Reading the (Bosnian) Riots

Last summer, William Hunt, Ferida Duraković and Zvonimir Radeljković wrote in Dissent about the possibility that a younger generation of Bosnians might turn to protest. Less than a year on, this has come to pass, but it is not just the younger generation, rather people of all ages. 

My first few days in the country have given me a chance to talk to people about the protests in a number of cities here, and about the violence that took place in early February in Tuzla, Bihać, Mostar, Sarajevo and Zenica, the five largest cities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The move from relatively peaceful protests to a swift escalation and spread brought to mind the UK’s own riots in 2011, when what started as a peaceful protest outside a police station in Tottenham became violent, and then spread first to other areas of London and then to other major urban centres in England. 

The most obvious difference between those riots, and the riots here in Bosnia, is the targeted nature of violence. Here, the targets were overwhelmingly government buildings, including cantonal government offices, state institutions, and in Mostar, political party offices. This is in stark contrast to the UK, where a joint Guardian/LSE report, Reading the Riots, paints a picture of a combination of battles with police and the widespread targeting of commercial premises. 

The sources of dissatisfaction bear some similarity, albeit defined by different contexts. The Guardian/LSE study sample of rioters most commonly cited poverty, policing, government policy, unemployment and the shooting of Mark Duggan as important causes of the riots. 

Before the widespread riots of 7 February, protests in Tuzla had centred on the collapse of the canton’s industries, particularly after a series of privatisations. Workers who saw their industries, their jobs and their livelihoods disappear, sought some form of compensation. Alongside this is a strong sense that the politicians here are doing very well in a country suffering widespread poverty and mass unemployment. A common chant heard during protests is lopovi (thieves). Again and again, injustice comes up. But the background of dissatisfaction with the police and policing has not been a factor I have seen here yet. 

In another way, policing may be important. When I was last in Sarajevo in 2005 various international agencies, including the EU and the Office of the High Representative, were focusing on the problem of police coordination in a country with 10 cantonal forces, two entity forces, a special district force, a state force, and a border force. A television campaign featured a police officer pursuing gangsters, only to be stopped by an invisible barrier. While maintaining day to day order is a responsibility of Cantonal police, the security of Federal and State buildings is down to those particular levels of government. So in Sarajevo, when there is a mass protest, which involves attacks on Federal and State buildings, three forces are involved, and it has been suggested that failures in coordination limited the police ability to contain the violence. 

A number of stories are doing the rounds regarding the violence, the extent to which it was orchestrated and if police ineffectiveness might have been part of a political strategy. It’s interesting that these stories have currency, but on the question of the police response, it is also worth remembering how many days passed in the UK before the riots of 2011 were contained. 

As it happened, the violence was more or less limited to two days in Tuzla and one in other cities. Like in London and other UK cities, it was followed by citizen-led clean-up actions. It has also been followed by a more peaceful form of direct democracy, as plenums meet in various locations and pass requests to governments. Already, the Tuzla plenum has claimed a victory in the scrapping of the bijeli hljeb (white bread) payments that representatives receive at the end of their mandate.