Historical Bosnian "No!"

Jim called me sometime after midnight to tell me what happened to him today. You don't know Jim Marshall, a Scotsman who came to Mostar for two or three weeks in 1994, then stayed in Bosnia for twenty-two years. Even to this day, he lives like that in Sarajevo, he has a job, a wife, a child and a habit of calling in the dead of night from a bar and telling what happened to him today.

Elem, Jim was at the Service for Affairs with Foreigners in Pijačna Street in Stup, to arrange the papers for extending his stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when in the queue in front of him some foreigner approached the counter and politely addressed the clerk, explaining to her in English how he wanted to register his stay in BiH. And she answered him in perfect Bosnian that she was sorry, but that they only speak Bosnian in the Service for Affairs with Foreigners.

Stopped, poor Jim is amazed that the Service for Foreigners doesn't know English, and I stopped and marveled at the Scotsman that, well, he's been living in Bosnia and Herzegovina for twenty-two years, and the poor man still understood he didn't, so he still wonders at her. Namely, that officials in the Service for Affairs with Foreigners do not know foreign languages ​​is the very definition of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its deepest, precisely essential meaning. Turkish is spoken in schools here, English is spoken at work, Arabic is spoken in mosques, and Bosnian is spoken only in government services dealing with foreigners.

And if, for all I know, Mak Dizdar stopped me on the street tomorrow and asked "excuse me, who is that, what is that, forgive me, Bosnia?", I would answer him like this: Bosnia, forgive me, is a country in which, how would I you said, they don't know foreign languages ​​in the Service for Affairs with Foreigners.

Like in that Koža joke - I already told you about it in this place, you may remember, four years ago - when Mujo and Suljo were sitting idly in a tavern, and some man approached them, you could see that he was a stranger even before he spoke . "Excuse me," he politely addressed Muja and Sulja, "do you speak English?" Mujo and Suljo just looked at each other. "Nou", then Mujo remembered. "Und sädt?", the stranger smiled with some vague hope, "sprehenzi sädt?" Suljo shrugged, and Mujo repeated: "Nou." "Parle vu franse?" the man continued. "Parla Italiano?... Nederlands? Norsk? Svenska?" "Nou, nou," Mujo shook his head. "Okay," the stranger paused and rubbed his temples. "Spanish? Habla espanjol?... Portuguese???" "Jok," Suljo answered him now, then immediately corrected himself: "No."

The stranger then saw that everything was in vain, so he left the tavern, and Suljo grabbed his head: "Oh, I'm really uncomfortable now." "What?" Mujo turned to him. "Well, we don't know any language, just who makes hooves!", he answered. "Well??", Mujo looked at him. "There's a man who speaks nine languages, so what's the point?"

This is what the vast, unknown and hostile white world looked like four years ago when viewed from a Bosnian tavern. The only thing is that in the meantime, Mujo and Suljo got a job at the Service for Affairs with Foreigners.

Where else, anyway? Without any school or qualifications, without knowledge of a single foreign language, the unfortunates could only be employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Agency for the Promotion of Foreign Investments or the Service for Affairs with Foreigners. At least if they had learned English, they could have been waiters in that tavern.

That's how, I say, the vast, unknown and hostile white world looked four years ago, seen from the tavern, and that's how it still looks today, seen through the glass partition at the counter in Pijačna Street. That distant white world - I wrote then - invented parliamentary democracy, civil society, a secular state, human rights, an independent judiciary, the European Union and three hundred miracles, and what are they for? "No", the Bosnians replied with a short shrug.

Twenty-four languages ​​are spoken by the so-called European Union, and they are all for nothing. European commissioners and commissioners used to come to Bosnia and Herzegovina, then pass by like that stranger - Kožo told me at the time - who entered Konzum's granap next to his shop, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and called out to the cashier to ask her something, "Excuse me we...?", and she, terrified, quickly interrupted him: "No!".

It's easy, however, that the confused stranger in Konzum's granap is surprised by the miracle, it's easy that the stranger in Muja and Sulja's tavern, and Jim Marshall at the Service counter on the Stupa are also surprised by the miracle, but - you read in the newspaper - they are also surprised by the miracle Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where they recently issued an official report on foreign direct investments for 2015, and were amazed to note that already miserable foreign investments in Bosnia and Herzegovina have almost halved compared to the previous year.

Not so long ago, and you also read about it, the distinguished Swiss businessman Edmond Offermann withdrew a donation of three million euros for the reconstruction of the Trebevic cable car. An unfortunate person came to Sarajevo with a donation - to give gifts, not to invest! - so with a bag full of money he knocked on the glass on the counter of the Service for Foreigners, "Excuse me...?", and they immediately answered him in horror: "No!" Herr Edmond then, what will he do, gave up and retreated.

And if a person doesn't know these things, he might as well read the news published on the same day when the unfortunate Scotsman Jim Marshall recounted his incredible affair on Facebook, that it spread over the vast, unknown and hostile white world behind the glass partition at the Service desk in Pijačna Street . On the same day, it was announced that the President of the Presidency, Dragan Čović, officially submitted Bosnia and Herzegovina's application for membership in the European Union in Brussels.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn - we heard on television - said that "this is a big day for Bosnia and Herzegovina". "This is just the beginning of a long journey at the end of which the result should be full membership of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the European Union, but a lot still needs to be done until then," said Mr. Hahn, and the Union's High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Federica Mogherini, agreed with him: " A lot has been done in recent months, but there is still a lot of work to do."

Still a lot to do? Still a lot to do? Of course. First, translate the request into English.

As they explained to us, the procedure is as follows: after the submission of BiH's request, the Council of Europe asks the European Commission for a so-called "avis" - opinion - and the Commission's first step is an extensive questionnaire that it sends to the applicant state, with several thousand questions about the country, basic data, political and legal system, population structure, economic potential, compliance with European legislation and other matters of interest to the Union.

What kind of "avis" now, what kind of painful question mark?

A few thousand questions?!?

"Noah!"

(Liberation)