As the burials and commemorations at Srebrenica conclude, the orgy of genocide glorification by local Serb extremists begins. As it does every year. And yet this lone barge, struggling along the placid Drina, whose bed is still lined with the bodies of murdered Bosniaks, neatly encapsulates how pathetic their entire enterprise has become. An impoverished, shrinking Serb populace, still governed by slack jawed brigands like Milorad Dodik, remains trapped in the sins of their past and current leaders. Unable or unwilling to take the moral off-ramps offered to them by their Bosniak neighbors who say only “come, grieve with us”. But they ignore their pleas, they ignore the invocation of Scripture to seek forgiveness. And instead they self-medicate with the delusions that anyone is still hurt or frightened by their guttural, drunken yodeling. Twice in the 20th century, Serb extremists attempted to exterminate the Bosniak people; in the 1940s and 1990s. Both times they failed. Because the Bosniak people will not be driven from their ancestral hearths. Nor have they ever sought the displacement of their Serb or Croat neighbors either. They have sought only to be left in peace, to raise their kin, to till their lands, and to sing their songs, songs of love and longing. Bosnia is a beautiful little country, with plenty, plenty of room for all of its myriad, wonderful peoples. But not an inch of its rugged turf will long accommodate those with hatred in their hearts. So, chug along little barge. These waters will carry you away yet.

Today, on July 11, we observe the global day of commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide, perpetrated by Belgrade’s proxy Serb nationalist forces in July 1995. Myself and many other Bosnian scholars and activists, and above all the team at the @SrebrenicaMC, have written extensively on the subject. As such allow me only a few brief points: 1. The Srebrenica Genocide was only one of the final, most horrific episodes of a broader Bosnian Genocide, perpetrated by said Serb nationalist forces between 1992 and 1995 against the country’s majority Bosniak community. 2. It is necessary to mourn and commemorate July 11 but in terms of contemporary Bosnian politics it is certainly not sufficient. The fundamental question raised by the Bosnian Genocide is the future of Bosnia, its sectarian constitutional regime, and the matter of reversing the political and social consequences of the genocide. Anyone unwilling to seriously engage with that question is not serious about genuinely mourning the victims of the genocide either. 3. The politics which animated the Bosnian Genocide remain active, indeed ascendant, in particular since 2024. Truly honoring the victims of Srebrenica and Bosnia means speaking clearly and directly about sanctions against the secessionist regime in Banja Luka, and other meaningful punitive measures against Dodik and his clique, including his broader network of allies in Belgrade, Moscow, Zagreb, and elsewhere. The rest is but deafening silence.