Lessons from Bosnia — unexpected topic

Genocide!

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

I’m struggling to write about this topic. I didn’t struggle like this with any other topic, but this one is different.

We don’t talk about it much between ourselves. We talk about it with foreigners. We talk about it at events. We talk about it with officials. But we hardly ever mention it in conversations.

I can talk about genocide in academic terms. I know about the Genocide Convention, about the 10 stages of genocide, I know that it’s not about the number of people that a genocidal maniac has managed to kill. I know we need to do more so that punishment fits the crime — at the moment, punishment is nowhere near enough, genocidal maniacs should not be in comfy prisons, we should be learning about them as if they have no sense of pride. Crimes against humanity should be taught in schools as crimes against humanity, against every human being. Even though my people, Bosnian Muslims, were a target of genocide during my lifetime, I’ve never really thought about genocide in personal terms. I’ve never looked at the burden of genocide from a common perspective. Perhaps because it isn’t common. Or perhaps it’s because it’s too hard. Or maybe it’s because we are simply expected to get on with life genocide or not. Hence, I didn’t know what to say on this topic to fit it in with other articles. It took a lot of…