Citizens of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo gather on June 16, 2013. AFP PHOTO / ELVIS BARUKCIC
On Monday, Fehim Škaljić, the Chairman of the House of Representatives of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH), stated that the body was “completely paralyzed.” His candid admission about one of Bosnia’s two post-war ruling entities – the other being the Serb Republic (RS) — may serve as grim justification to the thousands of Bosnians mourning the death of an infant at the heart of a growing anti-government movement.
Early demonstrations crystallized around a sole grievance — the ruling coalition’s inability to find a solution to lapsed legislation on ID numbers. (As a result, all babies born since the law expired in February lack the ID documents needed to acquire passports and insurance cards.) On June 5, mothers pushing baby carriages blockaded parliament with a human chain; the movement soon spread across Bosnia, galvanized by reports of critically ill babies unable to travel abroad for health care. Including Berina Hamidovic, a one-month-old infant who passed away on Thursday of a treatable medical condition. Without an ID number and passport, the ailing infant’s travel to nearby Serbia for vital medical treatment had been delayed. Her death prompted thousands of protesters to once again surround parliament on Sunday, this time in a candlelight vigil, and new protests have been planned for the coming days.
However, it remains to be seen if Hamidovic’s death — and the public outcry surrounding it — will be enough to build the traction necessary for the self-dubbed “Baby Revolution” to end a political stalemate twenty years in the making. The FBiH and the RS have acrimoniously ruled Bosnia since the end of the 1992-1995 war, with the sticking point to harmony — and it’s a big one — being that the Serb mini-state wants autonomy, and the Federation wants unity. The ID-number fracas illustrates that divergence. Serb lawmakers want to allocate the numbers independently from the FBiH, and as a result, the issue has been under factitious debate for over two years now, with scant progress made. Which means that even if the “Baby Revolution” soldiers on, the political levers needed for concrete action — starting with new ID number legislation — appear firmly jammed. Today, Bosnia’s ruling coalition has swollen to an over-governed and inefficient administration that is reportedly the most expensive in Europe. (Škaljić admitted on Monday that the Federation is nearing economic collapse.) Bosnia’s inability to centralize its government has delayed its progress towards E.U. accession, even as its Balkan neighbors advance, and national unemployment has surpassed 20 percent.
All the political squabbling has taken a toll not only on the country’s purse strings, but on its psyche. Cue Bosnia’s first post-war popular movement to overcome ethnic divisions and rally members of the country’s three main ethnicities, Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats, against both ruling entities. While protesters initially struggled to outline collective grievances, they have since coalesced around a series of demands (a 30-percent salary decrease for all lawmakers, a fund for sick children, and an end to political infighting) and a deadline for permanent legislation on ID numbers: June 30. Even if that last ultimatum is met, however — a dubious possibility given past wrangling — the inter-ethnic movement’s momentum is far from stalling. Thanks in large part to social media, it has expanded well beyond Sarajevo, and furthermore, beyond the “babies” of the “Baby Revolution.” Thousands of young, urban, and disaffected youths are now launching their own protests against joblessness and government incompetence. Sound familiar?
