Dizdarević: Strujić Harbić's statement legitimizes the hegemonic ideas of nationalists

The statement by Bosniak Party MP Kenana Strujić Harbić that Bosniaks see Bosnia and Herzegovina as their home state, even if it was given as a personal comment based on family discourse, essentially opposes the civic order of Montenegro, legitimizing the hegemonic ideas of nationalists, who would initially want Montenegro to be a state of the Serbian and Montenegrin people, and all others, which would lead to its certain disintegration in the next iteration, announced today the Vice President of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and MP in the Parliament of Montenegro, Abaz Dizdarević.

According to him, the lack of understanding of the organization of a civil state by senior officials of the Bosniak Party, and even more controversially, their actions in favor of a confederation of national communities, points to the conclusion that this party has accepted the narrative of its coalition partner Andrija Mandić, who dreams of the ethno-federalization of Montenegro.

"Just as the Serbs from Montenegro represent an indigenous people who have been in this region for centuries, and whom Mandić wants to characterize as the Serbian diaspora, so too are the Bosniaks in Montenegro on their own, without a reserve homeland," Dizdarević pointed out.

As he said, historical processes, reterritorialization and ultimately the framework of borders within which Montenegro is located today, are the centuries-old hearth of the largest number of Bosniaks.

"They built their indigenousness, cultural and traditional uniqueness into the foundations of the state of Montenegro. The spiritual center of Bosniaks, as an independent institution in the form of the Islamic Community of Montenegro, has its center in Podgorica, so it is under the jurisdiction of the state of Montenegro. I guess that speaks volumes about where the Bosniaks of Montenegro are based. That is why Strujić Harbić and her like-minded people from the Bosniak Party should know that they can make such statements on their own behalf, and on behalf of the officials of the party to which they belong, but that they do not have the exclusive right to speak on behalf of all Bosniaks, for whom Montenegro is both their mother and their homeland, and who do not agree to the status of a diaspora in their own state," he concluded.