FROM BELGRADE - “The only genocide in the Balkans, was against the Serbs”.
These words weigh like boulders, affixed in large letters on the façade of a grey, abandoned building in the centre of Belgrade, a stone's throw from Republic Square, the beating heart of the Serbian capital. Surrounding the inscription are several portraits of Republika Srpska Army General Ratko Mladić, the “butcher of Srebrenica”, sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The timing with which this writing appeared in Belgrade is no coincidence. This very day, 11 July, marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, organised and perpetrated by General Mladić himself and his troops: one of the darkest moments in recent European and world history, still denied or downplayed in scope in several areas of Serbia and Republika Srpska. The majority of passers-by, mostly citizens of the Serbian capital and distracted foreign tourists, are not even aware of that writing. Life in Belgrade flows fast around the building, on which other nationalist symbols can also be seen, probably made by the authors of the mural themselves.
But how is it possible that such writing can stand on one of the main squares of a vibrant European capital, before the eyes of tens of thousands of people? How is it possible that no one protests, no one intervenes, no one raises their voice against this attempt to rewrite history and, above all, to minimise what happened in Srebrenica in July 1995? How is it possible that a war criminal such as Ratko Mladić is being honoured with a mural, as is also happening on the facades of other buildings in Belgrade, while most people walk by in total indifference?
These are complex questions, undoubtedly rooted in the intricate Balkan twentieth century, with its bloody ethnic-religious conflicts, the massacres carried out and suffered by every ethnic group, the civil war that for almost ten years pitted entire families against each other and destroyed in fragments the variegated social and cultural melting pot that was the former Yugoslavia. But this shameful writing, so markedly provocative, so full of hatred and a manipulated reading of history, cannot go unnoticed. It is therefore a duty to talk about it and try to reflect on it, as we will try to do in this article.
The subject of remembrance is particularly complex in the Western Balkans, as Tatjana Dordevic has been telling us for years on these pages. Only last year, on 23 May 2024, the United Nations General Assembly approved, amidst a thousand difficulties, a resolution establishing 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide. The document was approved with 84 votes in favour, 19 against and 68 abstentions, certainly not a large majority for a resolution on a subject that, on paper, should be anything but divisive. And yet, alongside Serbia - represented by its president Aleksandar Vučić in person, who attended the vote wrapped in a Serbian flag - many other countries also voted against or abstained: not only Russia, China and North Korea (and here, there is little to surprise...), but also Hungary (in this case, however, one could do more than reflect!).
Shortly before going to the Glass Palace, Vučić had this to say: 'We are not a genocidal people, let us remember that. This battle is like Kosovo Polje (the historic battle that took place in 1389 in Kosovo, when the Serbian people were defeated by the Ottomans, ed). Tomorrow we will see who are our friends, who are our enemies and who are the hypocrites who hate the Serbian people'. The reference to the battle of Kosovo Polje, a pivotal moment in Serbian and Balkan history, is not accidental. One need only think of the famous speech delivered by Slobodan Milošević on 28 June 1989 - exactly six hundred years after the Ottoman victory - on the ground where the battle took place. That speech, delivered in front of more than a million people, was characterised by a strongly bellicose and nationalistic fervour. According to several historians and commentators, that speech was a veritable call to arms and an ominous omen of the imminent collapse of Yugoslavia and the outbreak of the bloody wars that have crushed the region for almost a decade.
A few weeks after the approval of the UN resolution - which, it should be specified, does not blame the Serbian people for the genocide in Srebrenica, but is directed exclusively at the material perpetrators of the massacre - another memory-related dust-up has shaken the Western Balkans. In July 2024, the Parliament of Montenegro adopted a controversial resolution on Jasenovac, the largest Croatian extermination camp of World War II, built and run by the fascist regime of the Independent State of Croatia, which collaborated with Nazi Germany.
The passing of this resolution, seen by many as a political response to the document approved by the UN the previous month, risked slowing down the process of Montenegro's accession to the European Union. Podgorica is well on its way to becoming the 28th member country of the EU, even if this external (mainly Serbian) interference risks being a not insignificant obstacle for the Balkan state, especially if it is linked to the political and instrumental use of the memory and history of the 20th century.
But what is the Jasenovac concentration camp? And why is it linked to the inscription that appeared on the building in Belgrade mentioned at the beginning of this article? Tatjana Dordevic explains in an article published in GariwoMag last year:
"From 1941 to 1945, tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and other minorities were exterminated in the Jasenovac concentration camp. It is estimated that the total number of people killed was around 100,000. However, the number of victims, especially when it comes to the Serbian ones, has always been manipulated according to the political current of the day. For some Croatian historians and opinion-makers, the Jasenovac camp was only a labour camp; while for Serbian nationalists, Jasenovac was the site of the largest massacre ever perpetrated against the Serbian people, with the number of victims allegedly exceeding one million".
Although the wording “The only genocide in the Balkans was against the Serbs” does not make explicit reference to the Jasenovac concentration camp or the crimes committed by the Croatian Ustaša against the Serbs during World War II, it is plausible to believe that its authors were referring to that complicated page of Balkan history.
The presence of that inscription and of the portrait of Ratko Mladić - elevated to “hero” by the authors of the mural for having defended the Serbian people through ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and the genocide in Srebrenica - instead refers us back to the assumption discussed above: the theme of memory is particularly complex in the Western Balkans, where each ethnic group tries to tell and rewrite history according to its own interests (starting from school).
How, then, to get out of this “black hole”, this unstoppable spiral of nationalism and ethnic-religious hatred? The solution is not easy to find. It will probably take generations for the spectres of the Nocevent friction to be completely vanquished. Will it be the European Union, which is eyeing the Balkan area for its forthcoming enlargement, that will play the role of bridge-builder in the region? Surely it will be the young people who will drive the wind of change. In Serbia, to be fair, they are already doing so.
A fifteen-minute walk from the sign mentioned in this article is the headquarters of the University of Belgrade. The building was occupied by students eight months ago, when the anti-government protests began. Walking near it today arouses deep emotions: at the entrance, male and female students control the entrances while smoking cigarettes and drinking fizzy drinks; the windows of the building are completely covered with anti-government placards and drawings; the police carefully observe the situation on the other side of the square. It is a climate that has not been experienced in Italy for over fifty years, a '68 climate one might say: this makes a strong impression and conveys strong thoughts, above all of esteem and admiration for the students and their courage. For months they have been protesting against Vučić and his government, doing so by blocking the streets despite the presence of the Serbian police, who in the meantime beat them with batons and, in several cases, arrest them.
Between the murals glorifying Mladić and the violent hand of the Serbian government trying to extinguish all dissent, there is a Serbia that resists and dreams of carrying out a revolution. It is the Serbia of students, of boys and girls who defy indifference and revisionism, who no longer want bloody flags but freedom, truth, justice, respect for human rights. It is from them that a different country can be reborn, capable of looking Srebrenica in the eye without turning away. A new Serbia, capable of departing from Vučić's policies and from those who, thirty years after the genocide, continue to deny what happened and spread hatred.