Ahmići between Tehran and Sarajevo: Iranians are strong because they know who they are, Bosniaks have renounced both heroes and victims

Written by: Rasim Belko

During the aggression carried out by the joint Israeli-American forces, we witnessed serious admiration among Bosniaks for the people of Iran, who bravely took to the streets to celebrate or mourn while terrible missiles flew over their heads.

At the same time, the attempts by hybrid brigades of the Israeli-American forces to provoke a conflict between the Iranian leadership and the people remained unsuccessful. Both sides knew they were fighting for biological survival and freedom. They did not allow a narrative to be imposed on them, they did not doubt who they were, nor did they allow their sacrifice to turn into a reason for internal conflict.

Such were, roughly, the Bosniaks when they defended themselves against the dual aggression of the 1990s. They were not seriously disturbed by the special Serbian-Croatian propaganda, even when they had Fikret Abdić and his ilk, insufficiently brave Bosniak separatists, in their ranks.

But today, Bosniaks live by other people's rules and desires. They live and behave in a way to please everyone, not taking care of themselves, their interests, heroes, victims, biological survival, and the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the sole guarantor of that survival.

Bosniaks use what is sacred and should be untouchable as a currency to please the world. The Srebrenica genocide has long been wrapped in cellophane so that the truth, in its original and even raw form, would not offend the ears of Serbian-Croatian politics and Euro-Western political forces.

It is incomprehensible and shameful to play with the truth about the genocide, war crimes, and victims of the Ustasha-Chetnik aggression. Just as it is shameful to allow physically decrepit heroes of the defensive war to fight alone against the dragons of injustice and the special war that the judiciary of our state wages against its defenders. And those defenders are the most deserving that all Bosniaks did not end up in mass graves. And no one else!

But, let us return to Ahmići, that horrific massacre whose scenes caused hardened British soldiers to have psychological problems. We often hear from Bosniak leaders, media, and various activists "not to forget and not to repeat," but what we witness today is a tragic forgetting and pushing of Ahmići into complete media obscurity.

Only a handful of media outlets had even published the news by the time this text was written that today is the 33rd anniversary of the crime. Even fewer were there, on the spot, where tribute is paid and the victims of the depravity of the human mind are remembered.

There will be some news later in the day, especially when speeches by Bosniak political leaders appear, but that is not a culture of remembrance — it is a forced reaction of the guild to, well, report on some event.

Ahmići should be a headline event. Not only today, not only on this anniversary, but always, because Ahmići, like Srebrenica, is a wound that still hurts. And it hurts even more when those who indiscriminately killed the people of Ahmići, who party a day or two before the anniversary, pour salt on it. It hurts most when Bosniaks turn their heads away from Ahmići, because well-paid Western propaganda has imposed on them the feeling that only through forgetting can they build a better Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And that is fatal.

Because forgetting the victims of Ahmići for the sake of peace in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian home leads to new victims. And Bosniaks must know this, just as they must know that there is no sufficiently good reason, no matter who says it, for Ahmići to be forgotten.

To forget means to punish the victim. And to punish the victims of Ahmići and Srebrenica through conscious forgetting means to repeat the crime.

Bosniaks must wake up and be aware that their public space is poisoned, and that the patriotic media space is quite narrow and limited. This is an information blockade as part of a special war that is trying to turn us in the wrong direction.

Bosniaks must not waste the opportunity to learn a lesson from the example of the Iranian people. The best lessons are learned from others' experiences. This is an opportunity to understand that no one will accept, respect, or love us more if we forget who we are, what we have survived, and how great a sacrifice we have made for freedom and the homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This lesson must be learned once and for all. Because if we constantly adapt so that others pat us on the back, and then threaten us again, we must be aware that this is a path to disappearance.

Unlearned lessons and a forgotten past come at a high price. The highest.

Because a people that agrees to forget its own pain for the sake of others' approval will, sooner or later, be left without both dignity and the right to a future.