09/27/2001

Concept of the “Bice/Bit ce u BiH – It will be in BiH” campaign

As a result of the success of the OHR anti-corruption campaign, the OHR decided to commission a second series in 2001 that would tackle the subject of economic reform using the same characters.

This campaign consisted of five 12-minute sequential animated cartoons, ten radio programs “News from the future”, one billboard poster and 3,000 VHS tapes. The 3,000 VHS tapes carry both the anti-corruption and economic campaigns and were placed in video rental shops around the country free of charge.

The five animated TV cartoons are set in the future. They show what the relationship between the individual, the society and the state is in an economically reformed and regenerated BiH, giving examples of how this economic framework affects and benefits the individual and the society at large. In so doing, they explain the concept of a “stakeholder society” where the individual has a personal interest (stake) in the state functioning properly and remaining fair, stable and predictable. Furthermore, the cartoons make clear that this “future society” can’t be created without the implementation of thorough economic reform and a significant change in the thinking of BiH citizens.

The story of the cartoons focuses on Bush, an apathetic economics student from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who stumbles across a time travelling device and is transported from the present day into the year 2030. He lands in a future Bosnia and Herzegovina that is very different to today’s. The economy is booming, almost everybody has a job, people behave responsibly, public services function, there is no corruption, and all the citizens feel a sense of civic responsibility for their country and the environment around them. Bush is amazed, and through a series of lessons realises that the old methods of doing things – nepotism, bribery, cheating – cannot work in this reformed society. In the process of trying to return to his own time with the help of the now older Gor and Ovaj and Onaj, Bush realises which economic reforms his country needs to go through to extricate itself from its current economic crisis. When Bush finally manages to return to his own time, he pledges to dedicate his life to implementing these reforms.