Gendering the Bone: The Politics of Memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina1

This article explores and intervenes in the deadlock produced by the identifications of bodily remains resulting from genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Every day, in that country, bodily remains are exhumed, counted, reassociated, managed and consecrated as ethnic remains. This is done through the strategic collaboration of forensic science; multiculturalist post‐conflict management, with its politics of reconciliation; and religious ritual — an uncouth alliance between the scientist, the bureaucrat and the priest. In doing so, the scientist, the bureaucrat and the priest assume the perspective of the perpetrator of the crime. For it is in the fantasy of the perpetrator that the executed person is an ethnic other. The article intervenes by posing the question: what different praxis could deactivate the reification of bones as ethnic victims, would stop the prolongation of the injurious gaze of the perpetrator and would return the bones to common use through which we can contemplate hope after genocide? In other words, what is the politics that will enable us to be hopeful subjects in relation to these bones? Drawing on cultural production in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the article both challenges and goes beyond current mainstream political choices. Thus, it identifies and strengthens hopeful politics in cultural‐as‐political practices that productively bear witness to the precariousness of life. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is mainly women artists who harness traumatic events and the loss of the past and present in order to announce a more hopeful politics. What this hopeful politics after genocide is, through what praxis is it enacted, and by which subjects are the main concerns of this article.     

Quality and environmental management practices: their linkages with safety performance

There is a widespread acknowledgement that quality and environmental practices are effective means for improving the business performance of firms. However, empirical evidence regarding the relationship between quality and environmental practices and employee safety performance is relatively scarce. In order to fill this gap, we investigate the relationship between quality and environmental practices and safety performance measured by employee accidents at work. Employing a multivariate probit model, we show that the adoption of quality management practices is associated with an increased chance that an employee encounters workplace accidents, whilst environmental practices are associated with a reduction in workplace accidents. However, when distinguishing between workplace accidents that do and do not lead to sick leave, our results reveal that the utilisation of quality practices is not associated to employees’ probability of encountering accidents that lead to sick leave. This suggests that quality practices are only related to benign accidents. Moreover, examining the interrelationships among quality practices, safety performance and quality-related contextual factors, our findings indicate that the implementation of quality practices by the firm that considers quality as very important for its strategy and provides employee’s quality-related training is not associated with safety performance. Therefore, the results suggest that the way a firm implements and uses quality practices is essential for their effect on safety performance.     

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.     

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.     

Applying Islamic Norms in Europe: The Example of Bosnian Muslims

Abstract

Is Islamic law still valid in Europe? This paper argues “yes”—though not in the form of hard “law” but rather in the form of soft “norms” which are not state-sanctioned, but still carry heavy significance for practicing Muslims. The paper examines cases where Islamic moral, ethical and in some cases legal norms can be applied in a secular country without clashing with state laws. It further demonstrates that, based on fatawa issued by Islamic scholars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Islamic norms may still apply for Muslims living in secular European states, although they are not legally binding. This may be illustrated by classifying norms into religious (God's commandment to fast, pray, give alms), moral–ethical (consumption of alcohol, dressing properly) and Islamic legal norms (marriage, divorce, inheritance). The conclusion is that a vast majority of these norms can be adhered to by Muslims either within the scope of guaranteed religious freedoms in civil society or may otherwise be applied without clashing with secular civil laws.     

Aiming for transitional justice? Diaspora mobilisation for youth and education in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Education is acknowledged as a component of transitional justice processes, yet details about how to implement education reform in postconflict societies are underexplored and politicized [King, Elisabeth. 2014. From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda. New York: Cambridge University Press]. Local and international actors often neglect the complicated nature of education reform in postconflict societies undergoing transitional justice processes [Jones, Briony. 2015. "Educating Citizens in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Experiences and Contradictions in Post-war Education Reform." In Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Lessons from the Balkans, edited by Martina Fischer, and Olivera Simic, 193–208. New York: Routledge. Transitional Justice]. The role of the diaspora in transitional justice has been increasingly explored as a participatory transnational actor with influence and knowledge about local dynamics [Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. 2006. The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Haider, Huma. 2008. “(Re)Imagining Coexistence: Striving for Sustainable Return, Reintegration and Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ”International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (1): 91–113; Young, Laura, and Rosalyn Park. 2009.“ Engaging Diasporas in Truth Commissions: Lessons from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (3): 341–361; Koinova, Maria, and D?eneta Karabegovi?. 2017.“ Diasporas and Transitional Justice: Transnational Activism from Local to Global Levels of Engagement.” Global Networks 17 (2): 212–233]. This article bridges academic literature about diaspora engagement and transitional justice, and education and transitional justice by incorporating the role of diaspora actors in post-conflict processes. Using empirical data from multi-sited field work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and France, it examines diaspora initiatives which aim to influence local transitional justice processes through translocal community involvement in education and youth policy. It argues that diaspora initiatives can provide alternative and intermediate solutions to the status quo in their homeland, with some potential for contributing to transitional justice and reconciliation processes. Ultimately, diaspora initiatives need support from homeland institutions in order to forward transitional justice agendas in post-conflict societies.