{"id":8352,"date":"2012-07-22T22:07:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T02:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=8352"},"modified":"2012-07-22T22:07:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T02:07:32","slug":"no-national-anthem-yet-for-bosnia-herzegovina-due-to-ethnic-political-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=8352","title":{"rendered":"No National Anthem yet for Bosnia-Herzegovina due to ethnic political rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Anes Alic<\/strong><\/p>\n

B<\/strong>osnia and Herzegovina (BiH) remains one of the few countries in the world without lyrics for its national anthem, as politicians have squabbled over its words since its adoption 13 years ago.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the Bosnian parliament on July 3rd rejected the lyrics proposed by its own commission.
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\nSome feel that the 11-member commission, comprised of ethnomusicologists, poets and politicians, have spent the past two years in vain and wasted some 50,000 euros. The parliament announced that it will appoint a new commission to continue the work \u2014 spending more time and money.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody would be happier than us if we could sing our national anthem,\u201d said Neno Subasic, a member of BH Fanaticos, the country\u2019s largest football fan group.<\/p>\n

The group has resorted to a unique approach to cope with its never-ending desire to sing:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sing the old one,\u201d Subasic said. \u201cBut, when the melody and the lyrics don\u2019t match, it is not the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2008 lyric contest hosted by the commission asked that entries contain words to which all Bosnians could relate. Out of 339 entries, one entry was selected unanimously as winner by the commission in charge, however, with parliament\u2019s rejection, the quest continues.<\/p>\n

The winning entry, dubbed \u201cIntermezzo,\u201d was a fusion between two finalists; Dusan Sestic, the original composer of the melody, and Benjamin Isovic, a Sarajevo-based musician.
\nFocusing on the natural beauty of BiH and a shared love of country, the lyrics conclude with: \u201cWe are going into the future together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCitizens are dealing with existential problems, which gives the politicians carte blanche to ignore the adoption of the anthem\u2019s text,\u201d psychologist Srdjan Puhalo told SETimes.
\nHaving lyrics for the national anthem would improve the image of the county in the eyes of its citizens and abroad, according to Puhalo, who says the selection process has been slow because the citizens were not being involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bosnian political elite, namely Bosnian Serbs and Croats, are trying to keep ethnic divisions in place and they don\u2019t want to install anything that can lead to the creation of a national [Bosnian] identity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As it stands, when the wordless anthem plays, Bosnian Croats, Bosniaks, and those from Republika Srpska tend to sing their own separate lyrics from their past anthems.
\nWith parliament\u2019s new commission coming from the moderate Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the biggest party of Republika Srpska, has already voted against its creation, calling it an \u201cunnecessary waste of time and money\u201d as it would \u201cachieve nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n

SNSD parliamentarian Slavko Jovicic, a member of the last commission, recently wrote in his blog that even though he voted for the winner, he doubts that the lyrics will ever be approved due to politics as usual in BiH.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is impossible to satisfy the appetites of everybody,\u201d Jovicic wrote. \u201cThere cannot be the name of only one city because one ethnic group dominates there. So, we would have to name three cities, three rivers, and three mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subasic said that he hopes the politicians will finally come to an agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is, inspiring or not, we have to create the anthem for our children.\u201d courtesy: Southeast European Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Anes Alic Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) remains one of the few countries in the world without lyrics for its national anthem, as politicians have squabbled over its words since its adoption 13 years ago. Most recently, the Bosnian parliament on July 3rd rejected the lyrics proposed by its own commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8355,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions\/8355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}