Thread by @markoah

I've watched Boris Malagurski's 'Srpska: The Struggle for Freedom'. As genocide-denialist propaganda goes, this is a thin effort: the whole film is narration by a Serbian-Australian TV presenter. Except for Emir Kusturica, no actual Serbs or anyone else were interviewed🧵

2) There's no attempt to distinguish fact from fiction by consulting proper sources. So film director Kusturica is treated as an expert; Ivo Andric's novel 'Bridge on the Drina' (00:40:30) is a source for Ottoman history; the Kosovo legend is treated as historical fact (01:24:45)

3) The history is sloppy, e.g. the claim (01:02:01) that the 1941 Serb uprising in Nevesinje was the first time any nation in Europe said 'No way !' to Nazi Germany, and 'the first military victories of the Soviet Union, US and Great Britain happened several years later’.

4) The only good thing about the film is that it assembles some interesting film clips and newsreel footage, but it unfortunately doesn’t identify any of it, thus failing to tell the viewer what is real news coverage and what is actors acting.

5) The historical narrative jumps back and forth constantly, with no structure. It reaches the 1914 Sarajevo assassination at 00:13:50; the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia at 00:15:10; skips to liberation in 1945 without mentioning Ustashas or Partisans; discusses the…

6)… Non-Aligned Movement at 00:16:22; reaches the 1990s crisis at 00:25:50; back to medieval Bogumils (treated as historical fact) at 00:30:53; anti-Serb pogroms in 1914 at 00:51:25; Ustashas at 00:58:55; Srebrenica massacre at 01:13:15; Habsburg Military Border at 01:15:45 etc.

7) Blatant historical falsification includes claiming that the 'Kozara memorial was erected in memory of more than 30,000 civilian victims in this part of Republika Srpska' (00:04:10). It was built in 1972, two decades before Republika Srpska existed.

8) The film celebrates Partisan Mladen Stojanovic (01:03:00), without mentioning that he fought for a unified, self-governing Bosnia as joint homeland of Serbs, Croats + Muslims, or that he was killed by Serb-nationalist Chetniks. Calls his death 'a tremendous blow to the Serbs’.

9) The film begins its treatment of the 1990s crisis with Slovenia and Croatia declaring independence in June 1991, which it conflates with the 14th congress of the Yugoslav Communists in January 1990 (00:25.50) - with no prior mention of anything Milosevic or Serbia did.

10) It then begins the conflict in Bosnia with the Bosnian parliament's 1991 declaration of sovereignty (00:35:20), condemning the failure to respect a Bosnian Serb veto. It doesn't mention Serbia's own declaration of sovereignty in 1990, or its attack on Croatia.

11) The film dates the war's start to the March 1992 Serb wedding shooting (00:43:57) 'one shot articulated all the political violence that the Muslim and Croatian side had been committing' - ironically it earlier disputed the idea that Gavrilo P's one shot could have started WWI

12) The film doesn't mention the earlier, vastly larger Yugoslav army (JNA) massacre of BiH Croat civilians at Ravno in October 1991, or any of the Serb massacres of Bosniaks and Croats across BiH in spring-summer 1992, or any Serb war-crime except the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

13) The film claims Karadzic’s Serbs didn’t begin forming an army until May 1992, after the JNA supposedly withdrew and left them (00:56:28). In reality, Belgrade began creating a separate BiH Serb army in Dec. 1991 within the JNA, delivering it to them fully formed in May 1992.

14) The film refers to 'the return of Nazism in these areas [in the 1990s], as seen in Vox magazine’ (01:06:20), which featured a purported Muslim SS soldier on its cover. In fact, Vox was a satirical magazine and the picture was a humorous parody.

15) The film defends Radovan Karadzic from the charge of genocidal intent (01:07:30), without telling the viewer he was convicted of genocide by the ICTY. It presents Izetbegovic's presence at the Serb Democratic Party's founding congress 'as an honoured guest', as proof of its…

16)...inclusiveness toward Muslims, though the same logic would suggest Izetbegovic's attendance indicated his own inclusiveness toward Serbs, demolishing the film’s entire narrative. The film quotes Karadzic uncritically saying he was just against Muslim 'domination of Serbs'.

17) The film writes the siege of Sarajevo out of history, claiming 'most of the higher positions around the city were controlled by the Muslim army' (01:12:20) and 'grenades were thrown from Muslim controlled territories as well as Serb controlled territories’.

18) The film refers vaguely to 'numerous war-crimes committed by all sides' (01:12:39), ignoring that over 83% of civilian victims of the war were Bosniaks. It says nothing about the Serb attacks on Muslims in towns across East Bosnia: Bijeljina, Zvornik, Foca, Visegrad etc.

19) It thereby constructs a false narrative of violence in the region started by the Muslim side, and the Serbs attacking Srebrenica because they were 'determined to stop this threat' (01:13:15). The Srebrenica genocide is therefore repackaged as supposed Serb self-defence.

20) The film attributes the massacre at Srebrenica to ‘chaos’ rather than genocidal intent (01:13:42). It admits it is 'considered the largest single act of mass killing in the Yugoslav wars and the worst in Europe since WW2’. But note the ambiguity of the word ‘considered’.

21) The film doesn’t admit either the figure of 8,000+ Srebrenica victims or the fact of genocide. It says ‘the verdict of this court [ICTY] that what happened in Srebrenica constituted genocide remains an open topic in some circles to this day’ (01:15:09).