Sarajevo Day 2:

Well today was very informative to say the least with very different perspectives on major topics in Sarajevo. Our day was extremely busy with lectures and briefings all day. We started off the day at the Bosnian Parliament with a lecture from one of its' members. The purpose of the Parliament is to ensure the organization of the constitution as well as the organization of assembly. These two things we learned were created out of the Dayton Accord. The Parliament has two sectors, the House of Representatives, and the House of Peoples. The House of Representatives is interesting because not all of its' members are elected the same way. There are 42 members of the House of Representatives, 28 of them are elected directly by the people, and serve sets of four year terms. But what is interesting is how they are elected by the different parts of the public. 28 of them are elected by electoral elites, and the other 14 are elected by electoral members of the caucuses. The other part of Parliament is the House of Peoples. these are 15 delegates in which five of them are Bosnians and are elected indirectly by Bosnians. This is interesting to me due to the fact that there is a sense that only certain ethnicities can vote for their respected people, this makes me feel like in some cases that there is a barrier as to who can vote for who. Another thing that interested me was that how the process of creating an amendment was different to what is done in the U.S. We learned that the reviewing is done by a committee then it goes to the House of the Peoples, then it goes to reading in Parliament which is done on a first and second reading phase. What was interesting about this was that there is a possibility that there can be a chance for another amendment to be developed into what has already been put out. Now there is something that happens when someone wants to run for president. when someone wants to run they have to declare themselves when they fill out the census what ethnicity they are now due to this they may be discriminated against so some just put other but when they do that they cannot run. This is becoming a big issue for Bosnia and it was said that if there is no way to figure out how to end this discrimination then there is no reason for them to join the European Union. There is one thing that Bosnia needs more than any other thing at the moment and that is foreign direct investment. If there were more FDI then it could help cut the unemployment rate which at the moment stands at about half of the population. Once we finished our tour of there we then went to the Office of the High Representative (OHR). While there we got a rundown on how and what they do. This was very interesting to me due to the fact that from what I understood between yesterday and today, the OHR are the ones that have the final say in what happens At the state level. The state is what is referenced to as the highest level in the government here in Bosnia and the federal is below. So the OHR was created under what is known as Annex 10 of the Dayton Accord, and acts as an enforcer to civilian interests. In 1997 the group met and came to an agreement that things were not moving along as fast as they could, so there was a motion to make major improvements. So there was motions to make the higher representatives able to substitute actors to adopt laws, and also be able to remove officials that were obstructing the way for peace. The OHR also tries to promote local responsibility which means that there needs to be some effort by locals to take action as to what they need done, and not to expect the OHR to do it for them. This was interesting to learn because there was a group of protestors that were in front of the OHR saying that the OHR is responsible for doing what the protestors needed, but that is not the case. The other thing that was touched on was that during the war in 1992-1995, the youth that were there to study and further their education after high school had to be relocated to other less conflicting places and due to that the ones that were in power during socialist and communist times were able to remain in power. This was bad because the same old same old could take place and the country would remain stagnant. One of the things that should have been a real eye opener was that based on the current constitution and Bosnia's situation currently, there is no possible way for them to join the European Union. Based on all that was discussed to me it sounds like Bosnia is a very volatile state and it makes me wonder what could happen to the state as I know now. The last lecture that we had was in my opinion by far the most interesting. It had to do with the idea of what business will be like in Sarajevo as well as the rest of Bosnia in the foreseeable future. One of the major challenges is your ability to culturally adapt. Also what you thought you knew does not matter any more at all you have to relearn a lot in order to adapt. The main thing that I took away from the last lecture was that the communist mind frame still lingers. What i mean by this is that if you were to become rich instantly many people would think that you were a thief and that you stole the money. It is things like this that make me wonder about what was said a bout democracy for the state. The question of whether or not democracy was brought in and developed too soon was brought up, and I can't help but to agree with that. I believe if business would have been focused on before government then maybe people wouldn't think about where people are making large amounts of money.