Tuzla Into The Problematique

Protests… they came out of the blue. Tuzla has always been a multiethnic city, where Bosniaks, Croatians and Serbs live, hang out, work and contribute to society together in both good and bad times.

The war has ravaged everything behind, sowing hunger, misery and war profiteers nationwide. And the war profiteers could have hardly waited to exploit the suffering people. Knowing that those people would do everything for a crust of bread to feed their families, they would’ve paid them minimum wage of salary. At the end, despair has reached its peak and workers haven’t received their salaries at all. Thousands of families have been left without their basic income, with an empty stomach, and without a coin in their pockets. Also, the children of those workers have been left without books and basic school supplies, without money to pay their college. Even the education has become a privilege of „the rich“. Those people have been living from dawn until dusk, for twenty years, barely making ends meet, while telling their children: „Dad would buy it son, but we don’t have enough money“. You can find those people at every corner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not just in Tuzla. Rage, anger, despair, dissatisfaction and envy have been emerging in those children.

The situation culminated on that fatal date of February 6th 2014. The crowd occupied the building of Tuzla Canton government shouting „Thieves, thieves!“. Even before that people gathered in front of that building, being hungry, thirsty and frozen, holding banners in their hands. But, it looked like the building was deaf to those people, while the prime minister and many other ministers were sneering, watching them through the window, reclining in a comfortable chair in their warm offices.

If you ask us, the real protests began a day before, on February 5th 2014. We still remember the panic in the streets, which then gripped all. People were talking about fire on the street, boys in blood, blocked traffic and police being everywhere. That morning we had a chance to see the same group of people protesting in front of that „deaf building“ as every Wednesday. We couldn’t even imagine that on the same afternoon everything would turn into a general chaos, streets filled with people and youth, who joined the dissatisfied workers, ready to rumble the police, who appeared out of nowhere. From far away you could also see an old granny sitting on a pedestrian crossing. She died a day after, when cops took her away from that place by force. She sacrificed the last day of her life for a better tomorrow, for a hope that even the youth in this country can expect better days. No man could look at these events indifferently. So the next day, Tuzla became a warfare between cops and soldiers armed with batons and tear gas and dissatisfied crowds of workers, pensioner, thousands of unemployed people and students.

The crowd started throwing stones at the building, setting  car tires on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails shouting „Thieves, get out!“. The army cruelly bated and dispersed those people with tear gas – those same people, thanks to whom they have salaries. That day the prime minister Čaušević ordered to police and army not to slacken – „to hit the scum from all sides“. And they listened to him. On the same day, they started chasing students, searching student’s dorms, invading colleges and the nearby shopping mall „Omega“, not hesitating to detain them, using batons and tear gases. The main roads at the entrance of the city, northern and southern highway, were completely blocked. Some citizens were asking themselves if all that chaos was actually necessary, if people exaggerated a little bit, why is there so much violence and why this couldn’t be just a peaceful protest. The answer is simple:  because there was no effect. The warfare occurred on the streets, conflicts between police and many students became aggressive and windows at a few colleges were broken, while the youth was trying to escape from the soulless police. In the evening, the situation calmed down a little bit, but street wars between police and youth continued.

News about events in Tuzla circulated the country, as well as the whole region, and it was said on journal that classes in schools won’t be held the next day, neither the activities on colleges, for the student’s security, as many of them were hurt, while getting back home that day. And then fake news appeared on the Internet, saying that protesters were just plain thieves, who robbed a few shops, apartments and a shopping mall that night. They wanted to make the public think that only that kind of people take part in protests. And who wanted to create such an opinion, we’ll let you to think about that. Besides that they couldn’t prevent the next day’s event which was agreed on by thousands people from all over the B&H on social networks and in secret calls.

And so the revolution has begun. Many people are calling it the „Bosnian spring“. It started in Tuzla, a city of pride we would rather say, than a city of shame, but of course not everybody thinks the same. Some people think that this is just an act of vandalism of voracious youth, hooligans and idlers, who wanted others to feel their misery and poverty; while some are completely supporting them, considering that nothing would be done with civilized protests, nobody from our government would agree to negotiate and the silence would be kept, as well as passivity of citizens. However, it was a matter of time until the day would come when the youth will wake up from their tucked reality, when the thousands of unemployed people with a degree in their hands will go on the streets, about thousands of pensioners with a retirement so low that it is a shame for a country in Europe, and about thousands of unpaid workers. Revolution from Tuzla is now spreading in other cities, now that they have realized that everything is possible and all it takes is just joined forces.