Protest Singers Try to Rock Bosnia's Establishment

They were thick on the ground in the 1960s, putting their guitars and voices behind such causes as the anti-war movement in Vietnam, the environment and racial and sexual tolerance.

Today protest singers are scarce in the US and Europe. But while they may have fallen largely silent, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s young musicians are starting to raise their voices in support of social and political change.

Although many of these bands have a strong following among the young, they claim the Bosnian media and political establishment often marginalise them and minimise their influence.

The first band in the country to add an overtly political note to its songs was Dubioza Kolektiv (The Dubious Collective), which in 2004 began to voice people’s deep frustrations in the chartbuster “This is a jail”.

“Politics, corruption… how long will the truth be ignored?” they sang. “All the money is vanishing…One should ask why the crooks are always in power/getting richer by the day.”

Two years on, many other musicians are following in their footsteps, coming up with even more strident lyrics about the reality of daily life in post-war Bosnia.

“Musicians have made it their personal cause to speak for the people and voice discontent with everything that’s wrong,” Brano Jakubovic, of Dubioza Kolektiv, says.

One of the band’s recent offerings, composed together with a rapper called Frenki, makes – by modern European standards – a trenchant analysis of the political paralysis that grips this ethnically divided country. “Is there life after democracy/with three identical parties?” it asks.

“Political engagement is the sole reason for getting into the music business,” says Jakubovic, “because the lack of forward progress is the most important thing happening to us at the moment”.

His may be the most politically driven band in the country but the same high-minded motives drive other musicians, too.

“Right now we are in a situation where we just can’t sing about love and springtime,” says Robert Jandric, of the Banja Luka band Unutrasnja Emigracija (Internal Emigration).

Jandric says social problems must be resolved first when so many people are hungry and jobless.

His band’s lyrics, addressed to an audience in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, the Republika Srpska, point out much the same problems those from the Muslim-Croat federation address.

“Nothing changes except the echelons in power,” the song “System and Power” goes. “Freedom of speech is flooded by censorship/do as you’re told and walk away/you’re headless and have to do what they say.”

These protest songs make freedom of speech and opinion their watchword.

The song “Enough” of Dubioza Kolektiv makes this point clearly. “Get up and fight/walk into freedom,” it says, “because this train is heading for doom/your silence suits them/be the fire that burns down the system.”

Rapper Frenki, from Tuzla, has a similar message for his audience in the Muslim-Croat Federation.

“They are polishing up the streets for fresh elections/I am sure the nationalists will win again,” he sings in “Let’s take them down,” describing the pre-election atmosphere in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Frenki says the almost unbearable plight of many of the population is his primary motive to try and explore the vast potential for protest that music offers. “Music can move people,” he says. “It can move other people the same way it moved me.”

Frenki’s rhymes do not promise problems can be solved instantly but urge people to wake up and take the initiative.

In “Soundtrack”, he calls for a virtual rebellion. “Let’s speak for ourselves and open our eyes,” he sings. “We will use both our crutches if need be to get these peasants out of power.”

While popular discontent is greater than ever in Bosnia and Herzegovina, few of the protest songs seem to make it onto the big commercial radio stations, with the exception of Radio 202 and the student-based Radio eFM.

“There is no reaction because these rebel songs don’t get through to where they should be heard,” says Ajdin Husic, of eFM Radio.

Two years ago the editor of this student radio, Zoran Catic, penned his suggestion of words to go with the otherwise lyric-less national anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The official anthem was composed after the war but to this day remains only an instrumental because representatives of the country's three main ethnic groups cannot come up with a text they can agree on.

Catic, reflecting the dissatisfaction of many citizens at having a wordless anthem, as well as exasperation with the wider political situation, wrote an alternative national anthem.

The new lyrics contained some sarcastic reflections on Bosnia’s political realities.

“Godless, as we created you with no fear of God/three presidency members with unlimited power,” are the words of Catic’s “alternative” anthem.

The words, which speak disparagingly of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three-member presidency, outraged many listeners and can only be heard on eFM radio.

Most musicians say they are not concerned with whether the big radio stations play their songs. “Live events and the internet are always an option,” says Frankie. “There are ways for people to listen to our music if they want to.”

And although the politicians are the bad guys in the protest songs, those on the receiving end of these lyrics insist they are more tolerant than the singers make out.

“Everyone able to express themselves in an artistic form is welcome in this country,” says one parliamentarian, Mirsad Ceman.

He is a representative of the Bosniak-dominated Party of Democratic Progress, SDA, one of the three nationalist parties in power for much of the post-war period, often referred to in the songs of rebel musicians.

Ceman says creating a general atmosphere of defeatism is counterproductive, although he agrees it is useful to underline problems in society.

Damir Masic, a parliamentarian representing the Socialist Democratic Party, SDP, does not think the singers will do much more than liven up the pre-election campaign leading up to the October 1 vote.

“The basic role of this art form is to entertain people and break the campaign monotony and tedious, uniform routine of pre-election rallies,” he says.

Jakubovic of Dubioza Kolektiv says the protest singers are not there simply to raise people’s consciousness about poverty and corruption.

At a time when he says the political establishment has actively cut off channels of communication between the country’s three ethnic groups, musicians can bridge the divide. “Music can help light a fuse and get communication underway,” he says.

It is probably beyond the power of even the best of Bosnia’s protest singers to truly break down such long-standing and entrenched barriers. But to many their lyrics at least offer hope.

Ajdin Husic says: “They give hope that in time, a force will arise that is able to change things for the better.”

Husic says the new wave of politically inspired music in the country is proof that not everyone has accepted the status quo.



Merima Husejnovic is an intern with Balkan Insight in Sarajevo. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.