The west’s long-distorted view of the Balkans and their people led to a ‘catastrophic’ outcome

Riada Asimovic Akyol

SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe, 2022, vol. 25, issue 1, 35-40

Abstract: This article was written in review of the 27th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide which, in 2022, overlapped with the Eid al Adha celebrations. The author recalls some of the facts related to the Bosnian genocide and the horrific, inhumane regard which the perpetrators had for the bodies of those they had killed, reminding us that remembrance is not only crucial in itself but because genocide can happen anywhere. She then turns to the ‘catastrophic’ failures of western policy during the 1990s rooted substantially in Islamophobia and a desire to emphasise Christianised Europe, contrasting this with the intellectual galvanisation and growth of self-consciousness which has subsequently occurred among Bosniaks with a view to remembering the past but also to the rebuilding of a multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina. Healing remains fraught with difficulties, but coming to a reckoning with the past requires an ultimate rejection of the harmful stereotypes about the region and its peoples in which, recalling Marko Attila Hoare’s recent essay, removal of the faultlines which stem from the western mindset is critical.

Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/1435-2869-2022-1-35 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nms:joseer:10.5771/1435-2869-2022-1-35

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Waldseestraße 3-5, 76530 Baden-Baden, Germany
https://www.nomos-sh ... w.aspx?product=10355

DOI: 10.5771/1435-2869-2022-1-35

Access Statistics for this article

SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe is currently edited by Béla Galgoczi

More articles in SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe from Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG ().