Why many Bosnian genocide scholars remain silent on Gaza

This twelvemonth marks 3 decades since the extremity of the warfare successful Bosnia and Herzegovina, successful which an estimated 100,000 radical mislaid their lives. The warfare culminated successful the Srebrenica genocide successful July 1995, successful which the Bosnian Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladić, known arsenic the “Butcher of Bosnia”, massacred much than 8,000 men and boys successful a United Nations-designated “safe area”.

In the pursuing decades, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia heard hundreds of witnesses and sentenced dozens of high-ranking Bosnian Serb governmental and subject leaders, including those convicted of genocide. Meanwhile, the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina and overseas donors enactment important funds into the study, unfortunate betterment and remembrance of the genocide.

When the genocide successful Gaza began, galore Bosnians who survived the 1992-1995 warfare saw striking parallels between their ain experiences and the suffering of Palestinians. Many took to the streets and spoke retired against the genocidal warfare successful Palestine.

However, galore Bosnian intellectuals, particularly those researching warfare crimes and genocide, person remained silent. Their refusal to talk retired harms not conscionable efforts to present justness for Gaza but besides undermines the tract of genocide studies.

Voices of conscience

Before we research wherefore Gaza has go specified a taboo taxable for Bosnian genocide scholars, it is important to constituent retired that not each person remained silent. A comparatively tiny radical of Bosnian scholars who are not lone academics but besides progressive advocates for Palestine and quality rights person chosen to talk up.

University professors and researchers, specified arsenic Lejla Kreševljaković, Sanela Čekić Bašić, Gorana Mlinarević, Jasna Fetahović, and Sanela Kapetanović person underscored that determination is motivation work not to stay silent. They person led by example, participating successful protests and speaking retired successful public.

Belma Buljubašić, a prof astatine the Faculty of Political Science astatine the University of Sarajevo, has criticised European and different governmental leaders who explicit sympathy for Srebrenica portion justifying Israel’s actions successful Gaza arsenic acts of “self-defence”. Such treble standards, she has argued, uncover a troubling pragmatism that undermines some solidarity and accountability.

In a recent interview, Edina Bećirević, a genocide student astatine the University of Sarajevo’s Faculty of Criminalistics, Criminology and Security Studies, said the genocide successful Gaza intelligibly mirrors the dynamics seen successful Srebrenica, defined by dehumanisation, ideological mobilisation and planetary complicity.

Ahmet Alibašić, the manager of the Center for Advanced Studies and prof astatine the Faculty of Islamic Studies astatine the University of Sarajevo, has besides been outspoken. Last year, helium co-organised a seminar called From the Balkans to Gaza: A Critical Analysis of Genocide, which examined modern dynamics of wide unit done a “comparison betwixt the Srebrenica genocide, the Sarajevo siege and the unfolding genocide successful Gaza”.

Nidžara Ahmetašević, a Sarajevo-based writer and media scholar, has besides not hesitated to gully parallels betwixt Gaza and the experiences of Bosnian survivors from besieged Sarajevo and Srebrenica.

For months, members of the Sarajevo Feminist Anti-Militarist Collective person been conducting demonstrations successful downtown Sarajevo successful which they read the names of children killed successful Gaza, juxtaposing warfare crimes successful the occupied Palestinian territory to Sarajevo’s ain warfare horrors.

These individuals person each responded successful assorted ways to the precocious Palestinian student Edward Said’s enduring exhortation that intellectuals indispensable assertion the abstraction to talk information to power, link section representation to planetary justness and defy the authorities of convenient truth-telling. Silence remains not a neutral stance but a governmental prime that sustains harm.

‘Not our battle’

Still, Said’s telephone has not stirred everyone to action. Paradoxically, galore Bosnian genocide scholars person remained conspicuously silent, adjacent arsenic their colleagues abroad, among them Israeli genocide scholars Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg and Shmuel Lederman, person publically accused Israel of committing genocide successful Gaza. This did not alteration adjacent aft the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the world’s largest world assemblage successful the field, passed a resolution successful August declaring that Israel’s actions successful Gaza represent a genocide.

Various experts connected genocide astatine the University of Sarajevo’s Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law, lecturers astatine the Faculty of Law of the University of Sarajevo and genocide scholars astatine the Institute for Islamic Tradition of Bosniaks person been reluctant to remark connected Israeli warfare crimes successful Gaza.

As an institution, the Institute for Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law publically addressed Gaza lone aft it was wide a ceasefire was soon to instrumentality effect. On October 8, it issued an evasive statement that did not notation Israel arsenic the perpetrator of atrocities. This prompted some observers to impeach the institute, led by Muamer Džananović, of a calculated and opportunistic attack to the issue.

However, astir apt the astir notable is the lawsuit of Emir Suljagić, genocide subsister and manager of the Srebrenica Memorial Center. When asked astir his stance connected Gaza successful precocious 2023, Suljagić told Haaretz: “This is not our battle.”

Many Bosnia-watchers swiftly condemned his remarks, pointing astatine the treble standards of his position, fixed that conscionable a twelvemonth earlier Suljagić published an op-ed urging Ukrainians “not to laic down their arms”.

Furthermore, nether his leadership, the Srebrenica Memorial Center produced a bid of lawsuit studies funded by the United Kingdom authorities connected Ukraine, Syria, South Sudan and Ethiopia, highlighting aboriginal informing signs of wide unit and genocide.

When the Palestinian assemblage successful Bosnia and Herzegovina expressed astonishment implicit the deficiency of solidarity from Srebrenica with the radical of Gaza, questioning whether the Srebrenica Memorial Center’s ties to the World Jewish Congress had thing to bash with its silence, Suljagić responded by accusing them of anti-Semitism.

He went adjacent arsenic acold arsenic to compare Hamas members to Chetniks, Serb nationalist and royalist forces that collaborated with German, Italian and astatine times Croatian fascists during World War II. Chetniks were liable for immoderate of the astir brutal atrocities, including acts of genocide, against the Bosnian Muslim population. Almost fractional a period later, their enduring ideology fuelled warfare crimes and genocide against Bosniaks during the warfare successful Bosnia.

The terms of silence

The soundlessness of galore of Bosnia’s genocide scholars is not accidental. Some of them fearfulness nonrecreational repercussions successful Western academia and consciousness that accusing Israel of genocide would beryllium unfavourable for their careers. Many are reluctant to jeopardise outer fiscal enactment from overseas embassies, peculiarly backing provided by American, British and European Union donors to their projects and “side hustle” NGOs. Others are reluctant to alienate diplomatic partners who inactive wield power implicit Bosnia’s fragile peace.

None of this, of course, justifies the soundlessness of scholars moving astatine institutions funded by Bosnian taxpayers alternatively than overseas donors. As genocide researchers whose enactment is sustained by nationalist funds, they person an work to service the nationalist interest, which entails upholding technological integrity, defending evidence-based genocide probe and contributing to the planetary scholarly statement without fearfulness of nonrecreational repercussions.

When scholars, genocide researchers and lecturers astatine nationalist institutions neglect to talk retired connected warfare crimes oregon humanitarian crises, they lend to legitimising a sermon that conceals harm. Such a sermon frames definite acts of wide unit arsenic unworthy of the aforesaid scrutiny applied to different cases, creating a hierarchy of victimhood that serves governmental interests alternatively than cosmopolitan principles and scholarly integrity.

Said’s cosmopolitan telephone connected intellectuals to talk retired remains applicable and urgent. It reminds america that we request to determination beyond comfy silence, exposure distortions of powerfulness and advocator for justice, transparency and accountability. In his view, soundlessness is simply a signifier of complicity that undermines the precise pursuit of information that academia claims to uphold.

In this sense, nationalist intellectuals indispensable ne'er let themselves to gaffe into the realm of governmental bargaining wherever soundlessness astir 1 genocide is traded for designation of another. If their advocacy becomes selective, past they hazard turning genocide studies into a governmental tool. If that happens, genocide scholars volition cease to beryllium autarkic academics and alternatively go an involvement group, stripped of the motivation pedestal they truthful readily claim.

By foregrounding Gaza wrong the Bosnian context, we reason for a renewed ethic of intelligence work and integrity, 1 that aligns scholarly discernment with nationalist accountability and humane justice.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the authors’ ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.