March for Science Sarajevo 2017

March for Science started out as the “Scientists' march on Washington”, an initiative in January 2017, just before the inauguration of Donald Trump and after the “Women's March”. The March was first suggested in a Reddit conversation in January, which not long after got around a million followers and then spread to other social networks. The drop that spilled the cup was the announcements of budget cuts and the ignorant attitude of the new administration towards science and scientific facts. In the period before the elections and the inauguration, Donald Trump publicly met people known for their anti-science attitudes, attitudes that can endanger health and the future not only of the American nation, but the whole human population. For example, he met Robert Kennedy on the issue of vaccines – rather than going to the scientific community and ask facts on immunization, he met someone who is not an expert in that field, but a self proclaimed “antivaxx” activist. Also, it was clear even then that the new administration refuses to admit the fact that climate change is happening and that it's largely caused by human activity. Political decisions that are not based on scientific consensus on climate change put hardly reached agreements like Paris agreement at risk, which can, as the end result, have tragic consequences to all mankind. Underdeveloped island countries like Maldives, Seychelles and Haiti will first experience these consequences. President Trump himself tweeted in 2012. that climate change is a “Chinese hoax” even though a few years before that he had a different opinion on this issue.

USA budget for 2018. foresees significant cuts in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which has by now felt the biggest changes as it is targeted by the new administration. Scott Pruitt was appointed as the new Director of EPA, a man who openly says he doesn't support scientific facts and the proof of climate change. However, even before his appointment, a precedent in the agency's history happened: publicly available archives on climate change were removed from the web site. The efforts of scientists and hackers during those few days were focused on saving the archive and creating “mirror pages” where all changes could be tracked. Soon after that, a lot of “rogue” accounts of scientific agencies emerged on Twitter, like RogueNASA or altUSEPA, as a sign of protest. With the turn in American politics, “Clean Water Act”, “Clean Air Act”, “National Environmental Policy Act” and “Endangered Species Act” have been put into question. It was recently made public that it will be possible to kill animals in hibernation in the US, like bears and their young in their lairs – while sleeping. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the biggest scientific community in the USA and the publisher of the reputable Science magazine, supported the March and called for the defense of science and scientists' dignity.

However, the idea of the Washington March soon spread outside the place of the original march, all around the US, and later Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand and some parts of Asia: marches will be held in India, Bhutan, Nepal, Japan, Phillippines, China and South Korea. Almost all European countries are included in the March. These are the “associated marches”, so called “spin-offs” of the original march. The march will not happen in Russia, former USSR countries, the Middle East and a lot of Eastern and Southeastern European countries.

In our region, marches will be held in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo and Podgorica. The march in Zagreb is organized by the Sociology Students' Association and the Society for the promotion of science and critical thinking. Unfortunately, the initiative for the march in Sarajevo did not come from the institutions, which was the case in the USA, nor associations – as it was in Croatia, it came from individuals (researchers, scientists, citizens), ie., informal group of citizens. Students' Parliament of the University of Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo, scientific and academic communities – nobody took the moral responsibility to initiate this event here, which further testifies the unenviable position of science in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the process of continuous silencing of scientists, political ideologising of education institutions in the frame of the general desecularization of the BiH society. And for this reason we need this kind of march.

The idea to organize the march in Sarajevo came mid-march, from Bojan Šošić, a BiH psychologist with a rich international career and Jelena Kalinić, a biologist and the author of the science blog Quantum of Science. The march will be organized by an informal group of citizens.

This global initiative will probably become one of the historically significant marches and it is intolerable for our country not to participate. March for science in Bosnia and Herzegovina is dealing with local and global problems in the area of natural and social sciences and it is aimed at popularizing science in our society. The march should point to the significance of science and the position of scientists in our country, the significance of funding science research and support of talented and diligent students, and the danger of pseudoscience and anti-science attitudes to all man kind. The March is one of the first steps of fight for the dignity of scientists and science, better education – especially in the area of natural sciences.

English language posts