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The Problem with ‘Internationals’ in Bosnia

Caleb Waugh

Caleb Waugh

While I easily fell in love with Bosnia, my perception of the international community living and working there quickly evolved into something much more critical. Something that struck me almost immediately was just how insular the community is. Rarely were “locals”, as they are sometimes known, a fixture on nights out and internationals often seemed to be living in sort of blissful oblivion to the country and people around them.

In some ways, I hardly blame them. Many operate in a sort of international relations circuit. Shuttling from one country and well-cushioned position to another, invariably they learn to disconnect themselves quickly from the place, either from the knowledge that their stint there will be short lived, a feeling of detachment because of their comparatively privileged position or just not caring – or some sort of combination of all three.  

It struck me that many Bosnians had distaste for their foreign colleagues (well, usually bosses), and it’s quite possible that distaste went both ways.  

Foreigners have an incredible capacity to complain about everything in Bosnia – from the food to the people to the service at restaurants.  This still strikes me as odd considering that the great majority of them are able to finance a lifestyle that is inaccessible to most Bosnians.

In Bosnia this problem seemed to me particularly pronounced. It was shocking to find out how well paid most internationals are, compared to their Bosnian colleagues. What’s more, many are paid ten times the average national salary for doing more or less nothing.

Somehow, and I admit I’m a cynical person, the key terms and concepts thrown around by the UN, EU, and OSCE lose their meaning when not only the organizations themselves deal with internal corruption but when the foreigners lecturing Bosnia have a fair amount of trouble mustering the necessary vocabulary to order a beer at a local bar.

I can’t count how many times I’ve had shocking conversations with “internationals” and found myself wondering how on earth these people ended up in Bosnia. It seemed that many people, particularly young people, come here with some vague notion that they want to promote human rights or the like while in reality they would have had difficulty finding Bosnia on a map.  

That’s not to say that everyone has to be an expert – but at least an interest in the region would be helpful, not just a desire to preach about vague notions of human rights and earn 3,000-plus euros a month, tax free.  

It’s this kind of atmosphere that creates a strong aura of cynicism among both locals and internationals.

The internationals only come for the great pay (which goes even further in a country like Bosnia) and the locals pretend to play along. It gives the impression that the whole thing is a game, known by both sides to be little more than a facade.  

Thus, the suspicion with which you are sometimes treated as an international is often palpable and I can hardly blame the Bosnians for such an attitude considering the significant gaps in areas such as pay and lifestyle.  

That’s certainly not to say that the sweeping generalizations I’ve made can be applied to every foreign national working in Bosnia. There are many who are extraordinarily knowledgeable about the country and who have made great efforts to integrate themselves, including learning the language.  

Furthermore, it may sound hypocritical that a foreigner, and not just any foreigner at that but the worst kind of foreigner – an American – is issuing such stinging criticisms of the international community. That said, I think that the attitude of many foreigners in this country is bad and serves only to foster discontent with the international community as a whole.  

It’s important for there to be minimal acrimony between the international and national communities in a country like Bosnia where the international presence continues loom large and more often than not still dominates political discourse.  

It seems that a generalized suspicion of foreigners in Bosnia is not just attributable to their behaviour in and of itself but also to the fact that international organizations operating in the country tend to issue instructions but do little in terms of aiding their implementation.

And it’s problematic that many (although not all) foreigners in Bosnia live in fortresses of sorts, sealed off from the rest of the country. It gives off the idea that the international community is there less to serve the interests of the Bosnian people than to act as a sort of colonial elite.  

Divisions and acrimony are invariable in these conditions and are compounded when large numbers of foreigners resist doing things like learning the language or involving themselves more in society. For all of Bosnia’s very real problems, it is long past due for the international community to more critically examine its own behaviour, and try and find the time to discover the country in which they live.

Caleb Waugh is BIRN - Justice Report intern in Sarajevo.