexes which make the constitution. These are not mere details but fundamental arguments that can’t be sidelined because they don’t fit with the narrative. At last, I don’t think you fully grasped the nature of the relationship between Vucic and Dodik. They are in accord except when it comes to using boycott as a means of protest. Honestly, I didn’t understand why have you invoked that in the first place. The position of Serbia is quite clearly peaceful and fully supportive of the B-H sovereignty and integrity, as well as of the RS’ status by the Dayton Agreement. Attempts to forcefully change that status will hardly be given a green light by any government of Serbia, regardless of EU promises. If EU wants to blackmail Serbia into accepting centralisation of Bosnia against the will pf the Serbs, that would be just another disaster in their backyard. One would expect the Brussels has learnt from experience. Unless, of course, the paranoid but increasingly popular idea that the western powers actually want to keep the numerous Balkan crises simmering - is in fact true.
@@JamesKerLindsay The problem is that the points Dodik is raising are real and they are not just mere rhetoric to gather votes. High Representative office is unconstitutional and is a medium which promotes Bosnian interests exclusively at the expense of Croats and Serbs. All the rulings this office made chipped away from Sprska's autonomy, violating the Bosnian Constitution. In addition, the Constitutional Court is a Bosnian watchdog. It doesn't behave as one such court should, such as safeguarding the Constitution. In addition, he foreign policy of BiH has been usurped by the Bosnian side. Srpska isn't really the problem here.
In Cyprus, many are showing Bosnia to demonstrate what would happened if the Annan Plan was voted in favor. P.S. In your previous video comment section, there was a bot with your profile photo
I remember when Germany said to Milosevic in 91 "You cant force people to live together if they dont want to" but that is what the EU and the US is doing both in Bosnia and serbias province Kosovo.
U made BIG misstake when u say that Bosnian Serbs see Bosnia as their country...thats so incorrect.90+% of people in RS see themselfs as Serbs and RS as a part of Serbia.Nobody i know from RS is saying that Bosnia is their country.They dont want anything to do with them.
There should be no such thing as an indivisible state, let RS go and form its own country if the inhabitants desire it. Same applies to Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec, and Texas.
Well this ignores basic things such as infrastructure, currency, political institutions, allocation of basic resources, ethnic minorities divided by new national boundaries etc. On the whole, carving a nation out of another leads to both sides becoming far poorer and unnecessary disruption to everyday life. Take a look at South Sudan, perhaps the poorest country in Africa. It is a resource rich nation, with plenty of oil and water. However, they haven't been able to take advantage of that as the refineries are up north in (North) Sudan. Likewise, South Sudan now no longer has a port to export their goods. In addition, many Dinka still live in the North, both sides dispute the border and a civil war broke out. That's not to say that they shouldn't have declared independence, but that UDI should always be considered the option of last resort. Saying "It's the will of the people" is very fickle. It really depends which people are voting. In the last Scottish Independence referendum, only Scots living in Scotland were allowed to vote. This meant the over one million Scots living in England couldn't vote one way or the other. Likewise, inexplicably 16 year olds were allowed to vote, even though they aren't allowed to vote in national elections. Interestingly Scots who have lived abroad were polled at the time as less likely to vote for independence, whilst younger Scots were more likely to vote for. As you can see, by choosing who could and could not vote, the SNP hoped to stack the vote one way or the other. So saying Scotland becoming independent as the "will of the people" is really saying "It's the will of the people who I chose". It's also very hard to undo a UDI when it has happened. Take Brexit. Following the immense upheaval of leaving the EU and every day discovering yet another issue that it has caused, quite a few Brits would vote the other way now, given half the chance. Likewise, the younger generation who have just reached voting age would be much more likely to vote to remain in the EU, meaning that, if the vote had happened now, Britain would have voted to remain in the EU more likely than not. However, the deal is done and no one wants to go through the God-Awful process of yet another referendum, so applying to rejoin the EU will probably never happen, in spite of massive public support. Even then, there is so much bad feeling from the EU towards Britain, there is no guarantee that they would even be remotely interested in allowing Britain to rejoin. That's the trouble with independence. It leaves both parties feeling bitter towards each other (with a few exceptions).
@@solsunman383 Many times, when a region desires independence its because they feel they are being oppressed, their needs ignored by the central government, they aren't safe remaining part of the original nation, etc...As for the Scottish example, allowing people outside Scotland to vote raises a question of what makes one a Scot? Its not as simple as countries with citizenship. There is only British citizenship not Scottish or English or Welsh or Northern Irish. Why should person who choose to reside outside of Scotland be allowed to vote on Scottish independence. If you allowed them to vote, where do you draw the line? British citizens born in Scotland but now residing elsewhere in the UK? Anyone who can show a connection to Scotland? As for the voting age...if the young are for independence then it could easily be argued that they represent the future of the country and their voice should be heard.
Thanks Prof. Hope you are enjoying your time in that beautiful part of the world. Is it me or is this perhaps the most complicated situation you've covered so far. I'd like to see in a couple of months when your book is released to have the co-author on to talk about it, how it came about, what you learned in writing it, ect. It's your channel and your book, you have every right to promote it here, it's completely different from going on someone Elses channel to promote it. Have a great weekend.
He aint covered 1 % of history there,if somebody realy want to understund something just dont read 30 years of history,where he mention that Bosniaks who are Slavs just like Serbs love Turkey ( Otoman empire) who put Serbs in 500 years slavery,where he talk about what Bosniaks under Nazist do to Serbs in WW2 together with Ustaše (Croats),where is Bosniak fight against Austrohungary when all Bosnia was Anex...Somebody please tell me one singl war of Bosniaks and Croats against Nazist,Otomans and Austrohungary when all tham control everything here,just Serbs fight against tirany and fight for freedom,all tham fight for Nazist,Otomans and Austrohungary...This man just want youtube weiws and thats all,just how you put that flag but in realty you gonna do nothing...
Good share. I think Bosnia should dissolute into two different states similar to the Kosovo-Serbian relation now. If Serbs and Bosniaks could live peacefully with each other, Bosnia should not be independent from Yugoslavia
I dont think thats how it works, since a lot of the territories used to be Bosniak populated, and after the genocide (killings, rape, expellsion, destruction of cultural heritage and other types of warcrimes) i will count a couple of municipalities that used to be Bosniak populated before the war and now aren't since those crimes happened Foča, Višegrad, Rogatica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Doboj, Prijedor, Tešanj. These are the important reasons, Bosnia would lose 49% of the land, and it would lose Yugoslav wars with that and also that would start another war.
@@ThienHoang-tr3dh You speak fair. Only Bosnian Muslims have crazy jihad dream of ruling entire Bosnia from 23% majority populated land and make problems for Serbs and Croats.
@@JamesKerLindsayYes our mayor Milan Miličević was just elected as the new president of SDS the second biggest Bosnian serb political party let’s hope he brings some major needed change to the region he is a great Mayor
You are framing the question from the wrong perspective and using shaky axioms. Although you are trying to pretend to present objective viewpoint, it is highly biased since your arguments start from the position of Western/UK view which is in no way neutral party in the game. I do not have time nor it is a good place to present you with detailed arguments in this comments section. I will mention a couple of things only. 1) B&H in the war never was able to establish control and sovereignity of its whole territory. In fact, it most of the time controlled some 30% of BH territory, yet its government was officially recognized by western countries. Why? Because of their interrests. B&H government was able to increase it control to maybe some 40% of territory at the end of the war (not including some croatian controlled parts) because they had military (NATO) and political support by western countries. 2) Referendum to seceed from Yugoslavia was invalid and against the constitution, as one of constitutive nations (Serbs) did not participate; it was not possible to separate BH from Yugoslavia *without* the consent of all three constitutive nations at that time; yet, west simply (intentionaly) ignored that fact and rule, which lead to the war. 3) Republic of Srpska had control and continuity over its territory all the time since 1992. Republic of Srpska was existing before B&H was established and consented and had full sovereignity over its claimed territory. Remember, in Dayton B&H changed its name from "(Socialistic) republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina" to "Bosnia and Herzegovina". Dayton does not see any continuity between old (inter-YU) BH and the new one; modern-day BH was established by Daytons peace agreement, which defined its constitution and other rules. Hence, Republic of Srpska was political entity that created BH, that brought its sovereignity, territory, people, laws, into BH. BH constituion in Dayton accepts and includes all history of RS and its legislation. 4) Hence it is naive to say that RS cannot exist withot BH and think about the abolition of RS. Only entity that can be abolished is BH since it is not functioning well and BH is a great source of problems and burden for further development and progress in RS. RS is result of its people who created it and built in it their lives; the will to preserve and strengthen RS is strong and there is no way that inhabitants of RS will want to abolish it. It can be "abolished" only by external military force imposed by western countries, which is possible but not highly probable at the moment and could lead to broader regional or european military conflict. Even if it would be done, the abolition would not be sustainable (except if you do ethnic cleaning). Serbia will not sit around and look peacefuly at the disintegration of RS. 6) You did not mention how constitutional court and legal system in BH works. BiH still has OHR, with currently illegal lead of OHR, German guy Schmidt who did not receive consent of UN security council for its positiion. OHR is acting in very grayish legal area. It is in fact an institution of colonial control of BH. BH is failed colonial state which does not enjoy full sovereignity, almost 30 years after it is established. OHR imposed so many laws in BH which are in fact illegal (but most of them still the part of the legal system) and which reflect the colonial character of BH. The real question to ask is, is BH a failed western experiment? 30 years after the war with full political (OHR, constitutional court, embassies) and military (SFOR/EUFOR) control western countries did not succeed in making a sustainable and functional polictical entity. Maybe west should be removed from the game? 7) Constitutional court of the state consists of foreign citizens who are put in position by foreign institutions, a group of countries interested to control BH. This court goes beyond its competencies and tries to change the mere legal structure of BH, its constitution and its entities. This is one of great sources of instability since the Serbs, who make 49% of the BH territory and some 33% of its population, almost do not have any meaningful influence on decisions made by the constitutional court. The next entity is BH central bank, which is also controleld by foreigners and its policies do not allow for a meaningful developmetn of BH economy; 8) Most of the political decisions in BH are done in coordination and by consulting foreign embassies, notably US, UK, DE. The political representatives in BH are in many cases just empty roles and members of a circus; the real and most important decisions are done by foreign embassies. They do not like Dodik since he is the guy that promotes democracy in the sense of local populations (no matter of ethnicity) being able to decide on theri fate, and not some foreign guys. 9) You mention one of the issues like ethnic composition of BH institutions and democracy. This is actually only the issue in the view of EU instutitions. In reality, it is not an issue. A Jew currently cannot be elected to be member of presidency. Compared to many other issues that citizens of BH now face - economical impoverishment, non functional institutions, inner political strugles, incompetent politicians, colonialized country, demografic catastrophe, failing everything - really, electing a Jew or a Roma ethnicity or a Gay which make irrelevant part of the BH population is really really the least important issue. The most of the other human rights in reallity are not enforced on acceptable level and this is the issue that need to be resolved first and then we can talk about ethnic minorities and their ability to take part in political life in the highest positions in the country (there are not any limitations on them to be elected on lower positions of thousands of positions in the state; only for a couple of positions like presidency on BH). This is really irrelevant issue and you need to be either vastly misinformed, ignorant or evil to put this thing as one of primary issues of non-functional system of BH. Ethnic composition and ethnic factor in maintaining BH institutions was a key ingredient that allowed BH to function in Yugoslavia , after WWII (similar system existed before the war in BH and Croatia; for that reason these republics were able to exist i their boundaries and not be divided), and after Dayton. By dismantling that principle you are opening Pandoras box with most possible consenquence being BH ceasing to exist. What foreign institutions can do once Serb government and people start ignoring BH institutions? Send military? Yeah. 10) My personal opinion is that we need to return to initial Dayton that considered BH of a type of confederal state with very thiny central institutions. BH can function as confederation with most relevant things for economy and the movement of the people being relaxed not only in sense of BH territory, but regionally. Foreign colonial institutions need to be dismantled. Monetary policy need to be given to local institutions. Your political guys need to talk off Bosniac political elites of their unreal political ambitions to control whole BH on all the levels. The dream about EU need to be dismantled from the primary focal point and the focus be given to economic development based on real things, real laws and political structure, local resources and local people will. 11) UK and other countries control local policy at least for some 200 years, with some interruptions (Socialist YU). The primary goal of western countries is to reduce Serbian factor on Balkans since they see Serbs as an exponent of Russia and a version of small Russians. Hence, Serbian identity need to be transformed, reduced, removed, Serbian state to be reduced and impoverished. This is a starting point of any DE UK AT USA policy which is also more or less accepted by their other allies, since at least 2 centuries. Whatever you say need to be considered from that pespective. In reality Serbs are not an exponent of Russians. We have close ties with them but our primary goal since 1000+ years is to be an indepednent nation and political entity, having good relationships both with west and east but being sovereign and independent. 12) I cheer you with the song dedicated to 30th anniversary of RS ua-cam.com/video/XHJzr32gDII/v-deo.html
post ti je nenormalno dugacak i nisam citao dalje od prva 4-5 reda. na pocetku si pogodio ono sto i ja mislim a to je da je lik cist zapadni propagandista. cini se da ima zadatak da promovise zapadni pogled. dodajem: u zadnjih pola godine se primecuje poplava kvazi-objektivnih videa a koji imaju istu strukturu: srpski stavovi se navedu (kosovo, srebrenica, republika srpska, ruski uticaj, cetnici, ...) ali samo kao slagvort za kritiku. na otvrdle srpske usi navikle na direktne pretnje ovakav "izokola pristup" je gotovo neprimetan, ali raduje - ocigledno da zapad sam procenjuje da nema vise snage za direktan sukob sa srbima pa angazuje ovakve kvazi-naucno-objektivne mutivode.
@@DrJok Nije nužno da se radi o koordinisanom pokušaju. Mnogo ljudi na YT pokušava da nešto zaradi i prave se video materijali na razne teme. Oni često gledaju jedni od drugih na i prave materijale za koje procjene da imaju interes publike. Kada istražuju neku temu autori su uglavnom upućeni na zapadne i neobjektivne izvore, koji svojim sadržajem određuju opseg vladajućeg narativa. Srpski glas se slabo čuje na internetu, dijelom i zbog toga što nema dovoljno pristupačnih materijala na stranim jezicima. Da neki od tih videa da značajno odstupi od vladajućeg narativa, to nije realno očekivati. I gledaoci su takođe navikli na narativ, i autori moraju da paze da ne izazovu previše negativnih reakcija. Uglavnom istina i objektivnost su minorna tema a primarno im je da pokupe što više pregleda tj pažnje i angažovanosti.
Those who want the Independence of Republika Srpska are not thinking logically, and neither are those who just want to abolish it. In my opinion the best solution is for Bosnia to look at something similar to the UK model: 1 president and a parliament with seats based on municipalities in the entire country, but also Republika Srpska having its own parliament and autonomy, like Scotland. Great analysis James👍
That would not be possible. The fact is that not a single ethnic group other than the bosniak muslims want this state to exist. Give them their own part and let it die as another failed project.
I don't think having Srpska as part of Bosnia will ever make Bosnia a functional state. It has no way to actually unify it's people or infrastructure and Serbs will always look towards Serbia in such cases
The main problem is that politicians are projecting there incompetency on Dayton agreement, which made pretty solid ground for stabilizing Bosnia. "We are shit at governing country and are corrupt as fuck therefor leaving Bosnia / unitarizing Bosnia" is the solution to all our problems. It's obvious propaganda to anyone who knows how countries and states work. Would anyone say Belgium doesn't work since it's federalised into Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region? I don't think so.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 yeah, but there is no reason for it to be part of a separate country, all it does it create additional conflict and simmer tensions with a disfunctional halved state like Cyprus, Lebanon, etc.
Hi Albert, thanks so much! I hope you have a lovely time over there. Sarajevo is great. And Bosnia really is a wonderful country. In the meantime, I hope all is well with you.
Honestly westren hypocrisy and double standards never cease to amuse me. The west always call for the right to self determination however when it is someone they don’t like people aren’t allowed to decide for themselves just because serbia is in the Russian camp and a good ally to russia they don’t want republika serbska to breakaway and and unite with serbia despite the majority of people in the country are ethnically serbs and want unification with serbia or at least an independent state. On the other hand when kosovo declared independence all westren countries supported the the breakaway state and recognise it because it is majority albanian and people there have the right for self determination just to make serbia smaller and weaker such double standards isn’t it ….
"unite with serbia despite the majority of people in the country are ethnically serbs " The only reason Republika Srpska exists at all is because of the ethnic cleansing and genocide ( as per the international Hague court verdicts) of parts of the territory. I doubt the Bosnian muslims would want to let the town of Srebrenica peacefully go to Serbia after the genocide that was committed there by the Serbs. While the biggest town in Republika Srpska, the town of Banja Luka, was actually a mainly Croatian populated town in WW2.
@@northernstar4811 Republica Srpska exists before the so called genocide though and it was formed based on the sovereign will of the Serbs which rejected the Bosnian independence. Srebrenica shall become part of Serbia as well together with all territories controlled by Serbs.
@@Kalimdor199Menegroth Well, Serbs wanted "Greater Serbia " 31 years ago. The Balkan wars started in 1991. So far, after 31 years, they have not got "Greater Serbia" only a smaller Serbia after they lost Kosovo.
@@northernstar4811 Everything shall be regained in time. Srpska will unite with Serbia, and Kosovo will be back into the fold once NATO troops depart from there. Just a matter of time. We Romanians shall support Serbs in their war effort.
@@Kalimdor199Menegroth Your future predictions involves a lot of wars. Not good. Kosovo is 96 % Albanian they don`t want to have Serbs rule them. Before NATO leaves they will set up a Kosovo army. The Serbian entity in Bosnia is split into two parts by the town of Brčko so its impossible to separate as the main road runs through Brčko which is not a part of the Serbian entity.
I know we Bosnians and Hertzeg have our shortcomings but, if you see 2 brothers or neighbours fight be sure there is a British very close watching. Divide to conqer. (meaning others participated in this creation too). Good journalism btw 👍
He's not a journalism. He's a political scientist specialised in ethnic conflict, secession, recognition and peace process, mainly the study of Cyprus peace process.
Well done, Prof. Ker-Lindsay. My wife is from Banja Luka and we spend a lot of time in a village just to the north of it where we have a vikendice (little weekend house). I agree entirely with your assessment but would like to add that part of the blame is that the Dayton agreement was a stopgap measure meant to end a war and not as a constitution meant to rule a country. Predictably, once the fighting stopped, America and, more to the point, Europe walked away and no longer tried to get the sides to evolve the agreement into a working constitution in which all three sides were required to integrate all government institutions. The entities now work as de facto separate nations. The Federacija is as corrupt as it is divided and Dodik operates the RS as a personal fiefdom to rule and exploit as he wishes. I am of the opinion that Bosia has been neglected by the international community to the point where it is beyond saving. However tragic, stability may actually be found in letting the country be absorbed by the ethnic states around it and creating a smaller Bosniak state around Sarajevo. This is a terrible solution and an outright defeat of the ideals that lead to democracy. But it is preferable to a new war or even the status quo: endless instability that prevents economic growth, ever increasing poverty and a brain drain that sends the countries most capable young people abroad in search of greener pastures. Only one thing is certain: it can't go on like this.
Which would set a precedent for every nationalist movement in every country in the former Yugoslavia. This 'genius' prescription would immediately entail war, because Bosniaks will not accept ghettoization, and prior to the war inhabited nineteen twentieths of the today's habitable Bosnia-Herzegovina, and have rockets that can reach Belgrade and Zagreb. Bosniaks are a majority in the Neretva & Vrbas valleys Croatia wants to claim as its territory. If Bosniaks are ghettoized, they will be exterminated, that means there are only Serbs and Croats to fight, which will only change the nature of the conflicts. BIH is in every other country's interest other than Serbia's and Croatia's in maintaining stability. Serbia and Croatia punch far above their weight. There is no way BiH goes in 2022 if those countries can't write an end to BiH's existence with overwhelming military dominance in 1993.
@@hasibhakanovic6682 Well, I didn't say this was a good solution. There are no good solutions. This is the best of bad choices. It's a way to break what is a paralysing and possibly eternal stalemate. But you're right in the sense that Bosniaks have no reason to trust their neighbors to behave themselves. It is, after all, the Balkans.
The most logical solution would be three entities within the country that way no one could try to dominate the other.but the international community wants a new mini Jugoslavia that won't work that's like putting broken glass back together.
Let this colonial monstrosity perish at last, let the Serbs and the Croats have their majority lands then guarantee the independence of what’s left of Bosnia by letting it in NATO
I don't remember the last time I heard from Bosniak politicians that someone wanted to abolish RS. It could have been heard sometime in the past during the reign of Silajdzic but it is a long time ago. What Bosniak politicians are saying, however, is that RS is a genocidal creation.
Thats even worse, creating in the mind of your people a picture. To fullfill a whole bih you would need to cross the border into RS, are you willing to do it when we break up tomorrow?
Top, as always! I am most concerned about the future of Bosnian Croats. Bosniaks and Serbs are in a much safer position, and they are almost exclusively talked about...
Bosniaks are still in the weakest position militarily, the Bosnian Croats have Croatia’s protection if it comes to blows. The Bosnian Muslims would be cut off from basically all potential allies like they were in 1993-94 when they were fighting both the Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs. So war is definitely not in the Bosniaks’ best interest at all
It's really fascinating how you dare claim to be "objective" when you completely ignore the most basic facts - Srpska wasn't a separatist entity from B&H because we had already declared independence 2 months before the B&H's referendum (on 9th of January 1992. as opposed to March 1992) but all the westerners pretend this didn't happen because it bursts their bubble of blaming Serbs for everything when in fact we were the ones who were attacked by the Muslims and Croatians - look at any map from 1992. in comparison to today's maps, and you'll see Srpska actually had 75% of land of today's B&H, Sarajevo was a split city between Serbs and Muslims (much like Jerusalem is right now) but after the war started and Muslims won they ethnically cleansed more than 130.000 Serbs from Sarajevo, who ran to the mountains and built "Serbian/East Sarajevo", you're also completely ignoring the fact that the entire area of Srebrenica was supposed to be a demilitarized zone under the UN supervision, but UN allowed an entire Muslim division under Nasser Orich to freely run around there pillaging and massacring Serb civilians in the area totalling to around 3.258 Serb civilian victims from 1992 to 1995. just around that area. As for the claims of so called "genocide" it's absurd to even discuss that, and at least you had enough sanity not to compare it to the Holocaust, Ustasha's genocide, genocide in Belgian Kongo or Turkish genocide of Armenians. The main reason of stagnation is the politics of Sarajevo Muslims which keep drudging through the past and making up new claims and reasons why the Serbs are guilty for everything in hopes that it will gain them international support for abolishing Srpska, they never wanted to give the Dayton Accord a chance to work, and that's why it's "not working", they keep insisting that foreigners should govern us as if we're all (themselves included) some kind of wild animals who can't control themselves... The Office of High Representative is literally a useless organization which serves no other purpose than to stir up even more conflicts by causing constant provocations and false accusations. The supreme court of B&H also consists of 9 judges where you have 2 from each of the constituent people's (total of 6) and the other 3 are foreigners who don't even live in B&H nor are ethnically Serbs, Croatians nor Muslims, they don't pay taxes either - yet they always get to decide on ALL laws by constantly agreeing with ONE of the nation's 2 judges against the other 2 by winning 5-4 every time (this nation is basically only Muslims all the time). IS THIS JUSTICE!? How can there be justice if we all TOTALLY SUBMIT TO 1 SIDE AND COMPLETELY IGNORE THE OTHER 2!? This pattern is followed by both Office of High Representative and all the other "international peacekeeping institutions". How can you expect a country to function normally if you don't even give it a chance - let it try to figure things out on its own rather than constantly interfering on 1 side against the other 2, unless that's the whole point - to keep us dysfunctional forever so that we can be "powder keg" or "soft underbelly of Europe" which can be reset and stirred up again very easily to justify yet another bombing of people with radioactive depleted Uranium (or as you called it "intervention" ). As for worshipping war criminals, it's the same on ALL SIDES so no point in arguing, you'll always have nationalists on each side but making a system based on REAL JUSTICE can dwindle their numbers to a few insignificant individuals , the only difference being is that Croatians and Muslims are still led by the same political parties which started the war with essentially half people ruling them now being the same "war leaders (criminals)" who were responsible for the war, the only way to move forward is to get a new leadership on all sides which isn't corrupt and consisting of war criminals who started the war for their own personal profits by infesting everyone with extreme (radical) nationalism. But let's be real, we're destined to be a "powder keg" of the region so certain Western powers can constantly justify their total control over us so my prediction is that the nationalism will only keep rising (as it has been for the past 25+ years). Hopefully you can maybe help us moving forward by looking at the conflict from all sides and therefore painting a real picture to help everyone reach to some kind of a compromise, I really think that Dayton agreement (from 1996.) CAN WORK BUT WE JUST NEED TO GIVE IT A SHOT. At least the conclusion is on point, but you have to understand, the situation here is even worse than in Belgium, because in Belgium at least you have 2 sides who can't understand each other ( "because they don't speak the same language" ) but here you have nationalism so high where 3 sides (CAN BUT) DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER (because we all "speak the same (3) language(s)" ) even phone companies "have a nationality... Again, THE ORIGINAL DAYTON AGREEMENT CAN WORK BUT WE JUST NEED TO GIVE IT A SHOT. Give all the authority back to the entities and make the central government simply a glue that sticks them all together, once the nationalism diminishes we can try and work on a better and more reasonable agreement (if needed).
complete and utter bullshit. whenever it aimed to achieve its separatist aims, before or after the referendum, RS was a separatist entity. b&h has been a united territorial entity for centuries. recent serb ethonationalist propaganda cannot change that.
@vladimir There never was a triangle-shaped country with a triangle and five-winged stars named "Bosnia and Herzegovina", first time every such country started existing was 1996. (after signing the Dayton Agreement and choosing such flag). There was however a kingdom of Bosnia in the middle ages which was Orthodox Christian, used Cyrillic script, and spoke Serbian language, there was even a principality named Herzegovina (after the ruler's title herzog of Saint Sava - who was the first Serbian Orthodox acrhbishop) in the middle ages, which again, also spoke Serbian, used Cyrillic, and was Orthodox Christian. At the peak of medieval Bosnia's power, "ban of Bosnia" Tvrtko Kotromanich crowned himself a king in a monastery Milesheva which was built by his great grandfather Stefan Dragutin (ruler of medieval Rascia aka Serbia). Please, explain to me when did medieval Bosnia or medieval Herzegovina use latin script, had 3 religions, spoke "3 different languages" wrote the same warning 3 times on everything and doing so even 2 times using the same (Latin) script, when did that happen in medieval Bosnia or medieval Herzegovina? Do you have any kind of proof to prove that culture of Dayton B&H is in any way shape or form connected to any form of the same territory's shape or existence in the past? If you look at the flag of Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, you'll clearly see that we have the exact same flag as Kotromanich dynasty, we use the same script they used, we adhere to same religion as they did, and we use the same language they used, what kind of connection do you think you have with them if get an ulcer every time you look at cyrillic anywhere?
@@HowtoSerb the entirety of bosnian and herzegovinian history does not equate to the history of post-dayton b&h. the only reason why someone would ridiculously assume otherwise would be a desperate attempt to legitimize ethnonationalist serb mythologies. the entire 'everyone's a confused serb' spiel is a braindead meme at this point. if you aren't aware that this is beyond debunked then i can only apologize for not having the patience to lead you out of the propaganda-infested gutter. you can seek vague justifications for your support of cancerous ethnonationalism as far back in history as you want, it won't make it any less immoral or nonsensical. i like the cyrillic script and am happy to see it anywhere in b&h. same goes for arebica and even the latin script, which might be dull but is useful for the tourists. i'm not afraid of variety.
@@vladimir-qx9sd I couldn't care less for "everyone's a confused serb" theory as you call it, you're free to choose what you want to be, I want to preserve my culture, traditions, customs and language, ancestral inheritance. You're clearly another one of those "Yugoslav nationalists" (of in this case so called "Bosnia") which considers Yugoslav political borders sacred yet at the same time believes in no God nor anything else really (besides getting black out drunk at communist labour party day (1st of May), Living the life like there is no tomorrow nor like there ever was a yesterday, just like the"diversity is strength" "BLM" "me too" "antifa" and other globalist people, I'm very glad you've shown your true colors. As for your accusations, I'll let others decide whether or not I'm a nationalist based on the words I wrote. Have a nice day, and kindly leave me alone. Thank you.
Well, thank you for making this informal video. I hope you like our country and hopefully Bosnia will become better place to live. Greetings from Bosnia
Thank you so much. I have been fortunate to visit Bosnia many times. I always love going! :-) And I also hope that things will get better. Hvala i pozdrav iz Londona!
If these groups are that disliking of each other, why force them to retain themselves as a country? Was this not the same problem with Yugoslavia from the very start in early 1900s? What could possibly be the drawback to people wanting to live separately, and be governed separately, from others who they believe infringe on their desires for open cultural and ethnic identity? They should be allowed to go their own way and fail or succeed.
Bosnia's small size would make it impossible for any group to exercise economic autonomy separately. While the best solution would be for all areas to join the EU, that seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Till then economic development will need a common space, common rules, taxes and regulations to allow all sides to prosper.
The Serbs want complete freedom over the lands in which they form a majority in, the Croats want the Croat-inhabited lands to be ceded to Croatia, while the Bosniaks think that the current ethnic makeup is artificial and claim the entire country as their right, opposing any sort of secessionist movement. And to be fair, before the war the ethno-religious lines were not nearly as clear... Not to mention that allowing, let's say, RS to secede, is basically rewarding someone for displacing millions of people and commiting genocide less than 30 years ago... I do believe all peoples should recieve representation and have a fair say in the future of the country, but some things have to be looked at from a moral aspect aswell.
@@pwp8737 If the concern is the sustainability of their proposed country as it relates to economics, let them pursue it. They are clearly not concerned about their ability to be successful, so why are others so frightened of them trying? Their are many smaller countries across the globe that are doing just fine, and several of them are in Europe.
@@annurissimo1082 Morality plays little of a role in geopolitics lbh. If it did then the West would have no diplomatic relations with a country like Saudi Arabia and certainly wouldn’t be giving them weapons to bomb Yemen and we would put the same sanctions we have put on Russia for invading Ukraine onto China for Uyghur genocide and it’s violating the territorial integrity of states in the South China Sea, but we don’t because that doesn’t support our interests. So really the moral thing doesn’t really stand here as an argument against this, the practical implications and what if the best for the region and the people living there in the here and now is what’s important and from my perspective, I don’t see why you would want to continue to sustain a state where all the different ethnic groups despise each other and want to leave it or other sabotage each other. After all, was this not the same argument that all 6 republics of former Yugoslavia made when they wanted to leave Yugoslavia?
@@annurissimo1082 but allowing Kosovo to gain independence is also rewarding ethnic cleaning , yet most of west supports Kosovos independence , Croatia also cleaned up Krajina of Serbs and they got rewarded with "ethnically clean" independent state , i guess were not buddy buddy enough with US and Germany ? Is that really all there is to it
Only problem in Bosnia is influence of western governments. We have no problems with each others at all until your western governments ignite fire between us trough media and false crisis and scaring people driving your army though cities. Your video also talk just about how only one side suffered trough last war here. Where are serbian victims? Your western government influence put those presidents here. You know nothing about Bosnia and Herzegovina, you know nothing about history of Balkan...and no one wants any more conflit here. Stop putting fire on this country.
Oddly enough, there was even a short-lived episode of a civil war between Muslims themselves during the Bosnian war, fought by the central gvt in Sarajevo on one side and the enclave of Bihac/Cazin on the other, the latter being a territory surrounded by the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb forces at one point.
Fikrets traitors have been on the enemies side since day one of the Swebian aggression. It took us 4 years to take them down. But we took them down. Oddly enough there were thousands and thousands of Serbs fighting on the Bosnian side. But you Serbs always forget to mention that. Why?
@@eazyemco yea i read that a small number of serbs and croats served in ARBIH, but i know of only one officer (i forgot his name), he was the chief of staff or something
@@randomtanker4355 Jovan Divjak, Stjepan Šiber, Željko Knez, Dragan Vikić, and others were all highly positioned within ARBiH. There were both Serbs and Croats fighting on the side of the Bosniaks against the aggression on their country (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you liked it. I love doing them when I get a chance. I really hope to be able to do more of them. In fact, fingers crossed, I’m hoping to do a couple of very special ones in August! 🤫🙂
I agree with your proposed solution. Kudos for mentioning the Croats, it seems as if people forget that this group even exists. The accusations by Balkan nationalists about your pro- or anti-Serbian/Croatian/Bosniak bias hold no ground I am questioning why you left out important facts that contributed to the situation we have nowadays. In WW2 the Ustashi (mostly Croats, but also Bosniaks in smaller numbers) committed a genocide on the Serbian population of Croatia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. While in Croatia there are some attempts to come to peace with the genocide in WW2, it seems as if Bosniaks try to put the entire blame on the Croatians, while some Bosniaks (in the form of the Ustashi and a well-known SS) participated in the genocide. There are several books on that genocide by authors of various backgrounds. Even before the genocide there was the oppression coming from the Ottoman Empire and afterwards oppression by Austria-Hungary. If I am not mistaken, most of the soldiers that participated in cleansing Serbian villages during Austria's WW1 occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were in fact of Bosniak origin. There was a pogrom in Sarajevo before WW1. Additionally, A-H failed to deinstall privileged Ottoman-Bosniak officials and decided to allow them to rule over the other two ethnicities without even being a majority. Politics and history aside, the most selfless and friendliest people I ever met were Bosnians. They would give up their own benefits to help you when they see you as a good friend. I wish the people of Bosnia and Herzegowina a lot of luck, peace, stability as well prosperity in the future. Greetings from cold and grey Austria!
Things are not black and white there,a lot of lies have been told about the ustashi movement by the communist regime post ww2 just because Croats sided with Axxis. Attrocities have happened for sure but it wasn't out of the blue as many try to impose. Not to mention that as WW2 ended pretty much all the members of the ustashi,their families and their sympathisers along with anyone considered a threat to the communist regime were simply wiped out. So supposed Serbian fears about another Croatian genocide over them is pretty irrational considering that they right away created a union with the same people who apparently slaughtered them. It's makes no sense when you think about it,either we're talking Stockholm Syndrom or some historical claims about certain things don't add up. Either way it's a poor excuse for the things Serbs have done in the 90s. And mind you it's very similar to what the Russians are doing to Ukrainians right now. They're just there to get rid of "nazis".
@@ginjordom6065 I am not excusing anything, I am just trying to paint a better picture. It is very black and white.The Ustashi committed the worst genocide seen on Balkan territory and later were allowed to flee and support far right/neonazi sentiment in Croatia (from Australia and Argentina) which lead to Tudman's election and him declaring the Serbian minority second class citizens, inviting Ustashi to the parliament, using Ustashi and Nazi symbols as well as rhetoric, downplaying the genocide and the Holocaust, committing genocidal acts (according to the UN) and partially modelling Croatia after the Independent State of Croatia. Those are facts concluded by the UN. It's not excusing anything, but it helps the people to understand why Serbs didn't want to live with their former genociders (not the Croatian people, but their politicians). You could have a fully functional multicultural Croatia nowadays, if Tudman didn't decide to utilise Croatia's Nazi heritage. The number of people killed in Bleiburg was relatively small, the top Nazis fleed or had a change of mind, suddenly. You can read everything I wrote on Croatia in the 90s in the UN documents regarding this topic. Feel free to educate yourself and to tackle your victim complex. While you are at it I would recommend you to read "Dreams of Annihilation" by a very famous British author, who is also a journalist on the EU-supported Balkaninsight portal. I don't know why so many Croatians (and partially Bosniaks) can't accept that some Croatians and Bosniaks committed genocide and were allowed to live on and later contribute to ruining their countries. Austria had a Nazi president until 1992, we are deeply ashamed, why can't Eastern Europeans learn to accept history as it is?
@@calmperson7426 You need education buddy. Like I said,for an apparent genocide Serbs sure didn't waste time going into another union with their supposed executioners. Now is that a nation wide case of Stockholm Syndrom or something isn't quite true with historical claims I'll leave you to ponder on that. Besides that figures of that supposed genocide go from 100k to 1,7million yet zero evidence to support any,how smart do you have to be to conclude something ain't right there. Even if you ask Serbs themselves they'll claim five different figures. The bottom line is there was never any real research instead what the communist government of Yugoslavia said was true was considered true. Now when comparing 1930 demographic census of Yugoslavia with that of 1948,Croats have a massive decrease of population while Serbs have an increase. So there is no material evidence in form of mass graves,there was no infrastructure as let's say Auschwitz,the archives of the then Independent State of Croatia are locked away in Belgrade far from curious eyes so how can we talk about genocide here without undisputed proof? On the other hand the post war slaughter of Croats and other nationalities across Slovenia and Croatia especially is very evident in mass graves,pits,caves and old mines with only 10% of them uncovered currently so I'm not playing a victim here. If there is evidence for something I take it as it is. And there is zero for the genocide of Serbs in the form of what is claimed. And that famous British author is surely very objective in using material that doesn't exist except in the old Yugoslav war reparation effort of imaginary numbers. I dont need a lecture from a famous Brit whose country is built on the genocide of God knows how many peoples of various cultures. As for Serbs of Croatia in the 90s,all they had to do was acknowledge Croatia as their homeland,they're well aware of that today. But they listened to their warmongering leaders in Belgrade,one of them is the current president of Serbia so enough said. All in all you think you know but you dont have the slightest idea. Look at Russia now and learn.
@@calmperson7426 Eh what? "The number of people killed in Bleiburg was relatively small" It's like Stalin said....you seem to be one of those. Even one persons death is wrong so saying shit like this...i doubt you are a sane human.
@@calmperson7426 everything you said is correct Croatia never liked Jugoslavia especially in the diaspora you would see more people wearing shirts with the ndh map than regular Croatia the influence from the diaspora was very high.
There is only one answer that could fix this situation. A confederation of 3 national entities. Every entity would basically function like it's own state with parliament and president and there could be a president on the country level but only have symbolic position and he would rotate between each nationality.
if you put confederation Bosniaks as major lost lever of majority power and that is what cause war. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
@@DzIVDzAN what? there won't be war because if they try they will pay dearly, it won't be beneficial in any way, on one side 4 milion Croatians and on other 8 milion Serbs and there is only 2 milion of Muslims
@@snokehusk223 Serbs and Croats are 45% population of BiH and it is 45% of votes at the best, Bosniaks has 51% of population. In confederate BiH you took that lever of majority decision from Bosniaks and that is reason for war, and that had been reason for war in first place.
@@DzIVDzAN Bosniaks don't have any more rights just because they are a majority. It is a country of 3 constituent nationalities. So they are equal. There will never be a Muslim state so it is best that every nationality has their own entity to rule. Thus prosperity will come to all.
The division into 3 confederal units would possible only if it was just. Unjust division based on pure force and fait accompli will never be accepted by Muslims Muslims are 53% of Bosnian population If they were offered at least 50% of Bosnian territory they would consider idea of confederation seriously. . However Serbs and Croats insist on keeping the land they occupied and ethnicly cleansed by force during the war Muslims at the moment control only 32% of country and there is no way they would accept confederation on these terms and will therefore insist on unification of the country. Croats who are realy not more than 11% of population are trying to hold to 19% of land they occupied during the war and Serbs who are 32% of population of BH still control 49% of land. Western powers created the unjust peace plan with most compicated federal sistem in world where in reality Muslims were pushed into two enclaves while in the rest of country they were ethnicly cleansed. However even that concessions are not enough for Serbs and Croats becose they feel that they can get even more as they are supported by Serbia and Croatia, Rusia and some right wing anty-Muslim circles in Europe That creates huge resentment among Bosnian Muslims population which, is much more motivated for fight. Children of those inocent people who were exterminated in Srebrenica, Zvornik Prijedor etc. are now in age were they can hold the gun. They can see how much their parents suffered at the hands of Serbs and Croats and how much they are now discriminated in a country in which they are majority. Injustice always creates conflict.
As a Bosnian Bosniak, I have to say that this video is spot-on. You presented the issues as realistically as possible, and were quite objective. You weren’t like other UA-camrs who basically say “Guys, Bosnia is 95% going to break up”. I will definetely subscribe to you :)
Your people brake up Yugoslavia,want country just for "Bosniaks" and that mean just for muslims,im i wrong...Others got same rights or thay dont got rights like you who dont even right full name of a country where you live...
@@gloopdogg4861 ordinary people don’t want to break up the country. It is the nationalists who want to “Create a homogenous [insert ethnicity] state/seceede]”
@@pasoska_kontrola That aint truth man,ordinary people want independence and "clean" country without Serbs,stop lie and tell the truth,Croats and Bosniaks start to kill Serbs just like in WW2...How Serbs didnt war with Slovenia or Macedonia,thaý want independece but didnt kill Serbs ...First wictims in Bosnia and Croatia is the same wictims from WW2,Serbs...Croatian and Bosniak ordinary people was happy when Nato bomb Serbia,thay support Albanians on Kosovo to take Serbian teritory,but where is that "ordinary" people to say something about Serbs in Albania who dont got rights for Serbian names and last names,how i know all Croats and Muslims who live before war in Serbia still live,can you say same about Serbs in Croatia,Bosniak part of Bosnia and Kosovo...
@@gloopdogg4861 Ah, so Bosniaks are the ones to blame for everything that happened in Bosnia? Please just shut up and read actual historical texts. Also, fyi, Serbia *did* have a war with Slovenia. Also, you’re portraying it as if every person is just going around looking for Serbs to kill
8000 people in Srebrenica? Every year is more and more? And what about British soldiers who were operating in that region in 1995? How many Boniaks they killed and tryed to blame Serbs? If Brits could just leave us alone, everything would be much better.
the original number is actually 8372, the anniversary is coming up so inform yourself, ofc the number is going up because new bodies are being found every year. Whats sad is that the people have to dig on dumpsites, 15m down, on remote locations just to find someones son or grandson, and that theres probably someone out there who knows all the sites but wount say where they are. The mass grave Tomasica was found because the Serb that was driving the bodies in his truck said where they are, years after it had happened the quilt caught up
@@dzenanbrkic9606 Some people where killed that’s fact. But that number of 8000 is fake, i personally know a lot of them whom live in USA, and they are on the list in Srebrenica. Another thing is that many people that are actually dead and on that list, where killed somewhere else during the war. Don’t trust to the mainstream media narrative.
@@organic3132 you do realise that the excavation of those bodies, identification, time of death,cause of death, has all been done by proffesionals right? what social media was there in the middle of the 90s that would lie in such a manner in such a disturbing toppic? i dont care if ur an autonomas or serb or bosniak or croat or some random dude but you sure are tapped in the head
I hope you injoyed your time in RS in Bosnia, glad you came to mine town in Teslić, which has the most beautiful Spa in country, we have stunning mountain range Borja, also before the monastery Liplje you have switch to left where you can find the best cooked fish in country, maybe wider, you are welcomed to come again into our beautiful municipality 😁👍
Peace in Bosnia is depended on many external and internal factors, we saw how fast can a war start, so any major crisis in the Balkans and war in Bosnia or Kosovo could be there again, the intensity of war would depend on whether Serbia would be directly involved in it or not and whether now Russia would react much more aggressive in supporting Serbia (Russian interest in Serbia) or not. Bad thing is that, that revanchism is still present in Bosnia-Serbia-Albania so the conflict have a good basis and it will be hard to get rid of it for a long time croats and slovenes in the past years and even now continue to urge EU to accept Serbia-BiH-Albania-Montenegro-Kosovo-North Macedonia in EU and NATO, slovenes even tried something with "non paper" didn't go well Serbia is a country which is neutral so it seeks it own interest and it doesn't have to align it interest to the interest of neighboring countries as long as it is like that the war is inevitable, that is not by any mean WRONG as it is not wrong for Russia, USA, Germany, France,..... to seek their interest but then we won't have peace ( Croatia stated that Serbia not being part of NATO is a risk and that EU should work in the direction of convincing Serbia to join despite what happened in 99 ) Serbian pretension on R. of Srpska are very low and majority of Serbian eyes are on Kosovo, and that is exactly where Serbia expect another conflict, we can see that from the way serbian military is being equipped and that is with air defense systems and drones, artillery and MLRS as well as building ground troops for now their equipment but it is planned to restart conscripts and enlarge number of soldiers, again Serbia building it own military is not by any mean WRONG and as a sovereign country have right to do that interesting thing happened when president of Montenegro and Albania stated that arming of Serbia is dangerous for the region and asked president of N. Macedonia if he shares the opinion, he said that he doesn't see any danger of armament of Serbia, N. Macedonia was once faced with Albanian chauvinist and nationalist and understand that the only country that went through it is Serbia and that there is where they could find support Bosnian dependence on peace -----Internal factors: -Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia can make decisions without Serbia, we saw that in the 90s, today it would be more difficult but they can. -Bosnian Croats mainly relay on support of Croatia -Bosnian Bosniaks have good grip of control in the whole BiH but without support from EU and NATO they won't be able to keep serbs and croats the same way Milosevic couldn't keep Bosnia in Yugoslavia, legality of whether it is legal or not to separate is irrelevant if you have strong enough military and International blind spot or countries willing to turn blind eye or actually support you in secession ------External factors: -Serbia - the fact that Serbian government adopted paper (strategic national security) which makes notes of R. of Srpska and importance for Serbian security and security of Serbs in Bosnia tells enough and that Serbia is willing to work on them, as they do, investing money in infrastructure and selling weapons to R. of Srpska - Croatia- is in recent years started to support more and more croatians in Bosnia, which is leading to some conflicts in politics between Bosnian Bosniaks and Bosnian Croatians, but Bosnian Croatians received support from Bosnian serbs in making their own entity -then there is EU which by large support integrity of Bosnia and it "unification" -NATO- shares the interest of USA and many European countries as well are in favor of supporting Bosnia -Russia- seeks their own interest in the Balkans, projecting power by using Serbia, we will see much less of that if Russia lose war in Ukraine, but if Russia win and gain access to Danube river then we will see much greater Russian influence in the region as well as Chinese
@@zoranparezanovic1978 if we look at situation objectively we both know that, that isn't the chase, peace mostly depend on Bosniaks and Serbs as they are majority and both sides can start a war so, i already explained my view of the situation.
@@svetpolitikeratovaioruzja4695 why should serbs starr war?Where is interest for that?Bosniaks plan to attack serbs or croats if thet proclaim independent,so bosnoaks want start war.....simly
@@bilic8094 of cource,but that mean that war start Bosniaks,not Serbs!Because their leaders speak war stories,and they think that threy can have some interest in next war!Kosovo is finished story.....there will not be nothing!
I have a question: when will you do a video about bolivia and the summit of americas? I think there is interesting developments happening over there and I want to know if you could a video about those topics in regards to bolivia and the summit of the americas.
Not only Bolivia, but a video on the Summit of the Americas would be interesting, although I wonder if it would fit the theme of the channel since the issue there is more geopolitical, and the issue of human rights is not nearly as significant
Fantastic with an on location video - makes it all seem even more relevant. I really appreciate your dedication to detail - as having your own name tag in different alphabets/languages...😉👍
Why isn't the Bosniak entity working? In highly decentralized state, if constituent entities all work, the whole would work. Trying to rid RS seems to apply wrong medicine
Exactly they can't run the federation correctly yet want to run the whole country.
2 роки тому
It was wrong for them to stop the war. And after the war, an even worse political war will come again. If the West had helped Bosnia to rid itself of its enemies, there would never have been any problems. No Bosnian people asked for the signing of the Dayston Agreement. The Bosniak people do not want the entity "RS" to exist. It is a para-entity that was created by committing so much unnecessary evil, genocide, ethnic cleansing of a people that did nothing to harm anyone, and this is how it comes back to them. There is still a pretension on the part of the enemy to disintegrate Bosnia. For this reason, Bosnia is not progressing. The enemies are not allowing it to move forward. They are marching with Chetnik symbols along the "RS" and sowing fear to the returnees, singing war songs. that for support and advancement?
Agree. It is a very safe place. Interestingly, as I filmed this video outside the presidential office I had no questions about what I was going or why I was there. However, I should note that I did meet some suspicion in the other location. But that was in a more remote area that had also been on the front lines in the war.
@@JamesKerLindsay Yes I'm talking just about the city. Lots of visible police cars, vast majority of drivers are on the Scandinavian level of driving and walking at night doesn't fell scary. Also I felt like there like plebs walking around in t-shirt.
History of wars in Ex Yugoslavia aint start in 90's,its start after First and Second Balkan war and after WW1...If there wasnt Serbian army today Macedonia will be Bulgaria (Second Balkan war,Bulgaria atack Serbia and want to anex Macedonia...thay lose) ...Today Croatia (Austrohungary in ww1) will be Italy if Italy who won in ww1 got what was promised to them,in ww2 Italy switch sides and be with Germany (ww1 fight against Germany)...Today Slovenia will be Austria and one part Italy...Serbia is only one country of all ex Yugoslavia countrys who won in WW1 and ww2 but lost to many people (ww1 lost 50% male population) in WW2 more Serbs is killed by Croatians and Bosniaks (Nazi pupet states) then from Nazi Germany,all thay use ocupation of Yugoslavia to just kill Serbs,thay kill Croats who was loyal to Yugoslavia...in 90's wars in Yugoslavia first wictims was Serbs and even now you cant find one singl Serbian family in Croatia and Bosnia who dont got sombody who is killed by Croats and Bosniak in WW2...Bosniak SS divizion and Croatian Ustaše start all,who dont trust me,do resurch...
100% true. In Banja Luka region, everyone has someone who was monsteruosly slaughtered in Jasenovac, croatian concentration camp in 2nd world war... 700,000plp. Stil very painful topic for all. If that didnt happen, Serbs would be today's majority in Bosnia and Herzegovina
@@cicadraza3671 Banja Luke was a Croatian populated town ,now its occupied by the Serbian organisers of ethnic cleansing and genocide ( as per the Hague court for events in Srebrenica).
Thank you, Professor. What parallels can be drawn with Belgium and Quebec? There's several economic opportunities in those two countries and people can freely speak in Flemish/French and English/French. Could integration into the European Union make a material difference, or are the challenges of corruption and recent warfare too much to overcome at this time?
I thing better comparison here would be Rwanda,as neither Belgium nor Canada had history of ethnic/religious tensions that led to bloody civil wars. The difference between Rwanda and BnH is that Rwanda immediately started the reconciliation and started making something out of their country. On other hand,politicians in Bosnia prosper from conflict and animosity they create,they are the main problem here. I don't thing reconciliation is impossible,but with corrupt politicians that are like "Remember that bloody war we had less than 30 years ago?You wanna round 2 of it?" it's difficult.
@@Weeboslav Rwanda is an interesting comparison. But the economic output of most Rwandans is much lower than the output of most Bosnians. Also Bosnia is quick driving and flying distance to European Union countries, while Rwanda has made big jumps in economic output.
Believe me, it is a myth that here in Flanders everything is going good. Our education is getting lower and lower in the PISA ranks and we are having a massive labour shortage, we don't even have enough teachers! Some schools have started with even giving no exams straight away and giving fun workshops, while our education level is decreasing with the year. Our energy security is gone and we'll face an energy crisis if the French multinational Engie doesn't help us as quick as it can. Our federal government (formed after very long negotiations) is showing cracks again and right wing extremists are probably gonna win the next election.... They promised to make Flanders independent whether it is supported by the other regions or not.... Get ready for a rough ride if you live in Flanders.
@@Weeboslav You have ethnic and religious tensions in Belgium 1. Flemish speaking VS French speaking. The Flemish have been treated bad under the Walloons and the French. To this day the national day of Flanders is the day where they beat the French.... In 1302... Just until last century the Flemish language became recognized. 2. There were protestans tensions between Catholics. That's a logic one, I guess.
@@houseplant1016 No doubt. But economic security across multiple groups in a country is one of the main paths toward avoiding wars and coup d'etats. After all the Arab Spring was, after many years of tension, sparked by the suicide of a cart vendor who didn't have the "right" permits. And a lot of Americans voted for Trump because they didn't have economic security.
thank you. I might not agree with your conclusions, but appreciate the fact that you did an on the ground assessment, instead of an ivory tower pronouncement as others would do
@@nikogrubac I feel bad that you have posed your question so politely, yet I feel uncomfortable giving a full reply. UA-cam is unfortunately not a forum for civilised discourse amongst people with differing views, but a shield for anonymous cowards to hijack a conversation with insults and curses. This much I can say is that firstly the Prof seems to have focused his intercourse with a single party. Whether he had a prior bias or not, that surely impacts his assessment. Secondly, he offers window dressing for a system that I'd think everyone agrees has failed. That makes no sense to me. It's as if he's saying to children, "You are disobedient. Whether you like it or not we are your parents. That can't be changed. All that needs to be changed is your behaviour and then we'll tweak some of the house rules."
Greetings from Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska. I hope you had a good time here. I will only say things here are very complicated and the EU, UK and USA make it even more so, by supporting one side and pressuring another. Yugoslavia is connected and Western powers acting like it's not, if you give Kosovo right to be sovereign state, if you help Croats and Albanians to expell Serbs from that territories and then you say they have the right to do it,but you Serbs don't have same right, of course it will make us to rebbel on those actions. RS, Serbia and Montenegro is our last stand and we will give hell to everybody trying to take one inch of that territory from us ,it is the matter of life and death and we will fight like lions, for our land. Cheers 🍻 and peace ✌️
@@bilic8094 they can off course, leave Kosovo in Serbia with greatest possible autonomy and the Serbs in Bosnia would automatically get more relaxed. But they want frozen conflict here and that's it.
@@psihodelija8917 I mean wouldn't it benefit Europe more if the Balkans focused more on the economy and less on conflict but I guess they prefer conflict.
@@bilic8094 it would be better for all, especially for us in the Balkans to help us to take down our courpted politicians, who are dictators. But I think that they install them so they can indepth the country and keep us ruind and inslaved. If you see the history of Balkans, Europe is allways present here and their presence was to colonise us, and it was never good. Divide and conquer.
English made your Yugoslavia in 1918 and gifted you Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo etc. In 1991 they took it away from you. Why? our balkan minds are to small to understand English humour, so just accept it and move on.
Self determination should recognise by every country. War never solve problems rather destruction and lost of lives. Ideology is solved through dialogues
Thank you so much Roger. Yes, I spent a really lovely week there. First time back in several years. And glorious weather. It really is a stunningly beautiful country. I was showing a friend some pictures this evening from a village on one of the hills. If you look one way, you could be in Tuscany. You then turn around and you could be in Switzerland.
You didnt answer, why Bosnian serbs dont want to live with muslims in Bosnia?why its one sided video?serbs can live with muslims in Raska in Serbia. There are reasons.
Could you please provide your sources for these views and list of people (professors of law, politics and other relevant sciences) you talked to? I really need to understand what sources you have used (especially local), before I can make any comments.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
So, I have had another go at an on location video. I spent a really wonderful week in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina - in Republika Srpska, one of the country's two entities. It really is stunningly beautiful. And highly recommended for a visit. But one can't ignore the problems that Bosnia faces. But as I hope to show, the situation is a little more complex than either side (or any of the sids, if one also includes the Bosnian Croats) would like to make out. So, can the sides really learn to accept one another? Thoughts and comments below.
(Apologies for the sound in the second half. I did everything I could to try to fix it. But it wasn't really as I would have liked it. Still, I hope that it is OK.)
Why are you so anti-nationalist in most of your videos? It almost feels like you are a globalist, which honestly is just as bad if not worse than nationalism.
Just hold plebiscite for Republika Srpska and Croat Bosnia. Modern Bosnia is pretty much tries to reflect the borders of the historical kingdom of Bosnia which last time existed in 1463.
just hold a refrendium that way it will be solved peacefully rather than have another war
when can we expect James Ker-Lindsay's Travel Vlogs? :-D
Thank you so much for doing this I love the on site videos
He's not at his desk 🤣
Haha! Well observed! 😀 Yes, this was my second ‘on location’ video. I had a wonderful week in Bosnia.
@@JamesKerLindsay I like when you do the “on location” videos. I imagine it’s pretty fun for you as well!
@@JamesKerLindsay What was your first on location video?
@@FlamingBasketballClub I believe he did a video in Armenia, 1 year after their defeat to Azerbaijan.
@@JamesKerLindsay very cool!!!
I really appreciate your effort to film on site. It adds a level of empathy, humanity, and realism to the conflicts you're discussing. Elements that are unfortunately often missing from foreign videos on the Balkans and to a degree Eastern Europe more broadly that treat the place as some kind of fantasy realm inhabited by nationalistic militants. You filming on location helps communicate that many if not most ordinary people in RS and Bosnia more broadly are just trying to find a situation that works. The current system is hard to reform and work within, this is the real issue and I don't know the exact answer but more people are concerned with creating a functional country with decent services and jobs. In short, thanks for genuine attention. I hope you keep up the great work and enjoy your time in the Balkans with a good rakja and burek!
Thank you so much. I love doing these videos. I did one from Armenia in December and it seemed to go down well and so I thought I would give it another go. And it was so lovely to be back in Bosnia. I am very fond of the country. Indeed, I adore the Balkans as a whole - which rather helps given that I have spent so many years working on the region! :-)
Seriously, though, you are absolutely right. They key has got to be on helping ordinary people with proper jobs and opportunities and good access to working government services. They are being let down at the moment.
And I certainly did enjoy the food and drink. I am not a big rakija fan, though. (I'm a bit of a lightweight.) But burek is great. Then again, nothing beats good Bosnian cevapi. :-)
@@JamesKerLindsay professor, thank you for answering my question. I knew you would answer it and understand that it takes some time to read and answer the questions. Have a great weekend.
I blame the U.S. and the Dayton Accords that made Bosnia 🇧🇦 what it is now, they have obviously should have made Bosnia a more centralized government with a single leader.
@mobile printing They want a centralized caliphate just look what there doing to the Croats in the federation 15 years they can't elect their own representative it's good Republika Srpska protects Serb rights.
@@JamesKerLindsay What made you decide to film on location? Did you fancy a holiday, and thought about combining work and pleasure together?
Anakin: I don’t think the system works.
Padme: How would you have it work?
Anakin: We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what’s in the best interest of all the people and then do it.
Padme: That’s exactly what we do. The trouble is that people don’t always agree.
Anakin: Well then they should be made to.
Padme: By whom? Who is going to make them?
Anakin: I don’t know, someone.
Padme: You? Anakin: Of course not me.
Padme: But someone. Anakin: Someone wise.
Padme: It sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.
Anakin: Well, if it works…
Tito lol
Dictatorship with a wise and good leader is preferable to a democracy where nothing gets done.
@@awddfg I agree with this I mean look at Iraq before 2003 and look at them now, the same thing with Libya. America failed in Syria.
@@nivlacsenoj6264 it's true that a dictator who is wise and not moraly bankrupt can do great things for his nation (libya being a terrific example) but dictatorships will always crumble once said dictator dies it doesn't matter I it takes 2 years or 40 the decline begins with each dictator after that becoming more and more bankrupt and paranoid.
Tito made the problems to begin with by making artificial borders.
The only thing which could make Yugoslavia work was the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement.
Perhaps that was exactly it. A combination of upward economic mobility that keeps everyone busy, happy and fed with an added motivator of an OUTSIDE "enemy" like they've been programming all of us with here in the u.s. on the microscale of similar design as Tito used is the only thing that will work 🤷🏽♂️
Also, to note that Bosniaks only care about Bosniaks, Serbs only care about Serbs, Croats only care about Croats but NONE of those 3 care about Bosnians (citizens of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and so, they all try to cancel each other's policies out by voting against each other rather than against policies.
In short, either the 3 groups make peace with each other OR all 3 of them split from the Federation.
The only real path to prosperity is to dismantle the 3 main nationalistic parties. They are all corrupt and selling stories to their people by enriching themselves in the process. There should be a party for Sovereign Bosnia which was always multi-cultural where all people have their religious rights without undermining anyone else's right and leaders should be put in place according to their ability and skills and not party affiliation. Until people agree about this and actually implement it, our lives may be just over...
that is not true. There are a number of Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks who vote for a person who puts the two ethnicities aside. I'm sure there are serbs as well but that is a smaller percentage.
@@rijadhadzic3396 only the Serbs have changed parties since the end of the war from sds to snsd the Croats stayed the same with hdz same as the Bosniaks with sda.
@@meopen1888 That's all in your head it's some kind of fear or something I have no idea what would you say about Albanians than that tore down borders between countries.
Serbs changed their party only becouse the all leaders of SDS are in prison for the crime of genocide.
However whith the new party in charge they have not changed their politics of enjoying fruits od ethnic cleansing.
Bosnia and Hercegovina is an experiment similar to Yugoslavia, just on a smaller scale. How did that end?
Is is not an experiment. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one unit. Yugoslavia was not.
you take nationalism or tribalism away from the equation and that "experiment" will work. Who would've thought getting rid of supremacy ideals would conclude in mutual cooperation?
Not really bc the system of Yugoslavia kept ppl at peace while this neo-liberal system only gives decay and war
@@mkgzt sounds like a book from a faaaar left side of the shelf. Although appealing at first we all know that it won’t work.
@@sanela5936 under Josef Tito, Yugoslavia was pretty much one unit all ethnicities and religions, were united and treated each other like fellow brothers. When Tito died thats when Yugoslavia fell apart.
Its not diveded because it was never unifed, its a comunity of 3 nations that were always forced by foreign powers to live together never by their choice.
bullshit. national identification with neighboring countries by the orthodox christians and catholics on the basis of common religion exclusively is a relatively recent phenomenon in bosnian history that occurred partly from intentional propaganda and manipulations and partly out of confusion about and conflation of religious, national and ethnic identity. that's how you have devout bosnian 'croats' with 'bošnjak' ('bosniak') as their last names for example.
@@vladimir-qx9sd There is no "bosnian history" when we speak about todays BiH, its not the same teritory and it was never formed as an etno-state of the Bosniaks. Those stories you can only preach among Bosniak nationalist like the 99 Cirlce etc. No one will believe it outside of this. 3 nations are forged and they identify as nations, this is the reality, myths that speak about "what happend in bosnian history" are only fairytales
@@vladimir-qx9sd Bošnjak is a historical term for all inhabitants of Bosnia. Only in 1993 after the historical meeting at the very historic centuries old Holiday Inn did you Muslims come up with the idea to rename yourselves Bosniaks
@@PanSerbism i'm not a muslim first of all. don't know why you assumed that. and i don't disagree with your comment-i don't think that the distinction between bosniak and bosnian was relevant before, but i was referring to how there is a distinction between how those terms are used now, whether one likes it or not. i personally don't care about the distinction but you cannot ignore it if you want to have a coherent discussion since many do use and understand those two terms differently.
Lol! Your review is funny not true at all. Read about history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As a Bosniak, I can only say we do not want war to return. But we do Love our Country. We need to talk and calm down our diferences. I say always we have more incommon than diferences. ❤️🇧🇦
Thanks. As an outsider, but one who knows Bosnia well and has been many times, I can certainly see solutions. But it does take mutual trust and understanding. Sadly, it’s still easier fur politicians to focus on differences to secure their power.
Selam Alejkum iz Londonu brate moj, we need to unite all together, enough of this crap we are all tired of it!!
Niko ovdje ne zeli rat, zelimo samo normalne uslove za zivot, normalne plate i prosperitet.
We,Serbs,dont want anything with u muslims.Thats why we have our own Republic🤣🤣🤣
@@JamesKerLindsay
You do not know Elementary things about bosnia...
Good video, mostly objective.
One thing that you said that is mostly incorrect is that many Bosnian Serbs see Bosnia as their homeland above Serbia.
Bosnian Serbs acknowledge Bosnia, but Id say 90+% of people would tell you their Serbian identity is more important since Bosnian as a nation is a failed project. On the other hand, lots of people embrace their regional Bosnian heritage, but for Serbs it's similar to Posavina Serb, Vojvodina Serb, Šumadija Serb or any other region in EX Yugoslavia.
Some deny they're being Bosnian (in regional sense) in spite of Bosniaks (which tried to make monopoly over the historical rights over Bosnia), but there aren't many of those.
All in all, Dayton made a solid ground for stabilizing Bosnia, but the main problem is all three sides feel enraged over the war and mostly choose nationalist leaders that give them unrealistic hope for their side to prevail over the other two. Without Dayton there isn't Republika Srpska, but also there isn't any kind of Bosnia as well.
I second that.
I 3rd that, from Banja Luka.
To me as Bosnian Serb, being Bosnian is a part of me that I won't give up to Muslims. But being a Serb is more important than the regional identity.
@@TotilaTheGoth Is this a religious conflict as much as anything else?
@@frankswarbrick7562 Religious conflict among relatively secular population...
I think Israel and Cyprus will figure out their problems before these people do...
3:45 incorrect and one-sided reporting, present the US as a peacemaker in this conflict is extremely absurd and ridiculous. The American government tried with all its might to break up Yugoslavia to the last republic. Just one example is the 1992 Carrington-Cutileiro peace plan, which was accepted by all parties. In order for Bosnian Muslims to subsequently reject the plan at the urging of America. It was a turning point that sealed the fate of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The US government was ready to fight to the last Muslim, they are doing the same thing in Ukraine today. Also, the number of 8,000 Muslims killed in 1995 in Srebrenica was falsified and increased. Of the top 5,000 casualties Bill Clinton sought from Muslim authorities to help NATO intervene militarily (there are Muslim testimonies to that effect), a significant number of names on the list died earlier in the four-year war. To make matters even more absurd, many people from that list are still alive and well today, they simply escaped at the beginning of the conflict. You also deliberately or accidentally avoided the fact that during the Srebrenica massacre, hundreds of thousands of Serbs were expelled and killed in the western parts of Bosnia and Croatia. In the offensive that the American intelligence services planned and helped the Bosniak-Croat coalition. The road to peace is not one-sided reporting on events, promoting such nonsense only leads to the spread of hatred. Western journalists are masters at this game.
And yet you have a one sided perspective...
Just one simple question Nashud,who you know from Srebrenica? Those numbers and statistics that you recall are from that dude that even Jewish word council said that he should be ashamed.Now move forward from this crap that BiH is in, is too acknowledge what happened and take responsibility on all sides and save our beautiful country.Stop blame US of A or anybody else for poop that we are in.And stop celebrating convincted criminals and cheering "noz zica Srebrenica".And one thing that is true about Srebrenica that you don't know is this,Srebrenica was traded for towns around Sarajevo.Alija knew that is going to be some casualties but not 8k+.Gorazde was to be traded for Doboj but because Mladic vent rouge that fell a part.So RS is here to stay until Srbija is going to need something from West.Than that is it.They will sell you like they sold Serbs in Croatia.When that is going to happen.Well if Putin signs peace without changing regime in Kiev,RS is done.Cheers
@@abyssstrider2547 I'm just stating the facts, I know very well what the Serbs did and it's no worse than what the Muslims or the Croats did. 😘
@@nashudchivas9352 this attitude is one of the problems, Bosniaks, not moslems, respect is not a one way😉.
@@anessalkanovic5 Kako da ne i oni iz Al Kaide su bili Bošnjaci 🤣
I remember very well how war started in Yugoslavia and how it went from bad to worse. Germany had been recently reunified and Kohl government decided that Yugoslavia had to be dismantled. Simple as that. When french and uk governments were uncertain about what stance to adopt, with other countries of the former EEC, in the beginnings of the troubles not yet fully war, all of a sudden Germany recognized Croatia and Slovenia sovereign independent states, without previous talks with other EEC members. From this point on it was impossible to know if there had been possibilities for peaceful or at least less violent solutions like increased level of federalism and autonomies from serbian control inside Yugoslavia. It was no more possible.
The german decision triggered the war in Bosnia, Bosniaks claimed too an independent state like fresh Croatia and Slovenia.
Basically Germany insisted in splitting Yugoslavia in mono-ethnic nations. The mantra about the sacred right of self-determination and sovereignty was everywhere.
Back then it was said that CDU had never lost the german imperial and revengeful atavism, which had been indeed kept alive by the fact that pro-eminent former imperial and nazi high-level civil servants were co-opted into Adenauer government (Hans Globke for instance and many others).
Only few years afters, the creation of a multi-ethnic Bosnia made then no sense, it was the opposite of the mono-ethnic stance. Even less when considering that after in 1999 USA decided to cut off Kosovo and make it a sovereign nation, so singing again the mono-ethnic song....
Double standard .... For some reasons EEC with Germany leading, and USA, seemed to be doing just an anti-serbian policy in fact.
Since then, geographic diversity of ethnies has failed, with populations tending to gather together in geographic entities along ethnical lines. Which, well, was what Germany and USA were advocating elsewhere in Balkans, and, in Kosovo.
RS should just become part of Serbia. The problem is the small Brchko canton that seems to be kept more or less artificially diverse with Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, just in order to keep the Western and Eastern cantons of RS topologically separated,
what became obvious over the years, is that Germany/USA/EU want to keep a small and weak Serbia, because the serbian-russian connection.
and what is potentially trouble is NATO wanting Bosnia-Herzegovina in NATO, because bosnian serbians ie. RS are of course opposed.
"I remember very well how war started in Yugoslavia and how it went from bad to worse. "
Are you sure?
Do you remember how Serbian President Milosevic illegally annexed the autonomous areas of Tito`s Yugoslavia, i.e: Vojvodina & Kosovo?
Do you remember how Serbian president Milosevic stole $1 billion USD from the joint federal Yugoslav bank located in Belgrade?
Do you remember how armed Serbs started to shoot at Yugoslav police officers killing a dozen of them in May 1991, all this while Yugoslavia still existed?
I guess not...instead you blame "foreign powers"...
@@northernstar4811 yes I remember. As I wrote: it went from bad to worse.
It was bad but exterior influences made it worse. I am 55 and the husband of a first cousin of mine, now in his 70s, is from Skopje so he was yugoslavian citizen, then unsure, then macedonian. They used to drive to Skopje every summer and from our place Yugoslavia was just around the corner.
In fact he became worried already when Tito died (at which time I was just 15, started just being politically concerned) and used to tell summer after summer: it's going to be bad. But then the policies from foreign powers made it worse. As I wrote: impossible to tell how Germany, France, EEC could have avoided full war, make people compromise.
Three significant countries have different ethnies under one citizenship : Spain , Belgium and Switzerland. CH is the one with the most relaxed confederal structure. And these countries have more linguistical differences than Yugoslavia had excepted for albanian. So, a question was: could it be possible to transform Yugoslavia in something Swizz-like?
the point with Germany is that they deliberately had the project to turn the rich northern part of Yugoslavia, into a zone of influence and economic sphere. The interest that EEC caused among slovenians and croatians, as an area of wealth compared to poor southern parts of Yugoslavia was used by Germany. Then the millenary old prejudices against Orthodox played in too.
Basically EEC, specially Germany didn't try to play the confederal option that was at some point even proposed at least by Tudjman, in order to tame nationalistic inflation on both sides (croatian, serbian).
When Germany forced EEC in a fait accompli, to recognize independant Croatia and Slovenia it was over: war would spread.
then the referendum in Bosnia in 1992 was a very bad idea, because of course the 1/3 of serbian population wouldn't vote. Yet EEC and USA validated it and made B-H a UN member and then around the 2008/2010 a NATO candidate. Wtf , the country isn't even stable and run as a UE protectorate?
And now what? 30 years after, the pluri-ethnic demographics of Bosnia it still there, just that it has naturally been "decanting" from mixed cantons to mono-ethnic ones and basically the country could be cut clean in three chunks: Croat, Bosniak, Serbian.
When in the end 80's, Tudjman insisted in mono-ethnic Croatia it meant that Serbs and others would sing the same song. It hasn't changed.
Again look at Switzerland: three languages, french, german, italian, with also mostly a topology matching the languages with some transitional hybrid/bi- or tri- lingual areas, yet a working confederation.
What is different in Bosnia-Herzegovina is stronger religion difference catholic, muslim, orthodox. If this must be a key criteria then B-H is doomed and should just split.
@@northernstar4811 That is false, first, vojvodina was already part of the Allied Republic, second who was killing police offiers? Third what about foreing powers, it is true, how come all of them jist hurried to help carve it up,only causing more problems that we have to deal with today. If Tito was alive, Milosevic,Tudjman and other traitor scum would be dealth with by spending rest of their lives on Barren island.
@@northernstar4811 autonomous Area of Serbia not Yugoslavia, and how that only Serbia has autonomous areas but not eg Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vojvodina is 90% Serbs area why should be autonomous? Do you remember how TO of Slovenia, Croatia, BiH and police units start to attacking JNA (regular and international recognized forces of Yugoslavia) in their barracks, do you remember when Yugoslav police officers be captured in jail and discharged from duty cos they are Serbs?
@@DzIVDzAN "how that only Serbia has autonomous areas but not eg Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina,"
Well, you have to read history and look at some old maps to understand that.
Kosovo was annexed by Serbia only in 1912, you can have a look at Serbia`s border from 1910 to see the original border of Serbia.
What is called Vojvodina was part of Croatia & Hungary ( Austria-Hungary) before 1918. Serbia annexed this territory after 1918.
As a Bosnia Serb, I must say the analysis of the situation is very well done. Bosnia & Herzegovina could work as a country, RS is not the problem. Federation has been disfunctional since 2006 I think, I don't even remember when's the last time Croats and Bosniaks agreed on something in their entity. Everything was/is being resolved on the Canton level. For instance, if you need to go to a hospital or chance your inhabitance in a different canton, there's a lot of paperwork to be done. Feels like Bosnia & Herzegovina is divided into 11 entities.
Serbian position is following: If you can't make your bloody Federal government work, with 2 of the constitutive peoples, how the hell do you expect us to believe that a government with 3 constitutive peoples with work. Bosnia with 2 entities is feasible, but if you can't make it work, don't expect us to carry that burden of all 3 sides on shoulders of one entity.
*MUST READ *
Another thing worth mentioning is the corruption of politicians of all 3 sides, whose only interest is to ripoff state money. Bosniak, Croatian and Serbian politicians often work together when it comes to talking shit. For instance, when people realize a politician is corrupt, that corrupt politician calls for aid from the other corrupt politicians who are not of the same ethnicity. So, when Bosniaks figure out how Bakir Izetbegovic is corrupt, Dodik (Serb) and Komsic(Croat) start talking shit and verbally attacking the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the Bakir would come to Bosnia's rescue as the defended of its constitution, and the Bosniak folk turn their eye from his corruption to what the Serbs and Croats are doing. Now, apply this recipe again, this time Dodik is the corrupt guy, and Bakir and Komsic will talk shit, making the Serb folk turn their eyes from Dodik's corruption to what Bosniaks and Croats are doing. And likewise for Croatia politicians. Current thing in that cycle is Croatian rights in the Federation. Once that gets boring, its gonna go towards RS disassembly, and then about RS independence... And that's how Bosnia works. No shit is done by the government, only shit is talked. And normal people get depressed and tend to migrate elsewhere.. mainly Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.
Corruption is the only thing that keeps this country from working.
I was born in Ljubuski, I like to retire back home, I wish for peace no more war, I have friends on both sides, one thing I don’t like is arabs moving there
RS is highly centralized where Serbs have complete authority. Serbs are OK with with centralized government in RS but not on BiH level. Federation on other hand is very decentralized just like the whole country is. Problem is that Bosniaks want to make it more centralized like the RS and Croats naturally completely reject that. In fact everything you have said is proof that only strong centralized government can effectively rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
ok, they wont move there, they want to go to england. Bangladeshis will move to Bosnia. Its already happening. @@hercg1967
Saying Bosnia is a single indivisible state is like saying Yugoslavia or the USSR, or the British Empire were single indivisible states. It’s a very faulty, end of history mentality mainly held by westerners who see the grand geopolitical status quo as good because it is good for their countries, and who thus seek to maintain it while working on internal reform only and avoiding territorial changes.
While I’m not necessarily saying RS should secede, I’m saying that worldview is faulty. When do we decide that countries become indivisible? Did it happen when the USSR fell and the Cold War ended, when the end of history was proclaimed? Evidently not, we accepted the breakup of Yugoslavia as legitimate.
Do we accept the new millennium as the cut off? No because we accepted the secession of South Sudan and Montenegro.
Do we say the world should be frozen after that? Well what happens to the secessionist movements in East Turkestan, Catalonia, RS, Kurdistan, the Rakhine State, West Papua, etc? They all have widespread support and can be justified in one way or another.
I highly doubt Britain or the US, for example, would complain if East Turkestan seceded from China because it supports the general geopolitical goals of the global west, namely weakening its main economic and ideological opponent, China. They would certainly oppose the secession of RS as they are fairly invested in Bosnia’s survival. China or Russia would probably have the opposite reactions, and many countries might say both regions have equal right to self determination and that both can legitimately secede.
Most importantly, a lot of secessions, whether we think they should happen or not, can happen, and someone proclaiming that states are now indivisible doesn’t make it so. Bosnia can and very well may break. Many support it, many oppose it, the breakup, if it happened, would certainly lead to atrocities, but it CAN happen and both sides have moral arguments for or against balkanization that are justifiable. So saying Bosnia is indivisible and that people must accept that is a fantasy. Bosnia is divisible, just like any country, just like as much as Serbs claim Kosovo can never be separate from Serbia, it evidently CAN, the question is only whether it should, and in both situations there are legitimate arguments for both sides.
I certainly have opinions on various separatist movements, but I am not deluded enough to think that history is over and that the countries that exist today will exist till the end of the world. I imagine the world map will be as strange in a hundred years to us as our world map would be to someone from the interwar era, and beyond that the world can and will be totally unrecognizable.
So yeah, there is no question as to whether Bosnia is divisible, it definitely is. The question is merely whether it should be divided, and you are clearly of the opinion that it should not, which is fine, you just should not state that desire to see Bosnia survive in one piece as if it were an irrefutable law of the universe.
There is very contradictory theory:
1. Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire dissolution after ww1, is self determine and justice.
But Sudeten people has no right of self determine ??? But Hawaii and Texas have no right of self determine ??? But Native Americans have no right of self determine ???
But British and French Colonies have no right of self determine (Colonies independence is after ww2, not ww1) ???
2. USSR and Yugoslavia can dissolve, because of inalienable right of self determine.
But Ukraine and Serbia can immediately deny the inalienable right of self determine of its victims (Donbass, Kosovo).
3. West support Kosovo, but against Donbass; Russia support Donbass, but against Kosovo;
Serbia against Kosovo, but Serbia support Srpsk Republic; Kosovo support itself, but deny Donbass ???
4. South Sudan and Bangladesh can be independent, but others can't ???? !!!!!
5. French colonizers dream of the indivisible France with Algeria, British Empire dream of indivisible 13 colonies.
They all become to history.
There is no indivisible sovereignty state, because every sovereignty state is based on defeating previous sovereignty states.
@@allianceofunitedcommunitie5541 I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean, but if my understanding is correct, I think you and I agree that the principles of self determination and of national indivisibility are often applied not based on a consistent set of moral values but based on what is geopolitically useful to the country in question.
@@bobmcbob9856 Yes.
1. Self determine is moral and justice and correct; national indivisibility is dog bit dog.
Because UN charters and international law are passed by nations (slave master), how could possible for them to allow self determine (liberated slaves) ???
2. When countries do anything, it is always their interests and benefits (geopolitics, money, oil, against competitor), it is never based on justice and moral !!!
THE COMMENTS HERE BY Bob McBob and Alliance of United Communities of Advanced are the "gold standard" of all comments on this page. The sentence above, (If I've placed my comment here correctly) is the "bottom line" which sums it all up nicely..."WHEN COUNTRIES DO ANYTHING, IT IS ALWAYS THEIR INTERESTS AND BENEFITS (geopolitics, money, oil, against competitor), IT IS NEVER BASED ON JUSTICE AND MORAL (values). I congratulate you both on your insights. (By the way, I am in favor of RS re-uniting with Serbia and parts of Ukraine re-uniting with Russia. "Bosnia", I believe is not going to have any longevity.
rs is simply a piece of Hercegovina
, krajina and vrhbosna . thats it . an administrative region made of parts of diferwnt regions
Love the background! Always have had interest in Bosnia and how beautiful it is. Great video, James!
I've always said it: better 50 years of stagnation than another war.
If the people didnt emmigrate to the west, they would were at least a war till now.
If I didn't know which country I'm looking at, I would have swore that this is Bulgaria, just 10 or 15 years ago. It's uncanny how similar we're here on the Balkan peninsula.
We are one nation, devided in many tribes by western countries. We should look our own interes, and work together. Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Bosnians…. we have same mentality, same blood.
@@organic3132 Too many turks in Bulgaria
I know, you are so much more advanced now.
Why is Bosnia so special and for example Sudan (South Sudan), Indonesia (East Timor), Serbia (Kosovo and Montenegro) are not?
Why Ukraine teritorial integrity is important even if most of the people in Crimea (have status of republic in Ukraine) want independence or join Russia (Donbas too with those two republics) and Serbian is not?
For example today Olaf Scholz german chancellor said that if Serbia wants to join EU it needs to recognize Kosovo's independence. Why Cyprus don't need to recognize Northern Cyprus?
Why is important to brake Serbia, Sudan, Indonesia and not Ukraine, Bosnia or Cyprus, why is independence of Taiwan is important and independence of Somaliland is not?
We have a lot of wars for independence (Nagorno Karabakh, Iraqi Kurdistan, Yemen etc...) and for some is ok to secide and form their own countries and for some is not aloved.
Again why some people can rebel and gain indipendence after civil war and others can't.
Answer is becouse of geopolitical interests of great powers, manly of USA and UK, it's as simple as that.
And i think that UK is expert in playing with peoples lives, and USA was great student, aaand we are geting few more players.
God help us all.
I think because Kosovo is 93% Albanian (with the serb majority parts being further in North in Kosovo so there can be negotiations there.)
The population being so overwhelmingly non-serbian makes it hard for anyone to support Serbian claims over Kosovo.
Do Serbs actually want these Albanians in their nation or do they want to ethnically cleanse them and take just the land?
@@Tribuneoftheplebs Same goes for RS or Northern Cyprus, Crimea, Somaliland, Palestine etc... And also those 93% are result of ethnic cleansing.
The question stays, why is ok for Kosovo to get independence and Somaliland or Palestine is not?
And about North of Kosovo, acording to Germans, USA, UK... it's non negotiable, Kosovo territorial integrity must remain intact.
@@Tribuneoftheplebs Do you agree with the west recognizing the donbas and Crimea as Russian since the population is Russian ?
That’s unfortunately just how the world works: Serbia and America haven’t got along since the late 80s, while Germany and Croatia have in various forms gotten along well for a hundred+ years.
Thus the eventual result, following both the unification of Germany and rise to power of a Serb nationalism in Yugoslavia that threatened Croatian interests, was 30 years of Balkan policy from America and Germany designed to reign in Belgrade’s power and counter it by promoting Croatia’s interests.
Repeated Serb political and military excesses didn’t earn them many sympathizers globally either.
I do sympathize with the situation Serbia was in once the wheels started moving on Croatian and Slovenian independence, but let’s not be naïve about geopolitics.
There is no right or wrong. I’ve figured out that long time ago and I don’t argue with people about it :) sheeple will follow what they think is right
From my point of view here in Latin America, I tend to be suspicious of the idea that tutelage of national politics by foreign entities will lead to more positive outcomes than native political arrangements. Maybe Bosnia is particularly messed up, but this mentality that people outside know the red lines better and define the right terms of dialogue seems to me to have proven to be, historically, mostly counter-productive.
Srpska and Croatian dominated areas of BiH would both prefer to split off from the Bosnian state but the American and the European imperialists wont allow that.
Because native minorities use neighboring countries to go towards dissolving country.
Foreign interference is the only thing stopping the next massacres. But it won't be too long though until it all erupts once more.
@@greatwolf5372 Bosnia would not be a viable entity if it was just Bosniak areas, see the map of Bosnia circa 1993, it would be just a few landlocked cities and river valleys
WOOOOOW !!! Becoming a travel vlogger + making such reports was an amazing idea!!! Well done, sir... Well done!!!
Thorough research, objective point of view and a very well organized presentation. In addition to all that, now we are served with the delicacy of getting HD images and videos from the place referenced in the video.
Professor, you are spoiling us!!! You are raising the bar very high for others in your category... I'm a big fan!
Thanks so I much! I’m really glad you liked it. Yes, I love the idea of doing some videos like this from time to time.(Even if it presents a lot of new technical challenges.)
And thanks so much for the incredibly kind words of support about the channel! :-)
Hey James, I had already made this comment on your community post and wanted your opinion on my assessment;
If Republika Srpska is abolished as a whole or is reduced it will mean the Serb conspiracists and ultranationalists are proved right in a justification to restart the insurrection.
As domino effects tend to go; There's going to be no better way to unite the Serbian nation than to give us something to be afraid of, so if the US naturally were to back a weakening of Bosnian Serb rights and autonomy you could expect the backlash to perhaps go as far as tensions in Montenegro restarting & the Montenegrin people forcing the government to withdraw from NATO ASAP.
If this were to occur I could also see Bosnian & Kosovo Serbs smuggling weapons in the same way they tried in the late 2000's for self defense when they were still legitimately afraid of being ethnically cleansed. Only this time they will be used in perhaps a new insurgency or at the very least used to destabilize the nation they've found themselves tied as part of.
The current Bosnian system is undeniably terrible and unsustainable, it needs to be reformed. One of my suggestions in making administration easier is to make Bosnia more of an actual federation than 2 lumps forced together competing for power. What this means is maybe making Republika Srpska 2 entities for north and south, and allow the regions to do minor border adjustments to better match ethnic makeup and physical terrain. IMO a Croat entity is long overdue in its creation, aswell as border adjustments of the cantons. Even then though I know the government restructuring is more important than any domestic borders to the success of Bosnia it still should be considered.
Sadly I don't see Bosnia succeeding in restructuring its government because the first thing the 2 entities will do is ignore what actually needs to be done and try to grab as much power as possible, I'm not sure Bosnia can be restructured without provoking conspiracists and ultranationalist tensions. Dayton is the only thing holding together Bosnia and Dayton is a system that will destroy Bosnia. There’s no good solution here.
Why do you think that in an event of someone questioning the existance of Srpska that the serbs in Bosnia and serbs in Serbia would not react with arms?
The army of Bosnia is a weak mix that will not defend the country together.
They could declare independance in a second and then they would probably either face sanctions or defend themselves from Sarajevo.
@@M-SRB I’m saying that they will, which is why it’s stupid to even consider a full abolition of the Serbian republic
The sole entrence of Montenegro into NATO is against majority of Montenegrin population, so that problem was created long ago. There wasn't even a referendum on the topic. The thing is Đukanović and other serbophobes didn't care a bit since they thought Serbian factor (which is really prominent) can be silenced and overvoted as long as he wants to, but he know acknowledges he made a big mistake.
Should it come to war, no one will fight it. 3.4 million population figure is an illusion because people leave the country in droves. No one will fight for a deranged and failed state. Not to mention if by some miracle some conflict would happen, EUFOR is there in force, Austrians having sent hundrets of additional troops and Germany also planning to send more.
@@M-SRB Bosnian Army is definitely stronger than some angry serbs with weapons, if you were talking abt the Serbian Army then sure but Republika Srpska just barely has any means to defend itself.
Love the accordion music and the party in the background!
Thanks. I’m really glad you liked it. I added some music in my Armenia video and it seemed to go down well. I thought to do it again and found a really lovely impromptu practice session by these musicians when I was in Banja Luka. :-)
Call me a stickler for tidiness, but shouldn't Republika Srpska just merge with Serbia?
Thats what the war was about.
Bro, I hope you are not informed and that's why you made this comment...
@@thelovacluka So what's the issue. There are already too many microcountries.
Prof. Ker-Lindsey, thank you for the very informative material and great analysis. I would agree that the Dayton agreement is holding the country back, it needs to be updated, if that's possible. However, I doubt that abolishing the status of RS would solve the problem. In contrary, it would inflame nationalist sentiments in the region. As the unilateral declaration of secession by the RS authorities would. The Bosnian case is so complicated. The EU membership could be the answer. Yet, we know examples of secessionist aspirations and independence movements (Catalonia, for example ) within the EU as well.
Meanwhile, I know you have made several videos about Kosovo, and I have watched them all, but could you please share your opinion on why the West is so persuasive in recognizing this region as a state? I read today that Olaf Scholz have said that if Serbia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, it will not be accepted into the EU. I mean, what's the political reason behind it? Is it because Yugoslavia was (and Serbia is) a Russian ally and the West wanted to split the former Yugoslavia into as many pieces as possible? Or is it because Serbia would be another huge country in Europe with a substantial demography and territory, had it kept or absorbed all Serbian-populated territories of the former? Thank you.
I also seen what Scholz said today in Belgrade he might as well rip up the Serbia path to EU paper work today I'm all for a fair political solution for both sides but that offer is a non starter.
@@bilic8094 of course. It's an ultimatum.
Two big countries in the UN Security Council need to recognize Kosovo for Kosovo to be seen as a legitimate country- Russia and China. Russia’s views may be ignored given the current situation but China’s views can’t. As for membership to the EU, Spain will reject Kosovo’s membership without Serbia’s recognition because of what it fears about Catalonia’s independence.
It's not about recognition, it's just about finding a common ground and diplimatically find a solution. The problem is that Kosovo will not accept to be part of Serbia again. It's also not really in Serbia's interests to have two million Albanians in a country of not even seven million (that's almost a fourth of the citizens of Serbia that are fervidly anti-Serbia).
How I see it is that there is simply no way that Serbia can find a beneficial diplomatic solution that does not involve recognizing Kosovo as an independent state (and I would say that Scholz would agree with me)
It's really not because of Serbian-Russian relations (if anything, Albanians in Kosovo would vote against Russia) and it's not because they want to break it up either (it's counterproductive, Serbians look at Russia more since they don't feel welcomed by the EU). They simply don't want a potential war that could drag those two states down. They learnt their lesson in Cyprus: EU membership pushes candidates towards fixing their problems more than anything else and accepting them in before they fix them is harmful.
In short, they don't want two messy states in the EU, and, to start negotiating, Serbia has to recognize Kosovo
Serbs are not ready to be part of the civilised European family. Serbs are holding back Bosnia.
When you come to the last point why republics in Yugoslavia (as well as Kosovo in Serbia) didn't follow the same concept - to stop questioning their secession from yugoslavia/serbia? Is this double standards then?
Thanks. It is important to note that the Yugoslav Constitution actually permitted the concept of secession. The problem was that it was not clear whether that right belonged to the Republics or the Nations. Serbia felt that it belonged to the Nations, and so all Serbs should ben able to live in a single state. The others felt that it belonged to the Republics. The matter was looked at by the Badinter Commission. It took a fairly clear line that Yugoslavia was disintegrating and that the borders of the new states should be the republic boundaries. This was actually a fairly uncontroversial position. The same thinking applied to the USSR, where only the top level soviet republics became independent with their borders. It also applies elsewhere. (It is something called uti possidetis in international law.)
As regards, Bosnia the standard position is that substage units don't have a right to secede without the permission of the parent state. In this sense, the Yugoslav republics had a right to secede under the constitution. (Although his it exercised that right was open to question.) RS does not. This is a pretty standard understanding to anyone who looks at these issues.
I full agree Kosovo represents a problem in all this. But I'm not the person to challenge about this. I have argued as much. www.delfi.rs/knjige/47027_kosovo_-_put_ka_osporenoj_drzavnosti_knjiga_delfi_knjizare.html The problem is that Serbs now judge every situation in the world against Kosovo and can't understand things. But it is actually very simple if you reverse it. Don't see everything as odd compared to Kosovo. Just understand that Kosovo was a stark exception to everything else!
@@JamesKerLindsay well if one stark exception was allowed , then why shouldnt another one ,i see no other way out of growing resentment. If you allow Croats to ethnically "clean" up the country of Serbs , if you allow Albanians to clean Kosovo of Serbs , and then recognize both as legitimate states , then why should RS where Serbs did the ethnic cleansing suddenly be under obligation to never declare Independence as to not reward ethnic cleansing , since it was already rewarded two times on Balkans , both in case of Croatia (Krajina) and Kosovo ?
@@JamesKerLindsay Thank you for your answer. I can't find whether you covered this topic, but if not It could be a good idea for your future video:
- Legality of secession of former YU republics in relation to the Yugoslavian constitution, regardless what all sides 'feel'.
I couldn't find the fact you mentioned that secession was alowed by it. It is just mention that federation is voluntary union of nations and not republics, but also the fact that boundaries of federation can not be changed if there is no permission of all republics.
- Criteria on which Badinter commission made their desission. It is interesting - do you know that basis for their decission was not Yugoslavian constitution itself, but the right for independence of colonies I think in South America?? Is this comparable and justified in any way ?
- Consequences of secession in exYu on the latter events in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as on the whole world.
And thank you for the book and keep up good work.
@@JamesKerLindsay The Yugoslav federation consisted of six republics and one of them (Serbia) had two autonomous provinces. It was a constitutional state, however, each of republics (with arbitrary borders made by Communists illegally without any historic or any other evidence) had their own constitutions. The constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at that time, did permit secession, however, with permission of all three constitutional ethnicities (Croats, Muslims and Serbs). Serbs were, obviously, against the secession since that was not in their interest. Since their will was ignored the war started.
Again, I’m not the person to argue with about this.
I really needed to add this...
Most of the "boys and men" from Srebrenica were memebers of unit "28 divizija" who previously were killing Serb civillians for years (including kids, babies, women, olds...) in most brutal ways, and anyone were never convicted for that. I'm not saying that things happened in Srebrenica are not big crime and tragedy, but that everything happened there were expected and previously staged for obvious political reasons...
Regarding Srebrenica I would like to add few things that are very often being overlooked.
1. Srebrenica was a massacre. But not all 8000 were massacred. Majority of them died in battle, trying to break through Serbian line and in a war, solders fighting under a banner are not some innocent people being slaughtered and they do not count into a massacre number.
2. Serbs only killed men and military capable men only.
3. Reason for Serbian attack on Srebrenica was act of revenge and retorsion. More then 2800 Serbian civilians (including women, children of both genders and elders) were killed by Muslims from Srebrenica and basically whole area around Srebrenica was cleansed from Serbian civilians.
Srebrenica was multiethnic township, and at very beginning of conflict was marked as a no-war zone and no weapons allowed zone, and even had UN peace keepers (Danish if I recall) to keep things as agreed upon. Nevertheless, for 3 years some idiots (who happened to be Muslims) kept killing Serbs all over area, than retreating into Srebrenica's safety while Danish were assuring Serbian military that zone is demilitarized and there are no terrorists inside.
After Serbs found out that Srebrenica is basically Bosnian Muslims stronghold, that they are armed to the teeth, supplied by those exact peacekeepers and west they represented... Serbs snapped.
I do not say that Serbs could have done it otherwise. But whenever someone fails to mention reasons of why Serbs attacked Srebrenica, what was the role of UN peacekeepers there for years and what was their agenda, twisted image of Serbs is being sent out to the world. We are not mindless beasts, but we can become beasts when somebody harm those we love.
Also, not addressing Serbian civilians killed by Muslims prior to Srebrenica massacre while mentioning Muslims killed by Serbs for what they had done previously, is morally dubious.
Are you a genocide denier?
Sto bi babi milo, to joj se i snilo...
I'll give you a "thumbs up" for your comment, Red Bird. Two wrongs don't make a right, but your explanations here make the Srebrenica story more understandable. And any story is more understandable if ALL the facts are known and what preceded this incident.
More lies and history revisionism. Executing men in captivity is a war crime buddy… also body remains of a 14 year old boy were found in 3 different mass graves, which tells you everything you need to know about who was killed and efforts Bosnian Serbs took to hide it.
The serbs killed boys as well in Srebrenica, and although you’re trying to paint it as a picture of a singular instance of revenge, keep in mind that it was just one massacre in a broader genocide that had been going for 4 years at that point.
I'm a bosniak and don't believe Srpska should be abolished despite everything.
What we need is a de-radicalization of all ethnic groups so the democratic process can give us leaders who are competent and cooperative rather than fear-mongering, corrupt and provocative (Dodik's political career survives on provocating bosniaks with his nationalist rhetoric).
The federation also needs to abolish its cantons and maybe even give the croats their own semi-separate entity.
But most importantly the country needs a stronger national identity and a singular leader/president. The current tribal structure is hurting us politically, economically and is a destabilizing force.
Personally I wish we could unite behind historic figures like king Tvrtko I Kotromanic, a roman-catholic king who proclaimed himself the king of the serbs and bosnia. He, in a sense, encapsulates all three ethnic identities and could serve as a unifying figure for a modern Bosnian state.
Hope you enjoyed your stay, come visit us again. You should definitely see the mountains in central and southern Bosnia :)
It may be best for the general populace, but the politicians dread the day when a capable leadership rise to power. Good luck though
The Bosnian Serbs are pro-Russian, the "Bosniak" muslims are pro-Turkish, the Bosnian Croats are pro-E.U ( pro-West).
Now, how do you find common ground with these different political views?
The only good thing the vast majority of people in Bosnia & Herzegovina do not want another pointless conflict in Bosnia, so I guess that is something positive to build on.
The only Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina are the 17-18th settlers that arrived from impoverished Dalmatia to work as serfs on the settlements of wealthy Bosniak landlords in Herzegovina. The first Catholic Church in Mostar was built by Turks in 1866.
Croat fanatics, who have a monopoly on all teaching positions in the "social sciences" and "humanities" in Croatia, teach at their universities that Slovaks with the surname "Horvat" are "lost Croats" and that Slovenes are too.
Of course you are pro-EU, and that is so out of necessity, as that is all you have going for you, but even they will throw you under the bus, assuming the EU does not collapse. 9/10 Germans associate Croatia with fascism.😁
@@hasibhakanovic6682 Why did you Bosniaks muslims accept Turkish names and place names and not Bosnian names?
@@northernstar4811 Bravo illiteracy,Bosniaks have Arabic names,not Turkish names😀
@@northernstar4811 Why you have Italian names and practising religion of NICEA🤣?
@@hasibhakanovic6682 " Bravo illiteracy,Bosniaks have Arabic names"
Arab name = Saleh ibn Tariq ibn Khalid al-Fulan.
Bosniaks have this name?
Good to see another field reporting video. Also, the transition from 4:23 to 4:57 looks nice, having a travel vlog vibe.
I am literally writing an MA dissertation on Bosnia (specifically how the Dayton Agreement has impacted interethnic communities in Bosnia). The timing of your video and it's insightful contribution are of immense help to me. Thank you so much for your work.
Thanks. So glad it helped. Very good luck with the dissertation! :-)
Well, wish he know what he talkin about.
@@vuca11300 Can you explain how he does not?
@@Exposetheworld he's right and bright. good luck with your MA.
It is Bosnia and Herzegovina not just Bosnia,two different regions.
Nas narod uopste nema probleme iz medju sebe, nego sa onima u vladi. Tjeraju nas da se svadjamo da nas drze u razdvoju, dok oni kasiraju. Kad ugasimo ekrane, pustimo malo pozitivne muzike i druzimo se zajedno vidimo da smo braca i sestre. A zamisli da radimo zajedno sta bi mogli napraviti, Balkan moze biti najjaca regija svijeta i najbolje mjesto za ziviti! Ljubav i veliki pozdrav braco i sestre 🇷🇸🇭🇷🇲🇪🇧🇦🇸🇮🇦🇱🇧🇬🇷🇴🇬🇷💙
takvo misljenje je najvise zatupljeno medju Bosnjacima, na zalost to nije slucaj kod drugih bas ne u mjeri gdje bi se mogle desiti neke promjene.. To se najvise vidi po komentarima inako se nekad cini drugaicje uzivo... ovdje pisemo ono sto mislimo
Velika istina! Niko ne moze zaustaviti narod Bosne da zive zajedno, pogotovu “NE” korumpirani politicari koji trenutno vladaju u BIH.
@@sinisafljankovic9600 zasto bi zivjeli zajedno kad smo vec jednom probali i vidjeli da ne ide?
The problem with Bosnia is that it fundamentally inherited the same struggles Yugoslavia had, just switching up the ethnic dynamic.
The problem can be defined basically as core-periphery tension. The “core” being the largest ethnic group which holds the capital, in Yugoslavia that was the Serbs, in Bosnia it is the Bosniaks, and the periphery being the other ethnic groups that make up huge portions of the population generally fear domination by the core group (in Bosnia’s case Serbs and Croats, in Yugoslavia’s case Bosniaks, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Albanians).
The core will always push for unitary government and centralization as those provide a number of economic benefits to the country at large and give the core group the privileges it believes it deserves as both the largest group and the group that fought and bled the most for the country’s creation. The Bosniaks today behave much as the Serbs in both iterations of Yugoslavia did.
The peripheral groups will always seek autonomy and decentralization as they seek to avoid domination by the core group which they often have some kind of historical tensions with. The peripheral groups tend to be reluctant members of the union who are not really invested in its continued existence. They may either be willing members who have since become disillusioned because of what they see as domination by the core (the Croats in both Yugoslavia and Bosnia fill this role) or completely unwilling members in the union who didn’t really have a choice and have wanted to be part of a different country from the beginning (Yugoslav Albanians and Bosnian Serbs are good examples of this, the Macedonians in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia are also a decent analogue).
Of course there are differences, most notably that Bosnian Serbs are in the unique position of going from part of the core group in Yugoslavia to a peripheral group in Bosnia, which only makes the desire to leave even stronger.
Now I’m not saying the core or the periphery is right in either state, I’m just pointing out the division.
If Yugoslavia couldn’t work and its breakup was a good thing, then the breakup of Bosnia is also ultimately a good thing, though much like the breakup of Yugoslavia it can only be achieved through undeniably horrible bloodshed.
Of Bosnia can manage to stay together, than a larger union like Yugoslavia is (and was) just as feasible if it follows/had followed whatever model Bosnia uses to survive. Now I have some pan Slavic leanings myself so a successful Bosnia as an example to build a new and improved more equal Yugoslavia from is an appealing idea, but I also don’t think such a thing is to be expected and is more akin to having a pet dragon than any realistic good idea.
One thing of note that have yet to mention in the half of the video I’ve seen so far is the high representative. The HR is a foreigner appointed by a council of mainly western nations to oversee the implementation of the Dayton Accords. He essentially has the power to depose public officials, ban them from ever holding office again, and pass laws without the approval of Bosnia’s own legislative branch.
And he is, again, a foreigner, a German, whose only real oversight is the US & EU. The existence of the HR has been criticized by all 3 ethnic groups and the council of Europe and generally, giving a foreigner near absolute power in Bosnia is seen as a horrible mess at best and an EU equivalent to a Resident in a British colonial protectorate at worst. There are many calling for the office to be abolished or to be occupied by a local.
The HR is behind a lot of the reductions in Republika Srpska’s autonomy, which inspires a lot of anger among the Serbs. Not only are they losing autonomy, it is not even happening through the internal processes of Bosnia’s government but being imposed on them by a foreigner, a German no less (after fighting in 2 world wars to avoid political domination by German states, this is symbolically a big deal, and of course add onto that the more general anti western and anti NATO sentiment remaining from the wars in the 90s). That’s not to say there would not be cries of “Bosniak domination” and infringement on Serb rights if this was done by a local government, but the wounds would certainly sting less, and you can see this by how often Bosnian Serb politicians denounce the HR as illegitimate and his rulings as illegal.
The thing is that Yugoslavia was a federal state and federal states are supposed to be equal, which is why other people opposed Serbs rightfully. Take a look at United States, there are bigger and larger states, but they're all equally represented in the Senate and are united by the federal government. Bosnia is not a federal state. Sure it does have some elements of a federal state, but being internationally recognized in the war, the Dayton Bosnia is a successor of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is supposed to be a short-term state that will unite people who fought against each other until they overcome their differences and create their own constitution. This is of course idealistic even for today, especially for today when nationalism is on the rise again and this is exactly why the High Representative and the intervention of international community is needed. Additionally, not only that the agreement cannot be reached, but "peripheral" ethnic groups as you call them are doing their best to make the country dysfunctional which is an additional argument for HR. Also, it is a bit hypocritical to mention current HR and him being a German and connecting it way back to world wars. That is exactly the nonsense Serbs mention which gives me an inclination you're a Serb. First of all, past has nothing to do with it. Second of all, chetnik forces have collaborated with the Nazis if you want to talk about history. And third of all, previous HR's weren't German, it has nothing to do with ethnicity. One last misconception is that HR has no idea what is going on in the country, but he does. He's living in Bosnia and watching every political move that is made. Some don't like him because he's on their schemes. And don't tell me he's unwanted by all three people because Dayton was signed by leaders of those people and Dayton included HR's office.
@@pvtmcfinger3770 Yugoslavia was a federal state drawn up by a group of communist leaders in a closed room. There could have been a federal Herzegovina, a federal Dalmatia, a federal Vojvodina, a federal Slavonia as well. Or all these federal states could have had tottaly different borders. Borders are constructs of political moments in history not some heavenly bestowed truths or cosmic axioms. I don't see you saying state borders can't be changed in the case of Kosovo.
@@milebobic3458 no matter what federal states were made, there would be no chance for one state to have superiority, which Serbs wanted in order to create the greater Serbia. As for borders in general, I don't see how it's relevant to all this. Bosnia is not a federal state.
@@pvtmcfinger3770 It will never be a republic in these borders. Only if the Bosniaks accept the secession.
@@milebobic3458 and Bosniaks will never accept the secession. That's why we need international community and HR's office to enforce the rules.
'Even if they joined Serbia they would be a provincial backwater'
Complete bullsh*t! Banja Luka would be one of the top 4 cities along with Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš, the Podrinje region would become central and extremely integrated with what is now Western Serbia, while Trebinje in East Herzegovina would very much gain in strategic importance.
We were outvoted when the country was forming, then forced to be part of it by the barrel of a gun, and then for 25+ years what little autonomy we had was constantly undermined. Serbs do not want 'compromise' anymore. We want out. It's as simple as that.
Being 4th city in Serbia doesn't make you not a provincial backwater
@Anonymous Bosch You clearly haven't been to Luton
Bravooo, svaka ko u Njegoša. Al bukvalno mi to prošlo kroz glavu kad je to pričao xD
Keep “wanting”… Podrinje you talk about has been ethnically cleansed and genocide was committed. That will never be part of Serbia. You can accept that or start another war for it.
@@devilsadvocate7389 Podrinje was 50-50 split between Serbs and Bosniaks. You got Goražde, you got the whole of urban Sarajevo and you also got the Drvar Krajina which is almost exclusively Serb.
As for wars, we don't even have to do anything in that regard. We just have to make Bosnia as dysfunctional as possible. Good luck stopping that.
There will be no more Turkish pita made from Posavina's golden wheat.
@@skogstjuven There was Turkish pies in Serbia and Balkans for 500 years, I guess generations got tired of eating it
RS "gave" parts of Brcko for the formation of a District spliting RS, also it gave many concessions, like the right to have an army. It all is not enough for the central government. Encourage by the West they want full control and an "end" to RS. Croats and Srbs are fortifying there position with the talk about more power or independence. There is a new proposal to take land and forest from RS that is the red line. Even if it happens on some paper it will not be implemented on the territory of RS. Than again why can Kosovo and RS can not? Why can Kosovo and Catalonia can't? Maybe the West need some reform to?
As you mentioned denial of attrocities commited by Bosniaks against Serbs is in full power, it's not one-sided as Bosniaks portray, everyone in West talk about Bosniaks as sole victims while it's far from truth. Thousands of Serb civilians died in that war by Bosniak hand, same for Croats. I accept that Serb Army commited war crime in Srebrenica, but it was a direct consequence of war crimes commited on Serb civilians in area around Srebrenica, which was under UN free zone area, UN not doing anything to stop those Bosniak army actions was the main cause for what happened im Srebrenica. Also UN/US were openly arming and training Bosniak army in that same UN free zone, West can't choose sides in civil war, that was the main mistake then and they repeat same thing in all conflicts around globe.
@Verbal DK about 3000
As a Serb l can not agree with everything presented because some important facts were skipped, however l can totally agree with the final conclusion of the video. Simply as it is Bosniaks and Croats need to accept fact that Republic of Srpska is there and that without it Bosnia will not exist, also Serbs need to accept vice versa that Republic of Srpska will not exist without Bosnia as a country. Main issue l see today is not ethnic relations. Key issue today is NATO. Serbs hate NATO and not wish Bosnia within alliance (naturally) while Bosniaks and Croats adore NATO and would join tomorrow if they could. Serbs not wish to participate in NATO conflicts while Bosniaks and Croats would. Solution for this could be simple by allowing NATO within Federation and having an NATO base over there excluding Republic of Srpska that will stay neutral but in exchenge will recive written assurence signed by all NATO countries that troops and equipment will stay out of Republic of Srpska without possibility for taking any of infrastructure in that part of Bosnia. Of course Bosniaks will not allow this simple solution because they want all Bosnia to follow what their majority wants and there is key of a whole problem.
Insightful analysis. Stability is the key, everything else should fit in as time progresses.
We mustn't forget that we have a generation-long heritage of authoritarianism which resulted in the biggest crash in a long time.
It takes time and effort to recuperate afterwards. They say three-generations-time is the minimum required for a healthy society to form after a period of ideological vacuum - if all the necessary conditions are met.
One step at a time I guess.
Thank you for the kind words about our mountains and your understanding!
Now that was a fabulous on site report I agree with almost everything.
when sandzak, vojvodina go. i can agree with this as well after all seems fair
As a Bosnian Serb from Republika Srpska I can say that everything is 100 % on point. Thank you for the visit and your objective analysis. Long live Bosnia,long live Republika Srpska.
Thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate it. It was great to be back in Bosnia and back in RS. It had been a few years. Hvala i Pozdrav iz Londona ! :-)
So many different in such a small space. It is good for people to be able to resolve their differences and tolerate each other.
But if they do not want to live together, it is better to live apart. I do not understand the obsession of some for the opposite.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is an artificial state like Yugoslavia, which I must say has largely succeeded, and that happened for a simple reason, because they wanted it to succeed.
Since others, for their own geopolitical interests, have taken care to encourage the growth of various and dissolving tendencies, it is too late.
And I am referring primarily to Germany. A Yugoslavia would be a strong force within the EU. and some did not want that, it was better to dismantle it, in order to better control the smaller states and to integrate them one by one later.
But they did not calculate the human factor correctly ... Now it is too late for tears.
Three peoples who do not want to live with each other, with three different religions and behind these three national entities to be stable, different Geopolitical interests.
The solution is one, to live as all three peoples want and to reach a velvet divorce peacefully and quickly.
But for this to happen, some geopolitical interests will have to stop their underground interventions in the region and leave it alone at last.
Otherwise the ending will not be good, once again.
A lot has happened badly and to be fair not only by the Serbs, who are hard to forget by everyone.
abolishing Republika Srpska doesn't sounds like something wise to do....
Thanks Pavlos. I agree. But, equally, constant talk of secession is also highly destabilising.
In fact, there are some potentially interesting parallels if ever Cyprus is solved. Any settlement will have to be based on accepting a federal arrangement - even though some TCs will always want to break away, and some GCs will always resent the TCs having their own territorial unit.
@@JamesKerLindsay indeed totally on the same page, i can see many parallels for example the Serbian tendency to mess up the federation brings to mind the early days of Cyprus as independent nation and the way Turkish Cypriot leadership was behaved
Oddly enough is that Bosnian Serb mentality you mentioned in the video, it remains me allot of the Greek Cypriot ones , they are " very Greek" but Greece is not their " mother land " that necessary want to be part of, Cyprus is their home
Also I can't help myself thinking that the Bosnian government is over reacting a bit, some graphities and some politicians saying things that will bring them to the headlines does really means that there is a movement on the rise? I have my doubts
@@Pavlos_Charalambous Acctualy he got that wrong.
We all love Serbia and would love unification.
Problem is that we dont have leadership good enough to do it legaly without any kind of conflict.
State is not functioning properly like this, mostly we cant stand each other same as you guys and turks.
Split up in this country is best solution, as a Serb I truly know I can tell this for all of the Serbs in Bosnia.
Thanks for this brief lesson. Being a Ukrainian I’m not studying Yugoslav conflicts in order to project out situation better.
Greetings from a Serbian from Bosnia! Both wars in Bosnia and in Ukraine are truly tragic. Brother vs brother, neighbour vs neighbour. However we pray for peace to come as soon as possible. Take care!
As a Bosnian Serb i must say that this video is really good. And message is pretty simple, namely both sides should accept reality, Bosnia is here to stay as well as RS, RS cant seceede but also cant be abolished. Thats it, even tho its only a start it would help a lot.
However, this isnt the only problem on ethnic level since there is Croat-Bosniak problem, thats kinda bevoming worse with years. And that one is more than just Croats demanding 3rd entity, its also about the Croat member of presidency and how he is elected as well as how Croats should be elected in other central goverment offices or FBiH offices. I hope you will make a video about that too since not much people outside this area knows about this problem.
Call it by the real name Republika Srpska don't shorten it the Sarajevo media does all the time because they don't like to recognize it.
@@bilic8094 RS means Republika Srpska, if Sarajevo means they are achiveing something by calling it RS they are dead wrong.
Its shorter this way, i do the same with FBiH.
Rs can be abolished and will one day
@@_ald1n_698 It cant and it most definetely wont.
@@biglebowsky6586 it cant seceedde but it can be abolished. Believe my it will happen soon. Bosnia was without entities for 1000 of years and will be again
One of the fundamental questions that needs to be answered to understand Bosnia is why are Bosniaks so keen to live with Serbs in the protectorate of Bosnia and at the same time were keen not to live with Serbs in Yugoslavia (at a price of a war even). Why would they prevent secession of people that are demonized in the Bosniak media (to say the least)? This equation can only be solved by an answer that they care not for the people (the Serbs) but the land the people are on. Remember, Serbs in Croatia went from about 30% to sub 5% in less than a century in a few easy steps. RS is, therefore, of crucial importance to the Serbs of Bosnia.
"Remember, Serbs in Croatia went from about 30% "
What year were the Serbs 30% in Croatia? Can you quote the population census?
In 1931 the Serbs in Croatia numbered 633,000 persons ( Yugoslav population census taken by Belgrade)..
@@northernstar4811 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_State_of_Croatia#Population
@@northernstar4811 ua-cam.com/video/SQQ_G-tsg6Y/v-deo.html Croatian state television serial...
@@neokorteks2009 The puppet"Independent State of Croatia" was about 115,133 km² in size, the current Rep. of Croatia is 56,594 km² in size. So of course the population size will be different too.
@@northernstar4811 What is your source and what is your proxy for the current borders of Croatia since they exist since 45?
The Ratko Mladic fan grafitti is to be seen all over Serbia as well. Not so sure it's a reflection of a marginal phenomenon.
I hope you are right.
@Prof James Ker- Lindsay,
You are right to finally acknowledge that RS is a real and authentic political entity which can never be abolished without bloodshed, but you still tend to repeat the reductive narrative about evil politicians who manipulate the otherwise perfectly passive public. You must also acknowledge that, while much of the modern politics in general certainly is manipulative, like anywhere else including the UK, there is a real agency and determination among the Serbs in Bosnia who are obviously ready to hold their ground and will not let their status be downgraded by the manipulative and openly hostile foreign meddlers, like in the past. Why don’t you look, for example, at the illegitimate way the High Representative was installed, or the illegal and absurd rulings of the Constitutional Court? There is much more manipulation to be found there than in the nationalistic rhetorics. Unless you can understand that, your reports will only help to perpetuate problems. As a political scientist, you shoud be more critical towards the dominant narratives and look for the facts. Otherwise, you are at risk of being seen as a mere agent of the political clique running your country and trying to do the same elsewhere in the world.
Thanks. But it isn't quite as simple as that. I spend a lot of time working on the Balkans. I know it extremely well. (My academic area of specialisation is in fact SE Europe.) Political patronage is still crucial. You need to belong to a party to get a job in many places. This is very pronounced in RS. This stifles opportunities for people to speak out in ways that might be possible in other countries. So, while you say that I might be accused of being a mouthpiece for my country, in fact what I say often stands at complete odds with the UK government. But interestingly, I see far fewer cases of people going so openly against the government line in many Balkan states.
@@JamesKerLindsay I truly appreciate that you took time to respond. However, please let me point out that I am not ignoring the fact that public life in Bosnia is marred by corruption and clientelism. However, the repeated attempts to downgrade the status of the RS under the guise of reform only give boost to the politicians who can use them as a proof that the national interests are in danger and thus mobilize support despite their own wrongdoings that are simply seen as a problem of less importance. But this is not just a simple manipulation (although to an extent, that too plays a role). There is a very real pressure by the UK, US and others to change the terms of peace and there are only few Serbs who would deny it, not because they are afraid of the nationalists, but mostly because that is their well paid job in NGO’s or because it helps them win a grant. I hope you didn’t speak to them only. Ordinary people clearly see RS as a vital resource and this is why all the Serb parties stand united when it comes to resisting attempts for a stronger central government.
Also, you are perhaps right to claim that the international patronage is still necessary. But this is not enough to explain why you completely ignored the very powerful arguments of the Serbs about the legitimacy of the current High Representative as well as the Constitutional Court. Why do you also ignore the usurpation of the B-H foreign policy by its Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the UN who act against the law, overstep their authority and promote the Bosniak interests only?
Let’s accept it is not because you are a soft power agent on behalf of your government but an honest scholar. As such you would need to include the Serb argument with more sincerity and attention into your analysis. In fact, this would help you establish authority in this field, which can’t be secured by simplistic claims coming out of political narratives rather than scholarly field work.
@@josefowitzer Thanks. I thought I spelled out Bosnian Serb arguments, including the view that Bosniaks have always wanted to get rid of RS. But equally I’m not going to pretend that Dodik isn’t a serious problem - a view made clear to be many times in Belgrade. They also see him as a trouble maker. Serbia is trying to pursue EU membership and deal with Kosovo and yet it is finding itself dragged in to Bosnia, with various outside voices insisting that it is behind Dodik’s talk of secession. It isn’t. It just wants a live and let live approach. Bosnia exists. So died RS. That was my point. And on that I don’t think Belgrade, the EU and the US are actually that far apart. Really, the frustration at the way *all* Bosnian sides are behaving at the moment is clear. But Dodik’s threats to collapse the state entirely are particularly destabilising.
@@JamesKerLindsay Again, Dodik doesn’t seem to be a mere maniac who wants to destroy his country. He is acting in reaction to an attempt, sponsored by the US, UK and other patrons, to curb the RS by transferring its ownership of the land to the central authorities, a rather baseless, non-constitutional move. I’m sorry to therefore find your response invalid, as instead of pointing out how you took into consideration the specific grievances of the Serb side which are sitting in the centre of the current crisis, you turned to Dodik as if whatever he says justifies breaking of the peace agreement and the constitution.
Besides, Dodik himself always used the conditional tenses and on multiple occasions stressed that his goal was not to break up the country, but to preserve the RS autonomy as defined in the Dayton Agreement and its Annexes which make the constitution. These are not mere details but fundamental arguments that can’t be sidelined because they don’t fit with the narrative.
At last, I don’t think you fully grasped the nature of the relationship between Vucic and Dodik. They are in accord except when it comes to using boycott as a means of protest. Honestly, I didn’t understand why have you invoked that in the first place. The position of Serbia is quite clearly peaceful and fully supportive of the B-H sovereignty and integrity, as well as of the RS’ status by the Dayton Agreement. Attempts to forcefully change that status will hardly be given a green light by any government of Serbia, regardless of EU promises. If EU wants to blackmail Serbia into accepting centralisation of Bosnia against the will pf the Serbs, that would be just another disaster in their backyard. One would expect the Brussels has learnt from experience. Unless, of course, the paranoid but increasingly popular idea that the western powers actually want to keep the numerous Balkan crises simmering - is in fact true.
@@JamesKerLindsay The problem is that the points Dodik is raising are real and they are not just mere rhetoric to gather votes. High Representative office is unconstitutional and is a medium which promotes Bosnian interests exclusively at the expense of Croats and Serbs. All the rulings this office made chipped away from Sprska's autonomy, violating the Bosnian Constitution. In addition, the Constitutional Court is a Bosnian watchdog. It doesn't behave as one such court should, such as safeguarding the Constitution. In addition, he foreign policy of BiH has been usurped by the Bosnian side. Srpska isn't really the problem here.
In Cyprus, many are showing Bosnia to demonstrate what would happened if the Annan Plan was voted in favor. P.S. In your previous video comment section, there was a bot with your profile photo
I remember when Germany said to Milosevic in 91 "You cant force people to live together if they dont want to" but that is what the EU and the US is doing both in Bosnia and serbias province Kosovo.
U made BIG misstake when u say that Bosnian Serbs see Bosnia as their country...thats so incorrect.90+% of people in RS see themselfs as Serbs and RS as a part of Serbia.Nobody i know from RS is saying that Bosnia is their country.They dont want anything to do with them.
There should be no such thing as an indivisible state, let RS go and form its own country if the inhabitants desire it. Same applies to Scotland, Catalonia, Quebec, and Texas.
Well this ignores basic things such as infrastructure, currency, political institutions, allocation of basic resources, ethnic minorities divided by new national boundaries etc. On the whole, carving a nation out of another leads to both sides becoming far poorer and unnecessary disruption to everyday life.
Take a look at South Sudan, perhaps the poorest country in Africa. It is a resource rich nation, with plenty of oil and water. However, they haven't been able to take advantage of that as the refineries are up north in (North) Sudan. Likewise, South Sudan now no longer has a port to export their goods. In addition, many Dinka still live in the North, both sides dispute the border and a civil war broke out. That's not to say that they shouldn't have declared independence, but that UDI should always be considered the option of last resort.
Saying "It's the will of the people" is very fickle. It really depends which people are voting. In the last Scottish Independence referendum, only Scots living in Scotland were allowed to vote. This meant the over one million Scots living in England couldn't vote one way or the other. Likewise, inexplicably 16 year olds were allowed to vote, even though they aren't allowed to vote in national elections. Interestingly Scots who have lived abroad were polled at the time as less likely to vote for independence, whilst younger Scots were more likely to vote for. As you can see, by choosing who could and could not vote, the SNP hoped to stack the vote one way or the other. So saying Scotland becoming independent as the "will of the people" is really saying "It's the will of the people who I chose".
It's also very hard to undo a UDI when it has happened. Take Brexit. Following the immense upheaval of leaving the EU and every day discovering yet another issue that it has caused, quite a few Brits would vote the other way now, given half the chance. Likewise, the younger generation who have just reached voting age would be much more likely to vote to remain in the EU, meaning that, if the vote had happened now, Britain would have voted to remain in the EU more likely than not. However, the deal is done and no one wants to go through the God-Awful process of yet another referendum, so applying to rejoin the EU will probably never happen, in spite of massive public support. Even then, there is so much bad feeling from the EU towards Britain, there is no guarantee that they would even be remotely interested in allowing Britain to rejoin. That's the trouble with independence. It leaves both parties feeling bitter towards each other (with a few exceptions).
@@solsunman383 Many times, when a region desires independence its because they feel they are being oppressed, their needs ignored by the central government, they aren't safe remaining part of the original nation, etc...As for the Scottish example, allowing people outside Scotland to vote raises a question of what makes one a Scot? Its not as simple as countries with citizenship. There is only British citizenship not Scottish or English or Welsh or Northern Irish. Why should person who choose to reside outside of Scotland be allowed to vote on Scottish independence. If you allowed them to vote, where do you draw the line? British citizens born in Scotland but now residing elsewhere in the UK? Anyone who can show a connection to Scotland? As for the voting age...if the young are for independence then it could easily be argued that they represent the future of the country and their voice should be heard.
What if Sandzak and Vojvodina (Hungarians) want to secede? Would you be happy for Serbia to lose land as well?
@@BosnianBornBeast Sandzak has no formal political status and Vojvodina is 80% Serbs.
@@PanSerbism But what if they were backed up by Bosniaks and Hungarians? An eye for an eye!
Thanks Prof. Hope you are enjoying your time in that beautiful part of the world. Is it me or is this perhaps the most complicated situation you've covered so far. I'd like to see in a couple of months when your book is released to have the co-author on to talk about it, how it came about, what you learned in writing it, ect. It's your channel and your book, you have every right to promote it here, it's completely different from going on someone Elses channel to promote it. Have a great weekend.
He aint covered 1 % of history there,if somebody realy want to understund something just dont read 30 years of history,where he mention that Bosniaks who are Slavs just like Serbs love Turkey ( Otoman empire) who put Serbs in 500 years slavery,where he talk about what Bosniaks under Nazist do to Serbs in WW2 together with Ustaše (Croats),where is Bosniak fight against Austrohungary when all Bosnia was Anex...Somebody please tell me one singl war of Bosniaks and Croats against Nazist,Otomans and Austrohungary when all tham control everything here,just Serbs fight against tirany and fight for freedom,all tham fight for Nazist,Otomans and Austrohungary...This man just want youtube weiws and thats all,just how you put that flag but in realty you gonna do nothing...
Thanks 🙏 from Bosnia 🇧🇦
Good share. I think Bosnia should dissolute into two different states similar to the Kosovo-Serbian relation now. If Serbs and Bosniaks could live peacefully with each other, Bosnia should not be independent from Yugoslavia
I dont think thats how it works, since a lot of the territories used to be Bosniak populated, and after the genocide (killings, rape, expellsion, destruction of cultural heritage and other types of warcrimes) i will count a couple of municipalities that used to be Bosniak populated before the war and now aren't since those crimes happened
Foča, Višegrad, Rogatica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Doboj, Prijedor, Tešanj. These are the important reasons, Bosnia would lose 49% of the land, and it would lose Yugoslav wars with that and also that would start another war.
@@SDZKProductions It has nothing to do with the current situation.
@@ThienHoang-tr3dh
You speak fair.
Only Bosnian Muslims have crazy jihad dream of ruling entire Bosnia from 23% majority populated land and make problems for Serbs and Croats.
@@ThienHoang-tr3dh you were talking about splitting up, so i told you what the situation is
OMG I watched this video before but I did not realize that is My City Teslic I’m from a small village right at the outskirts called Irice
Really!? I know Teslić well. I’ve been many times. :-)
@@JamesKerLindsayYes our mayor Milan Miličević was just elected as the new president of SDS the second biggest Bosnian serb political party let’s hope he brings some major needed change to the region he is a great Mayor
You are framing the question from the wrong perspective and using shaky axioms. Although you are trying to pretend to present objective viewpoint, it is highly biased since your arguments start from the position of Western/UK view which is in no way neutral party in the game. I do not have time nor it is a good place to present you with detailed arguments in this comments section. I will mention a couple of things only. 1) B&H in the war never was able to establish control and sovereignity of its whole territory. In fact, it most of the time controlled some 30% of BH territory, yet its government was officially recognized by western countries. Why? Because of their interrests. B&H government was able to increase it control to maybe some 40% of territory at the end of the war (not including some croatian controlled parts) because they had military (NATO) and political support by western countries. 2) Referendum to seceed from Yugoslavia was invalid and against the constitution, as one of constitutive nations (Serbs) did not participate; it was not possible to separate BH from Yugoslavia *without* the consent of all three constitutive nations at that time; yet, west simply (intentionaly) ignored that fact and rule, which lead to the war. 3) Republic of Srpska had control and continuity over its territory all the time since 1992. Republic of Srpska was existing before B&H was established and consented and had full sovereignity over its claimed territory. Remember, in Dayton B&H changed its name from "(Socialistic) republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina" to "Bosnia and Herzegovina". Dayton does not see any continuity between old (inter-YU) BH and the new one; modern-day BH was established by Daytons peace agreement, which defined its constitution and other rules. Hence, Republic of Srpska was political entity that created BH, that brought its sovereignity, territory, people, laws, into BH. BH constituion in Dayton accepts and includes all history of RS and its legislation. 4) Hence it is naive to say that RS cannot exist withot BH and think about the abolition of RS. Only entity that can be abolished is BH since it is not functioning well and BH is a great source of problems and burden for further development and progress in RS. RS is result of its people who created it and built in it their lives; the will to preserve and strengthen RS is strong and there is no way that inhabitants of RS will want to abolish it. It can be "abolished" only by external military force imposed by western countries, which is possible but not highly probable at the moment and could lead to broader regional or european military conflict. Even if it would be done, the abolition would not be sustainable (except if you do ethnic cleaning). Serbia will not sit around and look peacefuly at the disintegration of RS. 6) You did not mention how constitutional court and legal system in BH works. BiH still has OHR, with currently illegal lead of OHR, German guy Schmidt who did not receive consent of UN security council for its positiion. OHR is acting in very grayish legal area. It is in fact an institution of colonial control of BH. BH is failed colonial state which does not enjoy full sovereignity, almost 30 years after it is established. OHR imposed so many laws in BH which are in fact illegal (but most of them still the part of the legal system) and which reflect the colonial character of BH. The real question to ask is, is BH a failed western experiment? 30 years after the war with full political (OHR, constitutional court, embassies) and military (SFOR/EUFOR) control western countries did not succeed in making a sustainable and functional polictical entity. Maybe west should be removed from the game? 7) Constitutional court of the state consists of foreign citizens who are put in position by foreign institutions, a group of countries interested to control BH. This court goes beyond its competencies and tries to change the mere legal structure of BH, its constitution and its entities. This is one of great sources of instability since the Serbs, who make 49% of the BH territory and some 33% of its population, almost do not have any meaningful influence on decisions made by the constitutional court. The next entity is BH central bank, which is also controleld by foreigners and its policies do not allow for a meaningful developmetn of BH economy; 8) Most of the political decisions in BH are done in coordination and by consulting foreign embassies, notably US, UK, DE. The political representatives in BH are in many cases just empty roles and members of a circus; the real and most important decisions are done by foreign embassies. They do not like Dodik since he is the guy that promotes democracy in the sense of local populations (no matter of ethnicity) being able to decide on theri fate, and not some foreign guys. 9) You mention one of the issues like ethnic composition of BH institutions and democracy. This is actually only the issue in the view of EU instutitions. In reality, it is not an issue. A Jew currently cannot be elected to be member of presidency. Compared to many other issues that citizens of BH now face - economical impoverishment, non functional institutions, inner political strugles, incompetent politicians, colonialized country, demografic catastrophe, failing everything - really, electing a Jew or a Roma ethnicity or a Gay which make irrelevant part of the BH population is really really the least important issue. The most of the other human rights in reallity are not enforced on acceptable level and this is the issue that need to be resolved first and then we can talk about ethnic minorities and their ability to take part in political life in the highest positions in the country (there are not any limitations on them to be elected on lower positions of thousands of positions in the state; only for a couple of positions like presidency on BH). This is really irrelevant issue and you need to be either vastly misinformed, ignorant or evil to put this thing as one of primary issues of non-functional system of BH. Ethnic composition and ethnic factor in maintaining BH institutions was a key ingredient that allowed BH to function in Yugoslavia , after WWII (similar system existed before the war in BH and Croatia; for that reason these republics were able to exist i their boundaries and not be divided), and after Dayton. By dismantling that principle you are opening Pandoras box with most possible consenquence being BH ceasing to exist. What foreign institutions can do once Serb government and people start ignoring BH institutions? Send military? Yeah. 10) My personal opinion is that we need to return to initial Dayton that considered BH of a type of confederal state with very thiny central institutions. BH can function as confederation with most relevant things for economy and the movement of the people being relaxed not only in sense of BH territory, but regionally. Foreign colonial institutions need to be dismantled. Monetary policy need to be given to local institutions. Your political guys need to talk off Bosniac political elites of their unreal political ambitions to control whole BH on all the levels. The dream about EU need to be dismantled from the primary focal point and the focus be given to economic development based on real things, real laws and political structure, local resources and local people will. 11) UK and other countries control local policy at least for some 200 years, with some interruptions (Socialist YU). The primary goal of western countries is to reduce Serbian factor on Balkans since they see Serbs as an exponent of Russia and a version of small Russians. Hence, Serbian identity need to be transformed, reduced, removed, Serbian state to be reduced and impoverished. This is a starting point of any DE UK AT USA policy which is also more or less accepted by their other allies, since at least 2 centuries. Whatever you say need to be considered from that pespective. In reality Serbs are not an exponent of Russians. We have close ties with them but our primary goal since 1000+ years is to be an indepednent nation and political entity, having good relationships both with west and east but being sovereign and independent. 12) I cheer you with the song dedicated to 30th anniversary of RS ua-cam.com/video/XHJzr32gDII/v-deo.html
post ti je nenormalno dugacak i nisam citao dalje od prva 4-5 reda. na pocetku si pogodio ono sto i ja mislim a to je da je lik cist zapadni propagandista. cini se da ima zadatak da promovise zapadni pogled. dodajem: u zadnjih pola godine se primecuje poplava kvazi-objektivnih videa a koji imaju istu strukturu: srpski stavovi se navedu (kosovo, srebrenica, republika srpska, ruski uticaj, cetnici, ...) ali samo kao slagvort za kritiku. na otvrdle srpske usi navikle na direktne pretnje ovakav "izokola pristup" je gotovo neprimetan, ali raduje - ocigledno da zapad sam procenjuje da nema vise snage za direktan sukob sa srbima pa angazuje ovakve kvazi-naucno-objektivne mutivode.
@@DrJok Nije nužno da se radi o koordinisanom pokušaju. Mnogo ljudi na YT pokušava da nešto zaradi i prave se video materijali na razne teme. Oni često gledaju jedni od drugih na i prave materijale za koje procjene da imaju interes publike. Kada istražuju neku temu autori su uglavnom upućeni na zapadne i neobjektivne izvore, koji svojim sadržajem određuju opseg vladajućeg narativa. Srpski glas se slabo čuje na internetu, dijelom i zbog toga što nema dovoljno pristupačnih materijala na stranim jezicima. Da neki od tih videa da značajno odstupi od vladajućeg narativa, to nije realno očekivati. I gledaoci su takođe navikli na narativ, i autori moraju da paze da ne izazovu previše negativnih reakcija. Uglavnom istina i objektivnost su minorna tema a primarno im je da pokupe što više pregleda tj pažnje i angažovanosti.
Those who want the Independence of Republika Srpska are not thinking logically, and neither are those who just want to abolish it. In my opinion the best solution is for Bosnia to look at something similar to the UK model: 1 president and a parliament with seats based on municipalities in the entire country, but also Republika Srpska having its own parliament and autonomy, like Scotland.
Great analysis James👍
That would not be possible.
The fact is that not a single ethnic group other than the bosniak muslims want this state to exist.
Give them their own part and let it die as another failed project.
I don't think having Srpska as part of Bosnia will ever make Bosnia a functional state. It has no way to actually unify it's people or infrastructure and Serbs will always look towards Serbia in such cases
@@hungjury7482 With or without Srpska, Serbs will always look towards Serbia in same way Croats will look to Croatia.
The main problem is that politicians are projecting there incompetency on Dayton agreement, which made pretty solid ground for stabilizing Bosnia.
"We are shit at governing country and are corrupt as fuck therefor leaving Bosnia / unitarizing Bosnia" is the solution to all our problems. It's obvious propaganda to anyone who knows how countries and states work.
Would anyone say Belgium doesn't work since it's federalised into Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels Capital Region? I don't think so.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 yeah, but there is no reason for it to be part of a separate country, all it does it create additional conflict and simmer tensions with a disfunctional halved state like Cyprus, Lebanon, etc.
Fantastic video. So much informative and impartial. i look forward to visiting Sarajevo, BiH in a fortnight.
Hi Albert, thanks so much! I hope you have a lovely time over there. Sarajevo is great. And Bosnia really is a wonderful country. In the meantime, I hope all is well with you.
I’m glad to have found your channel. It’s everything I like finding out about
Thanks. Great to hear it. And a very warm welcome! :-)
Honestly westren hypocrisy and double standards never cease to amuse me. The west always call for the right to self determination however when it is someone they don’t like people aren’t allowed to decide for themselves just because serbia is in the Russian camp and a good ally to russia they don’t want republika serbska to breakaway and and unite with serbia despite the majority of people in the country are ethnically serbs and want unification with serbia or at least an independent state. On the other hand when kosovo declared independence all westren countries supported the the breakaway state and recognise it because it is majority albanian and people there have the right for self determination just to make serbia smaller and weaker such double standards isn’t it ….
"unite with serbia despite the majority of people in the country are ethnically serbs "
The only reason Republika Srpska exists at all is because of the ethnic cleansing and genocide ( as per the international Hague court verdicts) of parts of the territory.
I doubt the Bosnian muslims would want to let the town of Srebrenica peacefully go to Serbia after the genocide that was committed there by the Serbs.
While the biggest town in Republika Srpska, the town of Banja Luka, was actually a mainly Croatian populated town in WW2.
@@northernstar4811 Republica Srpska exists before the so called genocide though and it was formed based on the sovereign will of the Serbs which rejected the Bosnian independence. Srebrenica shall become part of Serbia as well together with all territories controlled by Serbs.
@@Kalimdor199Menegroth Well, Serbs wanted "Greater Serbia " 31 years ago. The Balkan wars started in 1991.
So far, after 31 years, they have not got "Greater Serbia" only a smaller Serbia after they lost Kosovo.
@@northernstar4811 Everything shall be regained in time. Srpska will unite with Serbia, and Kosovo will be back into the fold once NATO troops depart from there. Just a matter of time. We Romanians shall support Serbs in their war effort.
@@Kalimdor199Menegroth Your future predictions involves a lot of wars.
Not good.
Kosovo is 96 % Albanian they don`t want to have Serbs rule them. Before NATO leaves they will set up a Kosovo army.
The Serbian entity in Bosnia is split into two parts by the town of Brčko so its impossible to separate as the main road runs through Brčko which is not a part of the Serbian entity.
Could you do a video dedicated to the Bosnian Croats and their current political issues?
First CC in Mostar built in 1866 by Turks. 😀
I know we Bosnians and Hertzeg have our shortcomings but, if you see 2 brothers or neighbours fight be sure there is a British very close watching. Divide to conqer. (meaning others participated in this creation too).
Good journalism btw 👍
He's not a journalism. He's a political scientist specialised in ethnic conflict, secession, recognition and peace process, mainly the study of Cyprus peace process.
Well done, Prof. Ker-Lindsay. My wife is from Banja Luka and we spend a lot of time in a village just to the north of it where we have a vikendice (little weekend house). I agree entirely with your assessment but would like to add that part of the blame is that the Dayton agreement was a stopgap measure meant to end a war and not as a constitution meant to rule a country. Predictably, once the fighting stopped, America and, more to the point, Europe walked away and no longer tried to get the sides to evolve the agreement into a working constitution in which all three sides were required to integrate all government institutions. The entities now work as de facto separate nations. The Federacija is as corrupt as it is divided and Dodik operates the RS as a personal fiefdom to rule and exploit as he wishes. I am of the opinion that Bosia has been neglected by the international community to the point where it is beyond saving. However tragic, stability may actually be found in letting the country be absorbed by the ethnic states around it and creating a smaller Bosniak state around Sarajevo. This is a terrible solution and an outright defeat of the ideals that lead to democracy. But it is preferable to a new war or even the status quo: endless instability that prevents economic growth, ever increasing poverty and a brain drain that sends the countries most capable young people abroad in search of greener pastures. Only one thing is certain: it can't go on like this.
Which would set a precedent for every nationalist movement in every country in the former Yugoslavia. This 'genius' prescription would immediately entail war, because Bosniaks will not accept ghettoization, and prior to the war inhabited nineteen twentieths of the today's habitable Bosnia-Herzegovina, and have rockets that can reach Belgrade and Zagreb. Bosniaks are a majority in the Neretva & Vrbas valleys Croatia wants to claim as its territory. If Bosniaks are ghettoized, they will be exterminated, that means there are only Serbs and Croats to fight, which will only change the nature of the conflicts. BIH is in every other country's interest other than Serbia's and Croatia's in maintaining stability. Serbia and Croatia punch far above their weight. There is no way BiH goes in 2022 if those countries can't write an end to BiH's existence with overwhelming military dominance in 1993.
@@hasibhakanovic6682 Well, I didn't say this was a good solution. There are no good solutions. This is the best of bad choices. It's a way to break what is a paralysing and possibly eternal stalemate. But you're right in the sense that Bosniaks have no reason to trust their neighbors to behave themselves. It is, after all, the Balkans.
The most logical solution would be three entities within the country that way no one could try to dominate the other.but the international community wants a new mini Jugoslavia that won't work that's like putting broken glass back together.
Let this colonial monstrosity perish at last, let the Serbs and the Croats have their majority lands then guarantee the independence of what’s left of Bosnia by letting it in NATO
I don't remember the last time I heard from Bosniak politicians that someone wanted to abolish RS. It could have been heard sometime in the past during the reign of Silajdzic but it is a long time ago. What Bosniak politicians are saying, however, is that RS is a genocidal creation.
Thats even worse, creating in the mind of your people a picture. To fullfill a whole bih you would need to cross the border into RS, are you willing to do it when we break up tomorrow?
Do you live on a remote island?😂
Top, as always! I am most concerned about the future of Bosnian Croats. Bosniaks and Serbs are in a much safer position, and they are almost exclusively talked about...
Bosniaks are still in the weakest position militarily, the Bosnian Croats have Croatia’s protection if it comes to blows. The Bosnian Muslims would be cut off from basically all potential allies like they were in 1993-94 when they were fighting both the Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs. So war is definitely not in the Bosniaks’ best interest at all
It's really fascinating how you dare claim to be "objective" when you completely ignore the most basic facts - Srpska wasn't a separatist entity from B&H because we had already declared independence 2 months before the B&H's referendum (on 9th of January 1992. as opposed to March 1992) but all the westerners pretend this didn't happen because it bursts their bubble of blaming Serbs for everything when in fact we were the ones who were attacked by the Muslims and Croatians - look at any map from 1992. in comparison to today's maps, and you'll see Srpska actually had 75% of land of today's B&H, Sarajevo was a split city between Serbs and Muslims (much like Jerusalem is right now) but after the war started and Muslims won they ethnically cleansed more than 130.000 Serbs from Sarajevo, who ran to the mountains and built "Serbian/East Sarajevo", you're also completely ignoring the fact that the entire area of Srebrenica was supposed to be a demilitarized zone under the UN supervision, but UN allowed an entire Muslim division under Nasser Orich to freely run around there pillaging and massacring Serb civilians in the area totalling to around 3.258 Serb civilian victims from 1992 to 1995. just around that area.
As for the claims of so called "genocide" it's absurd to even discuss that, and at least you had enough sanity not to compare it to the Holocaust, Ustasha's genocide, genocide in Belgian Kongo or Turkish genocide of Armenians.
The main reason of stagnation is the politics of Sarajevo Muslims which keep drudging through the past and making up new claims and reasons why the Serbs are guilty for everything in hopes that it will gain them international support for abolishing Srpska, they never wanted to give the Dayton Accord a chance to work, and that's why it's "not working", they keep insisting that foreigners should govern us as if we're all (themselves included) some kind of wild animals who can't control themselves... The Office of High Representative is literally a useless organization which serves no other purpose than to stir up even more conflicts by causing constant provocations and false accusations.
The supreme court of B&H also consists of 9 judges where you have 2 from each of the constituent people's (total of 6) and the other 3 are foreigners who don't even live in B&H nor are ethnically Serbs, Croatians nor Muslims, they don't pay taxes either - yet they always get to decide on ALL laws by constantly agreeing with ONE of the nation's 2 judges against the other 2 by winning 5-4 every time (this nation is basically only Muslims all the time). IS THIS JUSTICE!? How can there be justice if we all TOTALLY SUBMIT TO 1 SIDE AND COMPLETELY IGNORE THE OTHER 2!? This pattern is followed by both Office of High Representative and all the other "international peacekeeping institutions".
How can you expect a country to function normally if you don't even give it a chance - let it try to figure things out on its own rather than constantly interfering on 1 side against the other 2, unless that's the whole point - to keep us dysfunctional forever so that we can be "powder keg" or "soft underbelly of Europe" which can be reset and stirred up again very easily to justify yet another bombing of people with radioactive depleted Uranium (or as you called it "intervention" ).
As for worshipping war criminals, it's the same on ALL SIDES so no point in arguing, you'll always have nationalists on each side but making a system based on REAL JUSTICE can dwindle their numbers to a few insignificant individuals , the only difference being is that Croatians and Muslims are still led by the same political parties which started the war with essentially half people ruling them now being the same "war leaders (criminals)" who were responsible for the war, the only way to move forward is to get a new leadership on all sides which isn't corrupt and consisting of war criminals who started the war for their own personal profits by infesting everyone with extreme (radical) nationalism. But let's be real, we're destined to be a "powder keg" of the region so certain Western powers can constantly justify their total control over us so my prediction is that the nationalism will only keep rising (as it has been for the past 25+ years).
Hopefully you can maybe help us moving forward by looking at the conflict from all sides and therefore painting a real picture to help everyone reach to some kind of a compromise, I really think that Dayton agreement (from 1996.) CAN WORK BUT WE JUST NEED TO GIVE IT A SHOT.
At least the conclusion is on point, but you have to understand, the situation here is even worse than in Belgium, because in Belgium at least you have 2 sides who can't understand each other ( "because they don't speak the same language" ) but here you have nationalism so high where 3 sides (CAN BUT) DON'T WANT TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER (because we all "speak the same (3) language(s)" ) even phone companies "have a nationality... Again, THE ORIGINAL DAYTON AGREEMENT CAN WORK BUT WE JUST NEED TO GIVE IT A SHOT. Give all the authority back to the entities and make the central government simply a glue that sticks them all together, once the nationalism diminishes we can try and work on a better and more reasonable agreement (if needed).
complete and utter bullshit. whenever it aimed to achieve its separatist aims, before or after the referendum, RS was a separatist entity. b&h has been a united territorial entity for centuries. recent serb ethonationalist propaganda cannot change that.
@vladimir There never was a triangle-shaped country with a triangle and five-winged stars named "Bosnia and Herzegovina", first time every such country started existing was 1996. (after signing the Dayton Agreement and choosing such flag).
There was however a kingdom of Bosnia in the middle ages which was Orthodox Christian, used Cyrillic script, and spoke Serbian language, there was even a principality named Herzegovina (after the ruler's title herzog of Saint Sava - who was the first Serbian Orthodox acrhbishop) in the middle ages, which again, also spoke Serbian, used Cyrillic, and was Orthodox Christian. At the peak of medieval Bosnia's power, "ban of Bosnia" Tvrtko Kotromanich crowned himself a king in a monastery Milesheva which was built by his great grandfather Stefan Dragutin (ruler of medieval Rascia aka Serbia).
Please, explain to me when did medieval Bosnia or medieval Herzegovina use latin script, had 3 religions, spoke "3 different languages" wrote the same warning 3 times on everything and doing so even 2 times using the same (Latin) script, when did that happen in medieval Bosnia or medieval Herzegovina?
Do you have any kind of proof to prove that culture of Dayton B&H is in any way shape or form connected to any form of the same territory's shape or existence in the past?
If you look at the flag of Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, you'll clearly see that we have the exact same flag as Kotromanich dynasty, we use the same script they used, we adhere to same religion as they did, and we use the same language they used, what kind of connection do you think you have with them if get an ulcer every time you look at cyrillic anywhere?
@@HowtoSerb the entirety of bosnian and herzegovinian history does not equate to the history of post-dayton b&h. the only reason why someone would ridiculously assume otherwise would be a desperate attempt to legitimize ethnonationalist serb mythologies.
the entire 'everyone's a confused serb' spiel is a braindead meme at this point. if you aren't aware that this is beyond debunked then i can only apologize for not having the patience to lead you out of the propaganda-infested gutter.
you can seek vague justifications for your support of cancerous ethnonationalism as far back in history as you want, it won't make it any less immoral or nonsensical.
i like the cyrillic script and am happy to see it anywhere in b&h. same goes for arebica and even the latin script, which might be dull but is useful for the tourists. i'm not afraid of variety.
@@vladimir-qx9sd I couldn't care less for "everyone's a confused serb" theory as you call it, you're free to choose what you want to be, I want to preserve my culture, traditions, customs and language, ancestral inheritance.
You're clearly another one of those "Yugoslav nationalists" (of in this case so called "Bosnia") which considers Yugoslav political borders sacred yet at the same time believes in no God nor anything else really (besides getting black out drunk at communist labour party day (1st of May), Living the life like there is no tomorrow nor like there ever was a yesterday, just like the"diversity is strength" "BLM" "me too" "antifa" and other globalist people, I'm very glad you've shown your true colors.
As for your accusations, I'll let others decide whether or not I'm a nationalist based on the words I wrote.
Have a nice day, and kindly leave me alone.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for making this informal video. I hope you like our country and hopefully Bosnia will become better place to live.
Greetings from Bosnia
Thank you so much. I have been fortunate to visit Bosnia many times. I always love going! :-) And I also hope that things will get better.
Hvala i pozdrav iz Londona!
If these groups are that disliking of each other, why force them to retain themselves as a country? Was this not the same problem with Yugoslavia from the very start in early 1900s? What could possibly be the drawback to people wanting to live separately, and be governed separately, from others who they believe infringe on their desires for open cultural and ethnic identity? They should be allowed to go their own way and fail or succeed.
Bosnia's small size would make it impossible for any group to exercise economic autonomy separately. While the best solution would be for all areas to join the EU, that seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Till then economic development will need a common space, common rules, taxes and regulations to allow all sides to prosper.
The Serbs want complete freedom over the lands in which they form a majority in, the Croats want the Croat-inhabited lands to be ceded to Croatia, while the Bosniaks think that the current ethnic makeup is artificial and claim the entire country as their right, opposing any sort of secessionist movement.
And to be fair, before the war the ethno-religious lines were not nearly as clear... Not to mention that allowing, let's say, RS to secede, is basically rewarding someone for displacing millions of people and commiting genocide less than 30 years ago...
I do believe all peoples should recieve representation and have a fair say in the future of the country, but some things have to be looked at from a moral aspect aswell.
@@pwp8737 If the concern is the sustainability of their proposed country as it relates to economics, let them pursue it. They are clearly not concerned about their ability to be successful, so why are others so frightened of them trying? Their are many smaller countries across the globe that are doing just fine, and several of them are in Europe.
@@annurissimo1082 Morality plays little of a role in geopolitics lbh. If it did then the West would have no diplomatic relations with a country like Saudi Arabia and certainly wouldn’t be giving them weapons to bomb Yemen and we would put the same sanctions we have put on Russia for invading Ukraine onto China for Uyghur genocide and it’s violating the territorial integrity of states in the South China Sea, but we don’t because that doesn’t support our interests. So really the moral thing doesn’t really stand here as an argument against this, the practical implications and what if the best for the region and the people living there in the here and now is what’s important and from my perspective, I don’t see why you would want to continue to sustain a state where all the different ethnic groups despise each other and want to leave it or other sabotage each other. After all, was this not the same argument that all 6 republics of former Yugoslavia made when they wanted to leave Yugoslavia?
@@annurissimo1082 but allowing Kosovo to gain independence is also rewarding ethnic cleaning , yet most of west supports Kosovos independence , Croatia also cleaned up Krajina of Serbs and they got rewarded with "ethnically clean" independent state , i guess were not buddy buddy enough with US and Germany ? Is that really all there is to it
Welcome to Republika Srpska Professor. I hope you enjoy your stay :-)
yeah, he should enjoy it while it lasts, as just like snow, it will be gone soon
@@meopen1888 you've been saying that for the last 30 years 😉
Only problem in Bosnia is influence of western governments. We have no problems with each others at all until your western governments ignite fire between us trough media and false crisis and scaring people driving your army though cities.
Your video also talk just about how only one side suffered trough last war here. Where are serbian victims?
Your western government influence put those presidents here.
You know nothing about Bosnia and Herzegovina, you know nothing about history of Balkan...and no one wants any more conflit here. Stop putting fire on this country.
Oddly enough, there was even a short-lived episode of a civil war between Muslims themselves during the Bosnian war, fought by the central gvt in Sarajevo on one side and the enclave of Bihac/Cazin on the other, the latter being a territory surrounded by the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb forces at one point.
Do you mean by APZB of Fikret Abdić?
@@randomtanker4355 Yes, indeed, couldn't remember the name.
Fikrets traitors have been on the enemies side since day one of the Swebian aggression. It took us 4 years to take them down. But we took them down. Oddly enough there were thousands and thousands of Serbs fighting on the Bosnian side. But you Serbs always forget to mention that. Why?
@@eazyemco yea i read that a small number of serbs and croats served in ARBIH, but i know of only one officer (i forgot his name), he was the chief of staff or something
@@randomtanker4355 Jovan Divjak, Stjepan Šiber, Željko Knez, Dragan Vikić, and others were all highly positioned within ARBiH. There were both Serbs and Croats fighting on the side of the Bosniaks against the aggression on their country (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Your on site videos are great. I really appreciate the extra effort 😃👍
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you liked it. I love doing them when I get a chance. I really hope to be able to do more of them. In fact, fingers crossed, I’m hoping to do a couple of very special ones in August! 🤫🙂
I agree with your proposed solution. Kudos for mentioning the Croats, it seems as if people forget that this group even exists. The accusations by Balkan nationalists about your pro- or anti-Serbian/Croatian/Bosniak bias hold no ground
I am questioning why you left out important facts that contributed to the situation we have nowadays.
In WW2 the Ustashi (mostly Croats, but also Bosniaks in smaller numbers) committed a genocide on the Serbian population of Croatia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. While in Croatia there are some attempts to come to peace with the genocide in WW2, it seems as if Bosniaks try to put the entire blame on the Croatians, while some Bosniaks (in the form of the Ustashi and a well-known SS) participated in the genocide. There are several books on that genocide by authors of various backgrounds.
Even before the genocide there was the oppression coming from the Ottoman Empire and afterwards oppression by Austria-Hungary. If I am not mistaken, most of the soldiers that participated in cleansing Serbian villages during Austria's WW1 occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina were in fact of Bosniak origin. There was a pogrom in Sarajevo before WW1. Additionally, A-H failed to deinstall privileged Ottoman-Bosniak officials and decided to allow them to rule over the other two ethnicities without even being a majority.
Politics and history aside, the most selfless and friendliest people I ever met were Bosnians. They would give up their own benefits to help you when they see you as a good friend. I wish the people of Bosnia and Herzegowina a lot of luck, peace, stability as well prosperity in the future.
Greetings from cold and grey Austria!
Things are not black and white there,a lot of lies have been told about the ustashi movement by the communist regime post ww2 just because Croats sided with Axxis. Attrocities have happened for sure but it wasn't out of the blue as many try to impose. Not to mention that as WW2 ended pretty much all the members of the ustashi,their families and their sympathisers along with anyone considered a threat to the communist regime were simply wiped out. So supposed Serbian fears about another Croatian genocide over them is pretty irrational considering that they right away created a union with the same people who apparently slaughtered them. It's makes no sense when you think about it,either we're talking Stockholm Syndrom or some historical claims about certain things don't add up. Either way it's a poor excuse for the things Serbs have done in the 90s. And mind you it's very similar to what the Russians are doing to Ukrainians right now. They're just there to get rid of "nazis".
@@ginjordom6065 I am not excusing anything, I am just trying to paint a better picture. It is very black and white.The Ustashi committed the worst genocide seen on Balkan territory and later were allowed to flee and support far right/neonazi sentiment in Croatia (from Australia and Argentina) which lead to Tudman's election and him declaring the Serbian minority second class citizens, inviting Ustashi to the parliament, using Ustashi and Nazi symbols as well as rhetoric, downplaying the genocide and the Holocaust, committing genocidal acts (according to the UN) and partially modelling Croatia after the Independent State of Croatia. Those are facts concluded by the UN. It's not excusing anything, but it helps the people to understand why Serbs didn't want to live with their former genociders (not the Croatian people, but their politicians).
You could have a fully functional multicultural Croatia nowadays, if Tudman didn't decide to utilise Croatia's Nazi heritage. The number of people killed in Bleiburg was relatively small, the top Nazis fleed or had a change of mind, suddenly.
You can read everything I wrote on Croatia in the 90s in the UN documents regarding this topic. Feel free to educate yourself and to tackle your victim complex. While you are at it I would recommend you to read "Dreams of Annihilation" by a very famous British author, who is also a journalist on the EU-supported Balkaninsight portal. I don't know why so many Croatians (and partially Bosniaks) can't accept that some Croatians and Bosniaks committed genocide and were allowed to live on and later contribute to ruining their countries. Austria had a Nazi president until 1992, we are deeply ashamed, why can't Eastern Europeans learn to accept history as it is?
@@calmperson7426 You need education buddy. Like I said,for an apparent genocide Serbs sure didn't waste time going into another union with their supposed executioners. Now is that a nation wide case of Stockholm Syndrom or something isn't quite true with historical claims I'll leave you to ponder on that. Besides that figures of that supposed genocide go from 100k to 1,7million yet zero evidence to support any,how smart do you have to be to conclude something ain't right there. Even if you ask Serbs themselves they'll claim five different figures. The bottom line is there was never any real research instead what the communist government of Yugoslavia said was true was considered true. Now when comparing 1930 demographic census of Yugoslavia with that of 1948,Croats have a massive decrease of population while Serbs have an increase. So there is no material evidence in form of mass graves,there was no infrastructure as let's say Auschwitz,the archives of the then Independent State of Croatia are locked away in Belgrade far from curious eyes so how can we talk about genocide here without undisputed proof? On the other hand the post war slaughter of Croats and other nationalities across Slovenia and Croatia especially is very evident in mass graves,pits,caves and old mines with only 10% of them uncovered currently so I'm not playing a victim here. If there is evidence for something I take it as it is. And there is zero for the genocide of Serbs in the form of what is claimed. And that famous British author is surely very objective in using material that doesn't exist except in the old Yugoslav war reparation effort of imaginary numbers. I dont need a lecture from a famous Brit whose country is built on the genocide of God knows how many peoples of various cultures. As for Serbs of Croatia in the 90s,all they had to do was acknowledge Croatia as their homeland,they're well aware of that today. But they listened to their warmongering leaders in Belgrade,one of them is the current president of Serbia so enough said. All in all you think you know but you dont have the slightest idea. Look at Russia now and learn.
@@calmperson7426 Eh what? "The number of people killed in Bleiburg was relatively small" It's like Stalin said....you seem to be one of those. Even one persons death is wrong so saying shit like this...i doubt you are a sane human.
@@calmperson7426 everything you said is correct Croatia never liked Jugoslavia especially in the diaspora you would see more people wearing shirts with the ndh map than regular Croatia the influence from the diaspora was very high.
Bakir Lyingbegović - guy lied about everything he signed
There is only one answer that could fix this situation. A confederation of 3 national entities. Every entity would basically function like it's own state with parliament and president and there could be a president on the country level but only have symbolic position and he would rotate between each nationality.
if you put confederation Bosniaks as major lost lever of majority power and that is what cause war. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
@@DzIVDzAN what? there won't be war because if they try they will pay dearly, it won't be beneficial in any way, on one side 4 milion Croatians and on other 8 milion Serbs and there is only 2 milion of Muslims
@@snokehusk223 Serbs and Croats are 45% population of BiH and it is 45% of votes at the best, Bosniaks has 51% of population. In confederate BiH you took that lever of majority decision from Bosniaks and that is reason for war, and that had been reason for war in first place.
@@DzIVDzAN Bosniaks don't have any more rights just because they are a majority. It is a country of 3 constituent nationalities. So they are equal. There will never be a Muslim state so it is best that every nationality has their own entity to rule. Thus prosperity will come to all.
The division into 3 confederal units would possible only if it was just. Unjust division based on pure force and fait accompli will never be accepted by Muslims
Muslims are 53% of Bosnian population If they were offered at least 50% of Bosnian territory they would consider idea of confederation seriously. .
However Serbs and Croats insist on keeping the land they occupied and ethnicly cleansed by force during the war
Muslims at the moment control only 32% of country and there is no way they would accept confederation on these terms and will therefore insist on unification of the country.
Croats who are realy not more than 11% of population are trying to hold to 19% of land they occupied during the war and Serbs who are 32% of population of BH still control 49% of land.
Western powers created the unjust peace plan with most compicated federal sistem in world where in reality Muslims were pushed into two enclaves while in the rest of country they were ethnicly cleansed. However even that concessions are not enough for Serbs and Croats becose they feel that they can get even more as they are supported by Serbia and Croatia, Rusia and some right wing anty-Muslim circles in Europe
That creates huge resentment among Bosnian Muslims population which, is much more motivated for fight. Children of those inocent people who were exterminated in Srebrenica, Zvornik Prijedor etc. are now in age were they can hold the gun. They can see how much their parents suffered at the hands of Serbs and Croats and how much they are now discriminated in a country in which they are majority. Injustice always creates conflict.
As a Bosnian Bosniak, I have to say that this video is spot-on.
You presented the issues as realistically as possible, and were quite objective.
You weren’t like other UA-camrs who basically say “Guys, Bosnia is 95% going to break up”.
I will definetely subscribe to you :)
Your people brake up Yugoslavia,want country just for "Bosniaks" and that mean just for muslims,im i wrong...Others got same rights or thay dont got rights like you who dont even right full name of a country where you live...
@@gloopdogg4861 ordinary people don’t want to break up the country.
It is the nationalists who want to “Create a homogenous [insert ethnicity] state/seceede]”
@@pasoska_kontrola That aint truth man,ordinary people want independence and "clean" country without Serbs,stop lie and tell the truth,Croats and Bosniaks start to kill Serbs just like in WW2...How Serbs didnt war with Slovenia or Macedonia,thaý want independece but didnt kill Serbs ...First wictims in Bosnia and Croatia is the same wictims from WW2,Serbs...Croatian and Bosniak ordinary people was happy when Nato bomb Serbia,thay support Albanians on Kosovo to take Serbian teritory,but where is that "ordinary" people to say something about Serbs in Albania who dont got rights for Serbian names and last names,how i know all Croats and Muslims who live before war in Serbia still live,can you say same about Serbs in Croatia,Bosniak part of Bosnia and Kosovo...
@@gloopdogg4861 Ah, so Bosniaks are the ones to blame for everything that happened in Bosnia? Please just shut up and read actual historical texts.
Also, fyi, Serbia *did* have a war with Slovenia.
Also, you’re portraying it as if every person is just going around looking for Serbs to kill
Yes you'd say you come from Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦 full name of the Republic.
8000 people in Srebrenica? Every year is more and more?
And what about British soldiers who were operating in that region in 1995?
How many Boniaks they killed and tryed to blame Serbs?
If Brits could just leave us alone, everything would be much better.
Disgusting view.
the original number is actually 8372, the anniversary is coming up so inform yourself, ofc the number is going up because new bodies are being found every year. Whats sad is that the people have to dig on dumpsites, 15m down, on remote locations just to find someones son or grandson, and that theres probably someone out there who knows all the sites but wount say where they are. The mass grave Tomasica was found because the Serb that was driving the bodies in his truck said where they are, years after it had happened the quilt caught up
@@dzenanbrkic9606 Some people where killed that’s fact. But that number of 8000 is fake, i personally know a lot of them whom live in USA, and they are on the list in Srebrenica.
Another thing is that many people that are actually dead and on that list, where killed somewhere else during the war.
Don’t trust to the mainstream media narrative.
@@organic3132 you do realise that the excavation of those bodies, identification, time of death,cause of death, has all been done by proffesionals right? what social media was there in the middle of the 90s that would lie in such a manner in such a disturbing toppic? i dont care if ur an autonomas or serb or bosniak or croat or some random dude but you sure are tapped in the head
The Bosniaks used UN 'safe zones' as staging areas to attack Serb villages.
I hope you injoyed your time in RS in Bosnia, glad you came to mine town in Teslić, which has the most beautiful Spa in country, we have stunning mountain range Borja, also before the monastery Liplje you have switch to left where you can find the best cooked fish in country, maybe wider, you are welcomed to come again into our beautiful municipality 😁👍
Peace in Bosnia is depended on many external and internal factors, we saw how fast can a war start, so any major crisis in the Balkans and war in Bosnia or Kosovo could be there again, the intensity of war would depend on whether Serbia would be directly involved in it or not and whether now Russia would react much more aggressive in supporting Serbia (Russian interest in Serbia) or not.
Bad thing is that, that revanchism is still present in Bosnia-Serbia-Albania so the conflict have a good basis and it will be hard to get rid of it for a long time
croats and slovenes in the past years and even now continue to urge EU to accept Serbia-BiH-Albania-Montenegro-Kosovo-North Macedonia in EU and NATO, slovenes even tried something with "non paper" didn't go well
Serbia is a country which is neutral so it seeks it own interest and it doesn't have to align it interest to the interest of neighboring countries as long as it is like that the war is inevitable, that is not by any mean WRONG as it is not wrong for Russia, USA, Germany, France,..... to seek their interest but then we won't have peace
( Croatia stated that Serbia not being part of NATO is a risk and that EU should work in the direction of convincing Serbia to join despite what happened in 99 )
Serbian pretension on R. of Srpska are very low and majority of Serbian eyes are on Kosovo, and that is exactly where Serbia expect another conflict, we can see that from the way serbian military is being equipped and that is with air defense systems and drones, artillery and MLRS as well as building ground troops for now their equipment but it is planned to restart conscripts and enlarge number of soldiers, again Serbia building it own military is not by any mean WRONG and as a sovereign country have right to do that
interesting thing happened when president of Montenegro and Albania stated that arming of Serbia is dangerous for the region and asked president of N. Macedonia if he shares the opinion, he said that he doesn't see any danger of armament of Serbia, N. Macedonia was once faced with Albanian chauvinist and nationalist and understand that the only country that went through it is Serbia and that there is where they could find support
Bosnian dependence on peace
-----Internal factors:
-Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia can make decisions without Serbia, we saw that in the 90s, today it would be more difficult but they can.
-Bosnian Croats mainly relay on support of Croatia
-Bosnian Bosniaks have good grip of control in the whole BiH but without support from EU and NATO they won't be able to keep serbs
and croats the same way Milosevic couldn't keep Bosnia in Yugoslavia,
legality of whether it is legal or not to separate is irrelevant if you have strong enough military and International blind spot or countries willing
to turn blind eye or actually support you in secession
------External factors:
-Serbia - the fact that Serbian government adopted paper (strategic national security) which makes notes of R. of Srpska and importance for
Serbian security and security of Serbs in Bosnia tells enough and that Serbia is willing to work on them, as they
do, investing money in infrastructure and selling weapons to R. of Srpska
- Croatia- is in recent years started to support more and more croatians in Bosnia, which is leading to some conflicts in politics between
Bosnian Bosniaks and Bosnian Croatians, but Bosnian Croatians received support from Bosnian serbs in making their own
entity
-then there is EU which by large support integrity of Bosnia and it "unification"
-NATO- shares the interest of USA and many European countries as well are in favor of supporting Bosnia
-Russia- seeks their own interest in the Balkans, projecting power by using Serbia, we will see much less of that if Russia lose war in Ukraine, but if Russia win and gain access to Danube river then we will see much greater Russian influence in the region as well as Chinese
Peace depend only from Bosniaks.Only Bosniak can attack Serbs or Croats if they want independent.......Simple......
@@zoranparezanovic1978 if we look at situation objectively we both know that, that isn't the chase, peace mostly depend on Bosniaks and Serbs as they are majority and both sides can start a war so, i already explained my view of the situation.
@@svetpolitikeratovaioruzja4695 why should serbs starr war?Where is interest for that?Bosniaks plan to attack serbs or croats if thet proclaim independent,so bosnoaks want start war.....simly
You have alot of completely accurate points with Kosovo and Republika Srpska I agree with pretty much everything.
@@bilic8094 of cource,but that mean that war start Bosniaks,not Serbs!Because their leaders speak war stories,and they think that threy can have some interest in next war!Kosovo is finished story.....there will not be nothing!
Next for Republic of Srpska is freedom !
30 years has passed. This should be evidence enough that RS will not seperate. Learn to live with your neighbour in a peaceful way. Slava Bosnia
Пола Босне ћирилицу пише ако да Бог ускоро цела . ☦️🇷🇸 Слава Богу
Samo Allah je Bog.
On je ziv i nepromjenjiv.
Nikoga nije rodio niti je roden.
Njemu niko nije ravan.
I have a question: when will you do a video about bolivia and the summit of americas? I think there is interesting developments happening over there and I want to know if you could a video about those topics in regards to bolivia and the summit of the americas.
Not only Bolivia, but a video on the Summit of the Americas would be interesting, although I wonder if it would fit the theme of the channel since the issue there is more geopolitical, and the issue of human rights is not nearly as significant
Why is there a question mark at the end?
Why do you think there is?
Fantastic with an on location video - makes it all seem even more relevant. I really appreciate your dedication to detail - as having your own name tag in different alphabets/languages...😉👍
Thanks so much Dano. I’m glad you liked the video. And the name tag was fun to do. Always interesting seeing one’s name in a different language! 😀🙏🏻
Why isn't the Bosniak entity working? In highly decentralized state, if constituent entities all work, the whole would work. Trying to rid RS seems to apply wrong medicine
Exactly they can't run the federation correctly yet want to run the whole country.
It was wrong for them to stop the war. And after the war, an even worse political war will come again. If the West had helped Bosnia to rid itself of its enemies, there would never have been any problems. No Bosnian people asked for the signing of the Dayston Agreement.
The Bosniak people do not want the entity "RS" to exist. It is a para-entity that was created by committing so much unnecessary evil, genocide, ethnic cleansing of a people that did nothing to harm anyone, and this is how it comes back to them.
There is still a pretension on the part of the enemy to disintegrate Bosnia. For this reason, Bosnia is not progressing. The enemies are not allowing it to move forward. They are marching with Chetnik symbols along the "RS" and sowing fear to the returnees, singing war songs. that for support and advancement?
If kosovo can separate why can't rs?
Because Rs is based on historical genocides after the Berlin kongress.
😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑 when Bosniaks
lost State Security in the Homeland.
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Thank you very much for this video!!
I've been to Banja Luka last month and it was the most calm and safest city I've been to.
Agree. It is a very safe place. Interestingly, as I filmed this video outside the presidential office I had no questions about what I was going or why I was there. However, I should note that I did meet some suspicion in the other location. But that was in a more remote area that had also been on the front lines in the war.
@@JamesKerLindsay Yes I'm talking just about the city. Lots of visible police cars, vast majority of drivers are on the Scandinavian level of driving and walking at night doesn't fell scary.
Also I felt like there like plebs walking around in t-shirt.
History of wars in Ex Yugoslavia aint start in 90's,its start after First and Second Balkan war and after WW1...If there wasnt Serbian army today Macedonia will be Bulgaria (Second Balkan war,Bulgaria atack Serbia and want to anex Macedonia...thay lose) ...Today Croatia (Austrohungary in ww1) will be Italy if Italy who won in ww1 got what was promised to them,in ww2 Italy switch sides and be with Germany (ww1 fight against Germany)...Today Slovenia will be Austria and one part Italy...Serbia is only one country of all ex Yugoslavia countrys who won in WW1 and ww2 but lost to many people (ww1 lost 50% male population) in WW2 more Serbs is killed by Croatians and Bosniaks (Nazi pupet states) then from Nazi Germany,all thay use ocupation of Yugoslavia to just kill Serbs,thay kill Croats who was loyal to Yugoslavia...in 90's wars in Yugoslavia first wictims was Serbs and even now you cant find one singl Serbian family in Croatia and Bosnia who dont got sombody who is killed by Croats and Bosniak in WW2...Bosniak SS divizion and Croatian Ustaše start all,who dont trust me,do resurch...
100% true. In Banja Luka region, everyone has someone who was monsteruosly slaughtered in Jasenovac, croatian concentration camp in 2nd world war... 700,000plp. Stil very painful topic for all. If that didnt happen, Serbs would be today's majority in Bosnia and Herzegovina
@@mariposadebosnia Banja Luka in WW2 was a Croatian town but now its a Serbian town with no Croats or other non-Serbs.
@@northernstar4811 you mean occupied by nazzi NDH?
@@cicadraza3671 Banja Luke was a Croatian populated town ,now its occupied by the Serbian organisers of ethnic cleansing and genocide ( as per the Hague court for events in Srebrenica).
@@northernstar4811 the same happened in the SAO Krajina, genocide....
Thank you, Professor. What parallels can be drawn with Belgium and Quebec? There's several economic opportunities in those two countries and people can freely speak in Flemish/French and English/French. Could integration into the European Union make a material difference, or are the challenges of corruption and recent warfare too much to overcome at this time?
I thing better comparison here would be Rwanda,as neither Belgium nor Canada had history of ethnic/religious tensions that led to bloody civil wars. The difference between Rwanda and BnH is that Rwanda immediately started the reconciliation and started making something out of their country. On other hand,politicians in Bosnia prosper from conflict and animosity they create,they are the main problem here. I don't thing reconciliation is impossible,but with corrupt politicians that are like "Remember that bloody war we had less than 30 years ago?You wanna round 2 of it?" it's difficult.
@@Weeboslav Rwanda is an interesting comparison. But the economic output of most Rwandans is much lower than the output of most Bosnians. Also Bosnia is quick driving and flying distance to European Union countries, while Rwanda has made big jumps in economic output.
Believe me, it is a myth that here in Flanders everything is going good. Our education is getting lower and lower in the PISA ranks and we are having a massive labour shortage, we don't even have enough teachers! Some schools have started with even giving no exams straight away and giving fun workshops, while our education level is decreasing with the year.
Our energy security is gone and we'll face an energy crisis if the French multinational Engie doesn't help us as quick as it can.
Our federal government (formed after very long negotiations) is showing cracks again and right wing extremists are probably gonna win the next election.... They promised to make Flanders independent whether it is supported by the other regions or not.... Get ready for a rough ride if you live in Flanders.
@@Weeboslav You have ethnic and religious tensions in Belgium
1. Flemish speaking VS French speaking. The Flemish have been treated bad under the Walloons and the French. To this day the national day of Flanders is the day where they beat the French.... In 1302... Just until last century the Flemish language became recognized.
2. There were protestans tensions between Catholics. That's a logic one, I guess.
@@houseplant1016 No doubt. But economic security across multiple groups in a country is one of the main paths toward avoiding wars and coup d'etats. After all the Arab Spring was, after many years of tension, sparked by the suicide of a cart vendor who didn't have the "right" permits. And a lot of Americans voted for Trump because they didn't have economic security.
What about a democratic solution? Asking the people there what they want? Or this time democracy is not good?
@Anonymous Bosch then, maybe the other two, could chose a more independent way, if they don't like what the others chose.
thank you. I might not agree with your conclusions, but appreciate the fact that you did an on the ground assessment, instead of an ivory tower pronouncement as others would do
If you don’t mind explaining what part you don’t agree with regarding his conclusion. Just curious
@@nikogrubac I feel bad that you have posed your question so politely, yet I feel uncomfortable giving a full reply. UA-cam is unfortunately not a forum for civilised discourse amongst people with differing views, but a shield for anonymous cowards to hijack a conversation with insults and curses.
This much I can say is that firstly the Prof seems to have focused his intercourse with a single party. Whether he had a prior bias or not, that surely impacts his assessment.
Secondly, he offers window dressing for a system that I'd think everyone agrees has failed. That makes no sense to me. It's as if he's saying to children, "You are disobedient. Whether you like it or not we are your parents. That can't be changed. All that needs to be changed is your behaviour and then we'll tweak some of the house rules."
Great video, nice that you went there.
Greetings from Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska. I hope you had a good time here. I will only say things here are very complicated and the EU, UK and USA make it even more so, by supporting one side and pressuring another. Yugoslavia is connected and Western powers acting like it's not, if you give Kosovo right to be sovereign state, if you help Croats and Albanians to expell Serbs from that territories and then you say they have the right to do it,but you Serbs don't have same right, of course it will make us to rebbel on those actions. RS, Serbia and Montenegro is our last stand and we will give hell to everybody trying to take one inch of that territory from us ,it is the matter of life and death and we will fight like lions, for our land. Cheers 🍻 and peace ✌️
I'm convinced they could solve all the issues with fair solutions for everyone in the Balkans but they don't want to.
@@bilic8094 they can off course, leave Kosovo in Serbia with greatest possible autonomy and the Serbs in Bosnia would automatically get more relaxed. But they want frozen conflict here and that's it.
@@psihodelija8917 I mean wouldn't it benefit Europe more if the Balkans focused more on the economy and less on conflict but I guess they prefer conflict.
@@bilic8094 it would be better for all, especially for us in the Balkans to help us to take down our courpted politicians, who are dictators. But I think that they install them so they can indepth the country and keep us ruind and inslaved. If you see the history of Balkans, Europe is allways present here and their presence was to colonise us, and it was never good. Divide and conquer.
English made your Yugoslavia in 1918 and gifted you Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo etc. In 1991 they took it away from you. Why? our balkan minds are to small to understand English humour, so just accept it and move on.
Self determination should recognise by every country. War never solve problems rather destruction and lost of lives. Ideology is solved through dialogues
Now I know why you were in Bosnia! I am LOVING these location videos!
Thank you so much Roger. Yes, I spent a really lovely week there. First time back in several years. And glorious weather. It really is a stunningly beautiful country. I was showing a friend some pictures this evening from a village on one of the hills. If you look one way, you could be in Tuscany. You then turn around and you could be in Switzerland.
@@JamesKerLindsay Well this is lovely!
You didnt answer, why Bosnian serbs dont want to live with muslims in Bosnia?why its one sided video?serbs can live with muslims in Raska in Serbia. There are reasons.
This was not my first video on Bosnia. I have done others. I can't go over the same things each time.
Could you please provide your sources for these views and list of people (professors of law, politics and other relevant sciences) you talked to? I really need to understand what sources you have used (especially local), before I can make any comments.