Last week's vote in the RS National Assembly was a demonstration exercise of what every subsequent "historic" or "fatal" vote on the laws that Milorad Dodik has been planning to adopt in the last two months will look like - whether it's a new Constitution, a law on media or foreign agents. The method is simple: everything can be presented as a national interest, and anyone who opposes it can be accused in advance as a traitor, unpatriotic, mercenary or servant of the occupier.
For more than 20 years, Milorad Dodik has been cementing complete power in his own fiefdom, the Republika Srpska created in Dayton, using the same proven tactics. The opposition is labeled in advance as weak, indecisive and treacherous, it briefly rebels, struggles and finally agrees to the game, justifying it by the alleged interests of the Republika Srpska.
We should be honest and share the credit with everyone, not only the oppositionists of Republika Srpska are responsible for Dodik's political power, but also the opposition and the government from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik himself has said several times that he would erect a monument to Haris Silajdžić because he destroyed the April package, allowing him to spread himself politically. With the recent senseless conclusion about assisting EUFOR in the possible arrest of Milorad Dodik, Bećirović and Komšić have once again thrown a worn-out political ball to Dodik, always ready to hit it into the punctured opposition and state net. Senseless, because EUFOR has its own command, and fortunately, local politicians have no influence on the movement and actions of even the few soldiers on the peacekeeping mission.
After each such political drama, Dodik becomes even stronger, and his accusations that the opposition is weak, disorganized and opportunistic are confirmed as true. Of course, honor to the rare exceptions. While Milorad Dodik plays all or nothing, the opposition, although objectively has nothing to lose, persistently calculates and gets entangled in its own powerlessness, expecting a better result from obviously poor work. He is ready to risk everything, which is not a small thing, while the opposition risks nothing, although its position has long been hopeless. Completely powerless to articulate the immense dissatisfaction of the people. Yes, the people are mostly dissatisfied.
In private, commercial and profit terms, Dodik is continuously winning in this way - there is nothing to add to that. Dodik is the master of Republika Srpska and, unfortunately, he can do whatever he wants with it; he has been working on it for decades, and his ruthless concept is now experiencing its full culmination.
However, in a human, democratic, political and every other sense, with Dodik's behavior like this, we all lose as a society. That is the only reason why this kind of boring, repetitive political game should be given any attention. Not the meaning, because the meaning has long been lost.
When in a society an individual becomes stronger and more important than the society itself, more powerful than the institutions and systems, that society is defeated and doomed to disappear. This is an inexorable historical fact.
At this moment, when we are facing the possible disappearance of society as we know it, it is completely unclear what the interests of Republika Srpska really are. We need to seriously ask ourselves: are the interests of Republika Srpska represented by the people who live here, their mutual relations, the remaining nature, the few companies that still operate, the local youth, the culture, the position within Bosnia and Herzegovina - or are they exclusively political parties, their leaders Dodik and Draško, and their personal interests?
While we still have brains, we should give it a chance and constantly ask ourselves how it is possible that the vital interests of the Republika Srpska almost always coincide perfectly with the personal interests of politicians and parties, and very rarely with the ordinary small human interests of citizens who survive here waiting for that promised better life?
The answer to this question also lies in the answer to whether we have any future as people who still survive here. Because it is precisely these people, who stay, work and fight even though they have received nothing from society and the system except disappointment, who are the last guarantee that tomorrow can exist at all. If they too give up, only politicians will remain - and society has never been important or necessary to them.
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