Australia's Victoria University has bowed to pressure from American pro-Serbian blogger Charles Cather, removing material relating to crimes against Bosnian Muslims from human rights lectures.
Cather, who lives in Novi Sad, has led a campaign to remove materials describing the killing of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian soldiers. It is about the material written by Richard Rorty in the work "Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality", and includes the statements of the American author David Rieff, who reported on the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.
According to the Australian SBS, Rieff says that he witnessed the crimes committed against Bosniaks, and added that Muslims no longer represent human beings for Serbs.
- Serbian soldiers drove the Muslim prisoners who were lying on the ground in rows while waiting for interrogation into smaller trucks - says Rieff.
However, Cather said in his campaign that Professor Rieff's statements were in the role of "degrading Serbs" and thus encouraged his followers to file a complaint with the University.
The next day, Cather posted a second video celebrating the fact that Victoria University had removed the material, and that they had sent him an apology email. In the screenshot of the email he showed, the University confirms that the material was reviewed and immediately removed.
- The content in no way reflects the opinions of Victoria University, and we apologize for any offense we may have caused - it is stated.
Two important circumstances that explain the event
dr. Amir Kliko from the Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo says regarding this case that the literature at this Australian university about the Serbian genocide against Bosniaks was not expelled because of the religious or national affiliation of the author, but because of its topic.
- It is unheard of for a university, as a scientific institution, to treat literature in this way. This is especially unexpected from Australian universities. We would expect such behavior from state universities from some countries with a totalitarian regime in power. However, it is not accidental. There are two big reasons that explain this event - explains Kliko.
The first reason is related to the fact that the Republic of Serbia and the Republika Srpska, as an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, allocate large amounts of money to deny the genocide against Bosniaks for which they are responsible.
How dr. According to Kliko, because of their crimes, Serbs have had a bad image in the world since the nineties of the 20th century, and they are interested in what others in the world know and think about them, especially in the developed countries of the West, which determine and regulate international political relations.
- The Republic of Serbia and the Republika Srpska operate on the international stage. On it, they want to change the bad image of Serbs from the nineties of the last century. They want to convince the world of the falsehood that Republika Srpska, as a political semi-state creation of the Republic of Serbia, was not genocidal in its origin. This is also the purpose of the so-called international commissions formed by the Government of the Republika Srpska - says Kliko, not forgetting to mention that lobbying is now taking place in the world to "repair" the catastrophic state of Serbian politics' image in the world.
- And this event at Victoria University clearly proves that. It is a successful result of serious Serbian lobbying. It is not big, but it warns us that others will soon follow, some of which will certainly have "greater weight" - warns Kliko.
The second reason he talks about relates to Australia, which after the Second World War became the main refuge of Serbian fascists and members of other fascist organizations.
- Since the end of that war they have been operating freely in Australia. During the war in Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1945, the Chetniks skillfully convinced Great Britain that they were leading an anti-fascist struggle, although this was not true, as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill realized by the summer of 1944. Australia, New Zealand and Canada are "white countries" of the British Commonwealth, which is the reason why numerous Serbian fascists settled in them after the defeat in Yugoslavia. Just as they skillfully convinced Great Britain of their supposed anti-fascism until 1944, they successfully continued after the war in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, for which they acted completely freely in their numerous pro-fascist organizations, such as, for example, the "Serbian National Center of Draž Mihailović" in Melbourne, where the University of Victoria is also located - explains Kliko, adding that the disputed decision of the University of Victoria is probably a consequence of the aforementioned international lobbying.
However, in such situations, it is necessary to react and take a clear position in order to publicly talk about and discuss similar incidents. dr. Kliko says that, in this context, serious scientific work, museum activity on the topic of aggression and genocide, publication of research results and media popularization of the truth could provide the necessary result with prominent foreign media presence.
- I claim that the commemoration of the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, which is broadcast by all important world media, is the most important contribution in this regard. It sends voices to the world that the Republic of Serbia and the Republika Srpska want to silence. 100,000 Bosniaks can gather in Potočari every year on July 11. But it is an unsolvable problem for genocide deniers that a few hundred people, maybe even thousands, come from all over the world and most of the diplomatic corps in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that every July 11 the whole world is reminded again who was who in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. century - he concludes.
"Survivors of Bosnia" initiative: Fighting for global recognition of the genocide
In Australia, there is also an initiative dedicated to the stories of the surviving victims of the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, "Survivors of Bosnia", whose content, testimonies and stories were published on their Instagram page as a reaction to the case from the University of Victoria.
- As Bosnians, we have long fought for international recognition of the genocide against our people, and we cannot allow it to continue to be actively denied," reads the description of their page, in which they encourage parents, brothers, sisters, relatives and other family members to share their experiences in order to point out the significance of the committed genocide against Bosniaks in the period from 1992 to 1995.
- We encourage young people to talk openly about the war, no matter how explicit and sad those stories are. We have to normalize the conversation about the war and thus make sure that the stories of our parents are not forgotten in history - say these activists.
Such an initiative also means a social response to the incident that took place at the mentioned Australian university, and people's testimonies remain a permanent proof of the crimes committed in the nineties, referring to the fact that the International Court of Justice in The Hague confirmed the commission of genocide in the judgment of February 26, 2007. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(K.S./Preporod.info)