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Much has been written these days about the connection between the ideology and methods of Radovan Karadzic (his final verdict in a few hours) and the #ChristchurchTerrorAttack. I feel that most analysis missed the key concept - dehumanisation. This will be a long thread. 1/
Dehumanising Bosnian Muslims to filth, spawn of Ottoman occupiers, traitors who sold the ancestral faith, vermin that needs to be annihilated and removed is Karadzic's most devastating legacy. This has enabled unimaginable cruelty to be unleashed by neighbours on neighbours.. 2/
This is what normalized the killing of 102 children in my hometown, for example. Not that the killers were somehow driven insane by hatred, but that in fact they saw this as a necessary, dirty work that simply must be done if Serbs are to enjoy freedom free of "invaders". 3/
From the beginning, as early as October 1991, Karadzic was clear of what the intent is - for Muslims to disappear from areas claimed by the Serbs. The only way he was to achieve that, to get his people to erase any sign of Muslims' existence in these communities was to 4/
reach back into history for numerous examples of Serb suffering at the hands of the Ottomans or Ustashas, to remove any doubt within a population that could not accept such an extreminatory project just like that after decades of "brotherhood and unity". Every such example 5/
was used to fortify the basic notion that the only option Serbs have is to preemptively strike, but this time to go to the end and create a state in which they will not fear these traitors again (Karadzic quote). Thus the extermination and genocide as acceptable tools... 6/
in pursuit of the six strategic political goals unveiled on 12 May 1992. Separation of peoples meant genocide (as per Mladic's admission), removal of Drina as a border between RS and Serbia meant destruction of Muslim communities in the river's valley. Only through complete... 7/
dehumanisation could you hope to achieve such goals. And that is where Karadzic's legacy lies. He succeeded not in achieving his strategic goals (at least not completely), but in entrenching the dehumanisation so deeply that even today I will face a "progressive", young... 8/
educated person who will jokingly post songs like the one Tarrant listened to in his car on the way to the massacre. What, it is just a joke! Or the argument that Sultan Mehmed who conquered Bosnia is "mine" and we deserve all we got since because of this conquest. 9/
When discussing how was it possible that extermination was normalized, how is it possible that today we have people like Dodik who refer to muezzin's call as "howling" that drives property prices down, or relentless revisionism and dehumanization of Muslims in the media.. 10/
The go to response is "we didn't start the war, it started in 1941, 1918, 1389..." TODAY. IN 2019. This is the justification of this virulent dehumanisation that now drives killers targeting Muslims globally, like Breivik and Tarrant. And this is why Karadzic's legacy must... 11/
be confronted in its most destructive form. How to humanize the dehumanized, how to restore some degree of normal communication that will acknowledge and reject his poisonous legacy. This cant be done by adopting victim mentality or equating all Serbs or Serb history with... 12/
Karadzic's ideology and methods. That is precisely what he wants and what the likes of Dodik perpetuate. Judgment of Karadzic is not a judgment of Serbs. Tarrant being inspired by Karadzic does not mean he was inspired by Serbs. This is dehumanisation in reverse. 13/
This is why I reject any triumphalism in whatever Karadzic's verdict is today. It matters primarily because of the facts and evidence that it has established in the trial process, that can help us understand his methods and the extent of dehumanisation, so we can... 14/
deconstruct and delegitimize it, discard it one and for all. He will die in jail, I have no doubt about that, nor do I want to spend another minute giving a fuck what happens to him. It is his legacy we have to dismantle and that is the sole value of todays judgment for me. 15/15
