November 11, 2021 • 47 mins
Genocide expert Arnesa Kustura joins us to discuss how a relatively prosperous multi-ethnic socialist state was destroyed by ethno-nationalists and how their rampant propaganda allowed them to carry out a genocide while Europe cheered.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Blow and welcome to It could Happen Here a podcast
about the continual state of bad things happening and how
sometimes you can make them less bad or not happen.
And today we're gonna I'm Christopher Wong, by the way,
and today we're gonna be talking about Bosnia, a place
where things went about as bad as they possibly can,
(00:28):
and about how they're heading in very scary directions now.
And with us to talk about this is Arnessa Kustra.
Arnessa is a genocide survivor and a academic expert on
genocides in general. Arnessa, how how are you doing? You know,
I'm doing okay. I think all things considered, you know,
(00:54):
being sort of bombarded on a daily basis with you know,
possible threat um and talks about you know, a new
conflict war brewing in the Balkans is the thing. Not
an easy thing to convent, definitely not. Yeah, But other
than that, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. I'm glad.
(01:18):
I'm glad. I'm glad you could be here with me
today because the Balkans extremely complicated place, which I guess
the story of both places. But yeah, and so I
guess that that's that's where I wanted to go with
my first question, because reading about what's happening now, my
first instinct was go back to the day and accords.
(01:39):
But I'm actually not sure that that's that that's that's
that's even the best place to start, And so I
wanted I wanted to, I guess ask you if so, okay,
so if if if you're coming into looking at the
Balkans for the first time and you're trying to understand
what's going on, now, where do you think is the
best place to start on it? Because I think you
(02:00):
know the best. God, it's not we're talking about so
much history, honestly, But the thing is, let's you know,
let's start with the death of Tito. That's always a
good place, I think, because that's really when things started
to kind of shift in the Balkans and the former
(02:23):
you know, socialist udo Slavia was really once Tito died
and his place became, you know empty as this sort
of unifying factor of all the various ethnicities and nationalities
within Yugoslavia. You know, once he was gone, that sort
of left this vacuum that needed to be filled, and unfortunately,
(02:47):
instead of being filled, by another socialist you know, pro equality,
pro unity leader. It was filled with a nationalist uh,
which is kind of where we still are unfortunately. Um.
You know, it started obviously with with little things I think,
(03:09):
with little sort of conversations and and little subtle I guess,
you know, Ethno nationalist rhetorics, and it just kind of
like grew and spiraled from there. And obviously, you know,
that sort of thing led to Miloshevich and Kosovo giving
(03:29):
his infamous speech, which kind of really gave that full
fledged stamp on. Okay, yes, this is a ultra nationalists,
you know, Ethno nationalist president that we now have, UM,
who's threatening war across the other ethnicities. What do we
(03:51):
do next? Um? And at that point, you know, that's
when you sort of see the other countries start to secede,
you know, Slova, India, Croatia, they're attacked by Serbia and
then obviously eventually it goes down to Bosnia. UM. And yeah,
I mean it starts with yethno nationalism, as it always does,
(04:14):
I think. Um, you know, I don't think we're anything
special in terms of having conflict with our neighbors. Look
at France and England or in our or America and
Mexico or anyone. Really it's just you know, I think
people make it sound as if we're special or we
(04:34):
have these ancient hatreds, but you know that's not really true.
It all comes down to the freaking politics and the leaders.
And unfortunately, you know, Middlitchevitch was removed, but is policy
is um beliefs continue to kind of stick around. You know.
(04:56):
I think, uh, you know, people thing people like Miloshevitch
and Radovan Katach, who were you know, genocidal war criminals,
as a thing of the past. But really you look
at you know, the Serbian president um or the republic
Subska president and they are really just the continuation of
(05:21):
Katach and Miloshevitch UM. So nothing, you know, has fundamentally
changed since Tito died, except you know, we got some
new agreements, we got some new territories, some new ethnic
lients drawn up, and not a new pretty buildings too.
We have those now as well, but we don't really
(05:43):
have that coexistence um, at least that on paper, not
in politics. Certainly. I want to go back for a
second too. I guess the moment of Chito dying because
It's always been a sort of interesting thing looking at
it for me because I remember, I mean, you know,
(06:04):
so from from studying Chinese history, right there, there's a
period where in the seventies where okay, like everyone's looking
for reform in China, and you know what, what you
would consider like the sort of the I guess you
could call them the I don't know, left and right
is complicated in China, but you know, they're like there
there are a lot of sort of what you would
call like the sort of left socialist like democratic reformers.
(06:27):
Who are you know, I mean people people like they're
looking at Yugoslavia as a model and they're going, oh,
we can have like workers participation and we can have
we can have these democratic enterprises. And then that just implodes,
and and yeah, I wonder if we can talk a
little bit about more about that, because my my very
limited understanding of it was like there's an economic crisis
(06:49):
from the oil shocks, and then once Tito dies, it's
just like the wheels come off the whole system. I mean,
that's a really good way of putting it. Um you know,
like life in Yugoslavia. I don't think it was like
ever perfect, and I definitely don't think it was a
perfect system. I think you know, me being a Bosnian
(07:11):
who was born to Vary, I think pro Yugoslav parents. Um.
I just like many of my you know, fellow Yugoslavs
or x Yugoslavs, have a tendency to look at Yugoslavia
with like rose colored lenses. You know. We think about
the coexistence, the unity, the multi ethnic part, the worker
(07:35):
owned you know, socialist models, the fact that our parents, um,
you know, we're able to provide for their families and
take vacations and travel and um, you know, get together
and all these sort of wonderful things. But in the background,
really in the sort of depths of the you know,
politics and the economic issues were kind of always there. Um.
(08:02):
You know. The one thing that Tito did was obviously
he relied unlike I think other socialist leaders of his
time is you know, he basically worked with anyone, you know,
the non align movement, but also with the West, with Europe,
you know. So he was a very picky choosy I
(08:23):
think was you know, the betterment of the country by
kind of any means necessary. Um. But I think you know,
he made mistakes just like um other leaders do. And
I think obviously we had, you know, two issues. One
(08:45):
he was sick, he was dying, um. And two there's
an economic crisis happening. Um. And three then we had
like the economic reforms, which really shifted the entire I mean,
they just they very much shifted the the system that
the Yugoslav people were very much used to. UM. It
(09:08):
became more and more prior, you know, privatized after his death. UM.
And and you know, Miloshevich, he was he was a banker,
he was a businessman. He was he was who he was. UM.
And I don't think that he ever really pretended to
be a socialist, which is why I get so upset
(09:30):
when American leftists call him a socialist or call him
an anti imperialist, because those aren't even words that you know,
he himself would have really used to describe himself. I think.
But but I think, you know, there was just it
was that sort of thing where there's an economic crisis brewing,
(09:54):
they have no wise to really fix it. People are broke,
people are starving. Suddenly the ownership, the worker you know
owned sort of model is being shifted to a more
privatized model. And people are just not happy. What's a
good way to distract from that? You know, It's just
(10:18):
we see it happen everywhere. It's not a new it's
not like a new you know tactic. It's a tactic
that everyone has utilized. Blame it on the other. Um. So,
Yugoslavia didn't really have you know, immigrants that they could
blame it on, but they had Muslims. So and they
had the Kasabo you know, Albanians and the Bossians, and
(10:42):
that was, you know enough, and suddenly the conversation really shifted.
And obviously I'm simplifying all of this a lot, so
much more complicated. Um. But you know, there there are
books out there and and that obviously go into a
great you know level of detail, um, into the actual
(11:06):
sort of breakup. So I can give some recommendations later.
But um yeah. But I think in in in that
sort of very simplistic kind of sense, is there was
an economic crisis happening. A good way to sort of
distract that was the use of ethno nationalism, and it
just kind of spiraled from there. I think, you know
(11:28):
what Miloshevitch and what people like Miloshevitch always wants more
power for themselves, and so his whole thing wasn't really
ever about keeping Yugoslavia intact as Yugoslavia. It was keeping
this vision of a greater Serbia alive. Because the thing is,
you know, if we had not had a person like Miloshevitch,
(11:53):
if we just had somebody who was you know, the second,
you know, maybe more or less worse or better, who cares.
I think people would have been fine. I think, you know,
I don't see this like war breaking now. But instead
we had Miloshevich who was like way more concerned about
consolidating power, exerting that control. And when he realized that
(12:13):
he could use ethno nationalism to get to his goals,
of course he was going to use that. Of course,
like who wouldn't you know, we see it today with
like what Trump did. He utilized you know, Muslims and
immigrants and refugees and black people, all his scapeboats to
distract from all the other things that are wrong with him,
his leadership and the overall country. And Miloshevich did the same.
(12:37):
He just did what any other politician did. And you know,
that's the thing I think, you know, in thinking about Bosnia, Croatia,
Slovenia and all these countries that started to succeed, I
think if they had felt comfortable with, you know, staying
in a country that is multi ethnic, at least in
(12:58):
the case of Bosnians, and not going to speak for
the Slovania's or croations because they have their own I
think complicated identity. But with Bosnians, are are saying collectively,
I think while we're not a monologue, not monolith, but
collectively was always where are united? We are multi ethnic,
(13:20):
multi religious, multi cultural, and it's such a big part
of like our entire history and identity. And so if
the choices being you know, under served, control, being secondary citizens,
not having that equality, not having that multi ethnicity, of
(13:42):
course we're not going to take that choice. Of course
people are gonna want to you know, when when you
have like that, you know, that boot on your neck
of saying like we're going to control you, We're gonna
take your land and we're gonna basically rule over you.
Nobody wants to deal with that. And you know, unlike
a lot of the other countries in former Yugoslavia, Bosnia
(14:05):
really was the most multi ethnic. It had one of
the highest rates of you know, mixed ethnic marriages and
multi religious marriages, and that kind of remains true even today.
So especially in places like sary Evo, Mostadaniluka, you know,
the bigger cities, it has this very proud history of
(14:27):
you know, coexistence and multiethnic co existence. So I think
what happened for so many people was just a huge
amount of shock. Um, my own family, so many people
in my own family just did not think it could happen. Now.
They grew up with this idea of a united you know,
(14:51):
multi ethnic Yugoslavia, brotherhood and unity. These are our neighbors,
our friends, our teachers, are lovers, you know whatever. There
they work with us, they live next to us. Of
course they're not gonna you know, turn against us. And
I think even while all the politicians were fearmongering, while
(15:13):
you know, Miloshevitch and Kataguge were sort of leading their
campaigns of you know, especially as lamophobic provacad propaganda, um,
you know, in in newspapers, on the radio, on TV,
any chance that any speech that they gave, they talked
about how the Muslims were coming, we were going to
make their daughters wear her jobs, we were gonna take over.
(15:36):
We're going to kill them, you know before that's why
they have to kill us, because they don't pill us.
We're going to kill them. It was just whole, you know,
really brilliant propaganda campaign in so many ways that has
now been replicated in so many other countries. We can
(16:02):
We've talked about that specifically for yes. Second, because I
think there's something interesting in the way that, like the
way that you get people to do with genocide always
seems to be like you can't. It's extremely hard to
get someone to like just murder their neighbor because they
don't like them. You have to do this like they're
(16:23):
about to exterminate us, and that's why we have to
like strike first. And that Yeah, that that that aspect
of it, I think is is something that I see
a lot when when I do this and yeah, you
you have you have done more genocide studies, I want
to hear. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Um, it's
so funny. I gave like an interview um on this
(16:44):
specific topic I don't know, like two years ago, and
I remember turning to the guy who has interviewing me
because he was just like his look on his face
was I just don't understand, Like I don't. I can't
wrap my mind about how people could do that to
their friends, neighbors, students, you know, people that were sworn
(17:04):
to like protect and and people they lived with their
entire lives. How could they do that? Well, you know,
I turned to him and I said, yeah, I mean,
if I told you right now go kill him, you
know you probably wouldn't. But if I came to you
day in and day out and I slowly started to
kind of whisper in your ear, and I started to
(17:27):
tell you, you know, he's been really really I don't know,
he's been saying a lot of stuff about you. He's
been quite negative or I don't know, you know, do
you think he's kind of acting weird? I feel like
he might be planning something. You might be planning to
take over your house. You may be planning to I
don't know, probably attack your sister. I think he's going
to kill your sister. I think you might make your
(17:48):
sister wear her job. So it's these very like slow,
subtle things. And that's the thing that people don't understand.
You know, violence never interrupts, like, never up out of nowhere,
you know, it it's always planned. It brewis and it bruise,
and it bruised, and then it explodes. You know, then
(18:08):
there's the thing. But it comes slowly. And that's how
it wasn't Yugoslavia. It wasn't this sudden. You know. Oh, yes,
we're brothers and sisters. Forever, Go Tito, go Yugoslavia too.
You know, Oh, I hate you because you're Muslim, and
I hate you because your servant, I hate you because
you're croact. No, that was not the case. The case
was that this was a very slow campaign of propaganda
(18:31):
that started in the eighties, almost immediately after Tito's death.
Let's say it started very slow, started with the you know,
with the sort of i think the disenfranchisement of the
coast of all Albanians um and kind of the targeting
of them um. And again, yes, there was this economic
(18:52):
component on of it, but the way they wanted to
kind of sidetrack that was, you know, well, you're you're
hungry because thes of Albanians are not, you know, and
they're taking your jobs again some more, uh, you know,
tactics that we see evening. Yeah, so it's not it's
not that much different, but yeah, you know, it starts
(19:14):
slow and and the Militievitch and the cottage and the
Maladich kind of campaigning was God, it was brutal. I mean,
like I always say, it was kind of brilliantly executed
in that it really got two people so much that
then again, you know, they turned neighbor against neighbor. It
was it was subtle in the beginning. It was that
(19:37):
sort of what are the Muslims up to? Can we
trust them? Can you trust your neighbor? Can you trust
the Muslims? You know, talking about islam sization, talking about
Alia is a big of which this book that he
wrote when he was like I don't know, eighteen or
or whatever, like, and you know, talking about World War two,
this was another thing, like like everybody owns that there
(20:00):
was a period in World War Two where you know
a lot of Serbs were killed by Guster shaw Uh,
by the Nazi collaborationists. And I think obviously that's a
real fear for you know, for a certain group of
people who went through that. So there was a lot
of that as well, you know, that's going to happen again,
That's going to happen again. Meanwhile, there was no grand plan.
(20:23):
There was never even talks of you know, committing violence
or even you know, talks of you know, seceding from
Yugoslavia or anything. It was all it was all set
in motion by the Serbian leadership, you know. And I
think that's what people don't understand. The Bousian leadership, while
(20:47):
not perfect, we're simply reacting to what the Serbian leadership
was in many ways making them do. And and that's
kind of where, you know, what happens in these situations.
You know, they kind of push you and push you
and push you until they're able to get you know,
some sort of rise out of you or response out
(21:07):
of you, or or get you on that sort of
offensive where you have to defend yourself, You have to
defend your identity, you have to defend who you are,
you have to justify it also in many ways. So yeah,
the you know, the sort of propaganda campaign, god, there
was you know, obviously the funny things were like things
(21:29):
like they're going to make you wear the hit job,
but it was also very insiduous because they would target
like these you know, villages where they were like Bosnians
and Serbs, you know, living together and they're quite small,
but they knew that like in the village obviously usually
(21:49):
have a gun or you know shotgun because of the
animals or you know, working or whatever. So they were
like target them specifically with like the you know, the
radioto and instead of like the big cities, Like they
worked up to the big cities, but they really started
in like specific sort of areas like in eastern Bosnia,
(22:09):
especially because there was like a lot of um i
think majority Muslim like villages in that area that would
also have like nearby served villages. So yeah, I mean
there was that. There was you know then sort of
taking over all the radio stations and um kind of
going full force. They think like in the sort of
(22:31):
early days of the war, like we're talking April May,
they you know, they would get people like pretending that
they were Bosnians they were actually Serbs, and they would
like talk about how they went to you know, kill
all Serbs or something like that. Um. There was also
(22:53):
when they were like having people in concentration camps where
they like started kind of putting them in those concentration camps. Initially,
they they would make the victims in the concentration camps
the Muslims basically, you know, say that, oh, they're just
there as a refugee and the Serbian army is like
(23:15):
protecting them, and they're making me feel really welcome and
stuff like that. So it was right at the beginning
between especially eighty nine too, like the propaganda was so
visible and it really escalated, and it was like suddenly
everywhere and you would hear cartategic and Middle we Shovitch
(23:39):
talk about, you know, the Muslims and the things that
we wanted and you know, the things that the goals
that we had, which after all, we're not you know,
nobody was saying it. There wasn't like a single person
that was saying these things that they were attributing to us.
But that didn't matter. What they were just doing was
instilling enough fear and enough doubt into population to eventually
(24:03):
get them to take up arms when the time comes.
And unfortunately, that's precisely what happened. When the time came.
You know a lot of people did take up arms,
whether or not they wanted to. They had enough of
that doubt and fear stowed in their minds over the
course of you know, several years that they ended up
(24:23):
feeling like I have to protect myself. And I'm not
saying that's the case for every certain person. I think
some a lot of you know, especially in higher leadership posmissions,
a lot of them were just sociopaths who wanted to kill.
And I don't think it mattered why or how, because
you're always going to get those kind of people. But
(24:45):
I think when we're talking about how how that shift
happened so last, we have to obviously discuss the propaganda,
the huge amount of propaganda that I went into, uh,
you know, implementing it. So I guess such a tangent.
That's okay, No, no, that was that was that was
(25:06):
really great? Yeah, I think you know, yeah, I mean,
I guess, like I think it's incredibly important for everyone
to understand that propaganda works, like if you just say
something over and over and over again, like it does,
you know of event eventually it pays off. And you know,
the quote unquote payoff here is the genocide. And I guess, yeah,
(25:30):
I'm not sure how far into detail you want to
get into this here, but but I think one thing
I want to kind of focus on because I think
from from reading what you've been saying about this that
this wound up being a big deal with like why
things are sort of still fucked now, which is that
(25:51):
like the international response to this, Like, I mean, one
of the things I've always just like haunted by is
there's this quote by mid irand who's the herm Mr
France's like this, he wants to be the socialist. He's
like the guy that like they finally put in power
after like all of the stuff in the sixties, and
he is this lying about like I'm sorry, I wish
I wish I tould up the exact quote, but it's
(26:12):
basically like I I know the quote, Yeah, do you
want to say it over the exactly? Um, it's uh,
it's what was it? A peaceful but necessary reconstruction of
a Christian europe um and Bosnia does not belong. So
(26:37):
I remember that differently. It's really stayed with me for
such a long time because he said that at a
time where the Bosnian Muslims were just completely defenseless. Um,
they were being dragged the way to concentrate shim camps.
The massacres were already well underway. We're not talking about stubborn,
We're talking about sorry about flat um even Surbrins nine two.
(27:03):
You know, this is all um, the things that happened
in places like witchcoens running and all these places that
you that I think the vast majority of people don't
really know about any here about, like in a lot
of my family is from there. Within a span of
three months, that entire town, the entire town, which was
(27:26):
once almost entirely Bosnia muslim Um, was ethnically cleansed. And
that was done through forced deportations, concentration camps, mass rapes,
and rape camps of women and obviously a lot of murders.
You know. So we're talking about one small town that
took you know, three three months. And my family when
(27:50):
it comes to that town, on both my mother's and
my father's side, interestingly enough, has like such a long history.
My parents fell in love there when they were like kids,
you know, they you know, my grandmother's house was there,
my grandfather's house was there. Um on like both sides,
and they you know, so is this beautiful little town
(28:12):
where you know Bosnians then Bosniaks and serves and CoA
hads lived in Jews Roma and you know, my parents
talked about the beauty of it and this wonderful sort
of experience that they had when they lived there. My
mom is from Saraebo, UM and I saw my as
well obviously, but the Chad was like the place that
she would go kind of like for the weekend, just
(28:33):
because of the family that we had there. UM so
very special. I think in her heart my grandpa's heart
as well, and you know, within it's just like so
hard to like fathom that within just a few months
that talent was completely ethnically climes and that the international
(28:54):
community knew this and did nothing. You know, there is
and I leave it's in the Clinton tapes as well,
but there was this thing about how they had provided
aerial footage of the massacres that were being that were
being enacted in places like Pittugal and Vannique where, oh
my god, depare military serve forces did some horrid, horrifying
(29:19):
acts of like violence and torture against the civilians. UM.
And they had you know, showed it to the Clintons,
and they showed it to the French and the English,
and they did nothing. You know, they knew that a
genocide was unfolding. UM. And the Dayton Peace Agreement wasn't
(29:41):
signed until so the international UM community I think as
just as much of a responsibility in the you know,
the genocide of the Bosniaks as Serbia does, because stay
sat there and they watched when they had all the
(30:02):
power to stop it. They always had the power to
stop it. They had the power to stop it before
it even before even one person got killed, um and
and two they it's not even that they just watched,
it's that they purposely left the Muslims defenseless because Serbia
had all the Yugoslav army, all the weapons, all the
(30:27):
you know, everything, all the tools that they needed to
commit j others side. They already had it, all the
arsenal everything, um And you do waslav army was like
the most powerful in the region at the time, and
I think the fourth, third, third or fourth most powerful
in like the Europe Turkey areas, so we you know,
(30:51):
quite a powerful army. And there was Bosnia which had
no weapons, no military uh um. You know, you see
these pictures of like civilians fighting against you know, tanks
and mortar shells and snipers, and it's like these you
(31:11):
know youths basically and like converse and jeans and like
an army jacket playing soldier because that's all we had,
you know, we had the homemade weapons, we had um,
you know, how to make your own bomb books kind
of thing, and trying to basically descend ourselves with anything
(31:33):
that we could. Um. They specifically did not lift the
arms embargo, knowing that they were leaving us defenseless. Like
they just knew. There was no way. There's no doubt
on everything that we have read about the international community response,
everything that Clinton metedand John mayor major major um not
(31:58):
mayor major have that you know about it during that
period shows us that they absolutely knew that we were defenseless,
you know. And this wasn't you know a lot of
people say I didn't know about the Bosnian genocide, but
it was discussed, you know, I've looked at the archived footage. UM,
(32:18):
it was talked about it on television, it was brought
up in parliament and incentive that was people at the
time who were like, why are we leaving the Bosnians defenseless?
Why are we you know, not helping them, Why are
we allowing them to be allowed into slaughter? This is
genocide blah blah blah. So even as early as there
was still people who knew about this stuff. We're telling
(32:41):
the leaders, but nothing. Yeah, I think I think like
that part also, like it's it's not just that like
they did nothing, like they like they did worse than
do nothing, like Miterians actively cheering it on, Like you know,
the arms in Bargo is just like the arms in Bargo.
If you're applying in arms in Bargo on a conflict
(33:02):
where one people one side has tanks and the other
side has like molotovs, like you are actively supporting one
of the sides. And I think that like that just
like is completely lost in how like almost everyone seems
to talk about this now because there's like, you know,
because because when you sort of get like interventions later,
like people are like, oh, look, the wester was like
(33:24):
planning to intervene here the whole time, and it's like no,
like they were literally cheering, was cheering. Like it's like
it's so frustrating because you know, we you take what
we know about. And here's the thing. I know that
Islamophobia escalated after nine eleven, but is Islamophobia has existed
(33:46):
for a very long time. And I think talked to
the black Muslims of America, they will tell you more,
you know, better than than I could ever tell you
about the history of Islamophobia in in the United States.
So it's a loam of phobia was always an aspect
of life. And in Europe, Islamophobia just like anti Semitism.
I mean, it is like the staple of European cultural cuisine.
(34:11):
So to say it's like it's like, yeah, it's like
there's there's a there's a there's they have. They have
like they have like the like the the tri force
of Europeans, of European civilization is anti Semitism, Islamophobia and
hating the Roma are just like how for the force.
And so I think the sort of thing about the
(34:32):
explicitness of European leadership, especially at the time in in
you know, effectively ensuring that we were killed off because
in Muslim country in Europe could not exist, and that's
the thing that they said, literally set a Muslim country
in Europe cannot exist. Like the fact that that was
(34:58):
so open and brazen like kind of takes me back.
But it really like tells you how much is Lamophobia informed.
I think the international community responds on this, and it's
so interesting to me. Now I think I've seen it
over the past, I would say, especially five years, the
sort of leftist genocide and I sort of leftist, anti
(35:20):
imperialist kind of defense of Miloshevich and oh they were
the you know, the Serbs were the actual victims blah
blah blah and NATO blah blah blah, Western intervention. And
I'm just like, oh, my god, read a book, read
an article from that, read their actual quotes. There's no
way that you can actually convince me that Europe, fortress Europe,
(35:42):
and the United States of America would do anything that
would benefit you know, the Muslim What's this? What was
one of the things. I think it's really interesting to
me about some way that the sort of like left
(36:02):
genocidees dialism works, like it always seems to be reginus lomophobia,
like and I remember started seeing this with Bosnia to
where they're like, oh, yeah, well it's it's it's because
what's okay. They have two things. One it's like, well,
the Bossians were Nazis been the second one was like,
oh well the boss the Bossians were like allto hottists.
And it's like like it's the exact same thing you
see with China, and it's like, oh, it's because all
the weakers are like Selafiji hottest iss c I A.
(36:26):
And it's like no, yeah, I mean it's it's it's
honestly laughable at this point. It really is. And it
also just you know, obviously I'm a leftist. You know,
I'm gonna cheer the left on to an extent, but
that is my red line. The genocide anialism really is
my red line. And the reason it's it's you know,
(36:48):
my red line isn't just because I'm a genocide survivor,
but because it's like, oh, for God's sake, the data,
the statistics, the research, the forensic the analysis, the specific quotes, videos, articles, uh,
you know, all of those things exist and are out there,
and all you have to do is actually do your
(37:08):
research and you will find out that actually know you're
in the wrong. And the other thing is what you
just said about the sort of thing of painting you know,
the Muslims is like the Nazis and the you know,
the extremists. Um, you know, the thing about like the
Bazian and Muslims is like, we don't hide the fact
that there were people of our community that participated in
(37:31):
Nazi crimes. There isn't this goal of concealing those crimes,
of minimizing the crimes or pretending that they were right. Um,
there is I'm sure a French group of people who
defend these kinds of people, like there is a French
when I'm talking about the collective sort of Bosnian um,
(37:51):
you know, state level response as well as like an
individual response is that the you know, the the Nazi
division had like seventeen thousand Bosnian soldiers and there's millions
of Bosnians in the country. The vast majority ended up
joining the Partisans and stood against the Nazis. And the
(38:13):
thing is, you can't when it comes to Yugoslavia and
World War Two and the Holocaust, you can't just say
that the Bosnians were Nazi collaboration is because the thing is,
so are the Serbians, So are the Serbs, so are
the Croats. At that time, Let's be honest, who the
hell wasn't a Nazi collaborationist. Now this doesn't excuse it,
(38:35):
absolutely not, but what it does sort of show is
that that history, that period um in Yugoslav history is
really complicated because you know, you had the Gustia um.
And then you had the Chechniques. And then there's a
period where the Chechniks were against Ussia, right because like
used to show we're killing Serbs and robots and drews.
(38:56):
But then the Chechniques turned around and there are you know,
these Serb nationalists. They start killing the Jews and the Roma,
and then they start working with those shut to hand
down the Jews in the Roma, and then they start
working with them to stand against the you know, the
Tito's Partisans. Um. Meanwhile, you know, Tito's Partisans had a
(39:18):
multi ethnic coalition, like and we're talking about Serbs, Bosnians, Roma, Jews, Croats, Albanians,
you know, all sorts of people who were very like,
you know, anti Nazism. So you know, we're we're gonna
we're gonna win, We're gonna rebuild our our country, We're gonna,
(39:41):
you know, make this beautiful sort of you know, multi
ethnic kind of state, which they did, which is amazing.
But yeah, but it is a complicated sort of piece
of history. So you can't really say, oh, yes, they're
the Nazi collaborationists because, um, at some point or not,
everybody was and at some point or not everybody was also. Yeah, yeah,
(40:01):
it's like like it's when when when you when you
start getting into like it becomes this like you know,
it becomes a way of just getting people to I
don't know how to describe it, like it you know,
when when when it starts being like this specific ethnic
(40:23):
group as a whole is responsible for all of these crimes.
Just like no, they're not like that's that's not that's
not how this works. Like it's not like like like
they're like there are like they're yeah, there's gonna be
people in the ethnic group who did things that were awful.
There's also going to be people, especially especially in a
citation like this, there's there's a lot like a lot
of probably more people who fought them. Yeah, and that like, yeah,
(40:47):
that's such an interesting statement because I'm going to compare
to the bossy and response after the genocide, which has
consistently been no, we don't believe that every single service bad,
and we were only talked about those that took place,
took part in these crimes and those that concealed them.
And that has always been the collective and state level
(41:09):
response of all Bosans. Now you have to think about
I have a friend who's who who's nine members of
her family were killed in Stubriniza in July. That's an
absorbinate number of people. These were women, children, and men
(41:32):
and elderly. There was no discrimination when it Kimp comes
to her. I'm sat with her as she's read all
the names of her you know, killed the family members.
That woman, with all the pain that she survived with
being there as a young girl in the midst of genocide,
in the midst of these her horrifying crimes, has never
(41:54):
once publicly or privately to me said, yes, old serbs
are the same. Yes, all of them are work aminals. Yes,
all of them hate us, absolutely not. And the thing is,
I think about myself as well, Like, you know, my
earliest childhood memories me being shot at by a sniper,
knowing my father was in a concentration camp, knowing that
(42:15):
my grandmother was just killed by a bomb. Um knowing that,
you know, my biological dad was dying in a hospital
from an attack, and my mother could also be killed
because she was pregnant with my brother at the time.
And so these are my earliest childhood memories. Um, they're
not very happy memories. And I know why those things happened.
(42:35):
You know, I know why I was being shot at
by a sniper, and it was because I was bossy,
and it it was because I was Muslin, and because
I was seen as the enemy, even though I was
you know, a little kid at you know, six seven
years old, um and absolutely not a threat to anyone,
and nobody should have been shooting at me. They did. Anyway,
Even though that happened, I never had that feeling of
(42:57):
all serbs are awful, All serbs are you know, I'm
going to paint them all with a brush. But a
lot of them, unfortunately, especially on the you know, the
the ultra nationalists that continue to not just the night
the geniside, but also glorified and celebrate it. They do
paint everyone with the same brush, you know. And and
(43:19):
the worst thing, the funniest thing, is that they paint
themselves with the same brush. You know. They they think
that they get to speak for every single serve person um.
And that's the tragic path. Like I'm not, I'm not.
I get accused of like constantly talking to about serves
and I'm like, I absolutely am not. I'm talking about
(43:39):
the nationalists, And I will call out all the nationalists,
whether they're bausi in Serpient, Croatian, American, whatever, But we're
talking about you know, what you're doing to me and
your response to my criticism of nationalism is actually the
thing that's ruining your reputation. Yeah, it's it's the it's
that it's that's the nationalist camp. It it's it's you
(44:00):
have you have to conflate all of the individual people,
the ethnic group, and the state. They all they all
have to be this like, you know, this must be
this organic totality, and it's not true. It's just not.
But that's you know, that's that's that's the sort of
it's it's the motus apperanda behind their entire ideology, and
it's what they deploy, you know, it's what they deploy
when the genocides, is what they deploy when they have
to sort of like you know, sort of promoted openly
(44:25):
or less openly afterwards. Yeah, it's like that justification, it's
how they justify it. Yeah, And like we all know
about the ten stages of genocide. But my colleague um,
who's brilliant actually has often talked about that the nihilism
(44:50):
is not really the final stage of genocide. It is
in fact triumphalism um. And that's what we're actually seeing
in Bosnia. You know, we're not I get genocide denialism
from American leftists and like British leftists who are on
a certain spectrum. And obviously I don't get genocide denialism
(45:14):
from et No nationalists sorbs. What I get from them
actually is very openly celebrating and threatening another genocide. They
are not in my mentions saying oh there was no genocide,
uh Darren, my mentions saying no one shops a Steba
and so, which is basically a slogan that says knife
(45:35):
wire serbonida and it's like basically a threat that another
Serebani that will occur. They're in my mentions, in my
emails and in my d M s sending me threats
about how they can't wait till I'm put in a
rape camp again, How they can't wait untill they kill
my family, until sorry ever gets bombed again, and how
you know we're they're gonna finish the job. How Ram
(45:58):
is a hero because he killed all those you know,
people in Serbonizza and sugared Um kata juch is a
hero because he's the same Milosha, which is a hero
because he believes in a greater Serbian. These people don't
hide it um and that's the thing. So it's it's
very like just today, you know, the first thing in
(46:19):
the morning, I opened my Twitter and the first thing
that I see is a Bossian activist arrested for protesting
the dot com La Ditch mural which the Serbian police
were guarding. They were guarding a mural get like a
mural of a war criminal who committed genocide, who who
(46:42):
everybody knows committed genocide, a mural glorifying him. They were
got the police were guarding, you know, the mural and
inflicting damage on innocent civilians who were there too, you know,
protest against the mural. And so I think that really
tells too so much the issue in the Balkans. This
(47:05):
has when it could happen here. Join us tomorrow for
part two of this interview, in which we discuss the
dangers of what's currently happening in Bosnia. In the meantime,
find us on Twitter It Happened here pod, and you
can find us on Twitter and Instagram for the rest
of our shows at cool zone Medio. It could Happen
(47:27):
Here is a production of cool zone Media. Or more
podcasts from cool zone Media. Visit our website cool zone
media dot com or check us out on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for it could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
Blow and welcome to It could Happen Here a podcast
about the continual state of bad things happening and how
sometimes you can make them less bad or not happen.
And today we're gonna I'm Christopher Wong, by the way,
and today we're gonna be talking about Bosnia, a place
where things went about as bad as they possibly can,
(00:28):
and about how they're heading in very scary directions now.
And with us to talk about this is Arnessa Kustra.
Arnessa is a genocide survivor and a academic expert on
genocides in general. Arnessa, how how are you doing? You know,
I'm doing okay. I think all things considered, you know,
(00:54):
being sort of bombarded on a daily basis with you know,
possible threat um and talks about you know, a new
conflict war brewing in the Balkans is the thing. Not
an easy thing to convent, definitely not. Yeah, But other
than that, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. I'm glad.
(01:18):
I'm glad. I'm glad you could be here with me
today because the Balkans extremely complicated place, which I guess
the story of both places. But yeah, and so I
guess that that's that's where I wanted to go with
my first question, because reading about what's happening now, my
first instinct was go back to the day and accords.
(01:39):
But I'm actually not sure that that's that that's that's
that's even the best place to start, And so I
wanted I wanted to, I guess ask you if so, okay,
so if if if you're coming into looking at the
Balkans for the first time and you're trying to understand
what's going on, now, where do you think is the
best place to start on it? Because I think you
(02:00):
know the best. God, it's not we're talking about so
much history, honestly, But the thing is, let's you know,
let's start with the death of Tito. That's always a
good place, I think, because that's really when things started
to kind of shift in the Balkans and the former
(02:23):
you know, socialist udo Slavia was really once Tito died
and his place became, you know empty as this sort
of unifying factor of all the various ethnicities and nationalities
within Yugoslavia. You know, once he was gone, that sort
of left this vacuum that needed to be filled, and unfortunately,
(02:47):
instead of being filled, by another socialist you know, pro equality,
pro unity leader. It was filled with a nationalist uh,
which is kind of where we still are unfortunately. Um.
You know, it started obviously with with little things I think,
(03:09):
with little sort of conversations and and little subtle I guess,
you know, Ethno nationalist rhetorics, and it just kind of
like grew and spiraled from there. And obviously, you know,
that sort of thing led to Miloshevich and Kosovo giving
(03:29):
his infamous speech, which kind of really gave that full
fledged stamp on. Okay, yes, this is a ultra nationalists,
you know, Ethno nationalist president that we now have, UM,
who's threatening war across the other ethnicities. What do we
(03:51):
do next? Um? And at that point, you know, that's
when you sort of see the other countries start to secede,
you know, Slova, India, Croatia, they're attacked by Serbia and
then obviously eventually it goes down to Bosnia. UM. And yeah,
I mean it starts with yethno nationalism, as it always does,
(04:14):
I think. Um, you know, I don't think we're anything
special in terms of having conflict with our neighbors. Look
at France and England or in our or America and
Mexico or anyone. Really it's just you know, I think
people make it sound as if we're special or we
(04:34):
have these ancient hatreds, but you know that's not really true.
It all comes down to the freaking politics and the leaders.
And unfortunately, you know, Middlitchevitch was removed, but is policy
is um beliefs continue to kind of stick around. You know.
(04:56):
I think, uh, you know, people thing people like Miloshevitch
and Radovan Katach, who were you know, genocidal war criminals,
as a thing of the past. But really you look
at you know, the Serbian president um or the republic
Subska president and they are really just the continuation of
(05:21):
Katach and Miloshevitch UM. So nothing, you know, has fundamentally
changed since Tito died, except you know, we got some
new agreements, we got some new territories, some new ethnic
lients drawn up, and not a new pretty buildings too.
We have those now as well, but we don't really
(05:43):
have that coexistence um, at least that on paper, not
in politics. Certainly. I want to go back for a
second too. I guess the moment of Chito dying because
It's always been a sort of interesting thing looking at
it for me because I remember, I mean, you know,
(06:04):
so from from studying Chinese history, right there, there's a
period where in the seventies where okay, like everyone's looking
for reform in China, and you know what, what you
would consider like the sort of the I guess you
could call them the I don't know, left and right
is complicated in China, but you know, they're like there
there are a lot of sort of what you would
call like the sort of left socialist like democratic reformers.
(06:27):
Who are you know, I mean people people like they're
looking at Yugoslavia as a model and they're going, oh,
we can have like workers participation and we can have
we can have these democratic enterprises. And then that just implodes,
and and yeah, I wonder if we can talk a
little bit about more about that, because my my very
limited understanding of it was like there's an economic crisis
(06:49):
from the oil shocks, and then once Tito dies, it's
just like the wheels come off the whole system. I mean,
that's a really good way of putting it. Um you know,
like life in Yugoslavia. I don't think it was like
ever perfect, and I definitely don't think it was a
perfect system. I think you know, me being a Bosnian
(07:11):
who was born to Vary, I think pro Yugoslav parents. Um.
I just like many of my you know, fellow Yugoslavs
or x Yugoslavs, have a tendency to look at Yugoslavia
with like rose colored lenses. You know. We think about
the coexistence, the unity, the multi ethnic part, the worker
(07:35):
owned you know, socialist models, the fact that our parents, um,
you know, we're able to provide for their families and
take vacations and travel and um, you know, get together
and all these sort of wonderful things. But in the background,
really in the sort of depths of the you know,
politics and the economic issues were kind of always there. Um.
(08:02):
You know. The one thing that Tito did was obviously
he relied unlike I think other socialist leaders of his
time is you know, he basically worked with anyone, you know,
the non align movement, but also with the West, with Europe,
you know. So he was a very picky choosy I
(08:23):
think was you know, the betterment of the country by
kind of any means necessary. Um. But I think you know,
he made mistakes just like um other leaders do. And
I think obviously we had, you know, two issues. One
(08:45):
he was sick, he was dying, um. And two there's
an economic crisis happening. Um. And three then we had
like the economic reforms, which really shifted the entire I mean,
they just they very much shifted the the system that
the Yugoslav people were very much used to. UM. It
(09:08):
became more and more prior, you know, privatized after his death. UM.
And and you know, Miloshevich, he was he was a banker,
he was a businessman. He was he was who he was. UM.
And I don't think that he ever really pretended to
be a socialist, which is why I get so upset
(09:30):
when American leftists call him a socialist or call him
an anti imperialist, because those aren't even words that you know,
he himself would have really used to describe himself. I think.
But but I think, you know, there was just it
was that sort of thing where there's an economic crisis brewing,
(09:54):
they have no wise to really fix it. People are broke,
people are starving. Suddenly the ownership, the worker you know
owned sort of model is being shifted to a more
privatized model. And people are just not happy. What's a
good way to distract from that? You know, It's just
(10:18):
we see it happen everywhere. It's not a new it's
not like a new you know tactic. It's a tactic
that everyone has utilized. Blame it on the other. Um. So,
Yugoslavia didn't really have you know, immigrants that they could
blame it on, but they had Muslims. So and they
had the Kasabo you know, Albanians and the Bossians, and
(10:42):
that was, you know enough, and suddenly the conversation really shifted.
And obviously I'm simplifying all of this a lot, so
much more complicated. Um. But you know, there there are
books out there and and that obviously go into a
great you know level of detail, um, into the actual
(11:06):
sort of breakup. So I can give some recommendations later.
But um yeah. But I think in in in that
sort of very simplistic kind of sense, is there was
an economic crisis happening. A good way to sort of
distract that was the use of ethno nationalism, and it
just kind of spiraled from there. I think, you know
(11:28):
what Miloshevitch and what people like Miloshevitch always wants more
power for themselves, and so his whole thing wasn't really
ever about keeping Yugoslavia intact as Yugoslavia. It was keeping
this vision of a greater Serbia alive. Because the thing is,
you know, if we had not had a person like Miloshevitch,
(11:53):
if we just had somebody who was you know, the second,
you know, maybe more or less worse or better, who cares.
I think people would have been fine. I think, you know,
I don't see this like war breaking now. But instead
we had Miloshevich who was like way more concerned about
consolidating power, exerting that control. And when he realized that
(12:13):
he could use ethno nationalism to get to his goals,
of course he was going to use that. Of course,
like who wouldn't you know, we see it today with
like what Trump did. He utilized you know, Muslims and
immigrants and refugees and black people, all his scapeboats to
distract from all the other things that are wrong with him,
his leadership and the overall country. And Miloshevich did the same.
(12:37):
He just did what any other politician did. And you know,
that's the thing I think, you know, in thinking about Bosnia, Croatia,
Slovenia and all these countries that started to succeed, I
think if they had felt comfortable with, you know, staying
in a country that is multi ethnic, at least in
(12:58):
the case of Bosnians, and not going to speak for
the Slovania's or croations because they have their own I
think complicated identity. But with Bosnians, are are saying collectively,
I think while we're not a monologue, not monolith, but
collectively was always where are united? We are multi ethnic,
(13:20):
multi religious, multi cultural, and it's such a big part
of like our entire history and identity. And so if
the choices being you know, under served, control, being secondary citizens,
not having that equality, not having that multi ethnicity, of
(13:42):
course we're not going to take that choice. Of course
people are gonna want to you know, when when you
have like that, you know, that boot on your neck
of saying like we're going to control you, We're gonna
take your land and we're gonna basically rule over you.
Nobody wants to deal with that. And you know, unlike
a lot of the other countries in former Yugoslavia, Bosnia
(14:05):
really was the most multi ethnic. It had one of
the highest rates of you know, mixed ethnic marriages and
multi religious marriages, and that kind of remains true even today.
So especially in places like sary Evo, Mostadaniluka, you know,
the bigger cities, it has this very proud history of
(14:27):
you know, coexistence and multiethnic co existence. So I think
what happened for so many people was just a huge
amount of shock. Um, my own family, so many people
in my own family just did not think it could happen. Now.
They grew up with this idea of a united you know,
(14:51):
multi ethnic Yugoslavia, brotherhood and unity. These are our neighbors,
our friends, our teachers, are lovers, you know whatever. There
they work with us, they live next to us. Of
course they're not gonna you know, turn against us. And
I think even while all the politicians were fearmongering, while
(15:13):
you know, Miloshevitch and Kataguge were sort of leading their
campaigns of you know, especially as lamophobic provacad propaganda, um,
you know, in in newspapers, on the radio, on TV,
any chance that any speech that they gave, they talked
about how the Muslims were coming, we were going to
make their daughters wear her jobs, we were gonna take over.
(15:36):
We're going to kill them, you know before that's why
they have to kill us, because they don't pill us.
We're going to kill them. It was just whole, you know,
really brilliant propaganda campaign in so many ways that has
now been replicated in so many other countries. We can
(16:02):
We've talked about that specifically for yes. Second, because I
think there's something interesting in the way that, like the
way that you get people to do with genocide always
seems to be like you can't. It's extremely hard to
get someone to like just murder their neighbor because they
don't like them. You have to do this like they're
(16:23):
about to exterminate us, and that's why we have to
like strike first. And that Yeah, that that that aspect
of it, I think is is something that I see
a lot when when I do this and yeah, you
you have you have done more genocide studies, I want
to hear. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Um, it's
so funny. I gave like an interview um on this
(16:44):
specific topic I don't know, like two years ago, and
I remember turning to the guy who has interviewing me
because he was just like his look on his face
was I just don't understand, Like I don't. I can't
wrap my mind about how people could do that to
their friends, neighbors, students, you know, people that were sworn
(17:04):
to like protect and and people they lived with their
entire lives. How could they do that? Well, you know,
I turned to him and I said, yeah, I mean,
if I told you right now go kill him, you
know you probably wouldn't. But if I came to you
day in and day out and I slowly started to
kind of whisper in your ear, and I started to
(17:27):
tell you, you know, he's been really really I don't know,
he's been saying a lot of stuff about you. He's
been quite negative or I don't know, you know, do
you think he's kind of acting weird? I feel like
he might be planning something. You might be planning to
take over your house. You may be planning to I
don't know, probably attack your sister. I think he's going
to kill your sister. I think you might make your
(17:48):
sister wear her job. So it's these very like slow,
subtle things. And that's the thing that people don't understand.
You know, violence never interrupts, like, never up out of nowhere,
you know, it it's always planned. It brewis and it bruise,
and it bruised, and then it explodes. You know, then
(18:08):
there's the thing. But it comes slowly. And that's how
it wasn't Yugoslavia. It wasn't this sudden. You know. Oh, yes,
we're brothers and sisters. Forever, Go Tito, go Yugoslavia too.
You know, Oh, I hate you because you're Muslim, and
I hate you because your servant, I hate you because
you're croact. No, that was not the case. The case
was that this was a very slow campaign of propaganda
(18:31):
that started in the eighties, almost immediately after Tito's death.
Let's say it started very slow, started with the you know,
with the sort of i think the disenfranchisement of the
coast of all Albanians um and kind of the targeting
of them um. And again, yes, there was this economic
(18:52):
component on of it, but the way they wanted to
kind of sidetrack that was, you know, well, you're you're
hungry because thes of Albanians are not, you know, and
they're taking your jobs again some more, uh, you know,
tactics that we see evening. Yeah, so it's not it's
not that much different, but yeah, you know, it starts
(19:14):
slow and and the Militievitch and the cottage and the
Maladich kind of campaigning was God, it was brutal. I mean,
like I always say, it was kind of brilliantly executed
in that it really got two people so much that
then again, you know, they turned neighbor against neighbor. It
was it was subtle in the beginning. It was that
(19:37):
sort of what are the Muslims up to? Can we
trust them? Can you trust your neighbor? Can you trust
the Muslims? You know, talking about islam sization, talking about
Alia is a big of which this book that he
wrote when he was like I don't know, eighteen or
or whatever, like, and you know, talking about World War two,
this was another thing, like like everybody owns that there
(20:00):
was a period in World War Two where you know
a lot of Serbs were killed by Guster shaw Uh,
by the Nazi collaborationists. And I think obviously that's a
real fear for you know, for a certain group of
people who went through that. So there was a lot
of that as well, you know, that's going to happen again,
That's going to happen again. Meanwhile, there was no grand plan.
(20:23):
There was never even talks of you know, committing violence
or even you know, talks of you know, seceding from
Yugoslavia or anything. It was all it was all set
in motion by the Serbian leadership, you know. And I
think that's what people don't understand. The Bousian leadership, while
(20:47):
not perfect, we're simply reacting to what the Serbian leadership
was in many ways making them do. And and that's
kind of where, you know, what happens in these situations.
You know, they kind of push you and push you
and push you until they're able to get you know,
some sort of rise out of you or response out
(21:07):
of you, or or get you on that sort of
offensive where you have to defend yourself, You have to
defend your identity, you have to defend who you are,
you have to justify it also in many ways. So yeah,
the you know, the sort of propaganda campaign, god, there
was you know, obviously the funny things were like things
(21:29):
like they're going to make you wear the hit job,
but it was also very insiduous because they would target
like these you know, villages where they were like Bosnians
and Serbs, you know, living together and they're quite small,
but they knew that like in the village obviously usually
(21:49):
have a gun or you know shotgun because of the
animals or you know, working or whatever. So they were
like target them specifically with like the you know, the
radioto and instead of like the big cities, Like they
worked up to the big cities, but they really started
in like specific sort of areas like in eastern Bosnia,
(22:09):
especially because there was like a lot of um i
think majority Muslim like villages in that area that would
also have like nearby served villages. So yeah, I mean
there was that. There was you know then sort of
taking over all the radio stations and um kind of
going full force. They think like in the sort of
(22:31):
early days of the war, like we're talking April May,
they you know, they would get people like pretending that
they were Bosnians they were actually Serbs, and they would
like talk about how they went to you know, kill
all Serbs or something like that. Um. There was also
(22:53):
when they were like having people in concentration camps where
they like started kind of putting them in those concentration camps. Initially,
they they would make the victims in the concentration camps
the Muslims basically, you know, say that, oh, they're just
there as a refugee and the Serbian army is like
(23:15):
protecting them, and they're making me feel really welcome and
stuff like that. So it was right at the beginning
between especially eighty nine too, like the propaganda was so
visible and it really escalated, and it was like suddenly
everywhere and you would hear cartategic and Middle we Shovitch
(23:39):
talk about, you know, the Muslims and the things that
we wanted and you know, the things that the goals
that we had, which after all, we're not you know,
nobody was saying it. There wasn't like a single person
that was saying these things that they were attributing to us.
But that didn't matter. What they were just doing was
instilling enough fear and enough doubt into population to eventually
(24:03):
get them to take up arms when the time comes.
And unfortunately, that's precisely what happened. When the time came.
You know a lot of people did take up arms,
whether or not they wanted to. They had enough of
that doubt and fear stowed in their minds over the
course of you know, several years that they ended up
(24:23):
feeling like I have to protect myself. And I'm not
saying that's the case for every certain person. I think
some a lot of you know, especially in higher leadership posmissions,
a lot of them were just sociopaths who wanted to kill.
And I don't think it mattered why or how, because
you're always going to get those kind of people. But
(24:45):
I think when we're talking about how how that shift
happened so last, we have to obviously discuss the propaganda,
the huge amount of propaganda that I went into, uh,
you know, implementing it. So I guess such a tangent.
That's okay, No, no, that was that was that was
(25:06):
really great? Yeah, I think you know, yeah, I mean,
I guess, like I think it's incredibly important for everyone
to understand that propaganda works, like if you just say
something over and over and over again, like it does,
you know of event eventually it pays off. And you know,
the quote unquote payoff here is the genocide. And I guess, yeah,
(25:30):
I'm not sure how far into detail you want to
get into this here, but but I think one thing
I want to kind of focus on because I think
from from reading what you've been saying about this that
this wound up being a big deal with like why
things are sort of still fucked now, which is that
(25:51):
like the international response to this, Like, I mean, one
of the things I've always just like haunted by is
there's this quote by mid irand who's the herm Mr
France's like this, he wants to be the socialist. He's
like the guy that like they finally put in power
after like all of the stuff in the sixties, and
he is this lying about like I'm sorry, I wish
I wish I tould up the exact quote, but it's
(26:12):
basically like I I know the quote, Yeah, do you
want to say it over the exactly? Um, it's uh,
it's what was it? A peaceful but necessary reconstruction of
a Christian europe um and Bosnia does not belong. So
(26:37):
I remember that differently. It's really stayed with me for
such a long time because he said that at a
time where the Bosnian Muslims were just completely defenseless. Um,
they were being dragged the way to concentrate shim camps.
The massacres were already well underway. We're not talking about stubborn,
We're talking about sorry about flat um even Surbrins nine two.
(27:03):
You know, this is all um, the things that happened
in places like witchcoens running and all these places that
you that I think the vast majority of people don't
really know about any here about, like in a lot
of my family is from there. Within a span of
three months, that entire town, the entire town, which was
(27:26):
once almost entirely Bosnia muslim Um, was ethnically cleansed. And
that was done through forced deportations, concentration camps, mass rapes,
and rape camps of women and obviously a lot of murders.
You know. So we're talking about one small town that
took you know, three three months. And my family when
(27:50):
it comes to that town, on both my mother's and
my father's side, interestingly enough, has like such a long history.
My parents fell in love there when they were like kids,
you know, they you know, my grandmother's house was there,
my grandfather's house was there. Um on like both sides,
and they you know, so is this beautiful little town
(28:12):
where you know Bosnians then Bosniaks and serves and CoA
hads lived in Jews Roma and you know, my parents
talked about the beauty of it and this wonderful sort
of experience that they had when they lived there. My
mom is from Saraebo, UM and I saw my as
well obviously, but the Chad was like the place that
she would go kind of like for the weekend, just
(28:33):
because of the family that we had there. UM so
very special. I think in her heart my grandpa's heart
as well, and you know, within it's just like so
hard to like fathom that within just a few months
that talent was completely ethnically climes and that the international
(28:54):
community knew this and did nothing. You know, there is
and I leave it's in the Clinton tapes as well,
but there was this thing about how they had provided
aerial footage of the massacres that were being that were
being enacted in places like Pittugal and Vannique where, oh
my god, depare military serve forces did some horrid, horrifying
(29:19):
acts of like violence and torture against the civilians. UM.
And they had you know, showed it to the Clintons,
and they showed it to the French and the English,
and they did nothing. You know, they knew that a
genocide was unfolding. UM. And the Dayton Peace Agreement wasn't
(29:41):
signed until so the international UM community I think as
just as much of a responsibility in the you know,
the genocide of the Bosniaks as Serbia does, because stay
sat there and they watched when they had all the
(30:02):
power to stop it. They always had the power to
stop it. They had the power to stop it before
it even before even one person got killed, um and
and two they it's not even that they just watched,
it's that they purposely left the Muslims defenseless because Serbia
had all the Yugoslav army, all the weapons, all the
(30:27):
you know, everything, all the tools that they needed to
commit j others side. They already had it, all the
arsenal everything, um And you do waslav army was like
the most powerful in the region at the time, and
I think the fourth, third, third or fourth most powerful
in like the Europe Turkey areas, so we you know,
(30:51):
quite a powerful army. And there was Bosnia which had
no weapons, no military uh um. You know, you see
these pictures of like civilians fighting against you know, tanks
and mortar shells and snipers, and it's like these you
(31:11):
know youths basically and like converse and jeans and like
an army jacket playing soldier because that's all we had,
you know, we had the homemade weapons, we had um,
you know, how to make your own bomb books kind
of thing, and trying to basically descend ourselves with anything
(31:33):
that we could. Um. They specifically did not lift the
arms embargo, knowing that they were leaving us defenseless. Like
they just knew. There was no way. There's no doubt
on everything that we have read about the international community response,
everything that Clinton metedand John mayor major major um not
(31:58):
mayor major have that you know about it during that
period shows us that they absolutely knew that we were defenseless,
you know. And this wasn't you know a lot of
people say I didn't know about the Bosnian genocide, but
it was discussed, you know, I've looked at the archived footage. UM,
(32:18):
it was talked about it on television, it was brought
up in parliament and incentive that was people at the
time who were like, why are we leaving the Bosnians defenseless?
Why are we you know, not helping them, Why are
we allowing them to be allowed into slaughter? This is
genocide blah blah blah. So even as early as there
was still people who knew about this stuff. We're telling
(32:41):
the leaders, but nothing. Yeah, I think I think like
that part also, like it's it's not just that like
they did nothing, like they like they did worse than
do nothing, like Miterians actively cheering it on, Like you know,
the arms in Bargo is just like the arms in Bargo.
If you're applying in arms in Bargo on a conflict
(33:02):
where one people one side has tanks and the other
side has like molotovs, like you are actively supporting one
of the sides. And I think that like that just
like is completely lost in how like almost everyone seems
to talk about this now because there's like, you know,
because because when you sort of get like interventions later,
like people are like, oh, look, the wester was like
(33:24):
planning to intervene here the whole time, and it's like no,
like they were literally cheering, was cheering. Like it's like
it's so frustrating because you know, we you take what
we know about. And here's the thing. I know that
Islamophobia escalated after nine eleven, but is Islamophobia has existed
(33:46):
for a very long time. And I think talked to
the black Muslims of America, they will tell you more,
you know, better than than I could ever tell you
about the history of Islamophobia in in the United States.
So it's a loam of phobia was always an aspect
of life. And in Europe, Islamophobia just like anti Semitism.
I mean, it is like the staple of European cultural cuisine.
(34:11):
So to say it's like it's like, yeah, it's like
there's there's a there's a there's they have. They have
like they have like the like the the tri force
of Europeans, of European civilization is anti Semitism, Islamophobia and
hating the Roma are just like how for the force.
And so I think the sort of thing about the
(34:32):
explicitness of European leadership, especially at the time in in
you know, effectively ensuring that we were killed off because
in Muslim country in Europe could not exist, and that's
the thing that they said, literally set a Muslim country
in Europe cannot exist. Like the fact that that was
(34:58):
so open and brazen like kind of takes me back.
But it really like tells you how much is Lamophobia informed.
I think the international community responds on this, and it's
so interesting to me. Now I think I've seen it
over the past, I would say, especially five years, the
sort of leftist genocide and I sort of leftist, anti
(35:20):
imperialist kind of defense of Miloshevich and oh they were
the you know, the Serbs were the actual victims blah
blah blah and NATO blah blah blah, Western intervention. And
I'm just like, oh, my god, read a book, read
an article from that, read their actual quotes. There's no
way that you can actually convince me that Europe, fortress Europe,
(35:42):
and the United States of America would do anything that
would benefit you know, the Muslim What's this? What was
one of the things. I think it's really interesting to
me about some way that the sort of like left
(36:02):
genocidees dialism works, like it always seems to be reginus lomophobia,
like and I remember started seeing this with Bosnia to
where they're like, oh, yeah, well it's it's it's because
what's okay. They have two things. One it's like, well,
the Bossians were Nazis been the second one was like,
oh well the boss the Bossians were like allto hottists.
And it's like like it's the exact same thing you
see with China, and it's like, oh, it's because all
the weakers are like Selafiji hottest iss c I A.
(36:26):
And it's like no, yeah, I mean it's it's it's
honestly laughable at this point. It really is. And it
also just you know, obviously I'm a leftist. You know,
I'm gonna cheer the left on to an extent, but
that is my red line. The genocide anialism really is
my red line. And the reason it's it's you know,
(36:48):
my red line isn't just because I'm a genocide survivor,
but because it's like, oh, for God's sake, the data,
the statistics, the research, the forensic the analysis, the specific quotes, videos, articles, uh,
you know, all of those things exist and are out there,
and all you have to do is actually do your
(37:08):
research and you will find out that actually know you're
in the wrong. And the other thing is what you
just said about the sort of thing of painting you know,
the Muslims is like the Nazis and the you know,
the extremists. Um, you know, the thing about like the
Bazian and Muslims is like, we don't hide the fact
that there were people of our community that participated in
(37:31):
Nazi crimes. There isn't this goal of concealing those crimes,
of minimizing the crimes or pretending that they were right. Um,
there is I'm sure a French group of people who
defend these kinds of people, like there is a French
when I'm talking about the collective sort of Bosnian um,
(37:51):
you know, state level response as well as like an
individual response is that the you know, the the Nazi
division had like seventeen thousand Bosnian soldiers and there's millions
of Bosnians in the country. The vast majority ended up
joining the Partisans and stood against the Nazis. And the
(38:13):
thing is, you can't when it comes to Yugoslavia and
World War Two and the Holocaust, you can't just say
that the Bosnians were Nazi collaboration is because the thing is,
so are the Serbians, So are the Serbs, so are
the Croats. At that time, Let's be honest, who the
hell wasn't a Nazi collaborationist. Now this doesn't excuse it,
(38:35):
absolutely not, but what it does sort of show is
that that history, that period um in Yugoslav history is
really complicated because you know, you had the Gustia um.
And then you had the Chechniques. And then there's a
period where the Chechniks were against Ussia, right because like
used to show we're killing Serbs and robots and drews.
(38:56):
But then the Chechniques turned around and there are you know,
these Serb nationalists. They start killing the Jews and the Roma,
and then they start working with those shut to hand
down the Jews in the Roma, and then they start
working with them to stand against the you know, the
Tito's Partisans. Um. Meanwhile, you know, Tito's Partisans had a
(39:18):
multi ethnic coalition, like and we're talking about Serbs, Bosnians, Roma, Jews, Croats, Albanians,
you know, all sorts of people who were very like,
you know, anti Nazism. So you know, we're we're gonna
we're gonna win, We're gonna rebuild our our country, We're gonna,
(39:41):
you know, make this beautiful sort of you know, multi
ethnic kind of state, which they did, which is amazing.
But yeah, but it is a complicated sort of piece
of history. So you can't really say, oh, yes, they're
the Nazi collaborationists because, um, at some point or not,
everybody was and at some point or not everybody was also. Yeah, yeah,
(40:01):
it's like like it's when when when you when you
start getting into like it becomes this like you know,
it becomes a way of just getting people to I
don't know how to describe it, like it you know,
when when when it starts being like this specific ethnic
(40:23):
group as a whole is responsible for all of these crimes.
Just like no, they're not like that's that's not that's
not how this works. Like it's not like like like
they're like there are like they're yeah, there's gonna be
people in the ethnic group who did things that were awful.
There's also going to be people, especially especially in a
citation like this, there's there's a lot like a lot
of probably more people who fought them. Yeah, and that like, yeah,
(40:47):
that's such an interesting statement because I'm going to compare
to the bossy and response after the genocide, which has
consistently been no, we don't believe that every single service bad,
and we were only talked about those that took place,
took part in these crimes and those that concealed them.
And that has always been the collective and state level
(41:09):
response of all Bosans. Now you have to think about
I have a friend who's who who's nine members of
her family were killed in Stubriniza in July. That's an
absorbinate number of people. These were women, children, and men
(41:32):
and elderly. There was no discrimination when it Kimp comes
to her. I'm sat with her as she's read all
the names of her you know, killed the family members.
That woman, with all the pain that she survived with
being there as a young girl in the midst of genocide,
in the midst of these her horrifying crimes, has never
(41:54):
once publicly or privately to me said, yes, old serbs
are the same. Yes, all of them are work aminals. Yes,
all of them hate us, absolutely not. And the thing is,
I think about myself as well, Like, you know, my
earliest childhood memories me being shot at by a sniper,
knowing my father was in a concentration camp, knowing that
(42:15):
my grandmother was just killed by a bomb. Um knowing that,
you know, my biological dad was dying in a hospital
from an attack, and my mother could also be killed
because she was pregnant with my brother at the time.
And so these are my earliest childhood memories. Um, they're
not very happy memories. And I know why those things happened.
(42:35):
You know, I know why I was being shot at
by a sniper, and it was because I was bossy,
and it it was because I was Muslin, and because
I was seen as the enemy, even though I was
you know, a little kid at you know, six seven
years old, um and absolutely not a threat to anyone,
and nobody should have been shooting at me. They did. Anyway,
Even though that happened, I never had that feeling of
(42:57):
all serbs are awful, All serbs are you know, I'm
going to paint them all with a brush. But a
lot of them, unfortunately, especially on the you know, the
the ultra nationalists that continue to not just the night
the geniside, but also glorified and celebrate it. They do
paint everyone with the same brush, you know. And and
(43:19):
the worst thing, the funniest thing, is that they paint
themselves with the same brush. You know. They they think
that they get to speak for every single serve person um.
And that's the tragic path. Like I'm not, I'm not.
I get accused of like constantly talking to about serves
and I'm like, I absolutely am not. I'm talking about
(43:39):
the nationalists, And I will call out all the nationalists,
whether they're bausi in Serpient, Croatian, American, whatever, But we're
talking about you know, what you're doing to me and
your response to my criticism of nationalism is actually the
thing that's ruining your reputation. Yeah, it's it's the it's
that it's that's the nationalist camp. It it's it's you
(44:00):
have you have to conflate all of the individual people,
the ethnic group, and the state. They all they all
have to be this like, you know, this must be
this organic totality, and it's not true. It's just not.
But that's you know, that's that's that's the sort of
it's it's the motus apperanda behind their entire ideology, and
it's what they deploy, you know, it's what they deploy
when the genocides, is what they deploy when they have
to sort of like you know, sort of promoted openly
(44:25):
or less openly afterwards. Yeah, it's like that justification, it's
how they justify it. Yeah, And like we all know
about the ten stages of genocide. But my colleague um,
who's brilliant actually has often talked about that the nihilism
(44:50):
is not really the final stage of genocide. It is
in fact triumphalism um. And that's what we're actually seeing
in Bosnia. You know, we're not I get genocide denialism
from American leftists and like British leftists who are on
a certain spectrum. And obviously I don't get genocide denialism
(45:14):
from et No nationalists sorbs. What I get from them
actually is very openly celebrating and threatening another genocide. They
are not in my mentions saying oh there was no genocide,
uh Darren, my mentions saying no one shops a Steba
and so, which is basically a slogan that says knife
(45:35):
wire serbonida and it's like basically a threat that another
Serebani that will occur. They're in my mentions, in my
emails and in my d M s sending me threats
about how they can't wait till I'm put in a
rape camp again, How they can't wait untill they kill
my family, until sorry ever gets bombed again, and how
you know we're they're gonna finish the job. How Ram
(45:58):
is a hero because he killed all those you know,
people in Serbonizza and sugared Um kata juch is a
hero because he's the same Milosha, which is a hero
because he believes in a greater Serbian. These people don't
hide it um and that's the thing. So it's it's
very like just today, you know, the first thing in
(46:19):
the morning, I opened my Twitter and the first thing
that I see is a Bossian activist arrested for protesting
the dot com La Ditch mural which the Serbian police
were guarding. They were guarding a mural get like a
mural of a war criminal who committed genocide, who who
(46:42):
everybody knows committed genocide, a mural glorifying him. They were
got the police were guarding, you know, the mural and
inflicting damage on innocent civilians who were there too, you know,
protest against the mural. And so I think that really
tells too so much the issue in the Balkans. This
(47:05):
has when it could happen here. Join us tomorrow for
part two of this interview, in which we discuss the
dangers of what's currently happening in Bosnia. In the meantime,
find us on Twitter It Happened here pod, and you
can find us on Twitter and Instagram for the rest
of our shows at cool zone Medio. It could Happen
(47:27):
Here is a production of cool zone Media. Or more
podcasts from cool zone Media. Visit our website cool zone
media dot com or check us out on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for it could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.