Cheering and emotions, BiH and Croatia

(Peščanik.net)

Everything that is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina in connection with the World Cup and the national team's performance there is a perfect reflection of the general internal destruction, but also of all the beauty that this country is made of and all that it could be in a more beautiful world.

When it comes to the first, I am talking about the official policy of the Republika Srpska, which did everything to ensure that not a single Serb was part of that team, but also about the decisions of local HDZ authorities in several more sensitive and multinational areas, where they decided to ban fan zones or remove flags placed above the streets. Which was done in Novi Travnik, Vitez and Čapljina. The third destructive thing is closely related to the first, and that is the evident war on symbols and flags and the entire debate around it, with the argumentation among the nationalist part of Croats that they would definitely support BiH, if there were not so many flags of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with lilies, which traumatize them and remind them of war traumas.

When we talk about the second, we cannot ignore the fact that despite all the destructive efforts, the leadership of the federation, the coaching staff and the national team are truly made up of everyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina, that they evidently breathe as one and that this fact and emotion have been recognized by many in the country, the region and the world. And finally, that qualifying for the World Cup has awakened some utopian hope that a different Bosnia and Herzegovina is possible.

But, to return to the key topic of the text, which is the issue of cheering for or against the national team, which leads to insults, malice, hurting people and bad blood. And I will write about this from my own experience, or rather from first hand, because I think that in a situation like this it is the most expedient and that it could help. Namely, about fifteen years ago, when I was not a public figure, participating in the large Documenta project about personal memories of wars, speaking full of anger about everything that happened to us and about the world that was created after the war, I insulted more or less all the people and symbols that I considered guilty of universal destruction. Which, years later, the right wing used as a crowning argument against anything I advocated and spoke about in public. Of course, I would not speak about symbols and people like that again, nor have I ever done so again, but that is precisely why I understand how far anger can lead us. Basically, at that time I said that I simply supported the Croatian national team because of the complete symbolism it carries, so that later I could be ironic in those periods when Hajduk fans massively supported the national team, saying that I supported it, when that was not allowed. However, irony and anger aside, the issue of supporting the national team, just like the issue of whether someone loves a country or not, and then being expelled from the country, if you don't like it by someone's standards, is a right-wing reflex and collective violence against a person and their feelings. And I have experienced this very well in the last fifteen years. As far as the relationship towards the state is concerned, the only thing that matters is whether you respect its laws, the people who live in it and whether you are a decent citizen. Emotions, on the other hand, are related to our identities, political worldviews and memories. And this is roughly the point up to which the argument of Serbian and Croatian nationalists on the issue of supporting or not supporting BiH is valid.

To be honest, I have had a problem for years with any identification with the Croatian national football team, even though I lived in Croatia, even though my family is partly from that country, and even despite the fact that I love that country, because all that Tudjmanist folklore and the essential nationalism it emitted, which culminated when the players collectively signed a petition in support of the generals who were planning to stage a coup, and were retired by Stipe Mesić, completely annoyed me. And the same is true with the clerical right-winging of the current coach Dalić. But again, like it or not, when the national team in Russia started to make its way to the finals with character, of course you care, that you identify with it and that you were sorry that they didn't win the World Cup. Which was all true until the return to Zagreb and Thompson at the reception. In short, I completely understand the situation when someone, for symbolic, ideological or human reasons, cannot identify with their own country's team.

But there are two key points that make my situation not identical to the one repeated by those who would not support BiH today. First, there is a significant difference in how the fans behave, and how the association or in some cases the club itself. Let's take the example of Hajduk. None of us can influence, nor should we give up on the club, because its most ardent fans are realistically a huge percentage of Ustashas. But there is a problem when the club officially runs to the derby with Dinamo with a banner that says: "HNK Hajduk for Croatian Vukovar". So with support for efforts to remove the Cyrillic alphabet from use in Vukovar. That is an official act of the club with which a decent person cannot identify.

However, all the objections to the flags with lilies and the arguments that in such an environment one cannot come and cheer with Serbian or Croatian flags from BiH, among the fans, and that because of that one cannot identify with the national team, do not stand for several reasons. The first is that these flags were the ones that waged war against the idea of ​​that state, that is, these flags are symbols of two parastates created with the intention of seceding from BiH. And those who care about these symbols certainly would not truly cheer for that country, even if there were not a single flag with lilies in the stands.

And secondly, and even more importantly, the following. Yes, it is possible to feel excluded and not share the symbolism of the majority of fans, but unlike the official policy of the aforementioned Croatian Football Association and the national team itself, that is, its coaches and players, with BiH everything is the other way around. Because there is literally nothing that the association, the coaching staff or the players of that team do to exclude anyone, humiliate anyone or present themselves as an exclusive team of anyone in the country. All these people do is emit positive energy, and that is extremely healing for such a society and it is unfair not to recognize that fact.