Politic isn't so dirty as they represent to us here

WRITES: MILKICA MILOJEVIC

Svetlana Cenic in conversation for Lara online exposes:
Way women are better managers from men, what is tolerated to men, and what politic women is not forgiven, and what tell women to her who stop her at the street.

She is from Sarajevo by her birth and origin, who has already been working for 13 years in Banja Luka. She is an economist with finished postgraduate studies at the Cambridge University and European centre for peace and development. Svetlana Cenic is one from rare women in BiH who either in Banja Luka or in Sarajevo, either in Brisel, or in New York loudly and clearly says what she thinks.

She proudly points out that she is divorced woman, that she raised by herself her daughter, and that her all life has been living "from her own bread" from that she earned alone. She is even today subtenant what is difference regarding from large majority actual and ex high officials. She earns her salary as a teacher at two private Universities in Banja Luka.

She worked in some foreign companies, and she was female collaborator of the vice-president RS departed Nikola Koljevic during the war, then she was adviser of the president of RS Dragan Cavic, and after that female minister of the finance in the Government of Prime Minister Pero Bukejlovic. Today, even she stayed as an out of party person, many people consider her as informal female leader of the opposition in RS.

Those less well meant declared her as a state's enemy number one because of her critical attitude according to actual government.

When you return back, from all roles and positions in public and political life in which role is the most difficult be a woman?

- I do not know that there is any role in which is easy be woman. Let's start from role of housewife, that is the hardest and the most depreciate work at the planet. When we speak about politic, we jeopardized according that how much speaks about position woman in politics. No one speak about man position in politic, neither about position of rich men, than about women position, about position of invalids, about youth. What would be say in jargon, they are lower!

The most difficult is that no one admit knowledge, abilities and accomplishment to woman, and every else is putting in the first plan. At politic men pass everything: and ignorance, and incompetence, and even elementary luck of culture. He can have 300 kilos, he can be untidy, with dirty nails, with ties turned in side, all that is tolerate, while appearance of woman always under magnifying glass. When I was at the function, some people were taking right to comment how much kilos I have, should I go to fitness, even though I was not hostess than minister of finance. If the woman in the party, and if she does not applaud loudly enough to her leader, if she does not remove dandruff from his shoulder, there is no chance to progress. When election lists made, and then hunt on women starts, in order to put any woman name, and not because the party's leaders truly believe that women should participate in political life, not because they respect women, than because someone is issued by the law.

The world is changed, and we are backward. The world is changed, because the women according to rule in public jobs are more responsible from majority of men, and in majority of cases it cannot almost everything stand under skin and under cap. Woman does not want to tolerate dirt only because the politic is allegedly according the definition dirty.

Conclusion that there is not women in politic because they are not enough active we can often hear in political speech. Supposedly, there are not women enough in parties, so then wives are hunted, secretaries, and girlfriends to fill the list. How much according your opinion this statement is true?

- There are really less women than men in parties, first, because of that dirt which follows our domestic politic, and then because of that woman has million other obligations which men do not want to share with their female partners. And then, there is here one more thing, and that is inadequate acting women's organizations and female activists, and lack of women's solidarity. Women often go by line of less resistance, then they wait that something clear up, that someone else clear one's way, and in order to then they start by compacted path. It is absurd that women in NGO discuss endlessly about women's position, and when happen concrete situation in which should react that women's voice is not heard.

So, you insist that nongovernmental organizations are not enough brave and civil active in protecting of women human rights, what is their mission?

- How some! Some of them very fast profaned: when they need to raise voice they silence, and then they make some around table at whom they complain bitterly of each other. They gathered to say all what they must not either at home or on television, but that what they say do not have any influence out of that relatively closed circle.

But, there are organizations which simply do not give in. Recently, I was in Jajce at the fair of women contractors from all over the BiH and I had a great time. There were mostly women who started literally from nothing and they made solid job, and even in the poorest regions. I became enthusiastic about how they found way in order to strive. There are many successful women in economy, but they are not famous because they are not close to politic, and they are not in front of TV cameras.

With which means and methods women can truly change actual relation of power, in order to be better for all us?

- First, they should change relations in family. No one should bear subordination and mistreatment in his home. Then, woman shouldn't run away from herself, than to be her own. She shouldn't be obedient in political parties and wait which function someone will bestow, than she should oppose and fight for herself. There, we have actives of women in political parties. Which active made critical retrospect according its party's leader, or according party's politic? Women need a little more courage to take that what belongs them by the law and by the justice.

It is often happened that some woman stops me on the street and tells me: "Hat is off to you! Do not get tired!" And then, I answered to them, you do not get tired, you join your voices, tell what you think. And then, follow answer which is defeated. They say, it is lovely what you say, I agree with you, but I can not on that way, you know, family... Same as that I do not have a family, like that I at home held animals! We all fight for family, for existence, but that existence will be jeopardized if woman do not hold up the voice. Why woman couldn't be louder either in politic or civil society, If she can be in army and in police.

How to fight in order to become first economic more independent and then with more power?

- Look, I will be back for short on the first after war years. Foreign organizations which worked on economic strengthening of women gave money to organize courses of sewing, knitting and such things to them. And on that way they just additionally marginalize women. Same as that woman is not capable for anything else, same as that woman does not know sit for computer, same as she wouldn't know learn foreign language, take scholarship and goes study abroad. When woman wants to start some job, she can't put belongings under mortgage in order to take credit because the belongings are led on father or husband, so she should ask them for permission, and they by the rule do not believe that woman can and knows to make a job.

At the other side, our new rich men often reregistered their belongings on wives that no one can find out what they have, and so we get fictively rich women who actually do not manage with that "their" belongings. And what do against all that. The key is education. Education, education, and again education, then three full stops, then again education! As more as women know, more often travel and see how people live somewhere else, they will be more confident and more capable, and they will have bigger opportunities to become independent, to earn money and acquire power. There is very small number of women who can become rich according recipe of our war and after war rich men. Woman can legally acquire good position and at the end either power or riches, if she educated. At the west is a trend that more and more women are employed at governing managing positions because the women are more responsible at work, they are more rigorous, more reliable, and much more lucid in resolving burning problems. Only in our country still exist attitude that woman should do everything but not to show up and to not decide, than only sits in the corner works and keeps silent.

What do you think about country and community in which we live? And where we will be in a five or ten years?

- In next five or ten years perhaps it will be good, but I do not believe that soon will be good for us. In whole BiH govern autocracy and totalitarianism. Difference between entities is only that here is everything asked one man, and in Federation BiH is asked two or three men. So, we have a few people who govern independently in their areas and whom approve all those people who grabbed something what they couldn't dream about, and now live in a big fear that something of that misery what they got from someone's else back do not lose. But, that can not last. Slobodan Milosevic could do that a little more years because in his age was not internet. That could do Causeski, too because was not internet and because there was steel curtain. But, today restrict freedom of opinion to people and use rhetoric of domestic betrayer and foreign mercenaries, which is a caricature! So, I do not believe that all these will last long, I do not believe that they all corrupted, and that there is enough money that all are being bought. It is the last time that civil society wakes up; it is last time that we regain consciousness! It is the last time to develop consciousness that we pay all this from our pockets, that when buy a loaf of bread or bottle of water we already give money to someone to do something with what we perhaps do not agree. It is the last time that we start with asking where money which we earned goes.

Well, my friends tell me very often: keep silence, why are you asking, do not be silly, why do you need that, keep silence and wait, and this will pass. But, in silence and waiting pass our lives, too, for nothing.