COLUMN, KOVAČEVIĆ: Sarajevo syndrome or erecting a monument to the occupier as proof that Bosnia is the only colony on the planet

Stockholm syndrome – that’s when a kidnapped person develops emotional attachment and affection for their captor. As of yesterday, there’s a new entry on the list of such psychopathological disorders – the Sarajevo syndrome!

It resembles the first, but is far sicker and more complex, because it is not individual but collective.

Sarajevo syndrome occurs when the majority of citizens of a capital city – in this case, Sarajevo – decide to erect a monument to a former occupier who, over 100 years ago, subjugated their country and made it the last European colony.

Through this unprecedented act, descendants of victims collectively renounce their ancestors and celebrate the one who trampled on them and placed them under oppression.

For context, the members of Young Bosnia were not only Serbs fighting – not for a Greater Serbia – but for the South Slavic idea of coexistence of all brotherly nations in one state. Bosniaks and Croats also participated.

TRIAL OF PRINCIP AND YOUNG BOSNIANS: Serbs, Bosniaks, Croats in the defendant’s seats

Alongside Gavrilo Princip and Nedeljko Čabrinović, Muhamed Mehmedbašić, Ibrahim Fazlinović, Đulaga Bukovac fought and perished, with one of the movement’s ideologues being the great Ivo Andrić.

It’s like if the Black population of South Africa today voted to erect a monument to the leaders of apartheid in the middle of Pretoria, where their grandparents had been imprisoned, raped, and killed.

SARAJEVO ASSASSINATION: Chaos after the killing of Franz Ferdinand. Police arrest Princip

This is, therefore, a dangerous pathology – Stockholm syndrome at its mildest in comparison.

Even worse than erecting a monument to the occupier are the justifications for it. In media and social networks, apologists claim that the Austro-Hungarians “occupied Bosnia to prevent Greater Serbian hegemony,” an argument that would earn a failing grade in any decent history class.

History, which is for some a teacher of life and for others a harsh reminder, says:

King Alexander Karađorđević, after the Serbian army broke through the Salonika front and ended World War I as the only victorious ally among all South Slavs, did not form a Greater Serbia, even though he could have and was urged by the great powers. Instead, he established Yugoslavia, following the ideas of Young Bosnians.

YUGOSLAV IDEA OVER GREATER SERBIA: Alexander Karađorđević

In doing so, he absolved all those who had sided with the defeated powers, Germany and Austro-Hungary. The Karađorđevićs and Serbia did not punish Bosniaks, Croats, or Slovenes but brought them to the victorious side.

Yet, who cares about historical facts? It’s easier to invent a narrative to manipulate the masses in an era when education is increasingly consumed via 30-second social media clips.

For decades, Sarajevo and the Federation’s education has been distorted. Generations of children are taught that Ferdinand was an innocent victim, while Princip and Young Bosnians were terrorists who allegedly cost their people dearly – even though they fought for a state that did not yet exist.

The apologetics continue, claiming Austrians supposedly turned backward Bosnia into a European state, building roads and buildings instead of Turkish cobblestones and mud houses.

They ignore that the empire built infrastructure not to benefit the locals, but to extract stolen mineral wealth and timber, and to house Austrian officials comfortably, not the population. British and French colonizers did the same in Africa: infrastructure was for exploitation, not education or enrichment.

Meanwhile, the same people waving Palestinian flags in Sarajevo protest Israeli occupation while celebrating former occupiers with monuments.

One of the most perverse messages of this narrative is that Gavrilo Princip allegedly killed an innocent pregnant woman. Historical records show that Princess Sophie was collateral damage – struck by a bullet intended for the military governor Oskar Potiorek. Princip and Young Bosnians targeted symbols of the occupation, as confirmed in trials.

CRIMES IN MAČVA: Oskar von Potiorek led the units responsible

Potiorek, a year later, committed atrocities in Mačva and Podrinje, mercilessly killing and hanging civilians who were unarmed.

Considering the decision to erect a monument to Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, it becomes clear why, 112 years after Princip’s assassination, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains the only colony on the planet – the only non-sovereign state on the continent, governed by someone who is not its citizen.

The High Representative, the governor, call him what you will, is functionally no different from the Austro-Hungarian rulers of a century ago or the Ottoman viziers before them. The difference today is that people sip Coca-Cola instead of clacker soda, and drive Audis instead of horse-drawn carriages.

Bosnia and Herzegovina remains occupied, a protectorate as it was in 1878 and earlier. Some refuse to admit it, and worse, they actively work to keep it vassalized and non-sovereign, repeatedly calling on the High Representative to arbitrate disputes, much like kadis or Austro-Hungarian judges of the past.

Even some Serbs, who publicly oppose occupation in Banja Luka, through their actions, reinforce Bosnia and Herzegovina’s status as a colony, leaving Republika Srpska as a historical relic in the heart of Europe.