We don't give solidarity under the condition we get it back. BiH is a small place & complicated too that not everyone is knowledgeable about. That aside, my Twitter is filled with activists & scholars from all sides sharing info & expressing solidarity.
Don't attack her pls as she seems young and I am not attacking her either but it a statement I keep seeing from young Diaspora Bosnian and it's a huge case of misdirecting your anger and frustration. Other struggling groups aren't the enemy...
It's also important to note that I would much personally prefer non-Bosnians and in particular those who are not knowledge about it, share and retweet info from experts and Bosnian survivors than to lecture on social media in an act of performative support.
Also...if you're mainly following other Bosnians, you will miss the solidarity being expressed by non-Bosnians of which there's been a quite a lot of from scholars, activists, political leaders and just regular people.
& most importantly...our job is not to complain when people don't notice the crisis we may be going through but rather to educate them and bring them on board to take that journey towards knowledge and solidarity together.
Lastly, the world is a mess and we are in the midst of a horrific pandemic that has resulted in emotional and mental exhaustion. We are bombarded by horrific news. People cannot be expected to know everything or take up every cause. But if you they want to? Show them how. :)

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More from @Rrrrnessa

12 Jan
Mladen, before Bosnia ever even held a referendum on Independence..the Serb leadership was establishing "Serb Autonomous Regions", preparing for a take-over of all municipalities & preparing Serbs for the full takeover of Bosnia throughout JNA collaboration. Docs drawn up in 1991
You cannot honestly compare that to Bosnians wanting an equal country where there is no ethnic segregation & everyone is entitled to the same human rights. There's no shadow government being prepared, there's no take-overs, there's no collaboration to make "Bosniak only" regions
Literally in 1988, ethnic Serbs were being urged by Milosevic and his party to take to the streets under the slogans "Strong Serbia, Strong Yugoslavia" instead of "Brotherhood & Unity".
Read 6 tweets
12 Jan
1. "Bosnia, Kosova & the West" by Mike Karadjis
2. "Balkan Babel" by Sabina Rahmet
3. "The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s" by @richmondbridge
4. "Bosnia, A Short History" by Noel Malcolm
5. "Death of Yugoslavia" by Siber & Little
6. "A concise history of Bosnia" by Carmichael
7. "The War is Dead, Long Live the War" by @edvulliamy
8. "End Game" by Rhode
9. "The Architect of Genocide " by Robert Donia
10. "Safe Area Gorazde" by Joe Sacco
11. "The Bosnia List" by Kenan Trebincevic
12. "The Last Refuge" by Hasan Nuhanovic
13. "Logavina Street" by Demick
14. "Places of Pain" by Hariz Halilovich
15. "Whose Bosnia?" Nationalism & Political Imagination in the Balkans by @_edinh
16. "Love Thy Neighbour" by @maassp
17. "Surviving the Bosnian Genocide: women of Bosnia speak" by Leydesdorff
18. "Genocide in Bosnia" by Cigar
Read 14 tweets
12 Jan
You really cannot equate Bosniak Nationalism to Serbian Nationalism simply because the power dynamics and history of it are not at all the same. With that said, Bosniak Nationalism isn't the right response to the growing rise of Greater Serbia ethno-Nationalism.
Additionally though, Bosniak Nationalism is borne out of trauma. In many ways, it's really a small minority of people who even actually believe in it. It's also an extremely Diasporic attribute rather than one of Bosnians who live in Bosnia.
There is also a huge difference between Bosnian Nationalism and Bosniak Nationalism. Bosnian Nationalism is pro multi-ethnic & united Bosnia. Bosniak Nationalism is like 5 Diaspora kids in a coat thinking they can out yell the nationalists Serbs.
Read 8 tweets
11 Jan
Cannot say who but I will say that just as recent as this year I was privy to MPs declining the commemorative statements we drew up for them as they felt naming Serbia as a perpetrator of crimes in Bosnia would not be diplomatically suitable and they did not wish to "take sides".
European leadership has an almost deep seethed fear of naming the perpetrators. Listen to their statements around July 11 during commemoration events...very, very few will ever say "Serb forces", "ethno-nationalist Serbs", Serb military even or Serb political leadership.
It's cowardly, yes, but ultimately it's not their monkeys, not their circus and they wish to maintain political and diplomatic tied with specific people far, far more than they care about genocide survivors. Not all, but most.
Read 5 tweets
10 Jan
This is why I cannot subscribe to the idea that what we seeing now is the same thing we saw in the late 80s/early 90s.

A lot of work went into convincing Serbs they should take up arms against their neighbours in the 90s. The propaganda was more subtle. Now, it's impertinent.
One of the biggest obstacles to the idea of Greater Serbia for political leadership in the 90s was in fact the ethnic unity within Bosnia. They openly spoke about how to sow discord, how to get Serbs on their side, how to turn the Muslims into the enemy. It was a lot of work.
We are not there anymore. We are instead in a situation where for 30 years they've been pushing a massive ethno-nationalist propaganda campaign on a socio-political level. There is far more hatred now than probably any time before in Bosnian history, if you ask me.
Read 4 tweets
17 Dec 21
I really and genuinely need Western leftists to undermine that the vast majority of the Third World countries are entirely dependent on the good will of the Western world. You cannot dictate a country reliant on Intl. goodwill to stick it to the West. You just can't.
"Oh god, they're calling on the US/UK to help them" is easy to say when you have no other allies and are entirely under the pressure and influence of Western governments. "I'd never do that" is b/c you live in the West...you're not under constant threat.
Small countries like Bosnia do not have the choices that Western developed countries do. They have to call on their allies, they have to often actually beg them to intervene on their behalf because they have no power, they have no influence, they have no way to defend themselves.
Read 11 tweets

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