The majority of Serbian society, and that includes the people in both Serbia and Republika Srpska, continues with the war crimes denial, because it is a basis for the Serbian authoritarian, parochial grievance politics. This isn’t just state policy, as espoused in the actions and inactions of the governments in Belgrade and Banja Luka, but a sentiment shared by most people across the political spectrum, both in the ruling parties and the majority of opposition movements. Yes, by the students in Serbia, as well.
While Bosnia and the region commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, the student protesters produce vile performances like this piglet carrying a rag that says “[And now] straight to Potočari”, the words of Serbian general and a convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić before the Srebrenica genocide was committed by his troops.
This isn’t an isolated incident, but it did cause enough PR ruckus to prompt the apologists of the supposedly pro-democratic protesters to concoct another one of their stories about how this is some sort of “false flag” by the state security service, which an idiot might believe if there wasn’t for a torrent of chauvinst comments aimed at the Bosniaks coming from the Serbian media users sharing and commenting the news about this.
This might seem like an insignificant detail, but this kind of far-right political signalling is ubiquitous. When they are not beating up people trying to bring an EU flag to the protest, the not-so-peaceful protesters are threatening local peace activists. Stuff like this goes on and on and on.
But hey, maybe we should give them some slack, huh? They are, after all, young people, suffering greatly under the autocratic regime…
…at a music festival in Novi Sad featuring Bob Geldof and a local turbo-folk star Seka Aleksić, among others. Yup, Serbia suffers like so hard, worse than Ukraine.
The paper Killing the truth – genocide denial and historical revisionism in Serbia as state-sponsored violence: trajectories, challenges and opportunities, a collaborative effort of Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia and Cardiff University “…explores historical revisionism in Serbia, which includes denial of individual war crimes, denial of the genocide in Srebrenica, and glorification of a number of convicted war criminals who have a prominent place in the public sphere. State-sponsored historical revisionism in the country is intrinsically linked with other forms of ongoing state-sponsored violence, including physical, gender, economic, and environmental.”
Vojislav Šešelj, a convicted war criminal and the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (he’s also the former party boss of Aleksandar Vučić), held a public promotion and signing of his book “There was no genocide in Srebrenica” in Knez Mihajlova Street, in downtown Belgrade. His supporters had a scuffle with a female activist who carried a banner, “Death to fascism,” that they took away from her and chased her away. Maybe they have an issue with people who don’t like fascism.
What you see here is Aleksandar Vučić, then a high-ranking official of the Serbian Radical Party, putting up a sign for a street named “Boulevard of Ratko Mladić” in Belgrade, Serbia. This event took place in 2007 and was a controversial act by the Serbian Radical Party to honor Ratko Mladić. He and his new political organization, the Serbian Progressive Party, got voted in 2012 under the hopes of a large part of the Serbian electorate, even those who didn’t vote for them (yes, really), that they would root out corruption.
The world-class demagogues and gaslighters galore of Serbia are basing their new victimhood ideology on war crimes denial now, and the local version of “owning the libs”. The cowardice and conformity of people here contribute to this. A Serbian nationalist opens their vile mouth and everyone yields so he/she doesn’t get “offended”. Also, it’s a very parochial society, with an underachiever complex. The Collective West, the neighboring “artificial nations”, and the “traitors” get the blame for our failures, both real and imaginary ones. That has real-life consequences. No wonder this is an aging society that considers itself a failed state, drowning in problems like ecological devastation, natural disasters, and pollution. As if somehow the poison from the people living here is seeping into the environment and ruining these places physically. This isn’t a lament based on superstition. The neglect of the environment and the occupational safety and hazard regulations in Serbia is what contributes to things like the recent large number of fires.
The irony of decades of destructive nationalist policy is that Serbia is now toothless, incapable of mounting wars against its neighbours. It can only hurt itself now and be a cautionary tale for others.
Serbianism 