WOMEN IN BLACK 10TH OF JULY 2014
SREBRENICA 1999-2014
In 2014, this year as previous years on that day, on 10th of July which for me is obliging, I took off in early morning hours from Kraljevo to Belgrade. On this above all moral journey I was alone, like I was for several previous years. Every year, including this time, I was hoping in vain that somebody among people closest to me or among those who are more distant, would join me, as response to my repeated invitations. But on the contrary, my days around that date are mainly filled with loneliness, abandonment and oblivion, by even those dearest to me. With hypocritical decency they "allow" me to get ready and take off to the journey of common/collective moral and political responsibility, so to say. And during that time, they engage in "more important matters" of their very personal and family "survival, development and progress". Some among them find that they have nothing to do with the atrocities committed in our name in Srebrenica, others think that state organized, mass and systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity over 8372 Bosnians in Srebrenica are not at all evil, on the third side some claim that there were also crimes committed against Serbs, and on the fourth side others claim that from the distance of 17, 18, 19 years, "it" is just a "story already told" and a "worn out thing" which needs to be surpassed by "new, ongoing and burning issues", on the fifth side some know, but "keep quiet in their wisdom", in their comfortable and secure position of irresponsibility and cowardice, on the sixth side people don't want to hear, see nor learn anything about genocide in Srebrenica, because ignorance for them represents "kingdom in heaven and on Earth" where only the One knows, while they remain his obedient and submissive flock. With this culture of denial, disclamation, relativization, silence and oblivion, my fellow citizens senselessly and shamelessly continue to insult the victims, they devastate their dignity all over again and they deepen and strengthen the pain and suffering of their families. Shameful society in quagmire of criminal politics of war 90-ies, accepted and ran by other and different methods and means today, which ought to be sanctioned as such in all aspects by international institutions, because it is incapable, unwilling and way to immoral to independently get on the path of facing the criminal past, of distancing from the crimes, of healing and of reconstruction. Sense and thorough upbringing and education of children and youth are not a strong enough motive for my environment to change and live in truth. We will be waiting for a long time for normal Serbia, for now we have the society of entertainment and sensation and the state of political Messiahs. And that is a "miracle already seen" in Serbia.
In Belgrade I met with my friends, activists of the Network of Women in Black. Our action of "moving" Srebrenica to Belgrade began with going to the plateau outside the Presidency of Serbia and it continued by issuing a demand to the president of the Republic Tomislav Nikolic, to the Parliament and to the Government of Republic of Serbia. Our demands have been the same since 2009 until today:
- Name all organized, mass and systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Bosnians by Serbian military and paramilitary, police and parapolice forces and by territorial defense of Republic Srpska, who operated under the umbrella of YNA (Yugoslav National Army) / as Genocide.
- Declare July 11th the Memory Day of Victims of Genocide in Srebrenica.
- Build a permanent monument in Belgrade to the victims of Genocide in Srebrenica.
- Stop the practice of unpunishable war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
- Punish everyone who denies, disclaims and forgets the victims of Genocide in Srebrenica.
From our offices to the Presidency and during the action we were occupied by the large number of policemen who were fully equipped. Were they protecting "us" from "them" or "them" from "us", truth from lies, freedom from slavery, voice from silence, responsibility from irresponsibility, justice from injustice, nonviolence from violence, peace from war, anti-nationalist and anti-fascist minority from nationalist-fascist majority, or the other way round? What were they educated for, prepared and formed as persons for, those mainly young policemen? I have enough of knowledge, information and experience to realize that the police, certainly following orders by their highest bosses, had the duty on that day to protect our monolithic society in its nation-fascist conscious and showbiz-sensationalist action. They were the indifferent vacuum between anti-fascists and fascists in a twilight zone, in a place of various evils, which Serbia has been for decades now already. Given the fact that every humanity disappeared, evaporated, drained from my country, maybe it is turning into a black hole with nothing in it, where there is only nothingness of every kind. Their appearance made my feelings of anxiousness, fright, unease and restraint grow. Police in our country has always been the good outer stimulus for hardest of feelings. That is because the good communication between citizens and police has never been established, so trust couldn't be built either. Police was and still is the traditional mean of force in hands of ruling structure, and so far away from citizens. On that day, we were two distant worlds, separated by landscapes of deeds essentially different, diametrically opposed phenomena and substances, only artificially allied by the interest of state to demonstrate power. So, our security represented to the policemen just a tool to show and prove the state authority and its conduct of politics "on the good path of European integrations", or an indicator of possibilities to manipulate peoples’ lives and human rights and freedoms. Police was tipped that we were going to be attacked on some points on our rout, by national-chauvinist and fascist individuals, groups and organizations from Serbia. Police was obliged to protect us by surrounding and capturing us, and not them. So absurd! Serbian police is accustomed to open concentration camps along their way, as they go, so with their bodies they improvised one for us, for truth and justice. Maybe they also got the assignment to indicate in that way that we are a risky group of people for Serbian nation and tradition, or so to say the "malignant tissue", who make the truth about the genocide in Srebrenica terrifying and horrific, unforgettable and warning, categorical and imperative for all previous, current and future generations. But, functioning by the matrix of culture of oblivion, police forgot to map the centers of nationalism and fascism, to call and name in public, to hold accountable, to forbid and thus prove the resolve of the state’s discontinuance with criminal politics of various actors against its responsible citizens who are (what a paradox) defenders of human rights and freedoms, or so to say, of value of human life of each and every individual.
Due to the culture of silence and of not facing, in all societal structures, and due to the intentional or coincidental unpreparedness of Valjevo police, Women in Black were victims of treacherous physical attack by a group of young fascists in Valjevo, on occasion of nonviolent and peace protest in black and in silence, after seeing off the "peace bicycling" from Belgrade to Srebrenica. "Bicycling activism" was stopped in Valjevo for reasons of security of participants. Will anybody in Serbia or will all Serbia be held accountable for this, when, to whom and where? Fascist ideas and stands in Valjevo were also expressed by journalists in local media, as I learned from my friends. Of course, journalists of Valjevo media "in service to the leader, the state and the nation" asked the Women in Black questions like: "Why have you come to our town?", "Do you know what you are doing to us?", "Are you aware that you brought misery to our town?" So I ask the people of Valjevo:
- Do you know that Serbia and its towns are nobody's dowries, feuds, and that you are appropriating them and controlling entry and exit? Many generations took part in creation of those towns in the past and today. All citizens of Serbia have the Constitutional right to move, act and express freely. Therefore, Serbia is our and my country, and Valjevo is our and my town.
- When will you contribute, in accordance with your highlighted nationalism, to building your own town as a place responsible and safe for everyone who steps inside it, which you cannot do without aspiration that Valjevo becomes a post-genocide town? Miserable is the town, and even more miserable is the nationalism, if it hides and multiplies criminals and is ruled according to criminal practice. For now, Valjevo is paradigm of every Serbian town.
- If you are willing to raise a hand on "your own", what would you do to others/different? Maybe you do it already? Consciously and by plan? You can do that because Serbia is the mother to criminals and unpunishable crimes.
- Would you like that Valjevo someday reaches what today seems further then even any horizon, and that is to become a town? Actually, town is a place of human living which symbolizes "unity of differences" and consists of educated, free (responsible) and solidary people.
- Once you develop Valjevo into a town, weather you will join and support the Women in black, is a redundant question. Even without question, you will be part of us. There will be "us, the responsible" in Serbia.
Never the less, I'm aware that after almost two decades since the genocide in Srebrenica, my expectation looks more and more like Becket's "Godot".
Leading media in Serbia didn't report on these most difficult events, nor on the Women in Black protest at noon, nor on the evening one. Those of us who wanted to learn about it, could find out about it from the world media, above all from AlJazeera. Serbian media were censored or self-censored, or perhaps both? Our media, or supposedly our media, opted for varieties of disguising the truth about ourselves and allegedly for not alarming and not upsetting the public. This is in accordance with their media policy, which can easily be qualified as "policy of courtship" to new/old political power based on principals of authority and totalitarism, to war-profiting economic elite which, being media owners, is not interested in anything that has no market value. This includes human life, suffering and death of ordinary people, who have been proclaimed redundant, useless and worthless long time ago. It is also "policy of courtship" to masses in Serbia, who enjoy myths and mythology about themselves as "heavenly", "chosen", "just", "heroic", "sufferer" people, forgetting historic truths and facts about themselves, due to their most precious "myth about draft", where draft is a tornado devastating for brains and harts of this people. Nation that I belong to, by birth and not by choice, is emotional, intellectual, moral, religious, art desert that grows. This only kind of growth, without any development or progress, has been recorded in our area for quite a while. "Basements raised quite high up" as poet Vladislav Petkovic Dis would say in his poem "Our days", not knowing that those would be our days too.
In their evening action on the same day, from 19:30 to 20:30, by responsibly laying out number 8372 on the big black canvas, which is the number of Bosnians killed in atrocities in those four days in 1995, and by tribute in white roses to the victims, Women in Black "moved" Srebrenica to the Republic Square in Belgrade. This way, they satisfy their deepest moral aspiration of giving crimes in Srebrenica back to the criminals, like a mirror to look at their own reflection, until they start the process of admitting and punishing all evil deeds.
Our departure from the headquarters and passing through some streets of Belgrade to Republic Square was escorted by the police. Police was our "shield" from "our people", who only found "appropriate", like all previous years, to throw verbal labels and insults directed to us women and few men among us. Those were "sons of nation", "fathers of families" and "guardians of moral", who shouted "whores, whores!" at us, I would say shamelessly and unscrupulously as real personification of Serbian society and state. It is strange and incredible that even towards such bullies and nationalists, the police had an indifferent, disinterested and cold attitude, exactly like the attitude they showed to us, participants in the action. Policemen didn't seem to mind, nor stop to think, they had "none of our business" and "we're just doing our job" attitude. On Republic Square, police got reinforced by one fully armed gendarmerie unit, two detectives and one chief of police. Yes, the chief of police in Police Administration of City of Belgrade, the same one who, after we had addressed Serbian state officials, invited and received our friend Selma from Sarajevo and myself from Kraljevo. Selma wanted to establish cross-borders cooperation in domain in her own involvement in fight against people trafficking and prostitution. She built up some kind of connection, at least the most fragile bridge. But, genocide in Srebrenica and genocide-like crimes in BH were not mentioned. The chief of police spoke of the general point of all Serbian discussions, internally or with others, "People died on all sides." Yes, they did, but we are interested in those among us who planed, organized and executed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in our name and against other nations of ex-Yugoslavia, aiming at their ethnic extinction and destruction. Establishing their individual criminal accountability and punishing them would only begin to satisfy justice and to bring back human dignity to victims and their families. It seems that this request is given up by many civic associations and NGOs who stood beside us as friends in previous years, but not this year. Thousands of reasons to justify that cannot be the right answer to our question: "Why haven't you been with us that evening for one hour of compassion, solidarity and responsibility?"
The next day, on July 11th, we departed for Srebrenica, on our journey of truth, of genocide victims who left the everlasting trace in our lives, journey of mourning, compassion and solidarity with those in deepest sufferings and pains for losing their dearest ones to nation and state that we come from, journey of everlasting silence, but also of everlasting witnessing of atrocities against Bosnians committed by Serbian forces as part of “Great Serbia” project, journey of giving dignity back to victims of genocide, journey of possible reconciliation and establishment of just peace, journey of future human security for all people and nations. Police escort was left behind us, on the border between Serbia and BH. In BH we were secure, safer than in our own state. We were safeguarded by entire Bosnian community.
We met with our friends in Srebrenica and we attended the commemoration/dzenaza for all the fallen, all previously buried, for the 175 who were being buried that day and for those who are still searched for by their closest ones, although it has been 19 years since then. After commemoration we talked to those whom we knew, and those whom we didn't know. That's the place of suffering of Bosnians, but also of responsible and conscientious par of entire humanity. But, president of Serbian state was not there, neither were the Serbian media. They seem to fit each other. President of Serbia verbally-cynically kneels and begs, while Serbian media practice same verbal kneeling and begging but to the wrong side, to him and other state potentates. May this by any chance be the case of "domestic conspiracy" against the good of people, as the true story quite different to the myth about "foreign conspiracy", which seems unsustainable since foreign officials and media expressed a high degree of morality with their presence and their actions.
In afternoon and evening hours, we returned to Serbia where everything is turned upside down, where time follows unhuman existence, and it might as well stop. In such nasty time, such inopportunity, only police can follow you.
Respectfully and responsibly, Snezana from Kraljevo
