How does a country recover after the emotional and physical destruction of ground warfare or genocide? The Yugoslav wars (1991-2001) happened before I or any of my peers in this program were born. Yet, the physical and emotional remnants of the wars have continued to mark Serbian and Bosnian societies. It was first discernible when I passed by what was the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense building on the way to our hotel in Belgrade, Serbia. The building was bombed by NATO during Operation Allied Force in 1999, as an attempt to force Yugoslavia to accept a peace agreement that would end the systemic ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians. The bombed building was left unrestored, its rubble still scattered—as if it had not been long since being bombed. The building now serves as a clear-cut memorial of the impact of the Yugoslav wars on Serbia. Seeing the raw memorial was a surreal experience for me, and it was the beginning of a constant recognition of my privilege in never experiencing ground warfare as I traveled through Bosnia and Serbia.
At the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Belgrade, we had the opportunity to attend lectures on Serbian/former Yugoslav political and social history. One lecture by Prof. Stefan Surlic, titled, “No Reconciliation, No State: Lessons from Nationalist Narratives in Post-Conflict Societies”, taught us about peace, state, and nation-building post-war. He pushed us to question the different dimensions of restoration and rebuilding of a nation-state that goes beyond the physical and metaphysical dynamics. After this lecture, I realized that it is key to acknowledge: despite years of nation-state restoration after conflict, the trauma and the generational effects that war has on a society, political system, and land are something that would take centuries to recover. As a result, he posed the question that serves as a pillar of peace-building: how can conflict and war be systematically prevented? This question is crucial to the rebuilding of a state post-conflict, and I continued to reflect on it as I connected the Yugoslav wars to other wars occurring around the world.
As we traveled from Serbia to Bosnia, the remnants of the Yugoslav wars became ever more apparent. From the countless number of sniper bullet holes on buildings to the nostalgia and reminiscence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1992) brought up by Bosnian locals. Analyzing the scene as I walked through the beautiful streets of Mostar, the couple of abandoned and destroyed buildings, unrestored bullet holes, and even the recovered Old Bridge of Mostar that was bombed several times in the war, was a culture-shock to me. As I imagined—although I could never truly understand—the toll that the war had on the Bosniak people in Yugoslavia. I am very grateful to have a friend in this program with Bosnian heritage, as she guided me through essential and phenomenal cultural experiences in Bosnia (she also taught me a little of the Serbo-Croatian language – Dober dan!). But she also recommended attending the Museum of War and Genocide Victims 1992-1995 in Mostar. This museum was incredibly heavy to say the least. I read a multitude of stories from victims of the Bosnian war and the Srebrenica genocide, stories that I will never be able to forget. More specifically, during the Bosnian war, Bosniak people suffered sieges, starvation, displacement, and systemic sexual violence as a result of being targeted for their ethnic and religious identity as Muslim Bosniaks. The Srebrenica genocide was a systematic massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995 during the Bosnian War. I am appreciative of my privileged position to read these stories, stories that overlap with experiences many people are going through in this world, from Palestine, Sudan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and, unfortunately, more.
In a lecture in Sarajevo, Bosnia, titled “Through the Looking Glass,” by Prof. Damir Šagolj, the lesson prompted us to make parallels between the genocides that prof. Šagolj had included in the presentation what he had researched, photographed, or worked on in humanitarian assistance. It was a difficult and heavy presentation, but it pieced together the global parallels of conflict and genocide that I have been continuously thinking about while in Bosnia and Serbia. The stories of victims of genocide come in very similar patterns, and it made me keep thinking, how does genocide continue to happen, and how does the world allow it to persist? It seems that no matter the period of time that humanity exists in, the lesson of the atrocity and unimaginable destruction that genocide has on humanity is something that is somehow not powerful enough to keep them from occurring. How and why is this? A street art message in Mostar stated, “The lesson was Srebrenica, The test is Gaza!” I want to add to this message that the lessons of genocide have long marked global history, but instead the test is when will humanity learn to resist?