July 11 is recognized by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.
This town in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the scene of the worst genocide on European soil since the Holocaust.
Bosnian Serb separatists murdered 8,000 of their fellow Bosnians at that time.
These fellow Bosnians had been their coworkers, their neighbors, even friends, because of their Muslim heritage, practicing that faith or not practicing.
Many Bosnian families who survived the genocide, but who lost family members, became refugees and found home in my state of Iowa.
Bosnian Iowans have enriched Iowa communities with their strong work ethic, family values and unique culture.
Today, there are renewed calls for ethnic separatism in Bosnia.
That dredges up painful memories for those who’ve lived through the genocide of the 90s.
As we commemorate the loss which so many Bosnian families experienced, we ought to be alert to the renewed efforts to finalize the ethnic-cleansing project begun in the 1990s.
The Dayton Accords are rightly celebrated for ending that killing of 8,000, but they essentially froze the frontlines and enshrined ethnic divisions by creating two entities within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
These two entities are named Republika Srpska and the Federation.
Prior to the war and the ethnic cleansing, Bosnians of Orthodox, Muslim and Catholic heritage were very intermixed, although many Bosnians were not particularly practicing their respective religions.
The territory [that] is now the Republika Srpska used to have a large percentage of Bosnians of Muslim heritage, but most are now gone.
However, I have talked to Bosnians in Iowa of Muslim heritage who still have family living in the old country.
Separatists in Bosnia and their advocates here falsely imply this area was always populated overwhelmingly by Orthodox Bosnian Serbs, so they ought to have their own state.
They also spin narratives that this is some great clash of faiths or civilizations.
Bosnians share a common European culture.
However, it seems like ethnic identity, not whether or how a Bosnian practices a faith, has been the focus of conflict.
Now, there are no easy answers for Bosnia’s future, but I’m convinced that state-building based on ethnic cleansing is not the right way to go. And we should’ve learned that from the genocide of 1995.
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