Kylie Baker

Srebrenica & the Adrianna

On March 8th, 1995, President Radovan Karadžić of the Republika of Srpska issued Directive No. 7, a direct command to his troops. This was the last order in the line of directives that signed the death warrants of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica under the watchful gaze of the United Nations.

On June 14th, 2023, a fishing vessel sank off the coast of Greece. On board were over 700 migrants from the Middle East and North Africa region seeking asylum in the European Union–a Greek vessel of the Hellenic Coast Guard arrived on the scene to confront the ship. What happened next is of international disagreement, but within a few hours the boat capsized and only 104 of the refugees were saved. The Coast Guard claims they tried to help, yet international groups and the refugee witnesses say that due to them being towed at dangerous speeds and with survivors reporting they begged the Coast Guard to slow down, the ship capsized. Survivors claim that the Coast Guard watched the sinking and hovered for two hours before assisting the 104 men that could swim.

The genocide of Srebrenica did not happen in a vacuum–nearly three years of Serbian bombings and decades of anti-Bosniak sentiment built up to the greatest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust. The potential sabotage and passivity in the face of hundreds of refugees drowning at sea is not a stand-alone event and is founded on years of anti-migrant rhetoric in European politics. It is only through acknowledging and calling attention to misinformation and hate that we can prevent more lives from being lost.

Rhetoric from Officials

Slobodan Milošević served as President of the Republic Serbia from 1989-1997 and was one of the foremost architects on the Bosnian War andthe resulting genocide and displacement of thousands of ethnic Bosnians, specifically Muslim Bosniaks. At a rally two years before his election, the cult of nationalist personality began when Milošević was seen in a crowd of Serbs in Kosovo, chanting to them that “No one will be allowed to beat the Serbs again! No one!”. Radovan Karadžić, the man who ordered the 8,000 men and boys of Srebrenica to be massacred, refused to acknowledge the violence employed by Serbian forces in Sarajevo against ethnic minorities, stating “Serbs were just defending themselves, while Muslims provoked incidents and accused Serbs in order to have international forces intervene,”. Both Milošević and Karadžić made their political careers by redirecting attention from the struggling economy and promoting their rhetoric about the perceived threat that Serbs were under in the multi-ethnic Yugoslavia and in the recently independent Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Yet there exists a great misunderstanding about the Serbian population–despite the two presidents’ popularity, most Serbs did not want an ethnic war. The supposed victim group of the Serbs in Croatia in 1989 reported overwhelmingly at 72% that ethnic relationships in their communities were very good, and 90% in Bosnia & Herzegovina. However, when asked about national relations, 24% reported positive relations. In this discrepancy lies the power of political rhetoric in shifting political climates and national culture.

In the European Union (EU), attitudes towards migrants have wavered between 2020-2023, breaking a trend of increasing acceptance since 2002. These negative attitudes find a stronghold in southern Europe, namely Greece, Hungary and Italy where their Prime Ministers are outspoken about the perceived dangers of immigrants. Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni, elected in 2022, ran on a hardline stance against migrants, promising that she would stop migrant boats from entering via Italy. Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orban, who was reelected in 2022, was quoted as calling migration a “poison” and has been an outspoken critic of asylum policies in the EU. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis went so far as to suspend asylum applications for three months, specifically against those coming from North Africa via the Mediterranean Sea.

With rhetoric and policy decisions from elected officials being so targeted against migrants and refugees, it’s no wonder that such a positive trend of feelings towards immigrants in Europe would be interrupted. These politicians don’t just lean into anti-migrant populism for no reason–similarly to Serbian nationalists leading up to the Bosnian War, a weak economy breeds the opportunity to scapegoat. These actions have consequences–what started as seemingly innocuous campaign speeches about “Serbian safety” and “reclaiming the homeland” quickly grew out of hand and led to the deaths of thousands. Migrants are already largely unprotected and at risk as they attempt to claim asylum in Europe, and hundreds have died already as a result of hate and negligence from border states. These deaths are preventable, but only if history is acknowledged, learned, and not repeated.

How to Escape the Cycle

The most important thing the average citizen can do is to refuse to accept the devaluing of other people. When one accepts the political terms of the Right, such as an ethnic minority being the cause of a complicated economic crisis, you become part of the problem. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees went on a campaign in Hungary with billboards sharing stories of refugees that have settled. A woman from Togo who now serves a Hungarian kindergarten; a boy from Pakistan who now plays for Hungary’s cricket team; a family from Bangladesh that opened a restaurant. The EU is suffering a largely aging population and a dwindling young population as birth rates and emigration rise among native born Europeans citizens. A healthy influx of immigrants is economically associated with an increase in median incomes and GDP–this is especially lucrative for aging populations like Germany and France. Remaining educated and not allowing propaganda to proliferate in your community is crucial to preventing further violence. Native citizens should reach out to and build relationships with international communities near them and advocate to their elected officials about their rights. History is a cycle, but the privilege of hindsight is the possibility of changing the outcome.