08. 06. 2005

POLITICAL AND JOURNALISTIC KITSCH

The first thing to do, using carefully selected facts, is to define the main political, social and existential coordinates of the territory we are speaking about. Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H), according to valid estimates, today has a population of less than four million. On top of all other problems that make it one of the least perspective countries in Europe, B&H is administratively – and at this time irreparably – divided into two political entities. Further, it has not yet been 10 years since this Balkan country emerged from a brutal several-year-long war, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of displaced people, destroyed industrial and transport infrastructure and completely devastated social tissue. Thus, this is a small, poor, frustrated and wounded market, burdened with many problems. In addition, even before the recent war all relevant research had detected a discouraging trend: the residents of Bosnia-Herzegovina had always been near the very bottom of the ladder measuring the tendency of citizens of the former Yugoslavia to buy and read newspapers. In this regard, only the Autonomous Province of Kosovo had rated more poorly and was positioned more poorly than the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. These are the basic facts and main indicators that everyone who decides to write a paper in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina must face. And everyone who tries to analyze the situation in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian media must bear these facts in mind. As for hate speech, after some introductory remarks and information, for the needs of this analysis we will restrict ourselves to the situation concerning print media based in Sarajevo. This restriction will not affect the quality of the issue developed because these media outlets, unfortunately, give too much occasion and material for analyzing hate speech as a media and political phenomenon. For, in the environment that we have described in brief outline, media are often exponents and battle fields of negative emotions, collective frustrations, political and social dissatisfaction, socially damaging interests and – hate speech, as the most frequent form of expression and usual form of violation of human rights. Looking through the prism of hate speech, there is a visible difference today between print media and broadcasters in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the case of the latter, the situation is entirely balanced, thanks primarily to the Communications Regulatory Agency, which disposes of sufficiently repressive legal means. In contrast, the Press Council is something of a voluntary professional association, an undefined and inefficient body without a possibility of imposing sanctions. Everything is left to the slow, inefficient and often corrupt courts and the good will of editors. But usually, good will is lacking. Unlike the Regulatory Agency, which regularly – and often very harshly – penalizes television and radio stations’ outbursts, the only means the Press Council can rely on is publishing periodical reports. These reports list and cite reported violations of the code of journalists. The reports do not stir up anyone for now, nor do they result in reducing hate speech and other violations committed by print media, i.e. their creators. Wartime Performances of Risto Djogo As the most striking example of hate speech in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, all analysts mention – and they are not wrong – the warmongering engagement of the journalist Risto Djogo. For the needs of the Serb Democratic Party, he organized a way of informing the audience unseen in this region. In Djogo’s interpretation, information was reduced to pure propaganda and the journalistic profession to unquestionable service to the ruling structure gathered around Radovan Karadzic and the Serb Democratic Party. Towards the end of the war, Djogo died under mysterious circumstances. It was never established if he suffered an accidental fall while intoxicated, or if it was a classical case of murder. Numerous examples of violations of journalistic and ethical codes were left behind him. These examples often circulate in lectures given to future journalists. Djogo’s best known excess occurred while reporting on the massacre at Sarajevo’s Markale market, on February 5, 1994. A mortar shell fired from a Serb position landed on the market at noon. The results of this crime were terrifying: 66 killed and 200 wounded people, horrifying scenes of dismembered bodies… Sarajevo suffered; the world was appalled, while Djogo on Serb television based in Pale gave an unforgettable contribution to the crime. In addition to the standard repertoire of propaganda messages and pseudo-information, coming down to “Muslims shelling themselves in an effort to accuse the Serb side,” that evening and the subsequent evenings Djogo made a real criminal performance out of his news program. He accused the authorities in Sarajevo of planting bodies of killed Serbs at the scene of the crime and of bringing mannequins from shop windows to Markale market, in order to “cover up their own crime.” And then he himself brought such a mannequin into the studio, ridiculing in an unbelievable way the tragedy and the scenes that had shocked the world. For a moment, we will go beyond the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In those harsh months of war, while Risto Djogo was doing his performances, insulting the victims and belittling the profession, a quotation published in 1993 by the Belgrade journalist Dusan Reljic in the publication Intellectuals and War, Beogradski krug (Belgrade Circle) and Centar za antiratnu akciju (Center of Anti-War Action), reached us in the besieged city, by who knows what route. Here is the quotation: “At this moment, the majority of citizens of this country,” says Reljic, “believe that it is admissible to fire howitzers on Sarajevo. Every newspaper, every journalist, who has not told them that this is inadmissible has become an accomplice to the killing of Sarajevo.” Well, during that time, while Djogo was performing his criminal happenings, Sarajevo-based print media were successfully passing the test of credibility and professionalism. The Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje during those years could serve as an example of moderate and restrained writing. Journalists from this world-celebrated newspaper were making the paper in impossible conditions. The newsroom was located on the front line. It was a problem, at the risk of being killed, to come to one’s work place, but Oslobodjenje came out without interruption, cherishing, in its leading journalists’ articles, analytical, moderate and non-mongering journalism. Although it was difficult to keep one’s nerve during those years, because death, killing and wounding of children, old men and women were everyday in Sarajevo, the journalists of Oslobodjenje, as well as the journalists of most other newspapers, did not give in to the temptation to follow in the footsteps of Risto Djogo. Or Smiljko Sagolj, a former Sarajevo journalist who reported during the war for Croatian media. Other newsrooms operated in a similar fashion. Employees of the today non-existent Vecernje Novine also put out their product in impossible conditions. Slobodna Bosna had several pauses during the war, but its most important professional episode occurred during the months preceding the war, when the paper’s journalists – true, without too much success – were warning the Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Sarajevo public of what Radovan Karadzic and the Serb Democratic Party were preparing. Dani magazine came out every 15 days during the war and gathered some of the most important names from the Bosnian-Herzegovinian intellectual scene. Since space does not allow us to deal with all Sarajevo-based newspapers more extensively, we will just mention one example from Dani magazine. In 1995 a soldier of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the territory of besieged Sarajevo killed from a sniper two children in Grbavica, a part of the city under Serb control at the time. In a section called Bosnian Barometer, Dani brought a sharp, critically intoned article about the incident. The newsroom expected different reactions and everyone was ready for the consequences. Fortunately, there were no consequences and, several days after the magazine came out, the Army issued a press release saying that the soldier who had killed the children had been arrested and would be put on trial. But, not everything is rosy on the Sarajevo side either. During those years, most public objections regarded articles written by some authors of Ljiljan, a weekly close to the Bosniak Muslim Party of Democratic Action, which was printed with changeable success and intensity during the war in Ljubljana. During those years, Ljiljan published many ugly articles in which the authors squared accounts with “disobedient” Bosniaks more than with the Serbs and Croats who had stayed in Sarajevo. The target of these attacks were independent media, primarily Oslobodjenje, then Bosniaks who declared themselves as atheists, then children from so-called mixed marriages. Editors of some broadcasters, who displayed in their talk and music shows an insufficient amount of obedience to the ruling party, were not spared either. Heavy ideological discussions were held involving certain dilemmas, so senseless today, such as whether radio and television stations should play the songs of Djordje Balasevic or Momcilo Bajagic (singers from Serbia). But, when everything is added up, one may say, without fear of making a mistake, that the leading print media in Sarajevo during the war preserved the dignity of the profession and resisted the challenges brought by hate speech. In the years after the war, hate speech did not possess the Sarajevo media. It was present more as a side fact, than as the chief means of expression. Newspapers supporting the Party of Democratic Action and its policy were more inclined to it. The most negative emotions and inflammatory views were displayed in the traditionally confrontational form of polemic. Even what started as a principled debate soon gave way to mutual animosities and blows. Ljiljan journalists and editors excelled in this regard once again, but other newspapers were not immune against this plague either. The author of the article that you are reading right now would be unfair not to include in this category of polemical expression and demonstration of intolerance his own polemic with Zeljko Cvijanovic, a journalist who lived in Sarajevo until the war, and after that resided in Belgrade and Banja Luka. The polemic concerned – what else in Sarajevo in 1997 – the causes and those responsible for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was permeated with serious and mutual disqualifications, open insults and wisecracks, gravely insulting the person of the opponent in the polemic. (Today, with regret, I may say – that with today’s mind – I would have organized the debate in a different way! My argument at the time that the sole person to blame for the mutual insults was my co-polemicist because he was the one who started insulting first, is today completely irrelevant! I would try to avoid the trap of engaging in the polemic against Cvijanovic. I think it could have been an important discussion if there had just been a bit more wisdom, dignity and restraint on both sides.) In those first years after the war, the independent magazines Slobodna Bosna and Dani played a first-rate political and journalistic role in Bosnian-Herzegovinian society, opening the story of crimes committed during the war by members of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their professional engagement was consistent and brave and it faced the authors of articles and editors of these newspapers with numerous problems and severe threats. The situation was particularly aggravated for them by the counter-argument that Sarajevo, as one of the greatest victims of war in the former Yugoslavia, has no obligation whatsoever to open such stories! Still, the journalists persevered in their stand, pointing out that there is no right or wrong time for truth. The things for which they were subjected to open harassment at the time are generally known today: although they were defending the city and country, members of the Army of RBiH also committed crimes. With the exception of the engagement of the Banja Luka journalist Zeljko Kopanja, nothing similar was happening either in Mostar or in Banja Luka. Playing God Sarajevo media today – in 2005 – are bathing in insults and humiliation against those with different opinions, political opponents or members of opposing economic and interest spheres. Insult has evolved in local newspapers into the most popular means of squaring accounts. It has become so hypertrophied that it has grown into a classical violation of human rights. The spearheads of Sarajevo’s journalistic insults, unable to reach the standards developed in contemporary journalism – have given way to insults as the only segment in which their creativity displays some kind of result. The media have taken off the halter. They have started to enjoy people’s fear of their insults; this kind of fear even found its place in an advertising campaign for Sarajevo’s Walter magazine, whose official slogan is the following: “A magazine that is trusted and feared.” We will go back to Walter later. It can be established precisely when this deluge, this unseen onslaught of insults as a system of squaring accounts, started. In the fall of 2002, general elections were held in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Already in the spring the same year, six months before the elections, the first media sparks started, soon escalating into an open and ruthless war. From then on, Sarajevo print media have been dominated by hate, primitivism and insults. Those who exceed in these primitive showdowns with those holding different views are Walter and Ljiljan, two magazines of extreme nationalistic orientation; alongside them is very often Dnevni Avaz, the highest circulation Bosnian-Herzegovinian daily newspaper; the two most important Bosnian-Herzegovinian magazines, Slobodna Bosna and Dani, have also given their contribution, to a much smaller, but still noticeable extent. Start magazine has tried over the last three years to promote a new form of journalism, in which insults and hate speech are reduced to a minimum. It has remained consistent in this to this day, but it has not succeeded in imposing this form as the dominant style and editorial direction in Sarajevo journalism. The daily Oslobodjenje, although it has lost its professional and creative credence, has remained consistent in its moderation. Hate speech appears on the pages of this newspaper rarely, just as an excess; usually in polemics. Disgracing God A special place in the story of hate speech belongs to Walter magazine, one of the most brutal and primitive products of the Sarajevo media landscape. Clashes with political opponents and those with different views in Walter have acquired a new form of public execution. The paper has featured for many years a series of pogromist articles that cause public contempt. One of Walter’s leading sections, called Wanted, is designed as a wanted circular for public figures who have sinned against Walter’s system of values. In this section, unsigned authors in the cruelest way attack the subject – or better put, the object? – of their pseudo-analysis. Walter journalists and editors, first of all the editor-in-chief Enver Causevic and the journalist Fatmir Alispahic, justify this kind of writing and the right to this kind of expression by the right to satire. Readers of this article will be able to assess, from the examples we offer, how much satire they contain, and how much unscrupulous attacks that trample upon all ethical and legal norms. One of the worst attacks carried out under the cover of Walter’s satirical section Wanted was organized against Svetlana Broz. Here is how the Sarajevan satirists explained their arguments on why the wanted circular was issued against the granddaughter of Josip Broz Tito: “Because her father Zarko did not want to see her even on his death bed and because he only left her his wooden arm in his will. Because she has closed all of Belgrade’s doors with her butt. Because she replaced her husband with a Macedonian Gypsy, who is today her lover, and servant, and companion, and cigarette, and drink. Because she is falling all over herself talking about multiculture, but she is ashamed of saying that she is rolling in the hay with a Gypsy, and because she presents her f… as her driver. Because her cleavage is showing, but she does not have tits. Because the morons from Circle 99 have accepted her the same way that Italian neo-fascists have accepted Alessandra Mussolini. Because she has defamed Sarajevo with her lies that during the war, a number of times, children from mixed marriages had been called bastards here. Because she should finally leave the family name Broz alone and take the name of her companion, and she should call herself Svetlana Ceca Sabana Bajramovic. Because it’s high time she learned the difference between a head and an ass.” This was satire expressed as the creators of Sarajevo’s Walter understand it. Added to this were Svetlana Broz’ private telephone numbers in Serbia and BiH. It is interesting that just several pages after this outrageous article, Walter’s spiritus movens, the journalist Fatmir Alispahic, writing about Srebrenica, says the following: “What has happened to us? What devil has possessed our souls and disfigured us into freaks?” The author of the article that you now are reading published in Start magazine, in the spring of 2004, an extensive analysis of Walter’s characteristic articles. He called the top creators of this manner of insulting and violating human rights ‘members of the fecal and sewage clan of Sarajevo journalism.’ For, in their showdown with the enemies of Bosnia, these journalists have displayed an unseen inclination to feces as the main means of expression and manner of insulting, humiliation, disownment… The analysis, on which tens of hours of exhausting work were spent, showed beyond dispute that the terms used most frequently by Walter journalists on these occasions are the following: turd, ass, shit, bullshitting, shitty, poo, making poop, anus, asshole, anal parts and anal secretion, wise-asses, buttocks, hemorrhoids, ass-fucking, ass-kissing, frustrated sadomasochists, tits, faggots, homosexuals, gonorrhea, puss, syphilis, sewage, septic hole, gob of phlegm, nose-blowing, trash, swine and swine meat, junk, jerking off and onanism, bloody onanism, masturbation, wanker, pisser, brutes, hogwash, slops, dick-sucking, underwear, shitty intellectuals, prostitutes, whores, tarts, slobberer, drunk, watchdogs, traitors, vampires, sponging, wild pigs, have-nots, sickness and debauchery, drugged epileptics, degenerates, rotten eggs… The analysis also showed that members of the fecal and sewage clan, when writing about other people and their political actions, use the following expressive and ethically descriptive means: typical insults; non-typical insults; showering political opponents with dreadful fecal metaphors; making fun of physical looks; ridiculing illnesses; ridiculing people’s handicaps and physical faults; launching raving attacks on family members of people targeted by Walter and brutal assaults on the privacy of people with different political views; mocking and tastelessly twisting people’s first and last names; making fun of “moronic” people, i.e. handicapped people, i.e. people with special needs, as political correctness lately requires they be called, and with full right; making fun of people’s age; as well as badmouthing, defaming and launching hysterical attacks of unknown provenance. This was a list of the most detestable insults in Sarajevo’s patriotic journalism. Now, through a quick cross-section, we will demonstrate how these insults function in reality, on real examples, collected from Walter and, to a smaller extent, from Ljiljan: Senad Pecanin is fat, slimy and tallow. Mile Stojic, this repulsive human being, is an idiot who has a neck resembling a sewage system and, consequently, instead of a brain, he has shit. Ivan Lovrenovic is an asshole, a pissed-off quasi-communist quasi-thinker, whose mouth stinks, a dark ethnic bastard and fool, and thus deserves to blow a dick. Amina Lagumdzija made the biggest mistake of her life when she married her husband Zlatko. Senad Avdic, something of an archenemy, is goggle-eyed and hump-backed, and may women spill hogwash and slops on his grave. Haris Pasovic has become white-haired as a result of the malice in him. The dribbling strongman Bakir Hadziomerovic is an idiot, a wanker and a pisser who is working against an entire people. Mirko Sagolj is intellectual trash whose character personifies the characteristics of Stalin and a wild pig. Ozren Kebo is a homosexual, he has a little dick and he wears his mother’s underwear. Ferid Buljubasic thinks he has beautiful eyes and keeps blinking in the company of the fair sex. Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, half Vlach and half Moslem, is a demagogue, an intellectual kleptomaniac, a businessman making profit off the blood of Srebrenica and Zepa, and he has his thoughts fucking each other in his head. Zlatko Lagumdzija is a toppled monarch in whose anal parts there is little brain left. Those sitting on Circle 99 are potties, courtesans, anuses, Serbo-nostalgic, herds of evil, morons, old men… George Soros first of all launders his Jewish money in Bosnia. Senad Avdic and Senad Pecanin are one soul and two bodies, one of a swine, the other of a turkey. Boro Kontic bears a name with a show-business sound to it, like the name of Boro Spuzic Kvaka. Sacir Filandra could be used by some faggot at OHR or the American Embassy to masturbate over his hairy picture… The most prominent Bosnian-Herzegovinian author with this kind of outlook on reality is the already mentioned Fatmir Alispahic. Defending himself from accusations that his writing is primitive and insulting and his views nationalistic, Alispahic told his opponents on one occasion: “To speak of me as a nationalist is a matter of complete defeat of those who honor me with such infernalities. Well, may this nationalist fuck (jebo in Bosnian) your mother. Je-boe-boe-je-oboe-jebo-e...” The pathological structure of the characters involved in this is unquestionable. Analysis of the material collected showed that the following characteristics of the fecal and sewage outlook on our bleak reality can be picked out. Here are some that we detected in the mentioned feuilleton: a fecal person is brutal to the enemy; a fecal person is fiercest when he does not sign his name; a fecal person prefers a combination of wild hate and uncontrolled rage; a fecal person viciously humiliates those who do not share the same views, he believes it is admissible to insult using all means and ways available. A fecal person has no arguments, nor knows how to respond to them. Insult is all he has. Without it, he would not know how to communicate with the community. A fecal person is an eternal prisoner of hate, which does not allow him to view the world objectively. A fecal person seriously believes that those who do not share the same views should be destroyed… A favorite target of Bosniak patriotic journalism is Zlatko Lagumdzija, leader of the SDP, the strongest opposition party in the country. After first noting that in some of his interviews Lagumdzija showed that self-control is not one of his strong sides, insulting in an inappropriate manner those who insulted him, we will single out just one of Walter’s pearls related to the leading Bosnian-Herzegovinian opposition politician. This obscure newspaper writes that Lagumzija “walks as if he has liberated Sarajevo, although a shell injured him in the butt while he was fleeing, like any other resident of a basement, and folks have named him ass-hole…” We will stay with this example a bit longer. Zlatko Lagumdzija was wounded in 1992, as Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He sustained serious injuries and was immediately evacuated abroad. He was operated on more than 15 times to keep him alive and in one piece. He struggles with the affects of the injuries even today. We advise readers to take note of the last part of the sentence: “…and folks have named him ass-hole.” Whatever Serb propaganda personified in Risto Djogo may have alleged about Sarajevans, whatever orthodox Bosniak propaganda personified in the insensitive journalists of Walter may have written about them, Sarajevans have never been immoral idiots who make fun of someone being wounded. This city experienced a true tragedy during the war. We mourned in pain and for a long time for every wounded or killed fellow citizen. I can testify first-hand that Sarajevans have never ridiculed anyone who was wounded, including Lagumdzija. Also, when studying Walter, we came across a horrible example of a public figure being accused of being actively and passively responsible for the suicide of his brother. We leave it up to readers to decide for themselves if this is satire or a classical example of criminal journalism. Hate among Media Analysis of Walter, unfortunately, does not exhaust the story of insult as the dominant discourse in Sarajevo print media. To an incomparably lesser extent, sometimes journalists of Slobodna Bosna, Dani, and on several examples Start, are also inclined towards this manner of expression. Although these magazines by no means deserve to be cited as media that propagate insult and hate speech, it still needs to be said that even in their case insult is a relatively common figure of speech. Many of us are aware of these traps. Senad Avdic, probably the best and most important journalist this country has had, a man who never cared very much about elegance of expression, spoke on two occasions about resorting to insulting those with different views. In a polemic in Start magazine, in 2003, he said the only way to fight the likes of Walter – is to respond in kind. Many agree with this stand, but it is a fact that Avdic’s journalistic expression, strong and original in many ways, suffers when Senad loses control. Recently, defending the film director Ahmed Imamovic from attacks by the angry Bosniak right-wing, he made a serious professional transgression himself, calling the TV Hayat journalist Arduana Pribinja-Kuric – a pit bull (ironically linking the fact that the journalist is a bula – a person who graduated from an Islamic religious school – and the dangerous pit bull dogs). Avdic is aware that his style is not always up to standard and he does not find it hard to admit this. In Dani magazine, on November 1, 2002, he explains his clash with Dnevni Avaz and his tendency towards creative insulting: “If they accuse me of committing rape 15 years ago in a student dormitory (I didn’t come from Novi Pazar or Tutin /small towns in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia/ to have to stay in Sarajevo in a student dormitory!), it is natural that all means of defense are legitimate. I am pinned against the wall; and when I tell them they are criminals and that the Avaz building was made in a criminal way, it does not concern them. It is evident, however, that this personal and emotional aspect does concern them. Okay, perhaps I did lose it a bit, because it really is hard to take it when they paint the ugliest picture of you every day, although I am not really a pretty face…” In relation to this, we have observed an interesting phenomenon in the Sarajevo media. It seems that it is most important for local journalists not to give their insults an (inter)ethnic character. They are extremely careful not to insult someone from a different ethnic group, and as for other connotations, they do not care. Thus, insult has established itself as part of personal, partisan, professional and even esthetic attack and disagreement. Talking about this issue, one cannot avoid the story of Dnevni Avaz. This newspaper has been waging a ruthless battle for years against people who have a conflict of interest or any other kind of conflict (ideological, personal…) with Fahrudin Radoncic, the founder of the newspaper company of the same name. Avaz likes to turn information into comments, offering its readers, instead of news, a stand formed in advance. Here is just one example, observed in February 2005. That day Oslobodjenje brought a news item saying that Emir Kusturica was going to shoot a film about the famous Argentinean football player Diego Maradona. Kusturica is a film director who was born and became famous in Sarajevo and later moved to Belgrade and sided with Slobodan Milosevic’s policies. Oslobodjenje published the item fairly, but in Avaz, instead of information, we got a comment, contained in the superscript headline: “Serbianized director shoots film about Cubanized football player.” Whatever Kusturica may have done, however he may have behaved before, during or after the war, to call him a Serbianized director in a classical news item is transgression into unfair journalism. Avaz hate speech is most conspicuous in showdowns with Senad Avdic, Senad Pecanin, Zlatko Lagumdzija and numerous politicians who were once favorites of this newspaper and who later, usually due to breakup out of interest, made it to its black list. Lack of space does not allow us to deal with Avaz’ contribution to hate speech more extensively. Hate Becomes our Deepest Intimacy Today, in Sarajevo, people like to say that no lesson was learned from Auschwitz because Sarajevo, Manjaca and Dretelj happened five decades later. This is true, but it seems that Sarajevo, Manjaca and Dretelj were not sufficient lessons either, because post-war Sarajevo print media happened afterwards. In some of them, we continue to insult, humiliate and belittle other people in the worst possible way just because they are different and do not fit into our systems of values. We can already speak of an essential inability of the Sarajevo media and journalists to break away from these challenges. This inability is worrisome. It means that hate has grown into our social code, our professional reflex, that it has become our deepest intimacy. Hate speech has become our reality, from which there will be no escape for a long time. Many journalists are calling for insult to be verified as a legitimate journalistic expression because this is allegedly the only way to fight against the phantoms of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian authorities. But, then everyone would get a pathological opportunity to assess, roughly and highly arbitrarily, who deserves to be insulted, and who does not. We are already being suffocated by the strong pathological journalism. Hate speech in the media is the first step to what Emil Cioran calls a “metamorphosis of the people into a fanatic mob.” Culture of dialog is a forgotten skill. It seems that what is present here is a culture of disagreement in advance, emanating animosity in all forms. Since many journalists define their position and role, more or less explicitly, as being a fighting role, rather than an informative and analytical role, we must point out that their fight for a better and fairer society suffers some chronic shortcomings: insufficient creativity, too many prejudices, a lot of passions, emotions and vanity, little reason and even less reasonable and productive ideas. Our responsibility for the failure of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian experiment is evident. We have not succeeded in building professional standards that would win the trust of the public. We are often worse than those we criticize. Is it an illusion to wish for and is it unrealistic to build a different atmosphere in the Sarajevan and Bosnian-Herzegovinian media? Is a new, radically new manner of articulation of political views and ideas impossible? Radical in moving away from what we have right now? It certainly is necessary… The Sarajevo journalist and political scientist Nerzuk Curak once wrote: “Mud-slinging is the culmination of our public dialog. Throwing garbage on others has become the leading intellectual discipline. A substitute for lack of criticism, responsible and brave criticism with the power to call our evil habits by their proper name…” Sarajevo has lost the quality by which people are determined and valued through diversity, not through similarity. Diversity was once a cause for respect; today it is a reason for expulsion. Insult in this context appears as political and journalistic kitsch. Infuriating the readership masses is a demanding process; the process of normalization will be equally demanding and complex. We will all need more restraint, decency, respect for others’ pain and misfortune. But, this is evidently a task for the new generations. The ones that rule the news scene now are so poisoned that we have full right to doubt their (our) potentials. We expect the new generations, if we are not too demanding, to finally stop the journalistic virulence that insults people over their physical handicap, or family tragedies, ethnic origin, sexual and religious orientation… We expect them to resist the sophisticated technology of lies, insults, denunciation and half-truths. Something is not right with individuals who behave this way. Something is not right with a society that has neither the strength nor the will to face in a calm and level-headed way its weaknesses … Ozren Kebo is a journalist and writer from Sarajevo.