Heinrich Böll Foundation on the anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica: Don’t deny it! Remember!

tačno.net
Autor/ica 8.7.2020. u 16:53

Heinrich Böll Foundation on the anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica: Don’t deny it! Remember!

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, the Heinrich Böll Foundation is publishing a package of analyses and texts to commemorate the crimes committed by Serbian units.

For the first time, the Foundation is also organising a feminist reading on the subject, with text excerpts from the work “War Alphabet” by Berlin-based actress and author Vernesa Berbo. A number of actors will read, including the European parliamentarians of the Green Party, Terry Reinke and Thomas Waitz, as well as the former Hamburg Senator for Education, Krista Sager. The readers come from several countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Austria and Germany. The international reading sees itself as an act of resistance against the general tendencies of denying and reinterpreting the genocide of Srebrenica.

The Foundation points out that the widespread tendencies of denial of the crimes, which were raised to an international level by the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2019 to the writer Peter Handke, are not acceptable. The denial of the crimes and the glorification of the deeds and the perpetrators hinders the much-needed reconciliation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina – and thus in the entire Balkans.

The director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Sarajevo, Marion Kraske, stated: “The history of crimes is from the very beginning also a history of denial and deception. The cover-up of the crimes through the deliberate digging up and re-burial of the dead is a cruel detail of the genocide, which has led to the fact that the remains of more than 1000 people are still being sought today. The denial is accompanied by the glorification of the deeds and the perpetrators. Both prepare the spiritual ground for new violence.”

The Heinrich Böll Foundation demands a new culture of remembrance from Europe, above all from the EU, with regard to the atrocities committed in Srebrenica. Commemoration of the crimes is not just any incident in the Bosnian war, but rather universal values and Europe’s future, the Heinrich Böll Foundation emphasises.

“In view of the failure of the international community in 1995, the lack of international interest in coming to terms with the genocide is difficult to bear – and at the same time dangerous. The Srebrenica genocide must in future occupy an important place in the European culture of remembrance. Europe should prove that it is ready at all times to defend civilisation and human rights against those who trample them underfoot“, demands Marion Kraske.

DE: https://ba.boell.org/de/srebrenica-25-godina-poslije

ENG: https://ba.boell.org/en/srebrenica-25-godina-poslije

BHS: https://ba.boell.org/bs/srebrenica-25-godina-poslije

Berlin LINK: https://www.boell.de/de/25-jahre-nach-srebrenica

tačno.net
Autor/ica 8.7.2020. u 16:53