Brave Stefa represents the values despised by the society

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Photo: Jan Potente

By: Haris Ljevo

A few days ago, the Editor-in-Chief of the website Tacno.net from Mostar, Stefica Galic, traveled to Germany to receive the Johan Phillipp Palm free speech award for 2018.

The award is named after Johan Philipp Palm, German literary publisher and a freedom fighter killed in the beginning of the 19th century during Napoleons conquests. It was Napoleon himself who ordered Palm’s murder.

– I’m happy that my work and fight of many years have been recognized. I work and fight, and I never thought that I could be rewarded for that, I did not expect it. My work is a result of what I consider moral and human duty. Not more, not less than that, said Stefica in her award giving speech.

In this brave woman from Ljubuski Germany recognized everything that her native country did not. In her country, because of her campaign for freedom of speech and rights for every person, Stefica has lost everything but her family and friends. She was forced to leave Ljubuski and settle down in Mostar.

German society is exactly the ideal that Stefica has been fighting for in BiH. That’s why it was logical for her to receive such an award in Germany and not in BiH.

BiH is the opposite of Germany in every way, so Stefica Galic here, in her own country, gets only accusations, threats, swearing… as it would not be logical for her to receive in BiH an award for free speech when free speech is something the ruling elites hate the most.

– To be precise, I’m fighting the system to which nationalism and clerofascism are the measure of all things, the system that celebrates ‘its own criminals’ as heroes, considering it a patriotic act, against the system which trades human lives and their property, whose schools teach future soldiers to hate everything that is not their own, where nationalist parties permanently win at the elections… That system, that is my enemy, asserts Stefica.

Political system in BiH is Stefica’s enemy indeed, as well as of anyone else who dares to think and speak up. This system can’t stand free willed and progressive people; in order for it to survive, yes-folks are required, the people who will for sake of their personal gain claim that milk is black if their political party high rank says so.

Freedom is the most expensive thing in the world, and only few are prepared to make big sacrifices for it. Stefica Galic, with her late husband Nedjo and their children, sacrificed everything during the war to help their neighbors escape ending up in HVO’s detention camps. She was labelled the traitor of her own people, however, that did not make her change her mind and mission. On the contrary, it gave her additional strength to carry on and advocate for freedom 25 years later.

Today’s venture is no less significant and no less dangerous than it was during the war.

– I’m not going to beat around the bush, though it might sound harsh… For longer than quarter of a century, networked scoundrels have ruled here, three ethnic cartels. They divided us, pushed us into war, murdered us, drove us away across the world, robbed the entire social property and they are still doing it. They wreak havoc, leaving nothing behind, only moral and material desolation, nothing good. I have lost almost everything because of my work, from good reputation to livelihood, those whom I had considered friends and my family disowned me… On the other side, as a great encouragement despite of all cons – there have been many more people who have stood by me, have been helping me… Why? Because I was telling the truth about what I saw with my own eyes. Notwithstanding all the sacrifices during the war and afterwards, I have never given up on principle of humanity, I have never agreed to divisions, nationalistic blackmails, attempts to instill fear, ‘official truth’ and ‘alternative facts of new falsifiers and old avengers’, explained Stefica Galic.

Stefica Galic continues to fight battles which, in a society that calls itself democratic, should have been won long ago. On the other side, considering her public work and way of life, Stefica Galic is way ahead of her country. She has been a part of progressive, democratic and free Europe for quite some time, while BiH is progressing at a snail’s pace.

Stefica has given everything for this country, but the country has not given back to her. This country can’t stand and often hates all those who follow in Stefa’s footsteps.

The award that Germany has given to this courageous woman is only Stefica’s. BiH has nothing to do with it. Stefica’s award is nothing else but a mirror in which primitive and criminal ‘elite’ of this country can see its own reflection.

Patria