with all the questions about could or couldn't have the international community done more to prevent massacres from happening- there is a bigger, and much more present, fear among the people in Bosnia and Kosovo who survived the attempts of ethnic cleansing: and that is the endless, re-writing of events coming from Belgrade- which, due to changes in daily politics, has began to get accepted among different levels of western societies. And, in a lot of ways, it is much more offensive and painful to us than the issue of what should have been done 20 or 30 years ago. Plus, this is a matter that can be influenced now-

There is quite a long line of right-wingers who, these days, keep repeating Belgrade’s claims that Merkale, Srebrenica, Racak…( to name but a few) massacres either never happened- or that they were “designed” to blame the Serbs while , in fact, being carried out either by local forces- who were trying to defend themselves from Serbs, or by “western agencies” , who had some sort of “innate interest” in doing so…

It is difficult to explain how offensive and insane it seems for someone who survived the siege of Sarajevo, or the Kosovar war , to be faced with idiots who claim that we’re lying, or that “we don’t know what really happened”-

( Just take a minute, close your eyes, and imagine this scenario: You saw the war come to your doorstep- then for a long time, you suffered in ways which are difficult to comprehend for those who were fortunate enough never to be faced with a war of aggression against you and your people, not a western idea o a war- but one whose purpose is complete extermination of anyone who happens to belong to the same nation or faith as you do —

You barely survived a series of events during which members for your family, your friends, got killed or died in rather horrific ways — while you even witnessed some of those deaths- or maybe were left for dead with them…. After it was all over, you spent years trying to pick up the pieces of your life and , trying to build something that might have an appearance of “normality” — or get a chance of a normal life:

Then, someone who doesn’t agree with the current political agenda, & who probably never spent more than a week in the region, pops up and says that all of those things “never happened” to you- or, that you are mistaken about who the perpetrators of the crimes were…. )

Beyond our personal feelings about it- the issue is much more important and all encompassing than a lot of people realize. And it can have consequences in the future

By allowing Belgrade to whitewash what happened and/or shift the blame upon the victims, the entire premise of “western democracy” and equal rights becomes doubtful at best- For how can one claim to abide by the principles of truth and justice, when it ignores the attempts to erase the worst atrocities committed in post WWII Europe and gives a free pass to the ones who committed them? If anything it will simply encourage future genocide-creator s ( Hitler at one point famously exclaimed “and who remembers the Armenians” ) who will receive the message that they can get away with it. And that is just the tip of the iceberg…

As time passes on, there will be fewer and fewer witnesses of events and, after 40, 50..60 years… we will all be gone, what will be left are the documents, the books… the stories- & If Belgrade gets it's way ( they literary published hundreds of books in the past three years, which whitewash the events of the 90s) — history will “forget” the victims, their suffering, and the fact that entire nations were fighting for their existence… thus opening the way for more atrocities

Our stories need to be remembered, as well as the fact that ( despite what people who look at yesterdays events through today's lenses say) what happened here had nothing to do with religion, great conspiracies , and was not a series of “multi-colored “ events which can be viewed from different perspectives. But a simple land-grab with a pure intention of removing a nation from it's territory and replacing it with another.

If, they ( our stories) are allowed to be forgotten- or changed — the ones who tried to commit genocide- will do so again ( make no mistake about this- Serbia is bringing up new generations who are convinced that our countries are in fact, somehow, “stolen” from them- and that it is their sacred duty to bring them back. these generation do not know what their fathers did- instead, they believe that the perpetrators were victims) — And then, just as now- the west will stand there dumbfounded & wondering “how did it come to this” or “how can this happen in Europe”

BY forgetting what happened to us, there is also a door being opened for future re-writes of everything: especially to most horrific parts of our history : can you imagine a world in which children at school are being taught that ( for example) “The Jews started WWII and the Nazis were the good guys who were trying to stop all the fighting that was going on? “.. or another, in which “ The Europeans were enslaved by other races and had to fight their oppressors in order to get some basic human rights” — the options are limitless, and very, very unappealing