Lessons from Bosnia — unexpected topic
Genocide!
I’m struggling to write about this topic. I didn’t struggle like this with any other topic, but this one is different.
We don’t talk about it much between ourselves. We talk about it with foreigners. We talk about it at events. We talk about it with officials. But we hardly ever mention it in conversations.
I can talk about genocide in academic terms. I know about the Genocide Convention, about the 10 stages of genocide, I know that it’s not about the number of people that a genocidal maniac has managed to kill. I know we need to do more so that punishment fits the crime — at the moment, punishment is nowhere near enough, genocidal maniacs should not be in comfy prisons, we should be learning about them as if they have no sense of pride. Crimes against humanity should be taught in schools as crimes against humanity, against every human being. Even though my people, Bosnian Muslims, were a target of genocide during my lifetime, I’ve never really thought about genocide in personal terms. I’ve never looked at the burden of genocide from a common perspective. Perhaps because it isn’t common. Or perhaps it’s because it’s too hard. Or maybe it’s because we are simply expected to get on with life genocide or not. Hence, I didn’t know what to say on this topic to fit it in with other articles. It took a lot of soul-searching and recalling certain times of a year. Silences are hardest to decode and put into words.
It hurts like crazy when a member of the Bosnian government denies genocide. It’s salt to an open, bleeding wound. We don’t mention that, but the anger it causes speaks for itself. Dayton has forced us to have enemies of our country in the government of our country, which means that our hard earned money goes to those who want us dead. And they get a lot of money from us. They are rich, living a very good life while we all suffer. The injustice of it all is very hard to handle, but we have no choice.
Dayton has rewarded genocide. Yes, Dayton Peace Agreement has made genocide look like a good idea. Hence it has contributed to promotion of genocide.
09th of December is marked as the day of the Genocide Convention, though the convention came to effect on the 12th of January. This year, on the 09th of December, Remembering Srebrenica UK organised an event in Westminster University. I attended.
There were few people there, not a big crowd, but if quality comes over quantity I think we had that.
The event was really nicely organised. The panel were a friendly bunch of intellectuals, and I think that contributed to such a lively audience. And a lively audience turns a well organised event into a great event. Perhaps it would have been a bit chaotic if more people came… anyway, it was a great event.
But even at this event we spoke about the technicalities of genocide. What is a genocide. Someone mentioned that officially only Srebrenica is a genocide, but the genocide was really carried out in the whole of Bosnia. I agree. We tried to make Prijedor official genocide as well, but we couldn’t bring in enough evidence that Serbs intended to kill all. So please keep in mind that it’s not about how many they managed to kill, but about their intent to kill or force out all of one ethnic group.
It is odd. People who were murdered in Srebrenica were murdered because they were Bosnian ‘non-Serbs’. Large majority of the victims, all except two to be honest, were Muslims. But those two still count. So it’s not the case of 100% of victims were Muslims, they just weren’t Serbs either. Two things come up from this:
1. Genocide is not just about killing one group, it is also about making sure only one group prevails.
2. It makes no sense that Srebrenica was a genocide and the rest of Bosnia is not. If the intent is the main factor, Serbs proved they wanted to murder all non-Serbs in Srebrenica. Why would their intent be any different in Prijedor, Sarajevo, Banja Luka and so on?
Right now, there’s a genocide going on in Gaza. Palestinians are the target. Why would Israel want to kill Palestinians only in Gaza? Are we saying that Israel is only against Palestinians who live in Gaza, even though most of those are children? Should intent in one place be evidence of intent anywhere? As in, Israel wants Palestinians dead, non-existent anywhere in the world, they just can’t achieve that so they’ll target an area where they can achieve it for the time being?
One other thing that came up during the event was Genocide Convention and the application of it. Apparently, many countries are scared of applying the convention because of the pre-convention genocides. While I agree that all those injustices should be corrected, at what cost? Shouldn’t our objective be to prevent further genocides before we scare all the major nations so that they act like genocide is no big deal? Perhaps we should differentiate genocide pre and post Genocide Convention? Not because those that happened before the convention are any less important, but because we must do all we can to prevent any future genocide? And before you think Bosnia hasn’t had a genocide before the convention, let me tell you that we have. I guess Sandzak is the last one. I would want justice for that too, but not at the cost of lives. We must make prevention of genocides our priority. That doesn’t mean we don’t learn about them. Everyone should know what Serbs did in Sandzak and when and why.
None of this is much of a topic in Bosnia, at least not among people. These are all my thoughts. People in Bosnia will talk about any and all other social issues, and most of them came up during the protests in 2014, but no one mentioned genocide, ever. Yet I know it’s a huge issue.
11th of July is the anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica. That’s when we can sense, feel, and hear a change in people. I’ve never thought about it, because I am ‘inside’ the change. I find that I’ve had to step out to see the change. To be able to write about it, articulate it. In Bosnia, I feel I must go to Srebrenica, and I wear the flower, and I see things differently.
Genocide is not about survival — this sounds ridiculous, but stay with me. When you are a member of a group that someone wants to eliminate, it’s akin to being on a hitlist of some assassin. Hoping that they’ll take you off the list feels too romantic. Someone needs to force them to do that, or you live your life in the ‘survival mode’. Except it’s not a survival mode, hence it is not about surviving. Immediate danger is not there. You are just constantly aware that someone hates you and your family, friends, neighbours, and countrymen, so much that they want you all to suffer and die.
Genocide is not about survival, it’s about life after a genocide. That life does not exist until those who carried out the genocide are punished and locked away forever. That life does not exist until the victim is sure that it will not happen again. That life is just an illusion, going from one day to the next dealing with the invisible burden of genocide in the best way you know how, often without even thinking about it. No one wants to be on a hitlist. But, when a genocide on your people happens, and happens repeatedly, that’s exactly what you are — you’re on a hitlist, and so is everyone you know and love.
In Bosnia, we’ve learned the hard way that those who say ‘You must forget the past’ are really saying ‘We want to try again at a later date’. Only those who intend to reoffend will tell the victims of genocide to forget the past. Their badly veiled attempt to make it sound like we should worry about the future, and focus on the future is pathetic. Future does not exists for us until we sort out the past. We have forgotten the past too many times, and paid a heavy price each time we did. Enough! Criminals must pay for their crimes. We must stop expecting more and more sacrifice from the victims. Victims face a sacrifice each and every second of their lives.
Genocide creates generational trauma, because your kind is on some hitlist. Your kids are your kind. So it’s passed on. We in Bosnia, and I say this with a very heavy heart, but we can match the Jews in terms of persecution over the centuries. The difference is that we are all in one location, and there are fewer of us. But really, if we look at the past, one major power after another had something against us. I have no idea why. And, BTW, this is not a competition. If some Jew reads this and finds that ‘no, Jews have suffered more’, seriously, take the title, it’s okay. It’s not a competition. I’m sorry that we can compare at all.
Dealing with this generational trauma, trying to prevent it as much as possible because you want your kids to have a better life, to not be burdened with the ‘hitlist’, is an art. It takes so much effort, so much sacrifice, it is ridiculous. In the past, Bosnians have had the ‘don’t tell too much’ approach. Now that we live in the age of information technology, that’s no longer possible, and thank God for that. We need to tell our children. They need to know what happened, but we also need to tell them that they must not be so afraid that they harm others. We must warn them of dangers called ‘oppressed becoming the oppressors’. It’s a very real danger that leads humanity into a constant spiral of brutality and murder. Bosnians have managed to avoid getting their hands and hearts dirty with innocent blood, we must keep that, while we also keep ourselves safe.
Ironically, we seem to be better at telling our kids to never ever take revenge than telling them what happened. It seems that Palestinians are that way too. In fact, it seems like we live in the age of victims who agree to be the last victims. This means that we have a golden opportunity to end genocides forever. If the victims are willing to be the last, i.e. they’re not expecting and wanting revenge, we can end genocides. We can work with the victims to make sure we honour their suffering by proving to them that they will not suffer like that again, because no one will ever suffer like that again.
There is no greater crime than the crime of genocide. Genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity, carried out by humans. No person in the world is innocent when a genocide is taking place. No one is left out. If you are a member of humanity, you are involved as either a victim, or you are complicit and aiding the crime against humanity. That’s what a ‘crime against humanity’ means. It means that it’s such a big crime, that the whole of humanity is involved.
Punishment against such crime cannot be lenient, it cannot be about giving the perpetrator(s) another chance. It must be about preventing such a crime. That must be our main objective. We must make sure that when some psycho comes up with an idea to remove a whole ethnic group, (s)he seriously reconsiders because the punishment is not worth it.
I live in the UK, and I know that people in the UK do NOT want me dead. I wish I could say the same for the politics of the UK. For many years I thought they didn’t know what was happening in Bosnia. It felt good to see politicians support the fight for justice in Srebrenica. But their lack of preventing genocide in Gaza. Their lack of support for Bosnia against Serb/Croat attacks on our country — i.e. removing Dayton Peace Agreement that shouldn’t have been written in the first place — these make me more than a little afraid. Because, as I said, when it comes to genocide, the crime against humanity like no other crime, no one is neutral. Not one human being. And British politics, while singing one tune, seem to be dancing to another. They seem to be happy to reward those who want me dead, instead of firmly standing on my side and making sure that the hitlists are no more.
Instead, I live in the shadow of a life. I am on a hitlist. My people are on a hitlist. I would never dishonour my country by being afraid, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to live. And so, here we are. I am spending my life fighting to get rid of a hitlist that has my whole nation on it.
And that’s what genocide is in Bosnia. It is a shadow of lava, smoke and stench. Eventually you learn to live with it, but it never becomes easier. And we all deal with it in our own way. Some of us fight, others have plans to surrender, others turn a blind eye, while some lie to themselves and others that they do not feel a thing until something comes on TV and they jump for the remote to change the channel as quickly as possible. Because, of course, it doesn’t exist in their life, so why must they hear about it on the TV?
Perhaps we do need to talk more about it, but even I wouldn’t know where to begin or what to say.
It’s bad.
It hurts.
Can I get another cup of coffee, please.
So there you go, there is my article about genocide and society. It is so much more than the convention and courts, and all the evidence combined. It is more than words could express. Genocide never ends for the victims. But being a victim of a genocide is too painful to risk being hurt by talk about genocide, so we don’t. If the pain of genocide can get worse, we’d rather not risk it. So we will stick to talking about it in academic terms. Maybe that’s for the best. Stories of genocide can bum out the happiest of clowns.
In short, here are some lessons from Bosnia:
1. Everyone should be familiar with the Genocide Convention. We should not live in a society where even one individual can be fooled into thinking that it’s about how many the murderer has murdered.
2. Genocides must be prevented with an all-round approach. That includes persecuting perpetrators, as well as enablers, even the media. When the international court says ‘plausible genocide’ we must live in a society that feels it as a crime against every human being in the world.
3. Punishment must fit the crime. Proving genocide is no small matter. If the victims go through that and the court finds that it was a genocide, the court must give a punishment fitting the crime. I still wouldn’t support a death sentence, but I also do not support ‘showing them humanity so they become more human’. I think that’s naïve. Show humanity to the victims, the criminals will learn quicker and pass on the message to anyone willing to even consider carrying out such a crime.
4. All member of the group that are target of a genocide, are in fact victims of the genocide. To a different degree, of course, without a doubt, but victims nonetheless. I don’t know if we need professional help in terms of therapy, but maybe… I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.
5. Generational trauma is real as long as genocides are a possibility. When some psycho puts your whole kind on a hitlist, there is nothing else to expect. No one wants to be murdered, to see their family murdered. But we also do not want to become murderers. Hence, as long as there’s a possibility of genocide, it’s like being between two fires. When it comes to crimes against humanity it’s hell either way whether you’re part of the victim-group, or the perpetrator-group with a mind and heart against the deeds.
6. ‘Forget the past’ should be a forbidden sentence to say to a victim of a genocide. It should be understood in terms of ‘we want to reoffend’. We must learn more about the past, about every genocide, even those that cannot be persecuted. It’s the least we can do to honour the victims, and by honouring the victims we will reduce the risk of reoffending.
7. Oppressed becoming the oppressors is a danger to world peace, however, we now live in the age where victims are willing to be the last, to end the violence. Now is the time to act and end the violence.
8. Ten stages of genocide must be taken more seriously. There is no excuse for supporting a country or any group that has reached stage 8 or 9, let alone 10.
9. Genocide is far more than words can express. We, targets of a genocide, naturally become more sensitive. In London, every time someone says ‘white people’ this or that, let alone if they mention ‘white supremacy’, I cringe. It sends a chill down my spine. It sounds like undetected racism that I can’t talk about, which makes it worse than other types of racism that I can react to, and I do, maybe even overreact, but only because other fears are present that I have to keep silent. So racism of any kind freak me out, let alone Islamophobia, or antisemitism (BTW, I do believe that Israel is the most antisemitic project ever) or anything else of the kind.
10. Peace Agreements must be in aid of peace in the world. Dayton Peace Agreement is an example of what NOT to do. Peace agreements cannot be written by greedy, human-less creatures who do not consider the victim, but will act on behalf of those who carried out the crimes and reward them for what they have done.