Bosnia and the Path to Genocide Part 1

genocides in general. Arnessa, how how are you doing? You know, I'm doing okay. I think all things considered, you know, being sort of bombarded on a daily basis with you know, possible threat um and talks about you know, a new conflict war brewing in the Balkans is the thing. Not an easy thing to convent, definitely not. Yeah, But other than that, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. I'm glad.

I'm glad. I'm glad you could be here with me today because the Balkans extremely complicated place, which I guess the story of both places. But yeah, and so I guess that that's that's where I wanted to go with my first question, because reading about what's happening now, my first instinct was go back to the day and accords.

But I'm actually not sure that that's that that's that's that's even the best place to start, And so I wanted I wanted to, I guess ask you if so, okay, so if if if you're coming into looking at the Balkans for the first time and you're trying to understand what's going on, now, where do you think is the best place to start on it? Because I think you know the best. God, it's not we're talking about so much history, honestly, But the thing is, let's you know,

let's start with the death of Tito. That's always a good place, I think, because that's really when things started to kind of shift in the Balkans and the former you know, socialist udo Slavia was really once Tito died and his place became, you know empty as this sort of unifying factor of all the various ethnicities and nationalities

within Yugoslavia. You know, once he was gone, that sort of left this vacuum that needed to be filled, and unfortunately, instead of being filled, by another socialist you know, pro equality, pro unity leader. It was filled with a nationalist uh, which is kind of where we still are unfortunately. Um. You know, it started obviously with with little things I think, with little sort of conversations and and little subtle I guess, you know, Ethno nationalist rhetorics, and it just kind of

like grew and spiraled from there. And obviously, you know, that sort of thing led to Miloshevich and Kosovo giving his infamous speech, which kind of really gave that full fledged stamp on. Okay, yes, this is a ultra nationalists, you know, Ethno nationalist president that we now have, UM, who's threatening war across the other ethnicities. What do we

do next? Um? And at that point, you know, that's when you sort of see the other countries start to secede, you know, Slova, India, Croatia, they're attacked by Serbia and then obviously eventually it goes down to Bosnia. UM. And yeah, I mean it starts with yethno nationalism, as it always does, I think. Um, you know, I don't think we're anything special in terms of having conflict with our neighbors. Look at France and England or in our or America and

Mexico or anyone. Really it's just you know, I think people make it sound as if we're special or we have these ancient hatreds, but you know that's not really true. It all comes down to the freaking politics and the leaders. And unfortunately, you know, Middlitchevitch was removed, but is policy is um beliefs continue to kind of stick around. You know. I think, uh, you know, people thing people like Miloshevitch and Radovan Katach, who were you know, genocidal war criminals,

as a thing of the past. But really you look at you know, the Serbian president um or the republic Subska president and they are really just the continuation of Katach and Miloshevitch UM. So nothing, you know, has fundamentally changed since Tito died, except you know, we got some new agreements, we got some new territories, some new ethnic lients drawn up, and not a new pretty buildings too. We have those now as well, but we don't really have that coexistence um, at least that on paper, not

in politics. Certainly. I want to go back for a

second too. I guess the moment of Chito dying because It's always been a sort of interesting thing looking at it for me because I remember, I mean, you know, so from from studying Chinese history, right there, there's a period where in the seventies where okay, like everyone's looking for reform in China, and you know what, what you would consider like the sort of the I guess you could call them the I don't know, left and right is complicated in China, but you know, they're like there

there are a lot of sort of what you would call like the sort of left socialist like democratic reformers. Who are you know, I mean people people like they're looking at Yugoslavia as a model and they're going, oh, we can have like workers participation and we can have

we can have these democratic enterprises. And then that just implodes, and and yeah, I wonder if we can talk a little bit about more about that, because my my very limited understanding of it was like there's an economic crisis from the oil shocks, and then once Tito dies, it's just like the wheels come off the whole system. I mean, that's a really good way of putting it. Um you know, like life in Yugoslavia. I don't think it was like ever perfect, and I definitely don't think it was a

perfect system. I think you know, me being a Bosnian who was born to Vary, I think pro Yugoslav parents. Um. I just like many of my you know, fellow Yugoslavs or x Yugoslavs, have a tendency to look at Yugoslavia

with like rose colored lenses. You know. We think about the coexistence, the unity, the multi ethnic part, the worker owned you know, socialist models, the fact that our parents, um, you know, we're able to provide for their families and take vacations and travel and um, you know, get together and all these sort of wonderful things. But in the background, really in the sort of depths of the you know, politics and the economic issues were kind of always there. Um.

You know. The one thing that Tito did was obviously he relied unlike I think other socialist leaders of his time is you know, he basically worked with anyone, you know, the non align movement, but also with the West, with Europe, you know. So he was a very picky choosy I think was you know, the betterment of the country by kind of any means necessary. Um. But I think you know, he made mistakes just like um other leaders do. And I think obviously we had, you know, two issues. One

he was sick, he was dying, um. And two there's an economic crisis happening. Um. And three then we had like the economic reforms, which really shifted the entire I mean, they just they very much shifted the the system that the Yugoslav people were very much used to. UM. It became more and more prior, you know, privatized after his death. UM. And and you know, Miloshevich, he was he was a banker,

he was a businessman. He was he was who he was. UM. And I don't think that he ever really pretended to be a socialist, which is why I get so upset when American leftists call him a socialist or call him an anti imperialist, because those aren't even words that you know, he himself would have really used to describe himself. I think. But but I think, you know, there was just it was that sort of thing where there's an economic crisis brewing, they have no wise to really fix it. People are broke,

people are starving. Suddenly the ownership, the worker you know owned sort of model is being shifted to a more privatized model. And people are just not happy. What's a good way to distract from that? You know, It's just we see it happen everywhere. It's not a new it's not like a new you know tactic. It's a tactic that everyone has utilized. Blame it on the other. Um. So, Yugoslavia didn't really have you know, immigrants that they could

blame it on, but they had Muslims. So and they had the Kasabo you know, Albanians and the Bossians, and that was, you know enough, and suddenly the conversation really shifted. And obviously I'm simplifying all of this a lot, so much more complicated. Um. But you know, there there are books out there and and that obviously go into a great you know level of detail, um, into the actual sort of breakup. So I can give some recommendations later.

But um yeah. But I think in in in that sort of very simplistic kind of sense, is there was an economic crisis happening. A good way to sort of distract that was the use of ethno nationalism, and it just kind of spiraled from there. I think, you know what Miloshevitch and what people like Miloshevitch always wants more power for themselves, and so his whole thing wasn't really ever about keeping Yugoslavia intact as Yugoslavia. It was keeping

this vision of a greater Serbia alive. Because the thing is, you know, if we had not had a person like Miloshevitch, if we just had somebody who was you know, the second, you know, maybe more or less worse or better, who cares. I think people would have been fine. I think, you know, I don't see this like war breaking now. But instead we had Miloshevich who was like way more concerned about

consolidating power, exerting that control. And when he realized that he could use ethno nationalism to get to his goals, of course he was going to use that. Of course, like who wouldn't you know, we see it today with like what Trump did. He utilized you know, Muslims and immigrants and refugees and black people, all his scapeboats to distract from all the other things that are wrong with him, his leadership and the overall country. And Miloshevich did the same.

He just did what any other politician did. And you know, that's the thing I think, you know, in thinking about Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and all these countries that started to succeed, I think if they had felt comfortable with, you know, staying in a country that is multi ethnic, at least in the case of Bosnians, and not going to speak for the Slovania's or croations because they have their own I

think complicated identity. But with Bosnians, are are saying collectively, I think while we're not a monologue, not monolith, but collectively was always where are united? We are multi ethnic, multi religious, multi cultural, and it's such a big part of like our entire history and identity. And so if the choices being you know, under served, control, being secondary citizens, not having that equality, not having that multi ethnicity, of

course we're not going to take that choice. Of course people are gonna want to you know, when when you have like that, you know, that boot on your neck of saying like we're going to control you, We're gonna take your land and we're gonna basically rule over you. Nobody wants to deal with that. And you know, unlike a lot of the other countries in former Yugoslavia, Bosnia

really was the most multi ethnic. It had one of the highest rates of you know, mixed ethnic marriages and multi religious marriages, and that kind of remains true even today. So especially in places like sary Evo, Mostadaniluka, you know, the bigger cities, it has this very proud history of you know, coexistence and multiethnic co existence. So I think what happened for so many people was just a huge amount of shock. Um, my own family, so many people

in my own family just did not think it could happen. Now. They grew up with this idea of a united you know, multi ethnic Yugoslavia, brotherhood and unity. These are our neighbors, our friends, our teachers, are lovers, you know whatever. There they work with us, they live next to us. Of

course they're not gonna you know, turn against us. And I think even while all the politicians were fearmongering, while you know, Miloshevitch and Kataguge were sort of leading their campaigns of you know, especially as lamophobic provacad propaganda, um, you know, in in newspapers, on the radio, on TV, any chance that any speech that they gave, they talked about how the Muslims were coming, we were going to make their daughters wear her jobs, we were gonna take over.

We're going to kill them, you know before that's why they have to kill us, because they don't pill us. We're going to kill them. It was just whole, you know, really brilliant propaganda campaign in so many ways that has now been replicated in so many other countries. We can We've talked about that specifically for yes. Second, because I think there's something interesting in the way that, like the way that you get people to do with genocide always

seems to be like you can't. It's extremely hard to get someone to like just murder their neighbor because they don't like them. You have to do this like they're about to exterminate us, and that's why we have to like strike first. And that Yeah, that that that aspect of it, I think is is something that I see a lot when when I do this and yeah, you you have you have done more genocide studies, I want to hear. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Um, it's

so funny. I gave like an interview um on this specific topic I don't know, like two years ago, and I remember turning to the guy who has interviewing me because he was just like his look on his face was I just don't understand, Like I don't. I can't wrap my mind about how people could do that to their friends, neighbors, students, you know, people that were sworn to like protect and and people they lived with their

entire lives. How could they do that? Well, you know, I turned to him and I said, yeah, I mean, if I told you right now go kill him, you know you probably wouldn't. But if I came to you day in and day out and I slowly started to kind of whisper in your ear, and I started to tell you, you know, he's been really really I don't know, he's been saying a lot of stuff about you. He's been quite negative or I don't know, you know, do you think he's kind of acting weird? I feel like

he might be planning something. You might be planning to take over your house. You may be planning to I don't know, probably attack your sister. I think he's going to kill your sister. I think you might make your sister wear her job. So it's these very like slow, subtle things. And that's the thing that people don't understand. You know, violence never interrupts, like, never up out of nowhere, you know, it it's always planned. It brewis and it bruise,

and it bruised, and then it explodes. You know, then there's the thing. But it comes slowly. And that's how it wasn't Yugoslavia. It wasn't this sudden. You know. Oh, yes, we're brothers and sisters. Forever, Go Tito, go Yugoslavia too. You know, Oh, I hate you because you're Muslim, and I hate you because your servant, I hate you because

you're croact. No, that was not the case. The case was that this was a very slow campaign of propaganda that started in the eighties, almost immediately after Tito's death. Let's say it started very slow, started with the you know, with the sort of i think the disenfranchisement of the coast of all Albanians um and kind of the targeting

of them um. And again, yes, there was this economic component on of it, but the way they wanted to kind of sidetrack that was, you know, well, you're you're hungry because thes of Albanians are not, you know, and they're taking your jobs again some more, uh, you know, tactics that we see evening. Yeah, so it's not it's not that much different, but yeah, you know, it starts slow and and the Militievitch and the cottage and the

Maladich kind of campaigning was God, it was brutal. I mean, like I always say, it was kind of brilliantly executed in that it really got two people so much that then again, you know, they turned neighbor against neighbor. It was it was subtle in the beginning. It was that sort of what are the Muslims up to? Can we trust them? Can you trust your neighbor? Can you trust

the Muslims? You know, talking about islam sization, talking about Alia is a big of which this book that he wrote when he was like I don't know, eighteen or or whatever, like, and you know, talking about World War two, this was another thing, like like everybody owns that there was a period in World War Two where you know a lot of Serbs were killed by Guster shaw Uh, by the Nazi collaborationists. And I think obviously that's a real fear for you know, for a certain group of

people who went through that. So there was a lot of that as well, you know, that's going to happen again, That's going to happen again. Meanwhile, there was no grand plan. There was never even talks of you know, committing violence or even you know, talks of you know, seceding from Yugoslavia or anything. It was all it was all set in motion by the Serbian leadership, you know. And I

think that's what people don't understand. The Bousian leadership, while not perfect, we're simply reacting to what the Serbian leadership was in many ways making them do. And and that's kind of where, you know, what happens in these situations.

You know, they kind of push you and push you and push you until they're able to get you know, some sort of rise out of you or response out of you, or or get you on that sort of offensive where you have to defend yourself, You have to defend your identity, you have to defend who you are,

you have to justify it also in many ways. So yeah, the you know, the sort of propaganda campaign, god, there was you know, obviously the funny things were like things like they're going to make you wear the hit job, but it was also very insiduous because they would target like these you know, villages where they were like Bosnians and Serbs, you know, living together and they're quite small, but they knew that like in the village obviously usually have a gun or you know shotgun because of the

animals or you know, working or whatever. So they were like target them specifically with like the you know, the radioto and instead of like the big cities, Like they worked up to the big cities, but they really started in like specific sort of areas like in eastern Bosnia, especially because there was like a lot of um i think majority Muslim like villages in that area that would also have like nearby served villages. So yeah, I mean

there was that. There was you know then sort of taking over all the radio stations and um kind of going full force. They think like in the sort of early days of the war, like we're talking April May, they you know, they would get people like pretending that they were Bosnians they were actually Serbs, and they would like talk about how they went to you know, kill all Serbs or something like that. Um. There was also when they were like having people in concentration camps where

they like started kind of putting them in those concentration camps. Initially, they they would make the victims in the concentration camps the Muslims basically, you know, say that, oh, they're just there as a refugee and the Serbian army is like protecting them, and they're making me feel really welcome and

stuff like that. So it was right at the beginning between especially eighty nine too, like the propaganda was so visible and it really escalated, and it was like suddenly everywhere and you would hear cartategic and Middle we Shovitch talk about, you know, the Muslims and the things that we wanted and you know, the things that the goals that we had, which after all, we're not you know,

nobody was saying it. There wasn't like a single person that was saying these things that they were attributing to us. But that didn't matter. What they were just doing was instilling enough fear and enough doubt into population to eventually get them to take up arms when the time comes. And unfortunately, that's precisely what happened. When the time came. You know a lot of people did take up arms,

whether or not they wanted to. They had enough of that doubt and fear stowed in their minds over the course of you know, several years that they ended up feeling like I have to protect myself. And I'm not saying that's the case for every certain person. I think some a lot of you know, especially in higher leadership posmissions, a lot of them were just sociopaths who wanted to kill. And I don't think it mattered why or how, because

you're always going to get those kind of people. But I think when we're talking about how how that shift happened so last, we have to obviously discuss the propaganda, the huge amount of propaganda that I went into, uh, you know, implementing it. So I guess such a tangent. That's okay, No, no, that was that was that was

really great? Yeah, I think you know, yeah, I mean, I guess, like I think it's incredibly important for everyone to understand that propaganda works, like if you just say something over and over and over again, like it does, you know of event eventually it pays off. And you know,

the quote unquote payoff here is the genocide. And I guess, yeah, I'm not sure how far into detail you want to get into this here, but but I think one thing I want to kind of focus on because I think from from reading what you've been saying about this that this wound up being a big deal with like why things are sort of still fucked now, which is that like the international response to this, Like, I mean, one of the things I've always just like haunted by is

there's this quote by mid irand who's the herm Mr France's like this, he wants to be the socialist. He's like the guy that like they finally put in power after like all of the stuff in the sixties, and he is this lying about like I'm sorry, I wish I wish I tould up the exact quote, but it's basically like I I know the quote, Yeah, do you want to say it over the exactly? Um, it's uh, it's what was it? A peaceful but necessary reconstruction of a Christian europe um and Bosnia does not belong. So

I remember that differently. It's really stayed with me for such a long time because he said that at a time where the Bosnian Muslims were just completely defenseless. Um, they were being dragged the way to concentrate shim camps. The massacres were already well underway. We're not talking about stubborn, We're talking about sorry about flat um even Surbrins nine two.

You know, this is all um, the things that happened in places like witchcoens running and all these places that you that I think the vast majority of people don't really know about any here about, like in a lot of my family is from there. Within a span of three months, that entire town, the entire town, which was

once almost entirely Bosnia muslim Um, was ethnically cleansed. And that was done through forced deportations, concentration camps, mass rapes, and rape camps of women and obviously a lot of murders. You know. So we're talking about one small town that took you know, three three months. And my family when it comes to that town, on both my mother's and my father's side, interestingly enough, has like such a long history.

My parents fell in love there when they were like kids, you know, they you know, my grandmother's house was there, my grandfather's house was there. Um on like both sides, and they you know, so is this beautiful little town where you know Bosnians then Bosniaks and serves and CoA hads lived in Jews Roma and you know, my parents talked about the beauty of it and this wonderful sort

of experience that they had when they lived there. My mom is from Saraebo, UM and I saw my as well obviously, but the Chad was like the place that she would go kind of like for the weekend, just because of the family that we had there. UM so very special. I think in her heart my grandpa's heart as well, and you know, within it's just like so hard to like fathom that within just a few months that talent was completely ethnically climes and that the international

community knew this and did nothing. You know, there is and I leave it's in the Clinton tapes as well, but there was this thing about how they had provided aerial footage of the massacres that were being that were being enacted in places like Pittugal and Vannique where, oh my god, depare military serve forces did some horrid, horrifying acts of like violence and torture against the civilians. UM. And they had you know, showed it to the Clintons, and they showed it to the French and the English,

and they did nothing. You know, they knew that a genocide was unfolding. UM. And the Dayton Peace Agreement wasn't signed until so the international UM community I think as just as much of a responsibility in the you know, the genocide of the Bosniaks as Serbia does, because stay sat there and they watched when they had all the power to stop it. They always had the power to

stop it. They had the power to stop it before it even before even one person got killed, um and and two they it's not even that they just watched, it's that they purposely left the Muslims defenseless because Serbia had all the Yugoslav army, all the weapons, all the you know, everything, all the tools that they needed to

commit j others side. They already had it, all the arsenal everything, um And you do waslav army was like the most powerful in the region at the time, and I think the fourth, third, third or fourth most powerful in like the Europe Turkey areas, so we you know, quite a powerful army. And there was Bosnia which had

no weapons, no military uh um. You know, you see these pictures of like civilians fighting against you know, tanks and mortar shells and snipers, and it's like these you know youths basically and like converse and jeans and like an army jacket playing soldier because that's all we had, you know, we had the homemade weapons, we had um, you know, how to make your own bomb books kind of thing, and trying to basically descend ourselves with anything

that we could. Um. They specifically did not lift the arms embargo, knowing that they were leaving us defenseless. Like they just knew. There was no way. There's no doubt on everything that we have read about the international community response, everything that Clinton metedand John mayor major major um not mayor major have that you know about it during that period shows us that they absolutely knew that we were defenseless,

you know. And this wasn't you know a lot of people say I didn't know about the Bosnian genocide, but it was discussed, you know, I've looked at the archived footage. UM, it was talked about it on television, it was brought up in parliament and incentive that was people at the time who were like, why are we leaving the Bosnians defenseless? Why are we you know, not helping them, Why are we allowing them to be allowed into slaughter? This is genocide blah blah blah. So even as early as there

was still people who knew about this stuff. We're telling the leaders, but nothing. Yeah, I think I think like that part also, like it's it's not just that like they did nothing, like they like they did worse than do nothing, like Miterians actively cheering it on, Like you know, the arms in Bargo is just like the arms in Bargo. If you're applying in arms in Bargo on a conflict where one people one side has tanks and the other side has like molotovs, like you are actively supporting one

of the sides. And I think that like that just like is completely lost in how like almost everyone seems to talk about this now because there's like, you know, because because when you sort of get like interventions later, like people are like, oh, look, the wester was like planning to intervene here the whole time, and it's like no, like they were literally cheering, was cheering. Like it's like it's so frustrating because you know, we you take what

we know about. And here's the thing. I know that Islamophobia escalated after nine eleven, but is Islamophobia has existed for a very long time. And I think talked to the black Muslims of America, they will tell you more, you know, better than than I could ever tell you about the history of Islamophobia in in the United States. So it's a loam of phobia was always an aspect of life. And in Europe, Islamophobia just like anti Semitism. I mean, it is like the staple of European cultural cuisine.

So to say it's like it's like, yeah, it's like there's there's a there's a there's they have. They have like they have like the like the the tri force of Europeans, of European civilization is anti Semitism, Islamophobia and hating the Roma are just like how for the force.

And so I think the sort of thing about the explicitness of European leadership, especially at the time in in you know, effectively ensuring that we were killed off because in Muslim country in Europe could not exist, and that's the thing that they said, literally set a Muslim country in Europe cannot exist. Like the fact that that was so open and brazen like kind of takes me back. But it really like tells you how much is Lamophobia informed.

I think the international community responds on this, and it's so interesting to me. Now I think I've seen it over the past, I would say, especially five years, the sort of leftist genocide and I sort of leftist, anti imperialist kind of defense of Miloshevich and oh they were the you know, the Serbs were the actual victims blah blah blah and NATO blah blah blah, Western intervention. And I'm just like, oh, my god, read a book, read

an article from that, read their actual quotes. There's no way that you can actually convince me that Europe, fortress Europe, and the United States of America would do anything that would benefit you know, the Muslim What's this? What was

one of the things. I think it's really interesting to me about some way that the sort of like left genocidees dialism works, like it always seems to be reginus lomophobia, like and I remember started seeing this with Bosnia to where they're like, oh, yeah, well it's it's it's because what's okay. They have two things. One it's like, well, the Bossians were Nazis been the second one was like, oh well the boss the Bossians were like allto hottists.

And it's like like it's the exact same thing you see with China, and it's like, oh, it's because all the weakers are like Selafiji hottest iss c I A. And it's like no, yeah, I mean it's it's it's honestly laughable at this point. It really is. And it also just you know, obviously I'm a leftist. You know, I'm gonna cheer the left on to an extent, but that is my red line. The genocide anialism really is

my red line. And the reason it's it's you know, my red line isn't just because I'm a genocide survivor, but because it's like, oh, for God's sake, the data, the statistics, the research, the forensic the analysis, the specific quotes, videos, articles, uh, you know, all of those things exist and are out there, and all you have to do is actually do your research and you will find out that actually know you're

in the wrong. And the other thing is what you just said about the sort of thing of painting you know, the Muslims is like the Nazis and the you know, the extremists. Um, you know, the thing about like the Bazian and Muslims is like, we don't hide the fact that there were people of our community that participated in Nazi crimes. There isn't this goal of concealing those crimes,

of minimizing the crimes or pretending that they were right. Um, there is I'm sure a French group of people who defend these kinds of people, like there is a French when I'm talking about the collective sort of Bosnian um, you know, state level response as well as like an individual response is that the you know, the the Nazi division had like seventeen thousand Bosnian soldiers and there's millions of Bosnians in the country. The vast majority ended up

joining the Partisans and stood against the Nazis. And the thing is, you can't when it comes to Yugoslavia and World War Two and the Holocaust, you can't just say that the Bosnians were Nazi collaboration is because the thing is, so are the Serbians, So are the Serbs, so are the Croats. At that time, Let's be honest, who the

hell wasn't a Nazi collaborationist. Now this doesn't excuse it, absolutely not, but what it does sort of show is that that history, that period um in Yugoslav history is really complicated because you know, you had the Gustia um. And then you had the Chechniques. And then there's a period where the Chechniks were against Ussia, right because like used to show we're killing Serbs and robots and drews. But then the Chechniques turned around and there are you know,

these Serb nationalists. They start killing the Jews and the Roma, and then they start working with those shut to hand down the Jews in the Roma, and then they start working with them to stand against the you know, the Tito's Partisans. Um. Meanwhile, you know, Tito's Partisans had a multi ethnic coalition, like and we're talking about Serbs, Bosnians, Roma, Jews, Croats, Albanians, you know, all sorts of people who were very like,

you know, anti Nazism. So you know, we're we're gonna we're gonna win, We're gonna rebuild our our country, We're gonna, you know, make this beautiful sort of you know, multi ethnic kind of state, which they did, which is amazing. But yeah, but it is a complicated sort of piece of history. So you can't really say, oh, yes, they're the Nazi collaborationists because, um, at some point or not,

everybody was and at some point or not everybody was also. Yeah, yeah, it's like like it's when when when you when you start getting into like it becomes this like you know, it becomes a way of just getting people to I don't know how to describe it, like it you know, when when when it starts being like this specific ethnic group as a whole is responsible for all of these crimes. Just like no, they're not like that's that's not that's

not how this works. Like it's not like like like they're like there are like they're yeah, there's gonna be people in the ethnic group who did things that were awful. There's also going to be people, especially especially in a citation like this, there's there's a lot like a lot

of probably more people who fought them. Yeah, and that like, yeah, that's such an interesting statement because I'm going to compare to the bossy and response after the genocide, which has consistently been no, we don't believe that every single service bad, and we were only talked about those that took place, took part in these crimes and those that concealed them. And that has always been the collective and state level

response of all Bosans. Now you have to think about I have a friend who's who who's nine members of her family were killed in Stubriniza in July. That's an absorbinate number of people. These were women, children, and men and elderly. There was no discrimination when it Kimp comes to her. I'm sat with her as she's read all the names of her you know, killed the family members.

That woman, with all the pain that she survived with being there as a young girl in the midst of genocide, in the midst of these her horrifying crimes, has never once publicly or privately to me said, yes, old serbs are the same. Yes, all of them are work aminals. Yes, all of them hate us, absolutely not. And the thing is, I think about myself as well, Like, you know, my earliest childhood memories me being shot at by a sniper, knowing my father was in a concentration camp, knowing that

my grandmother was just killed by a bomb. Um knowing that, you know, my biological dad was dying in a hospital from an attack, and my mother could also be killed because she was pregnant with my brother at the time. And so these are my earliest childhood memories. Um, they're not very happy memories. And I know why those things happened.

You know, I know why I was being shot at by a sniper, and it was because I was bossy, and it it was because I was Muslin, and because I was seen as the enemy, even though I was you know, a little kid at you know, six seven years old, um and absolutely not a threat to anyone, and nobody should have been shooting at me. They did. Anyway, Even though that happened, I never had that feeling of all serbs are awful, All serbs are you know, I'm

going to paint them all with a brush. But a lot of them, unfortunately, especially on the you know, the the ultra nationalists that continue to not just the night the geniside, but also glorified and celebrate it. They do paint everyone with the same brush, you know. And and the worst thing, the funniest thing, is that they paint themselves with the same brush. You know. They they think that they get to speak for every single serve person um. And that's the tragic path. Like I'm not, I'm not.

I get accused of like constantly talking to about serves and I'm like, I absolutely am not. I'm talking about the nationalists, And I will call out all the nationalists, whether they're bausi in Serpient, Croatian, American, whatever, But we're talking about you know, what you're doing to me and your response to my criticism of nationalism is actually the thing that's ruining your reputation. Yeah, it's it's the it's

that it's that's the nationalist camp. It it's it's you have you have to conflate all of the individual people, the ethnic group, and the state. They all they all have to be this like, you know, this must be this organic totality, and it's not true. It's just not.

But that's you know, that's that's that's the sort of it's it's the motus apperanda behind their entire ideology, and it's what they deploy, you know, it's what they deploy when the genocides, is what they deploy when they have to sort of like you know, sort of promoted openly or less openly afterwards. Yeah, it's like that justification, it's how they justify it. Yeah, And like we all know

about the ten stages of genocide. But my colleague um, who's brilliant actually has often talked about that the nihilism is not really the final stage of genocide. It is in fact triumphalism um. And that's what we're actually seeing in Bosnia. You know, we're not I get genocide denialism from American leftists and like British leftists who are on a certain spectrum. And obviously I don't get genocide denialism from et No nationalists sorbs. What I get from them

actually is very openly celebrating and threatening another genocide. They are not in my mentions saying oh there was no genocide, uh Darren, my mentions saying no one shops a Steba and so, which is basically a slogan that says knife wire serbonida and it's like basically a threat that another

Serebani that will occur. They're in my mentions, in my emails and in my d M s sending me threats about how they can't wait till I'm put in a rape camp again, How they can't wait untill they kill my family, until sorry ever gets bombed again, and how you know we're they're gonna finish the job. How Ram is a hero because he killed all those you know, people in Serbonizza and sugared Um kata juch is a hero because he's the same Milosha, which is a hero

because he believes in a greater Serbian. These people don't hide it um and that's the thing. So it's it's very like just today, you know, the first thing in the morning, I opened my Twitter and the first thing that I see is a Bossian activist arrested for protesting the dot com La Ditch mural which the Serbian police were guarding. They were guarding a mural get like a mural of a war criminal who committed genocide, who who

everybody knows committed genocide, a mural glorifying him. They were got the police were guarding, you know, the mural and inflicting damage on innocent civilians who were there too, you know, protest against the mural. And so I think that really tells too so much the issue in the Balkans. This has when it could happen here. Join us tomorrow for part two of this interview, in which we discuss the

dangers of what's currently happening in Bosnia. In the meantime, find us on Twitter It Happened here pod, and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram for the rest of our shows at cool zone Medio. It could Happen Here is a production of cool zone Media. Or more podcasts from cool zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could Happen Here, updated

monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.