Major drama drama in the upcoming Nobel Laureate ceremony (the prize for literature). The author that was awarded the prize is a Balkan Genocide denier. Basically, he supports what Serbia did, and believes the genocides carried out by Serbian forces against the ethnic Bosnian Muslims didn’t happen. He is on record saying what happen at Srebrenica didn’t happen, and that foreign journalists were responsible for Serbians problems during and after the war.
So, this week the only member of the Nobel committee who experienced the Bosnian War, said that he will boycott the ceremony. This was swiftly followed by the government of Kosovo who will also not attend the ceremony. I expect that Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia will all boycott the ceremony too.
I don’t get it. Why do we continue to reward people like this? We see more and more denial of the Rape of Nanking in Japan, the Internment of Japanese Americans in the US, Holocaust denial all around Germany, Genocide denial in Turkey, Genocide denial in the Central African Republic, Genocide denial in Serbia, Genocide denial in the US. Why do we allow people like this to continue to gain prominence? I just don’t understand. I was under the impression that we all thought Genocide wasn’t good for humanity. Clearly, I’m wrong because a good portion of the world seems to think it’s the solution to every problem. I just can’t with people anymore.
I totally agree with Kosovo on this one. Serbia was responsible for war, and committed multiple war crimes which they were never properly punished for. People continue to allow Serbia to paint this picture of themselves as the good guys trying to keep their country together. That’s simply isn’t true. The Balkan Wars were long and complicated, and it can be hard to find the truth often. However, one of the very little amount of things that is factually accurate is that the Serbian military carried out multiple genocides in Bosnia and in Croatia. The UN is complicit in this as well. Dutch peacekeepers knew of plans for the Genocide on Srebrenica, and the UN would not allow them to evacuate Bosnia Muslims. The government of Sweden will also be complicit for awarding a man who denies any of this happened. It all happened, it’s all fact. There wasn’t any innocent people in the Balkan Wars expect for the civilians that were massacred throughout the war (By Serbia, by Bosnia, and By Croatia) Serbia’s continued to denial of it is sickening. Cheering for them is like cheering for Nazi Germany in my eyes.