This paper is based on an anthropological study investigating the impact of forced displacement, genocide, and missing persons on the social identities of surviving women, their families and local ...communities in Bosnia Herzegovina and the Bosnian diaspora. By the end of the 1992-95 Bosnian war, more than 100,000 had been killed and close to 40,000 individuals reported missing – some 7,000 of whom have still not been found or identified. No knowing where the body of one’s loved one is, makes the grieving process of many surviving families much harder than it would be if they had been able to bury the victims. The issues surrounding the missing and their exhumation, identification and burial are some of the lasting legacies of genocide and war in Bosnia, that still affect many individuals, especially war widows and their families, as well as the respective local communities. The gaps, absences, and open-ended temporality the missing persons left behind also impact on politics, culture and reconciliation within the broader Bosnian society and the diaspora.More than two decades after the war, in many respects, Bosnia can still be seen as an exemplar of a post-conflict society, where the progress towards achieving a just and lasting peace has been halted by unresolved issues from the past, including the issue of the missing. In regard to the missing (presumably dead), what is often depicted as an “unresolved past” is in fact an unresolved present, spread through global connections across time and space and having significant affects and effects even on those who now live at great geographic distances from the original violence.The issue of the missing in Bosnia is predominantly, but not exclusively, affecting the Muslim (Bosniak) community. Mourning the dead in Islam typically takes place in the private domain and those who died in conflict or as innocent victims are regarded as šehidi, martyrs who will be rewarded in the afterlife. However, in the case of the missing, there are no adequate religious rituals offering closure or recognising a missing person as šehid able to “resettle” (preseli) in afterlife. Instead of referring to the missing as those who now rest in peace, or literally those who “resettled ” (preselili) in the afterlife (ahiret), the common reference for the Srebrenica genocide victims in 1995 is “those who did not get across” (nisu prešli), also symbolically sug¬gesting the inability of the missing to resettle (presele), thus remaining in a state of post-mortem liminality.While coping with their own trauma, loss and displacement, many Bosnian survivors, especially women, have taken up the crucial role in identifying the remains of relatives uncovered from mass graves spread across the country. They have often literally been the embodiment of the search for and identification of the missing in more than one way. They have preserved a link between those who perished and those who survived both through their narrated and documented memories of the missing and though their bodies. In Bosnia, DNA has served as a crucial piece of information required to establish identities of the missing. DNA matching technolo¬gies have equally challenged and reinforced the importance of blood relations and blood as the “shared essence” through which kinship is defined and relations between individuals are imagined, linking not only parents and siblings in a direct blood relation, but also husbands and wives and subsequently leading to identification of other missing “non-blood” relatives. However, as anthropologist Sarah Wagner has witnessed and described, DNA evidence does not exist in a vacuum; rather, its success depends on other manifestations of individual lives, social ties, and everyday practice: family members holding a piece of cloth, touching its fabric, whose pattern and stitching are indelibly etched into their memory, use their own recollections to help retrieve their missing relatives’ remains.In the first part of the paper, statistical and historiographical facts related to the 1992- 95 war casualties in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are presented and the shortcomings of the quantitative research approaches in drawing conclusions about the es¬sence, character and consequences of the war events on different demographic and gender groups in BiH are pointed out.In the second part—through an ethnographic description of the life of one of the war widows and a mother who lost two sons and who now lives in the diaspora—the author describes the difficulties that accompany the war widows, both at the psychological and socio-cultural levels, as well as the reasons for many women to choose to migrate to third countries. The paper then describes how medical and forensic DNA biotechnology has helped to rehumanize the missing and killed, while the post-war bureaucracy in BiH has largely had a different, dehumanising effect on the war widows and survivors, which was often one of the reasons for their emigration.For mothers who lost children and war widows who lost husbands, it is expected that, for the rest of their lives, they will continue to perform the roles, adjusting their lives and embodying eternal grief for their loved ones. Across south-eastern Europe and the Balkans this aspect of patriarchal tradition has survived in many communities—among Christians and Muslims alike. Many women, once they lose their loved ones, spend the rest of their lives in mourning dress code. They also tend to become more religious and to perform regular rituals to honour and remember their dead. Even their everyday lives are readjusted so there are constant reminders of those they lost. Their public identities become those of mourning women. Often, they remain so for years, sometimes for the rest of their lives. These have been the unwritten rules and expectations of the women’s own communities that have been reconstructed after the war. In conclusion, the author advocates for an activist approach to socio-humanistic research related to the issues that accompany war widows, with the aim of protecting and promoting their human rights and dignity.
The suppression of various hate speech manifestations is inseparable from the influence of national heritage and the obligations undertaken at the European level. In this context, given the very ...meagre national jurisprudence but also a lack of precise determinations regarding the subject area, the legal standards of the European Court of Human Rights are crucial when it comes to reasoning on hate speech cases in order to create guidelines for national systems. The first judgement for the Armenian genocide denial is the principal motive for this paper. Its powerful echo and polemics at the international level were stimulative for subject matter research. The purpose of the article is to examine the cases of genocide denial at the ECtHR in order to assess whether they all have the same fate, bearing in mind that this is a serious hate speech form that is not (or should not be) protected through guaranteed freedom of expression. Therefore, we raise some specific questions, analyse judgments, consider the relevant provisions and specific legal mechanisms in order to come to conclusions significant for the national system as well as point out the trends that this Court has set regarding the issue concerned.
This book outlines for the first time in a single volume the theoretical and methodological tools for a study of human remains resulting from episodes of mass violence and genocide. Despite the ...highly innovative and contemporary research into both mass violence and the body, the most significant consequence of conflict - the corpse - remains absent from the scope of existing research. Why have human remains hitherto remained absent from our investigation, and how do historians, anthropologists and legal scholars, including specialists in criminology and political science, confront these difficult issues? By drawing on international case studies including genocides in Rwanda, the Khmer Rouge, Argentina, Russia and the context of post-World War II Europe, this ground-breaking edited collection opens new avenues of research. Multidisciplinary in scope, this volume will appeal to readers interested in an understanding of mass violence's aftermath.
Der Autor dieser Abhandlung widmet sich der Frage nach der begrifflichen Bestimmung des Völkermords. In den Eingangsbemerkungen nimmt er Bezug zum Internationalen Strafgerichtshof für das ehemalige ...Jugoslawien (ICTY) und zur Haltung des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofes (ICC) diesbezüglich. Im ersten Teil der Abhandlung führt er an die Ansätze des Begriffes Völkermord, das zum ersten Mal von Raphael Lemkin formuliert wurde, als auch der Definition aus der Konvention über die Verhütung und Bestrafung des Völkermordes aus dem Jahre 1948. Versteht man unter diesem Begriff alles, angefangen von der Vertreibung von Minderheiten bis hin zum einzelnen Massakern fasst, bzw. geht man von einem breiten Verständnis aus, so verliert sein Konzept an Bedeutung und wird zur allgemeinen Metapher für das Böse.; mit anderen Worten: es devalviert. Hier ist nicht die Gewaltanwendung per se entscheidend, sondern die Tatsache, dass jemand bewusst Maßnahmen durchgeführt hat, um ein Volk gezielt zu zerstören.
L’analyse des relations entre le gouvernement intérimaire rwandais et la communauté internationale durant le génocide de 1994 met en évidence la primauté du facteur politique voire géopolitique sur ...la prise en compte de considérations strictement juridiques et humanitaires de la part de l’ONU et des États tiers les plus impliqués dans cette crise (Belgique, France, États-Unis). La marginalisation progressive du gouvernement intérimaire sur la scène internationale, au moment où il sollicite une aide extérieure pour mettre fin aux massacres, ne s’est pas accompagnée d’un renforcement des effectifs et du mandat de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda (MINUAR), qui constituait pourtant la principale demande des autorités rwandaises au Conseil de sécurité. Ce désengagement de la communauté internationale s’est effectué au détriment de la sécurité et de la protection des populations civiles menacées. Dans le même temps, la criminalisation de ce gouvernement a contribué à faire entériner l’acceptation d’une issue militaire au conflit souhaitée par la rébellion du Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR), au mépris des accords de paix et de partage du pouvoir d’Arusha signés en 1993. La présomption de culpabilité à l’égard du camp gouvernemental a par la suite fortement impacté la justice internationale, le Tribunal Pénal International pour le Rwanda (TPIR) ayant échoué dans sa mission consistant à juger tous les auteurs de crimes commis en 1994 et à favoriser la réconciliation nationale, du fait de son manque d’impartialité et d’indépendance tant au niveau des poursuites et de l’instruction que du rendu de ses jugements et de leur pleine application.
An analysis of relations between the interim government of Rwanda and the international community during the genocide of 1994 demonstrates how political, even geopolitical, factors were given priority over strictly judicial and humanitarian considerations by the UN and the third-party states most implicated in this crisis (Belgium, France, the USA). The progressive marginalisation of the interim government on the international scene, at the time when it was soliciting external help to put a stop to the massacres, did not see a reinforcement of staff or of the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which nonetheless constituted the principal demand of the Rwandan authorities to the Security Council.This disengagement on the part of the international community happened to the detriment of the security and protection of the civil population under threat. At the same time the criminalisation of this government contributed to the endorsement of a military outcome to the conflict ; the outcome desired by the rebellion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), contravening the Arusha Accords signed in 1993. The presumption of guilt attached to the government camp subsequently had a strong impact on international justice, as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had failed in its mission of judging all the perpetrators of crimes committed in 1994, and of favorising national reconciliation, due to its lack of impartiality and independence as much at the level of investigation and prosecution as at the level of the delivery of the judgments and their enactment.
To stand up against Nazi ideas of biologized “ethnicity” and antisemitism required a heroic disposition in individuals who did not allow themselves to have their basic humanity destroyed by such ...ideologies, even as the latter were backed by formidable political and religious power and sweepingly popular beliefs. The men and women presented in the first part of the book have already been recognised as Righteous Among Nations for their brave humanitarian acts during WWII, a title bestowed by the Yad Vashem World Center for Holocaust Research, Education, Documentation and Commemoration. Part Two brings the stories about people who were also saving Jews that were not recognised as Righteous yet, but some among them are candidates.
To stand up against Nazi ideas of biologized “ethnicity” and antisemitism required a heroic disposition in individuals who did not allow themselves to have their basic humanity destroyed by such ...ideologies, even as the latter were backed by formidable political and religious power and sweepingly popular beliefs. The men and women presented in the first part of the book have already been recognised as Righteous Among Nations for their brave humanitarian acts during WWII, a title bestowed by the Yad Vashem World Center for Holocaust Research, Education, Documentation and Commemoration. Part Two brings the stories about people who were also saving Jews that were not recognised as Righteous yet, but some among them are candidates.
Dežela senc Luthar, Oto; Pogačar, Martin
2015
eBook
Open access
The Land of Shadows was first conceived as a complementary resource for History classes in Slovenian high schools. It served to complement to the patchy Holocaust teaching resources. It consists of ...two parts: the first part features a historical overview of anti-Semitism and eventually the Holocaust in Europe, which is followed by an account of the situation in Slovenia. The authors relied on the life-story of Mrs Erika Fürst, one of the Holocaust survivors from Prekmurje, Slovenia. In creating a compelling and touching narrative, the authors used visual material from the archives and from various publications depicting the period and the problematic, notably excerpts from two graphic novels: Art Speigelman’s Maus, Jason Lutes’ Berlin.
PDF
