Paths of Memory: Srebrenica Genocide Exhibits at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington,DC

Abstract

After the horrors of the Holocaust the world said “Never Again”. The promise that echoed for decades was broken during the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) and its culmination on 11 July 1995 in Srebrenica, a UN designated safe area, when Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladi? captured the town and killed over 8000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys. The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice ruled the massacre in Srebrenica as genocide. In 2005, an exhibit of Bosnian photographer Tarik Samarah's work about the Srebrenica genocide opened at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC (the Museum). A few years later the Srebrenica genocide was included in the special exhibition “From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide”. This article examines the installation and importance of both of the Srebrenica genocide exhibits at the Museum. It shows that the inclusion of the Srebrenica genocide at the Museum bears witness to the importance of genocide prevention, education and memorialization. It highlights the purpose of the Museum and the decision to expand its educational program to include post-Holocaust genocide cases. The conclusion emphasizes that the presence of the Srebrenica genocide is directly contributing to the importance of “keeping the memory alive” with regard to the Holocaust and genocide studies in general.     

Long-distance Mourning and Synchronised Memories in a Global Context: Commemorating Srebrenica in Diaspora

Abstract

This paper discusses annual commemorative activities of July 11 in the Bosnian diaspora communities in Europe, the USA and Australia, a widely embraced grassroots trend commemorating the 1995 Srebrenica genocide that has become an important act of public memorialisation, reassertion of collective identity and a form of political activism among the Bosnian refugees and genocide survivors in different places across the globe where they have settled. In addition to serving as a cohesive factor among the members of the Bosnian diaspora communities and providing them with a social context in which they can collectively mourn their losses, the Srebrenica commemorations in diaspora have been increasingly reaching out to include members and leaders of the mainstream communities; hence becoming distinct, locally situated, global public events about Bosnia and Srebrenica rather than remaining the exclusive Bosnian immigrants' gatherings that they initially tended to be. In conjunction with the public commemorations, Bosnian diaspora organisations and initiatives have successfully lobbied the governments of their adopted countries to pass resolutions recognising the Srebrenica genocide and calling for July 11 to be acknowledged as the Srebrenica Remembrance Day.     

Battling the Eighth Stage: Incrimination of Genocide Denial in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Denial is considered to be the eighth and the final stage of genocide. Facing this issue, many European Union countries have opted to incriminate genocide denial. Furthermore, with the aim of harmonising national legislations, Framework Decision No. 2008/913/JHA was adopted in 2008, obliging the Member States to incriminate “publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes”. Genocide and other crimes denial is still present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though the rulings of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have shown that genocide was committed over Bosnian Muslims, in July 1995 in Srebrenica and its surrounding areas, as well as other numerous crimes against humanity and war crimes across entire Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 2007 there have been a number of attempts to incriminate genocide denial at the state level in Bosnia, but all of them were unsuccessful due to the opposition by representatives of Republika Srpska. Finally, in 2014, the genocide denial was incriminated in the Criminal Code of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an act of encouraging “national, racial and religious hatred, rift and intolerance”.     

From the Selimović Case to the Srebrenica Commission: The Fight to Recognize the Srebrenica Genocide

Abstract

The Srebrenica Commission was formed by the Republika Srpska government to investigate the events that occurred in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. The Commission was formed by a decision of the Human Rights Chamber (HRC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In its report, the Commission consisting of mainly Serb officials concluded that crimes were committed in Srebrenica, citing the Krsti? Case at International Court of the Former Yugoslavia. It also provided locations of mass graves where the Bosnian Serb Army hid remains of victims from Srebrenica. The paper aims to research the Selimovi? et al. case at the HRC and its implications, including clarifying how truthful and correct was the Commission on locations of mass graves.     

Modern Muslim Thought in the Balkans: The Writings of Mehmed ef. Handžić in the El-Hidaje Periodical in the Context of Discrimination and Genocide

Abstract

The withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries left a significant impact on the population of the region, especially on the Muslims. Muslim intellectual life was strongly influenced by the arrival of a new political and social order and cultural and religious value system. During this period, Balkan Muslims painfully and irreversibly became an administrative part of Europe. The aim of this paper is to examine the main themes which characterized the writings of Bosnian Muslim intellectuals in the post-Ottoman period, particularly on the eve of and during the Second World War. This work examines the writings of Mehmed Hand?i?, a prominent Bosnian scholar that were published in the El-Hidaje Periodical from 1939 to 1945. The paper brings the scholar's views and commentaries on a variety of topics such as the impoverished Muslim state, the history of Islam and Muslims, and patriotism and nationalism from the Muslim point of view. In most ofHand?i?’swritings the focus is on Muslim intellectual responses to the new political and social changes as well as challenges of the ongoing Second World War. However, hiswritings and reflections continue to have far-reaching effects on Bosnian Muslims and remain relevant to the Bosnian Muslim situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century as the world observes the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in 2015.     

Commemorating Srebrenica: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

The aim of this Special Issue is to commemorate the genocide victims in Bosnia on the occasion of 20th anniversary of the capture of UN safe area of Srebrenica in July 1995. Recognized as the worst atrocity in Europe since 1945, the horrors of Srebrenica reverberate far beyond Bosnia with commemorations held across the globe from Canada to Australia. While there has been a growing literature on this subject over the last two decades, this Special Issue seeks to make a scholarly contribution to the study of genocide by bringing together works on understudied aspects of this period in Bosnian and European history.     

Priming the Nation for War: An Analysis of Organizational Origins and Discursive Machinations of the Serb Democratic Party in Pre-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1990–1992

Abstract

This article examines the role of the Serb Democratic Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SDS BiH) in the constitution of Bosnian Serbs as a palpable political group primed for violence, a process that took place in the two-year period preceding the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. In the November 1990 Bosnian elections, SDS BiH won a decisive majority of the vote of ethnic Serbs. Yet, SDS was not an ordinary political party. In the 16 months that followed the elections, it initiated a series of activities that eroded the power of BiH institutions to which it had been elected. SDS BiH declared its own organs superior to those of BiH and established exclusive control in Serb-majority areas. In early 1992, it united these areas into a single Serb Republic, formed an exclusively Serb armed force, and launched a campaign of murder and expulsion of non-Serbs from the territory under its control. This article examines discursive mobilization of affective sensibilities of ethnic Serbs as an important aspect of SDS's ability to gain a mass following of Bosnian Serbs for its ethno-territorial engineering. It offers a discussion of progressive homogenization of ethnic Serbs by looking at SDS's organizational origins and the evolving rhetorical strategies in the period from the party's inception until the onset of the war.     

Clinical globalization: A case study of privately-sponsored HIV research in Mexico

This essay describes the struggle of an indigenous rights activist to obtain ethnic status and political representation for the Waata, former hunter-gatherers who belong to the Oromo-speaking people of East and Northeast Africa. It discusses how this leader is trying to positively redefine the label of 'caste' attributed to the Waata by scholars to explain the ambivalent position occupied by the group in traditional Oromo society. The essay examines how this social activist used a dance ritual which is performed annually by the Waata to commemorate their myth of origin as a way to gain political and moral legitimacy for his campaign. As Abner Cohen's studies suggest, there exists an intrinsic link between cultural performances and political processes in contexts of socio-economic change. The essay explores these interrelated themes of culture, politics and social change through the case of the Waata.     

Beyond Islamophobia? The role of Englishness and English national identity within English Defence League discourse and politics

ABSTRACT

Unsurprisingly, most scholarship on the English Defence League (EDL) focuses on the Islamophobic nature of the group's politics. This has found that, whilst the group presents a more moderate, public-facing image, the EDL's backstage discourse is a far less nuanced brand of Islamophobia and cultural racism (Allen, C. (2011). Opposing Islamification or promoting Islamophobia? Understanding the English Defence League. Patterns of Prejudice, 45(4), 279–294; Kassimeris, G., & Jackson, L. (2015). The ideology and discourse of the English Defence League: ‘Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent’. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17, 171–188). A more fundamental area of EDL ideology has been left unexamined, however: what notion of ‘England’ is the EDL trying to ‘defend’? Using content analysis of EDL online discourse, this article examines how the EDL articulates, represents, and uses English national identity within its discourse and politics.     

Don't ask don't tell: examining attitudes about black homosexuality and the media in an online forum

On 8 November 2005, a posting appeared on the BET.COM Bulletin Board under the heading Noah's Arc. It read: ‘Has anyone caught the new show called Noah's Arc? It comes on a gay/lesbian channel called LOGO and the show is really good. It is about four gay men living and loving in Los Angeles … it gives us a glimpse into a world of gay men and the struggles that they endure in life. I suggest that all of you watch it.’ Using textual analysis, this study examines the responses of forum users addressing the following research question: Thematically, what attitudes and opinions emerged from the postings surrounding the question ‘Has anyone caught the new show Noah's Arc?’ Eight themes emerged from the postings submitted by 84 respondents as BET.COM visitors engaged in a four-month discussion about sexual orientation and identity, race, religion and spirituality. The analysis reveals that while many respondents were homophobic and heterosexist, others had a more sophisticated and enlightened understanding of sexuality, media images and stereotypes, religion, and identity politics. Results suggest that an inevitable consequence of discussions of homosexuality is a discussion of morality and religion.     

Hybridity,ethnicity and nationhood: legacies of interethnic war,wartime rape and the potential for bridging the ethnic divide in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Relying on the biographical narrative Leila, a girl from Bosnia and the recorded narratives by adolescents born of wartime rape in Bosnia and Herzegovina we illustrate the difficulties and symbolic implications associated with negotiating hybrid identities in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina against the dominant post-conflict discourse based on ‘pure’ ethnicities. We argue that in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, hybrid identities are marginalized by official politics and societal structures as a legacy of the war. However, they simultaneously embody the symbolic tools through which ethnic divisions could be overcome, envisioning and recalling a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina as a supra-national designation.     

Approaching Cultural Change in the Era of Globalisation: An Interview with T.K. Oommen

An exercise in academic signature, 'Is Jew/Greek Greek/Jew : or does 'Hebrew' mean Cross'over?' tries to account for the differential claims on identity when one finds oneself, at the same time, a religious Jew and a university professor specializing in secular texts. What does such a one, in fact, profess? How to negotiate the (mostly figurative) translation of Greek into H ebrew, and H ebrew into Greek, in a m ore than m erely academ ic sense- indeed when 'the academic' offers but one of several competing possibilities for personal and social identities? Preferring a 'Mauriacois' style of narrating the self by reference to the books in one's library, to something more Rousseauistic and chez soi, the author appeals throughout to the w ork of Emmanuel Levinas in a programmatic move that shows how the task of mediation begins of necessity in the sphere of the already-mediated. The 'tightrope, window and text' of the article's subtitle, then represent three tropes around which the problematic of mediated identity is posed. The titular questions, finally, remain less answered than- in Kenneth Burke's signature form ulation- 'danced'.     

Queering the war dead: gold star families and the politics of estrangement

ABSTRACT

Contemporary practices of mourning individuals lost to war violence assert correct and incorrect practices of grieving. Successful practices will emphasize the heroism and the sacrifice of the war dead, centralizing the role of American values in the act of dying for one’s country. To not honor the war dead successfully is seen as a betrayal of their sacrifice and an ethical failure. Through a critical reading of Gold Star Families and the identity politics surrounding acts of mourning, I argue that the social norms acting as guideposts for processes of mourning over-determine relationships and identities in ways that perpetuate a violence that is seen as redemptive. Working towards alternatives to these practices, I argue that a queer relationality can disrupt the idealized constructions of redemptive violence constitutive to notions of successful mourning. A queering of the war dead refuses to allow mourning to be dismissed as unsuccessful if grieving is anything other than the assignment of war hero, patriot, or the solidification of an American identity for those killed by war violence. Ultimately, I argue that acts of queering the war dead have potential to challenge the proliferation of dominant practices that tie a militarized redemptive violence to normalized identities.     

A Fidelity to Politics: Shame and the African-American Vote in the 2004 Election

This essay explores how the concepts of shame and fidelity, in their relation to race, racism, electoral politics, might be thought with reference to the African-American vote in the 2004 presidential elections. Fully cognizant of the increasing ‘numerical’ irrelevance of African-Americans as an electoral constituency, this essay argues for their participation, a participation not grounded in the liberal American politics of material and symbolic ‘expectation’, in the elections as a felicitous political event.

…?suffering produces patience, and patience produces fidelity, and enduring fidelity produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. (Romans 5.2)     

Fetishised liberty,the fear of the other and the global juridical rule in Iraq

The US-led military invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was a further development in the global economy of violence which has progressively not only made Iraqis redundant as national-political subjects but has also stripped them of civility, without which no form of power can become legitimate, and turned them into a 'disposable population'. The projection of global disorder onto Iraqi national borders made the country a testing ground for the USA to establish its sovereignty in the global space that had become 'paranoid' in post-11 September 2001. The promotion of democracy and freedom, the ethical companions of this imperial expansion, was a global transposition of the national role assumed by the liberal state as the agent that constitutes free people. Thus, the Truth of the liberal state as the giver of liberty was deployed by the imperial power as the agent destined to turn the Truth into the Goal (Telos) of history, of which everyone, Iraqis or otherwise, becomes a subject at the expense of being a historical subject -- acting in history. Far from expanding, however, a democratic politics in which power and right are kept apart through recourse to the notion of legality, the military invasion was a juridical exercise of power in which right becomes the right of the ruler to rule. Without politics and a hegemonic construction of the universal mediated by association of citizens the fear of the Other remained uncivilised. While the global ruler has perpetuated and normalised this fear through recourse to the notion of 'just war' the Iraqi 'surrogates' for popular intervention have launched with a deadly consequence their own version of this notion.     

To see ourselves as others see us: identity and attitudes towards immigration amongst civic nationalists

ABSTRACT

This article examines how different conceptions of national identity can be linked to attitudes towards cultural pluralism. The tensions between more culturally pluralistic societies and sustained support for nationalism represent an important political issue in modern western European politics. Such tensions are of particular relevance for stateless nationalist and regionalist parties (SNRPs) for whom national/regional identity is a major political driver. This article empirically tests the relationship between different conceptions of national identity and attitudes towards cultural pluralism in two SNRPs—the Scottish National Party and the Frisian National Party. The article draws upon evidence from two unique full party membership studies and is supported with evidence from documentary analysis. A key finding is that the manner in which members conceptualise national identity has significant implications for their attitudes towards cultural pluralism, which has the potential of becoming a source of tension within SNRPs. A key implication of the article is that there is evidence that attitudes of general members and officially stated party positions and narratives diverge on issues relating to cultural pluralism and national identity. These tensions could potentially be harmful for the party's overall civic image.     

The unbearable proximity of the Orient: Political religion,multiculturalism and the retrieval of South Asian identities

The phenomenon of religion -- specifically its recent return as 'political religion', and its seeming incompatibility with the demands of multiculturalism -- continues to be a vexed issue in attempts to rethink retrievals of South Asian identity beyond a neo-colonial imaginary. This move 'beyond' has routinely followed a deconstruction of the 'religious effects' of Orientalism whose conceptual matrix, some argue, can be located in Hegel's writings on history and religion. Taking its cue from Derrida's enigmatic remark -- 'what if religio remained untranslatable?' -- this paper re-examines Hegel's writings on India, revealing the workings of an ontotheological matrix which underpins not only the recent resurgences of religious nationalism or political religion in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, but also, paradoxically, the secular frameworks of contemporary multiculturalism and anti-imperialist critique. Despite sharing the same onto-theological matrix, these bastions of secular modernity still refuse to recognise that retrievals of religious identity might constitute a significant reorientation of the political, instead continuing to put into play a series of well rehearsed distancing techniques which serve merely to sanitize the 'religious effects' of the Orient.     

US Neoconservative Support and Policy Activism for Bosnia, 1992–1995: Correcting the Record

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace neoconservative thought in the US and policy activism on the role of the US in Bosnia during the 1992–1995 genocide. This paper argues that, on the issue of intervention in Bosnia, neoconservatives in the US comprised two camps. Neoconservative former government officials were early and consistent advocates of an assertive US intervention in Bosnia. However, the neoconservative academics were a heterogeneous group divided over the question of US intervention. Yet, both the former government officials and several academics came together in supporting President Bill Clinton's decision to deploy US troops to enforce the Dayton Peace Accords. While sharply criticized in the Muslim world for their Middle East policies, neoconservative advocacy for Bosnia and Bosnian Muslims during 1992–1995 has been largely overlooked. Analysing neoconservatives’ activism on Bosnia provides for a more nuanced understanding of the US neoconservative foreign policy legacy.