Abstract
Operating inside the complex state apparatus that has been constructed in a way which perpetuates ethnic divisions, LGBT activism in BiH has to face the relatively uninformed and homophobic public, on the one hand, and the poorly coordinated state institutions that are often not accountable to the citizens whom they are supposed to represent and protect, on the other. Sexual matters in the still highly patriarchal BiH socio-political context struggle to find a way out of religious doctrines and nationalist agendas. As the country’s political deadlock regarding its integration into the EU provides little hope for a meaningful improvement of the current state of political and economic affairs, LGBT advocacy could hold a certain creative potential to, in cooperation with other progressive forces, imagine a different—non-ethnocratic—kind of BiH polity.
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Notes
- 1.
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (also known as the Dayton Agreement or Dayton Accords) was reached in November 1995 and formally signed in Paris in December 1995.
- 2.
LGBT as any acronym is used further in the text and even though it stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, we do not exclude other forms of sexual and gender identity, such as queer for instance. It is used as the most common acronym in the literature and within European Union human rights institutions, such as European Agency for Fundamental Rights.
- 3.
The first meeting of the working group, led by the BiH Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees, for drafting the proposal of changes and amendments to the BiH Law on Prohibition of Discrimination was held on September 3, 2014. As reported by the Sarajevo Open Centre, one of the organisations that participates in this process, the Anti-discrimination Law should be considerably amended in order to remove all impediments for effective law preparation and to be aligned with the EU acquis. Regarding the protection of LGBT persons, the proposed changes include the adoption of “sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as the basis on which discrimination is prohibited, since the currently used terms ‘sexual expression’ or ‘orientation’ are not terminologically correct and are not used in comparative legal praxis” (Hadžić et al., 2015, p. 5).
- 4.
Samir Kaplan, the Minister of Culture and Sports of the Federation of BiH, stated in August 2013 in a magazine that pride parades in BiH are “a demonstration of someone’s internal needs on the streets that has no sense; they are unnecessary and only cause more troubles because they provoke reactions such as criminal offenses. They are the oppression of the majority by the minority”.
- 5.
Touquet (2012) claims that although the main cleavages in the country run along ethnic lines, there are civic groups and organisations which try to mobilise in a way that would go beyond ethnic division. According to her, the majority of these initiatives are located in the Federation entity of BiH and not in the RS to which she refers as a “strong nationalising state”.
- 6.
The Initiative is a cluster of non-governmental organisations whose members are: Centre for Political Studies, Foundation CURE, Human Rights Centre of the University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo Open Centre, ACIPS, Organisation Why Not, Green Council, Helsinki Committee of Citizens of Banja Luka, Green Neretva, Centre for Socio Ecological Development, Perpetuum Mobile, Youth Centre Kvart, External Politics Initiative of BiH, and the European Research Centre.
- 7.
Moreover, Pilegaard and Džumhur (2015, online) claim that “The division of responsibilities among different levels of government (state, entity, canton and municipality) in the area of economic and social rights obstructs access to those rights, with a lack of clarity as to where responsibility lies. The consequence is that progress in the protection of human rights, in establishing rule of law and in improving governance and economic development has remained static in BiH”.
- 8.
Touquet (2011) analyses Naša stranka as an example of integrative political mobilisation that goes counter to the centripetal nature of various BiH nationalisms that dominate the political scene. She claims that such actors face problems that go beyond the tendency of the BiH constitutional structure to prioritise ethnic differences.
- 9.
Ethnic minorities (the others) cannot run for membership of the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the basis of the provisions of Sections IV and V of the Constitution, which provide that in these state authorities, only members of the Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian people may be nominated.
- 10.
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are ours.
- 11.
The connection between traumatic circumstances regarding QSF and Đurković emigrating to the USA is somewhat difficult to establish, since Đurković had planned to return to the US years prior to the QSF.
- 12.
The Sejdić-Finci case relates to a 2009 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. The case was brought by Dervo Sejdić, a prominent Bosnian Roma activist, and Jakob Finci, who is a well-known Bosnian Jew and a former Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Ambassador to Switzerland. They argued that the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Constitution, which was negotiated as a part of the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian war in 1995, was discriminatory because certain electoral posts, for example membership in the tripartite presidency, can only be held by Serbs, Croats, or Bosniaks. The court agreed with the arguments of the plaintiffs. Bosnia’s leaders, in turn, agreed to implement the ruling, but they have still not found a satisfactory way of doing this in practice.
- 13.
For an analysis of an earlier protest around a non-ethnic issue, see Touquet (2015).
- 14.
Arsenijević (2014a, online) claims that: “The recent protests have created, for the first time, an opportunity to move from melancholia to mourning, to face the losses and start counting the gains from the war. Ours is a life that has survived war and genocide, but has been brutalised by the corrupt privatisation of public companies; a life that now only dreams of fleeing the country to avoid dying in solitude and hunger. This is the life we have to reclaim. We have to create more humane ties, and a society that offers our young people a future. I am part of this life and every day I remind myself to get up and go to the streets to protest because this is our only hope”. See also Arsenijević (2014b) and Živković (2014).
- 15.
The various civic associations and NGOs, are often evaluated as “externally dependent, fragmented on ethnic lines, and unable to establish closer contacts with ordinary citizens, what at the end extremely has weakened its capacity to significantly influence the policy-making” (Brljavac, 2010, p. 79).
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Selmić, A. (2016). On the Other Side of an Ethnocratic State? LGBT Activism in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Bilić, B. (eds) LGBT Activism and Europeanisation in the Post-Yugoslav Space. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57261-5_8
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