How can you tell if a writer is a genocide denier? When other genocide deniers line up to support them. Today, a group of prominent Serbs who deny that a genocide occurred in Bosnia issued a petition in support of the Nobel Prize going to Peter Handke. politika.rs/sr/clanak/4432…
The petition says Handke is "being crucified" for expressing the truth. "There were no genocidal acts in the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the 1991-1995 war," it says. (Note: I'm using Google translate, which tends to be reliable for simple lines/phrases).
The petition is from a group of Serb professors, writers and at least one prominent ally of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. That's Zivodin Jovanovic, who was Milosevic's last foreign affairs minister.
This petition is not an outlier. Serbs who deny the killings in Bosnia have lined up to support Handke. There's even an effort to erect a bust of Handke in Srebrenica, site of the largest Serb massacre (more than 8,000 Muslim boys and men killed). oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/do…
Back in October, this was the happy reaction to Handke's Nobel from a publication in the ultra-nationalist Serb region of Bosnia. Why do genocide-denying Serbs like Handke so much? Head-scratcher, that one. thesrpskatimes.com/a-great-friend…
A question for the @NobelPrize organization and the Swedish Academy: Do you understand what it means when the perpetrators of genocide love your decision to give a Nobel to Peter Handke, while the victims of genocide condemn it and are gutted by it?
@NobelPrize The question, nearly two months after Handke's Nobel was announced and immediately criticized, answers itself -- the @NobelPrize organization and the Swedish Academy are very comfortable in the corner of genocide deniers. There is one more domino to fall...
@NobelPrize On Dec. 10, the Nobel Prize will be officially given to Peter Handke by Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf. Sweden's royal family, from that moment, will be connected to the denial of genocide. A neutral nation in World War II, Sweden will again stand aside while others take a stand.
@NobelPrize Because we are a visual culture, the king of Sweden (and not anyone from the Swedish Academy or the Nobel Prize organization) will be indelibly associated with this stain. The picture that will linger forever will be the king giving the Nobel Prize to Peter Handke on Dec. 10.
@NobelPrize I hope King Carl XVI Gustaf is enthusiastic about the Nobel going to Handke. Swedes may remember him for other things, but for the rest of the world, and particularly the Muslims of Bosnia and their supporters, this will be his legacy and the royal family's legacy.
