AS if there isn't enough hate around the world, Serb Republic leader Milorad Dodik, convicted Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic-like, is inciting more.
Last Sunday, Dodik defied Bosnia Herzegovina's Constitutional Court order against celebrating the national day of the republic, marking the creation of the Republika Srpska 30 years ago, one of the events that is said to have led to the war in Bosnia in the 1990s.
Sadly, Russian and Chinese diplomats joined in the dangerous celebrations. It is support such as this that places the world in a terrible state.
Russia and China must be on the right side, not on the strong side. The strong aren't always right. Besides, it is hard to love a country that does not do the right thing.
Perhaps, Russia and China may think that the Constitutional Court was wrong to ban the Bosnian Serbs from celebrating their national day.
No, the court didn't ban the celebration of the national day, but what it stopped was the incendiary manner in which they are accustomed to celebrating it.
For 10 years, the Bosnian Serbs displayed the hatred for the Muslim Bosniaks like they were lesser human beings.
An Al Jazeera report quotes Dodik as describing the Bosniaks as "second rate people" and "treacherous converts" who sold their "original Orthodox Christian faith for dinner". Jan 9 national hate day was all of this and more.
It was Dodik's vengeance all over again. He needs to be told that Christianity isn't a Serbian religion, but a Middle Eastern one.
Bosnian Serbs must learn how to give credit where it is due. Don't get us wrong. We are not supporting the United States.
It so happens that the US is on the right side, though it created a mess in Bosnia Herzegovina before making it better. Like it has made a terrible mess of the world in so many places.
We think the US lacks integrity. Period. Russia and China mustn't join the US there. It is a place for unloved nations.
Geopolitics — the game nations play in different geographies — does no country any good. National interest must be harvested within a nation's borders. Not within the borders of others.
Sure, it happened in the past during colonial times. This is a time which has come and gone. Time past isn't something for us to change, but time present and time future are something we can attempt to make good, God willing.
If we read Beijing correctly, China wants to be loved by the rest of the world. This isn't a misplaced aspiration. Or even a wrong one. What is wrong though is to lend support to people who love to hate.
Dodik and his Bosnian Serb supporters are people on whom love will be wasted. Dodik, like his war criminal idol Mladic, has genocide on his mind.
For 15 years, he has been brewing it. The United Nations on Friday rightly expressed its alarm at the growing glorification of "atrocity crimes and war criminals".
Media reports coming out of Banja Luka, the scene of the national parade of hate, seem to confirm this. It was hate speech such as this that led to the genocide of Bosniaks following the war in the 1990s.
China and Russia must not find themselves on the wrong side of history. If they do, then they have been looking for love in all the wrong places.