Interview with Jasmin Imamović, Mayor of Tuzla

"Tuzla is on the road to become a centre to which people come, rather than a province that people leave" 

With the Mayor of Tuzla, Jasmin Imamović, we talked about creating an atmosphere of coexistence and tolerance, about what it means for a city to endorse a policy of openness. In addition, the Mayor spoke of the previous results of the development and the future vision for the city of Tuzla.

Interviewer: Adis Jašarević

Mr. Imamović, as the first man of the city, you have devoted considerable attention to the creation of an atmosphere of coexistence and tolerance. You often state that Tuzla is the city of love, the city of good people and an open city for all people of good will.

We endorse a policy of openness, which we have included in all our documents. It is also evident from the administrative structure, from the holders of the highest public institutions in the city, and from the names of the most successful entrepreneurs of the city. The city's most important positions are held by people from all ethnic groups. The most essential thing to note is that it is not staged, it is simply the result of the multicultural character of the city of Tuzla. In Tuzla we foster that which connects us, not what sets us apart. We cultivate the faith in that reason of our existence. If the cause of our existence is love, that the reason for our lives should be the mission of love, not the mission of hatred. That is in our development strategy. It is a document which was adopted in 2003, as the development strategy until 2015. The strategy consists of the three letters T: tolerance, talent, technology, by which we mean new technologies. Tolerance is the prerequisite for the physical survival and development of any community, be it a local community or a country. People yearn for love. They do not want to worry any more, because life is short, they want to live. People want something nice to happen to them for once. These are the words of a Norwegian poet whom I quoted on the occasion of the opening of the new tourist season in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the second salt lake: "Let something nice happen to me for once."

Nice things connect people. How difficult is it to be the first man of the city today, with the mission to connect people, when we live in a country where efforts are made to separate? It is very difficult to preserve that spirit of Tuzla.

My goal is to improve the life of the citizens. When they say projects for return, I just do not envisage that something is done for one particular group of people, nation, generation. Simply speaking, if you resolve the problem of drinking water supply and you lift the restrictions imposed in 1931, then you lift them for all people. And immediately, the water supply system is what connects us. If you are making a lake for the citizens, children and pensioners, it is absurd to state that you are making it for a specific group of people or nations. The doors are open. We have people coming from all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the neighbouring countries. We are on the road to become a centre to which people come, rather than a province that people leave. You want to take a stroll in the centre of the city and see people of different races. Then the city is like Paris or London. If you want to make the city a centre like Milan, Paris, Rome, and make it gentleman-like as those cities, then you have to endorse a policy of open doors, tolerance, and it must never be a province which people go away from. The policy of xenophobia is primarily a policy of evil.

People recognise the policy of open doors. For the last several years, Tuzla has experienced a renaissance: major investments, profitable ventures, the opening of new job positions. You will continue working in that direction. Where do you see the development of Tuzla and what do you predict for the city of Tuzla in the period to come?

I think that the results so far have led to the situation that the per capita GDP in Tuzla is by 70% higher than the average of the Canton, and by 50% than the average of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have led to the situation that the location in the centre of Tuzla opposite the building of the Ministry of the Interior was sold for 12 million BAM, while a similar location on Marin dvor in Sarajevo was sold for 4 million BAM. This piece of information is hard to believe, but nonetheless true. We are moving in new directions. Talent, the second T in the Municipality's strategy. We have the most advanced centre for new technologies in Europe, after Norway. We are currently making another one. We are launching wireless internet, so that internet would be free for all. We are experiencing a return of successful talented individuals from throughout the world, the people who made it and are now coming back. These talented people are not leaving any more. We conducted a survey prior to the opening of the BIT Centre among the students at the Faculties of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, when 2% of the students stated that they would like to launch their own enterprise. Now, two years after the opening of the BIT Centre, 40% of the students state that they would like to start their own business. We showed people that it could be profitable. We are moving in a completely new direction, the development of tourism. We have enormous numbers of visitors. Through such policies, we have accomplished almost 90% of the municipal development strategy until 2015. Now we should work towards creating the vision of development until 2026. We have to have an honest approach, and the honest approach would be to take care of children who are born at the moment and who will come of age until 2026. In the vision of development we have concrete projects which will be completed in the four years to come. Present-day Tuzla has developed trade, something that was not developed before. It has developed tourism, which was not developed before. We have developed new technologies which were not present anywhere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, let alone Tuzla, but are developed now. Thus it can be said that we have gone down roads we did not know even existed. Now we have to continue moving in those directions, and stop anyone wishing to hinder these developments, because these are very positive trends recognized throughout the world. Yesterday I received an invitation to hold a presentation on this topic at the world-acclaimed Harvard University. All on the basis of these results. Thus we must not allow these developments to stop. When you are working on the development of a city, you are not moving on a straight path, but uphill. If a train stops, it will not stop and wait, it will go downhill. History does not move forward, that is one of the most common misconceptions. History does not only move forward, it very frequently moves backwards as well. The only thing is, when it moves forward, it takes a step at the time, but when it moves backwards, it crashes down into an abyss. That is why one must be careful and patient in the course of development, step by step. My goal is that the life of the citizens of Tuzla is more comfortable than anywhere else in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For that reason, we must continue the pace of development we have started. It is the way all the big centres of the world have developed. They were all developed through endorsing such a policy. There is not a single major city in the world which was successfully developed through a policy of xenophobia, closed doors, racism, judging people by their ethnicity.