Bosniaks' fear of the Serbian police, whose members celebrate genocide, is justified

Ernad Metaj

A police officer from Priboj, Dragan Zeković, apologized to Bosniaks for an insulting song glorifying the Srebrenica genocide, which was sung at a party on the occasion of the birth of his son. The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, also spoke out with a message to Bosniaks that Serbia is their country and that they will be protected. Repentance and messages of peace are needed after such recordings that upset not only people of other nationalities, but also every normal person. The problem is that there is a justified doubt in the sincerity of such messages, because whoever celebrates the birth of his own child with a song about slaughtering other children has a big problem with himself, but also with others.

The situation on the ground denies Vučić - the more he talks about peace and stability, the more Serbia under his leadership is slipping into radicalism. The police in Serbia have not reacted to fascist folklore from sports fields for a long time, they are defending murals dedicated to war criminals, so it was only a matter of time before it was revealed that a crime against ‘others’ was justified and desirable for people in uniform as well.

Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin has not yet spoken out as regards the incident in Priboj, and how could he when, just a day earlier, he raised the question if Serbia needed the EU if the genocide in Srebrenica had to be accepted. With such a dilemma and with the message that the formation of the ‘Serb world’ is the key to the survival of the Serb people, Vulin (un)consciously encouraged the policemen to start proving themselves in nationalism.

Just before the New Year, the Ministry of Defense showed that Vučić says one thing and his government does another. The regime in Serbia decorated a participant in the genocide, the convicted war criminal Vinko Pandurević. No one can be angry with Bosniaks in Serbia and BiH if they understand such a message as the readiness of a neighboring state to support again, or commit a new genocide.

The reaction of the former mayor of Srebrenica Ćamil Duraković is understandable - he believes that the singing of the policeman in Priboj was far more convincing than his apology. Namely, the policeman especially regrets ‘that a bad atmosphere is additionally created, exaggerated, with an attempt to make something sound much worse than should have been heard at this party, or anywhere else’. With New Year's greetings to ‘Bosniak friends’, he said that in the future he would do what he was supposed to do that evening as a policeman, interrupt the controversial songs ‘Srebrenica is so dear to me, I wish it happened three times again’, ‘Pazar new Vukovar’, ‘Sjenica new Srebrenica’, ‘Fatima, where is your dress, the Chetniks have it’…

No one can blame Bosniaks for ‘exaggerating’ a pub gathering where, according to police officer Zeković, not everyone sang the controversial song. Not all Serbs, in fact the vast majority, approved of the crimes, but they did happen just as well. Bosniaks in Priboj certainly remember the abduction of their compatriots from Sjeverin in 1992, who were being killed and thrown into the Drina River for several days. Although Serbia, according to its authorities, was not officially at war, its police structures did not protect Bosniaks from Sjeverin.

We believe that Zeković's celebration party was ruined, but the dilemma remains whether it is because of upset Bosniaks, or the fear of sanctions that could be imposed by the police towards him and his colleagues. From the comments that followed Zeković's apology, it is clear that a large number of Bosniaks do not believe him, because in the Balkans, the saying ‘what soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals’ is still valid.

This case only further exposed the consequences of the policy pursued by the current government in Serbia. That is why only those who are not Serbs should not be afraid, because this government has already shown that it is ready to confront the dissidents. Sometimes hooligans with phantoms, bats and hammers serve the purpose, while the police are more often than not unable to understand that those who are against Vučić are not against Serbia. For now, those who are against the glorification of war criminals are being arrested and detained, but the warning remains that Serbs who did not want to kill others were also killed in the war. Nice words are not enough for true reconciliation and rebuilding of trust, deeds are more important. In the Balkans, we don’t sleep peacefully only because someone told us we could.