Bosnia and Herzegovina is drowning. Torrential rains have unleashed roaring funnels of water and mudslides that have consumed entire villages and taken more than 30 lives, according to official Bosnian counts. Almost a million are reported displaced; many more remain at risk. The economic toll will reach into billions of dollars in a small country with a tragic history. As one Bosnian remarked, “We were already struggling, now we are sinking.”

But Bosnia is drowning for another reason, too, this one no act of God. It has been eight years since a painstaking effort, started in 1995, to establish efficient, shared institutions began to steadily unravel under a fresh onslaught of nationalism, corruption, cronyism and international neglect — a stagnation that seeped slowly but overwhelmingly into Bosnia’s political, economic and even spiritual life.…  Seguir leyendo »