‘The state killed my child’: security, justice and affective sociality in the European periphery

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Party of Democratic Action (SDA) run by Bakir Izetbegović, the son of the late Alija Izetbegović, BiH wartime president, is considered to be the strongest party in the BiH entity of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina also known as the Bosniak (Muslim)-Croat Federation.

2. Party of the Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) run by Milorad Dodik, the former RS President and now a member of a three-partite rotating BiH Presidency, is the strongest party in the BiH entity of the Republika Srpska.

3. https://www.icty.org/en/press/icty-convicts-ratko-mladić-for-genocide-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity, https://www.icty.org/en/press/tribunal-convicts-radovan-karadzic-for-crimes-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina.

4. https://radiosarajevo.ba/vijesti/bosna-i-hercegovina/ifet-feraget-o-slucaju-dzenan-memic-ovo-je-istraga-o-istrazi/405,236.

5. https://ba.n1info.com/vijesti/advokat-ifet-feraget-dodik-je-sebi-dozvolio-nesto-sto-nije-smjelo-da-se-desi/

6. The most notorious example is the red-van used to pick up and transport Banja Luka Muslims from Banja Luka, which was allegedly organised by Nenad Stevandić, now a doctor and a politician close to Dodik. Qualifying David’s case as an incident, he said that ‘once a horse drowned in the Crkvena river’ to which Daniela Ratešić, a JFD activist replied ‘Stevandić was never in charge of horses let alone people, the only thing he was ever in charge of was the red van’ (see Dakić 2018).

7. In his February 2021 appearance on BUKA TV, Muriz Memić pointed at the SDA (Party of Democratic Action) party elites were behind the covering up of the Dženan Memić’s case. SDA is run by Bakir Izetbegović and his wife, Sebija Izetbegović, as the Head of the University Clinical Center in Sarajevo, has been implicated in the coverup. (See ‘Sretao sam ubice svog sina.’ Buka TV, February 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz30l1lUoLE).

8. According to recent (2018) statistics, the unemployment rate in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) averaged 42.39% from 2007 to 2018, reaching an all-time high of 46.10% in February of 2013 and a record low of 35.73% in June of 2018, but only because around 150,000 people had left the country in the meantime (https://www.statista.com/statistics/453933/unemployment-rate-in-bosnia-herzegovina/).

9. On 27 September 2018, the police filed a suit against the pathologist Karan for malpractice in producing a toxicological report on a machine without a certificate, which could not have identified toxic traces in the blood of David Dragičević, who had been accused of using LSD, marijuana and alcohol. The new toxicological findings confirmed the earlier claims to be lies.

10. https://rs.n1info.com/region/a419971-davor-dragicevic-na-konferenciji-za-novinare-o-svom-sinu/

11. https://www.slobodna-bosna.ba/vijest/104160/davidova_majka_najavila_premjestiti_tijelo_davida_dragichevica_u_austriju_ne_zele_da_ostane_u_mafijaskoj_republici_srpskoj.html

12. https://www.rtvbn.com/3916431/davor-dragicevic-porucio-predsjedniku-dodiku-milorade-idemo-do-kraja

13. The lyrics of the anthem were ‘It looks like I won’t make it far because I am just a pawn in this story, I’m not going anywhere, I made a mess, I’m just another kid from the ghetto’ (Izgleda da neću daleko stići jer sam ja samo pijun u ovoj priči, ne idem nikud, načinio sam štetu, ja sam samo još jedan klinac u getu) evocating abandoment and resistance originally with material origins in African-American experience.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Notes on contributors

Danijela Majstorovic

Danijela Majstorovic (MA 2003, Ohio University; PhD 2006 University of Banja Luka) is Professor of English Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Banja Luka’s English department. Between 2019-2021, she was a Humboldt Experienced Research Fellow studying social protests and third-wave migrations in and from Western Balkans to Germany at Justus Liebig University in Giessen. She was a visiting researcher at Lancaster University in 2006, a Fulbright fellow at UCLA in 2012-2013, a Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta in 2014 and a visiting researcher at Indiana University in 2016. Her research interests involve critical discourse analysis, critical theory, feminism, post- and decolonial theory, and post-Dayton Bosnia. She co-authored Youth Ethnic and National Identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Palgrave, 2013), authored Diskursi periferije (Biblioteka XX vek, Belgrade) and Diskurs, moć i međunarodna zajednica (FF Banja Luka, 2007). She edited Living with Patriarchy: Discursive Construction of Gendered Subjects Across Cultures (John Benjamins, 2011), U okrilju nacije (CKSP Banja Luka, 2011) and Kritičke kulturološke studije u postjugoslovenskom prostoru (Banja Luka, 2012). Her newest book Discourse and Affect in Post-socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina: Peripheral Selves came out for Palgrave in 2021.