The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered the first-instance verdict in the criminal case against Milorad Dodik et al. on February 26, 2025. The court sentenced the accused, Milorad Dodik, to one (1) year of imprisonment and imposed a security measure prohibiting him from performing the duties of the President of the Republic of Srpska for six (6) years, effective from the date the verdict becomes final. As usual, Milorad Dodik and his associates have characterized this verdict as an attack on Serbs.
The ethnicity defense, which no one is attacking, has been used as justification for all kinds of decisions in Serbia for nearly 40 years. Those who recognized this as false and not the path to a better life, such as Slovenia and Croatia, have long been part of the European Union. Over the past 10 years, the participants of PERSPECTIVA have consistently recognized this policy as manipulation and regularly speak out about it, such as Jovo, Petar, Ena, and Elma.
“They influence our daily lives by persistently recycling themes from the ’90s, using nationalism to promote myths about a new war and a new conflict.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perpektiva-mladi-crna-gora-problemi/32804765.html
“Even today, there are political elites in all Balkan countries who continue to covertly pursue the politics of the ’90s, albeit in a much more refined manner.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rialuJOSjnk
“No matter how much politicians or those in higher positions may try to divide us, this policy will persist. They will create a sensation whenever youth from Bosnia interact with youth from Serbia, as though it is somehow extraordinary. But it is not.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rialuJOSjnk
“They want us to quarrel. From the sidelines they are trying to create a fight between us, even though they know that people have always lived here together and that is how it should be. Aside from the fact that our air is polluted, they also pollute our minds with nationalism.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perpektiva-mladi-crna-gora-problemi/32804765.html
National identity is not the sole component of a person’s identity, and a person cannot be reduced to merely belonging to a nation, say Jovo, Nemanja, and Elmedina.
“I believe that anyone whose national pride is the sole construct of their identity is in serious trouble when it comes to their mental health.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perspektiva-u-podgorici/32824642.html
“Everyone tries to put me in a box and label me because of my attitudes, beliefs, and so on.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/bosna-hercegovina-perspektiva-mladi-prozor-rama/32256437.html
“All of this is a consequence of our mentality, which is still at the early stages of primitivism. To develop a more advanced mentality, we must understand that prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes should never exist in our society.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perspektiva-kumanovo-mladi-politika-zivot/33214116.html
Young people are not against divisions. They believe we should be divided, but not based on ethnicity. Instead, we should be divided by who is good and who is bad, who is successful and who is not, who speaks languages and who does not, and so on. Divisions based on nationality always lead to failure, say Milos and Nadja.
“The biggest problem is that we create divisions on every possible basis, due to which coming to a solution is almost impossible.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perpektiva-mladi-crna-gora-problemi/32804765.html
“You see, it takes very little for all of us to get caught up in it. All it takes is one spark, which is then happily used by politicians to ignite a fire. These are artificially created divisions. I’m not saying we are all the same. Everyone aligns differently, but this polarization is artificial. Politicians use it to rally people who will blindly follow them, and to distract from real problems.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perspektiva-u-podgorici/32824642.html
The months-long protests by students – but not only students – in Serbia show a different vision for Serbia: one that seeks to move away from reducing a person to a single dimension – ethnicity. Perhaps the government ignores them for this very reason.
