http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2834Most medals are simply attached to the recipient’s buttonhole. There are some, however, which hang from a broad ribbon. If the deserving recipient of the high honour is not too short, and the dispenser of the medal does not possess the stature of a basketball centre, the ceremonial of bestowing a medal in principle demands little physical effort. The one bestowing the beribboned tin is expected to cup his hands over the one to be honoured, and the recipient of the honour is expected to bow their head in order to make the job easier for his host.
A few days ago Bishop Franjo Komarica bowed his head before Milorad Dodik. The picture is as horrific as the innumerable photographs documenting the crimes committed on the soil of Bosnia-Herzegovina. One day, when someone gets down to producing a large monograph about the war that has carved up this country, they can comfortably conclude it with this photograph of the prelate bowing his head before the leader of a para-state founded on bestial crimes. The image will send an unmistakable message to all victims: that they need not expect any justice, however belated in coming.
Inflicting wretchedness and humiliation on millions is a demanding task. It requires big money, great human resources, and much time. There are occasions, however, when the same goal can be obtained with far less effort. The case of Bishop Komarica shows that all one needs to do is gently bend two of the vertebrae in one’s neck in order to cause deep distress to an immense multitude of people.
The Banja Luka mufti, Edhem effendi Camdžic, was well aware of the unbearable lightness of making misery. When he got the invitation to accept a linen noose adorned with national trinkets and pompously named Order of Honour, he sent back a letter stating that he ‘cannot not receive any medals from the president of Republika Srpska while his co-religionists, the Muslim Bosniaks, living in this entity do not enjoy the rights which they deserve in accordance with all human and divine laws, such as equal access to jobs in state institutions, freedom from fear in their homes and mosques, and conditions that permit them to return to, and remain in, their homes, on their property, and in their schools.’
A man of faith
The mufti could have formulated his unwillingness to bow before Dodik far more sharply, and no wise person - nor a dumb one, provided he or she be honourable! - could have found any fault with that. He could have recalled the mosques turned into dust, the men and women killed, raped, beaten ... He could have noted the fact that only five per cent of the pre-war number of Bosniaks and Croats have returned to the so-called Republika Srpska. He could, in short, have spat into the face of the whole town, both the criminals and the indifferent witnesses of their bacchanalia. He could have done all that, but he did not. As a man of faith he could not have allowed himself the luxury of adding oil to the fire, so instead he said in a dignified manner that he refused to participate in a farce.
Disgracing the Catholic clergy
But Bishop Franjo Komarica readily agreed to play the role which Dodik wrote for him, in a ceremonial that hailed what is de jure an entity and de facto a crime. One may imagine that the bishop did not make this decision in a hurry. It must have been preceded by lengthy considerations, a pedantic weighing of all the advantages and disadvantages of the particular choice. Having drawn a line under it all, the shepherd must then have honed up the arguments which gave meaning to his decision. The trouble is that his arguments and meaning will forever remain unfathomable to his congregation, and to his countrymen of other faiths, and to us, his co-nationals in the neighbourhood. However much he tries to explain to us, however often he repeats the phrases about the need for forgiveness and reconciliation, we shall remain deaf and dumb to all he has to say. Just as a civilized person remains ignorant of the impulse that turns a man into a beast, so too he will remain forever baffled by the ability to applaud crime.
Worse than Komarica’s gesture, perhaps, has been the tepid reaction of our [Croatian] public to the Banja Luka disgrace. The Croatian media have been days chewing over the case of ‘Barišic versus Grubišic’,* weighing up every ounce of the damage which the disciplinary persecution of a disobedient shepherd has inflicted upon the reputation of the Catholic Church. But this incident pales into insignificance before the disgrace which Komarica has brought upon the Church. Yet the Banja Luka dishonouring of the clergy, the devout, and reason itself has barely been registered, let alone analysed in depth. As if, instead of the medal of a criminal creation the bishop had acquired a memorial badge from some society of Esperanto devotees.
Whenever a devout man confronts evil, his faith comes under test. Evil has many faces, and these days the Banja Luka bishop has revealed to us one of them. The shepherd whose mission is to spread the faith has made a significant, albeit perhaps involuntary, contribution to its extinction.
Translated from Slobodna Dalmacija, 15 January 2012
