It´s Not Trolling- It´s Respect for Those Who Kept Us Alive
It´s with some hesitation that I write this. Still, I feel duty bound, it simply has to be done. Im sure that some others will have a try at this too, however these are my two cents. I considered writing something on Friday once I saw some of the reactions and distortions but it wasn´t until late last Saturday that I decided to do this.
On Thursday night Bosnian basketball player Jusuf Nurkić ( Portland Trail Blazers) fell victim to on one hand; the general lack of knowledge ( outside of circles familiar with the topic) about the Bosnian war and genocide ( 1992–1995) and on the other hand cynical distortions by Serb nationalists on social media who skillfully exploit that lack of knowledge, as well as anti-Muslim and anti-Bosnian biases of far-right Twitter and anti-American biases of far-left Twitter ( since it was the hated Americans that eventually brought the nationalist Serbs and their genocidal campagin to heel) as well as the spectaculary outraged and ridiculously oversensitive sports writer Ben Mehic who aside from (judging from his Twitter) almost having a heart attack beacuse of Nurkić´s t-shirt also joined in on parroting Serb nationalist claims about Nurkić´s t-shirt. In his original tweet he wrote that “Jusuf Nurkić wore a t-shirt with Bosnian war “heroes” while his team is playing against Nikola Jokić, a Serb. They´re former teammates too. I´m incredibly disturbed.” (Poor thing. I can´t imagine what this experience must have been like for him) The implication being that Nurkić did it to insult Jokić. However, judging by Mehic´s tweets on the matter, he didn´t ask Nurkić about the t-shirt before freaking out. And he clearly didn´t ask Jokić how he felt about it or if he even noticed the shirt or if he even knew the names or if he cared at all. Jokić is Serbian, born in Belgrade, not a Bosnian Serb and he was born in 1995, so there is really no reason for him to be offended or even know the names. Unless he´s some kind of a Bosnian war buff. Of course, Mehic didn´t bother checking any of this, he was busy being outraged and disturbed.
Once confronted by Bosnians challenging his claims, most of them very calm and articulate ( you can see the responses to his original tweet) he first responded by blocking everyone including me, although I am not as chill as many other Bosnians, I called him a pandering asshole, (which he kinda is) and then he went on to back track and say that Nurkić is a free man and that he never once said that Nurkić should not wear the t-shirt, and that the issue is complex and so on. Mehic is wrong about two things, the only logical conclusion one can draw from his first tweet is that Nurkić´s actions were so upsetting to him that he clearly did not want Nurkić to wear that t-shirt. Secondly, the issue is not complex. This is just something usually Serb nationalists say, and sports writers trying to get out of a mess they got tangled in by their own doing. History and among other things the war crimes trials that have taken place at the ICTY ( International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 1993–2017) have proven beyond any doubt that what took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 was a relatively straightforward affair. I will try to write more about the background to the Bosnian war and genocide below. But first the claims made by Serb nationalists and Mehic on social media that this was deliberate, or a taunt by Nurkić.
I can’t read Nurkić´s mind and I don’t know the man. I can only speculate based on what I know since before. What I do know is that Nurkić gives the impresson of being very patriotic, as are many of us. And he has honored the same nine Bosnians before. I consider myself to be a fairly liberal person, but I do feel very strongly about the Bosnian war and about the Bosnian Army. As do most of us. And I can back up everything I say with facts unlike the Serb nationalist trolls online who depend on your general lack of knowledge, disinterest and in particular anti-Muslim and anti-Bosnian biases. Most of my male relatives who survived the initial Serb nationalist campaign of terror in eastern Bosnia were in the army, and if it wasn´t for them and thousands of men and women like them and the men whose names are on Jusuf´s t-shirt most of us would not be alive today. They did what they could to protect us and themselves from a planned extermination, from genocide. Those of us who can, have an obligation to protect the legacy of what they did against a never ending campaign waged by Serbia, Serb separatists in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in recent years Croatia and Croat separatists in Bosnia as well.
As I wrote in the beginning, I can only write based on what I already know, and what I know is that the men on the t-shirt were resistence fighters pushing back against genocidal violence and every Bosniak should be proud of them. The reactions of a lot of Serbs on social media to this reveal nothing new, most people from Western Balkans are painfully aware of just how unvilling the majority of Serbs are to come to terms with what happened and the wars Serbia started in the nineties.
For those of us who follow him on social media, Nurkić gives the impression of being very patriotic and I know it’s not the first time he has done something like this. Like exactly like this. Back in April 2018 he posted a pic of his sneakers on Facebook and tagged the pic #DevetHeroja, which translates to “nine heroes” and #HerojiOdbraneBiH which translates to “Heroes of the defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The sneakers had the names of nine fallen Bosnians, the same nine he had on his t-shirt on Thursday night.
The background is a song by Mustafa Isaković called Devet Heroja, or “nine heroes” honoring nine Bosnians who gave their lives in defense of the country, but it´s ultimately dedicated to all the soldiers who fought in the Bosnian Army. The nine men have never been accused of any wrong doing or suspected of commiting war crimes. All nine were killed in action and some of them, like commanders Izet Nanić, Enver Šehović, Safet Zajko, and Hajro Mešić have become folk heroes to most Bosniaks. Commanders who fought alongside their men during vicious battles and were instrumental in defending Sarajevo, Bihać and in the case of Hajro Mešić almost breaking through Serb lines to connect with Bosnian units from Srebrenica back in the summer of 1992.
To be fair to Mehic, Twitter is not the right place for debate. Personally I wasn´t even aware of what was going on until a friend DM´d me saying: look at this guy. I understand where Mehic is coming from. I also understand the weariness many people have when it comes to the nineties and the war. However I also understand that Serbia and Serb nationalists and to a large extent the current Croatian leadership and Croat nationalists are waging an ongoing campagin to distort what happened during the Bosnian war and genocide. As well as a campagin to dehumanize Bosniaks ( Bosnian Muslims) especially now when the ground in both Europe and the US is very fertile. It’s also pretty clear that Mehic didn’t know very much about the situation and didn´t bother finding out coming in. He simply jumped on the bandwagon, that was the Twitter outrage generated by butthurt Serb nationalists.
For those of us not prone to drama, Twitter mobs, virtue signaling and don’t pander to Serb nationalist bullshit on social media it’s fairly clear that the most likely explanation is that Jusuf Nurkić simply wore the t-shirt because he wanted to honor the nine fallen Bosnians, who died resisting genocidal violence. It’s also pretty clear that Nikola Jokić, the Serbian player and Nurkić´s friend didn’t take offense. Most likely he didn´t even know who the names on the t-shirt were or cared. And if it wasn´t for Serb nationalist Twitter, malevolent government-backed yellow press in Serbia, and oversensitive sports writers, none of this would have been an issue.
Serbian government-backed media in the form of the now notorious “Informer” went as far as to label Nurkić a “balija” a derogatory term Serb and Croat nationalists use for Bosniaks. Something akin to the N-word. Of course, given the Informer´s track record, this is hardly surprising. In April while the Notre Dame was burning Informer and Alo, the other government backed outlet wrote that the fire was “God’s punishment” for the flying of the Kosovo flag along with several others during a November ceremony at the cathedral to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
To best understand the Serbian and to a certain extent, the Croatian war efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one must look at the verdicts from the ICTY ( International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ) as well as an entire canon of serious scholarship on the topic, which includes hunderds of books written in several languages, decades of human rights investigations, exhumations and witness statements. The minuts and recordings from meetings held in Belgrade and Zagreb where Serbian and Croatian top military and political leaders plotted Bosnia’s demise and the fate of 2 million Bosniaks. Some 4000 witnesses have testified during the trials at the Hague.
The entire top echelon of the Serb political and military leadership in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadžić, his succsesor Biljana Plavšić, Momčilo Krajišnik, miltary commander Ratko Mladić, Zdravko Tolimir, Ministry of the Interor cheifs Mičo Stanišić, Stojan Župljanin and many others ended up behind bars. It’s the first time since Nuremberg trials that the entire political and military leadership of a political entity ended up behind bars. Crimes they were found guilty of were: genocide, extermination, murder, wanton destruction, kidnapping, forceful deportation of civilians, campaign of sniping and shelling against the civilian population of Sarajevo, aimed to spread terror among the civilian citizens, sexual violence as tool of war. All this was done in the service of creating an ethnically pure Serb state in Bosnia and Herzegovina that would later be part of a Greater Serbia.
Similary the top echelon of the Bosnian Croat leadership were found to be guilty of trying to create an ethincally pure Croat statlet ( Herceg Bosna) that would later be part of a Greater Croatia. This was to be achieved through intimidation, physical and psychological abuse, murder, forceful deportation, wanton destruction of cities, towns, villages, religious objects, houses of worship and forced internment of non-Croats, primarily Bosniaks for land that that the Croatian leadership in Zagreb and Bosnian Croat leadership had designated as “Croat land” that would later be part of a “Greater Croatia.”
During three and half years of desperate fighting, the Bosnian Army, the only internationally recognized fighting force in the Bosnian war, the army of a sovereign state, constantly outgunned, due to a crippling arms embargo still manged to turn the tide against both the Croat and Serb armies. So yes, we have a lot to be thankful for, and have every right to show our gratitude to those who defended us.
