'A modern day journey through the wild western Balkans'

Friday, September 29, 2006

sarena revolucija



Thailand - coup d'etat. Hungary - protests and riots. Chile - massive student rallies. Bosnia and Herzegovina - rainbow painting the presidency. We all snap from the unjust practices of our governments. For the lies. The suffering. The poverty. Damming our fresh water supplies. For the horribly imbalanced distribution of wealth.

Bosnians are immeasurably patient or pitifully apathetic. The pure thievery and lies that dominates every single aspect of political life here is absurd. Yet the people have yet to rise. Until two days ago that is. Two days ago a group of youth - Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks together - were finally fed up enough to do something about it.

Here in BiH the military is extremely tame, and always under the watchful eye of occupying NATO forces. So a coup d'etat is near impossible. Its also a police state in many ways, with the police force being the largest employer in the country. Protests and riots like the ones we saw in Budapest are also highly unlikely. Massive student protests here are unimagineable. Unimagineable simply for the fact that this is perhaps the most apathetic group of young people i have ever come across in my many years of revolution. It's sad really, so no real chance of matching the protests witnessed by Chile's youth.

What we got was 'Tutto completo.' A manic youth organization from Kakanj - a town smothered by both a highly polluting cement factory and coal plant. One won't find a single rooftop that's not blackened...so you can imagine what their lungs must look like. Anyway, these group of youngin's have been driving their revolution in the most peculiar of ways. With paint. Yup, they're painting thier way to change. And it just might work.

Two cars pull right up to the presidency -- without the police even blinking an eye. Then out come the plastic bags not filled with explosives, but with paint of all colours of the spectrum. This building, for many representing the lair of the criminal beast, then became victim of a barrage of paint bombs. And boy was it pretty. They hauled countless bags of paint all over the entrance of the Presidents den....and managed to do so for quite some time without the security forces figuring out what to do with these menaces to society. Before the violence could start - coloured revolution was spray painted on the front door.

The state security forces then arrived...skirmishes followed, and the paint terrorists were then beaten up (on camera) by three policemen. No surprises there.

The real surprise came the next day. The 'Dosta' movement (enough!) announced a peaceful protest at the same spot of the coloured revolution against police brutality. Low and behold the next morning hundreds appeared, and the largest number were pensioners!!! The action seems to have widespread support - at least amongst the urbanites.

People are fed up. God bless them they are finally fed up and ready to do something about it. Hasta la paint bombs siempre companeros!

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