At the beginning of last month, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS) received new leadership. The respectable academy was headed by Prof. . Ph.D. Ismar Volić. He presented the strategy for 2022, which includes reorganization processes for positioning at a higher operational level, which is necessary due to the growing scope of activities and importance. Interviewed by: Faruk Vele Ismar Volić is a professor of mathematics at Wellesley College in Boston. He grew up in Sarajevo and went to America in 1991 as a high school student. He graduated in mathematics from Boston University and received his doctorate from Brown University. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia before coming to Wellesley in 2006, where he is now a full professor. He was also a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Louvain-la-Neuve University in Belgium. He recently spent a semester at the University of Sarajevo as a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship. Professor Volić works in the field of topology, which is similar to geometry and deals with the study of shapes and spaces together with the changes that occur during their deformations. He is the author of over twenty scientific papers and two books in this field. He gave over one hundred and fifty lectures on five continents. Prof. Volić is the son of Jasna Diklić, our famous actress and columnist on the Radiosarajevo.ba portal. He lives in Boston with his wife and two children but is a frequent visitor to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he lectures and acts as a mentor at the University of Sarajevo. In an interview with Radiosarajevo.ba, he speaks very inspiredly about BHAAAS and its plans and critically dissects the situation in our country, its perspectives, and increasing challenges. 
Radiosarajevo.ba: Professor Volić, it has been a month since you were appointed the head of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian-American Academy of Arts and Sciences (BHAAAS). What are the first impressions? Volić: First impressions are expected—a lot of work and little time. But I was ready for it. I have been a member of BHAAAS for eight years and have been on the Board of Directors for six years in various capacities. Not a single day has passed during all that time that I have not done something for BHAAAS, that I have not dedicated some time every day to the improvement and advancement of this organization. So I know BHAAAS very well, and I was aware of the challenges ahead. The most important thing for me is that I have surrounded myself with capable people led by a rejuvenated Board of Directors who understand my vision and are ready to do their best to implement it together. It also helps that none of us questions the validity and value of everything we do, so it's easy to be motivated and find time every day. Radiosarajevo.ba: What are your plans at the head of the academy, and how do you see its role? Volić: BHAAAS has been growing and gaining in importance since its inception, and this has been especially noticeable in the last few years. People and institutions have increasingly heard about us, appreciate our work, and want to join us. The scope of our activities is expanding, and the way we operate is recognizable as a model of academic work at the world level that should be strived for. Our membership is growing; we are joined by fantastic young people who are motivated and who are slowly taking over the baton from us. The BHAAAS Days conference in BiH, which will be held for the thirteenth time in June, has become the most recognizable and important scientific event in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, considering that we are volunteers who do all this during the little free time we have between other obligations and at our own expense, we have not completely succeeded in organizationally monitoring our growth. We urgently need to regroup functionally and financially to place BHAAAS on an independent and well-established operating basis that would allow us to create and participate in projects as efficiently as possible, to make maximum use of the infinite expertise of our members. So the vision of my presidency is two-fold: to capitalize on the current upward trajectory with the expansion of activities and attract an even greater number of quality members, and at the same time to form an administrative structure that could bring it all to life in a sustainable and long-term way. 
Radiosarajevo.ba: In the meantime, the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has become significantly radicalized, to the point of fearing a new war. How do you see these processes in our country? Volić: I must admit that it is not easy for me personally to objectively evaluate the current events in Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the distance, and enough problematic things are happening in America that informing about the situation both here and in Bosnia and Herzegovina takes a lot of time. At the same time, I try to keep in my head two contradictory views of the situation in our country: one is the deterioration of institutions and the political system that leads to the worst, to some version of the terrible history of the nineties, and the other is that this is just another cycle of pre-election games of egomaniacal megalomaniacs who lead our country and who play with the destinies of the people who blindly follow them. Depending on which portal I go to, which article I read, and which friend I talk to, one of these visions dominates at a given moment, but it can also be quickly replaced by another. But whatever the outcome of the current situation, in any case, it reaffirms the weakness and fragility of our political system, which must be changed. Radiosarajevo.ba: According to some, the international community is hesitant in BiH, which leads many to doubt that the country could be endangered and that it is threatened by conflicts and secession. Why is it so, and how can we improve the position of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Volić: I'm not competent to answer this because I don't know what happens behind the scenes. It is good that the international community seems to be slowly beginning to understand the gravity of the problem. The situation with Palmer and Eichhorst showed how deep our problems are, and they cannot and should no longer be solved within the framework of the constitution and a system that has institutionally built-in discrimination, which divides people into "us" and "them." I hope that the efforts of the international community will be directed towards a more radical solution that will enable the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to use ballots to stop the political dominance of corrupt nationalists and populists and who will relegate them to the margins of society where they belong. Terrible and devastating Radiosarajevo.ba: Many young people, including their families, are leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina. How terrible is it at the moment and an extremely worrying trend, and how can we respond to it? Volić: I recently read statistics that every other young person in Bosnia and Herzegovina is thinking about leaving. Terrible and devastating. But on the other hand, the solution is clear; only its implementation is a problem. First, there must be a stable economy that would guarantee the youth that they will have employment and a decent life after they complete their education. And for that to happen, it is necessary to change the political system, which is suited to economic (and cultural, educational, and any other) stagnation because it gets rich from it. 
But at the beginning of that chain of changes is education; it is necessary to change the education system to adapt it to what is happening in the world. A quality education that nurtures critical thinking would empower the youth and show them that they not only can but must reject the policy under which we have been constantly shrinking in Europe's rearview mirror for a quarter of a century. The youth must understand who leads their country, and whose interests these people have—not the interests of young people—and then choose smarter, more hardworking, and more honest leaders. At the same time, we cannot sit back and wait for the youth to take action. We must give them the tools of education, tolerance, inclusion, and broadened horizons, and that is where BHAAAS sees its role. We transfer knowledge and hope that indirectly, not to say subversively, we contribute to positive systemic changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the long run. Radiosarajevo.ba: How to create conditions for the transfer of knowledge and people in BiH towards the ideal of a meritocracy in which a society of knowledge, equality, and equal opportunities will be created, which is a kind of ideal? Volić: It is crucial that education is talked about, that it is at the center of public discourse, and that it is persistently repeated out loud that there is no progress without quality education. A few years ago, we had the PISA test that showed how far behind our educational system was, and instead of using that test as an alarm for urgent reform, as many other countries used it, it was decided that Bosnia and Herzegovina would no longer participate in the PISA test. Again, we come back to the fact that this works in the hands of the ruling class because the educational deficit keeps the people trapped in the voting booths. As long as the malignant tumor of inadequate education continues to spread through all spheres of society, it will be difficult for us to reach the ideal of meritocracy that you mention. Another problem is that the potential of the diaspora has been neglected. There are very few initiatives that originate from Bosnia and Herzegovina and that would engage us to become integral in the development of education. We are the ones who know the education system both here and in the countries we live in, and it would be natural to capitalize on that experience. Mostly everything that BHAAAS and similar organizations do is initiated by us and not by institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A recent exception to this is the University of Sarajevo, which is taking concrete steps to use our potential as best as possible. This is how all educational institutions, including ministries, should behave. Anyone who wants to see what a society of knowledge, equality, world networking, cutting-edge science, and art looks like should come to our Days of BHAAAS in BiH next June in Sarajevo. Those four days of transferring and exchanging expertise, mentoring students, and presenting new methods, methodologies, techniques, and technologies will, as always, be a prototype for top academic activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will be a picture of everything that could exist if the intellectual potential of our country were properly nurtured and freed from politics. (https://radiosarajevo.ba/)
English
Bosanski
