1 May 2022 marked the 30th anniversary of the ‘Day of the White Ribbons’. The day commemorates the consequences of a decree issued by the Bosnian Serb nationalist authorities during the Bosnian War: Bosnian Muslims, Catholic Croats, and other non-Serbs were labelled as ‘others’ and forced to wear a physical identification mark (white ribbons) and mark their homes with white flags. The day is now commemorated by the wearing of white ribbons. In this way, attention can be drawn to the war crimes committed in north-west Bosnia in 1992.
What happened?
In the 1990s, during the war of aggression against Bosnia, Serbian nationalists forcibly took power in the town of Prijedor. All non-Serbs were forced to mark their upper arms with white ribbons and their houses with white sheets. They were then deported to concentration camps, rape camps, and death camps. The events were part of the genocide of Bosniaks, i.e., Bosnian Muslims. Nearly all the victims (at least 94%) were Bosniak (Muslim). However, the Serbian troops also murdered other non-Serbs. More than 3,000 people were killed in just a few weeks. Tens of thousands more were tortured, raped, and displaced. In the years that followed, even more people were murdered.
Why is this important?
Prijedor has been controlled by Serb nationalists since the genocide. In terms of remembrance policy, they have prohibited survivors from erecting a memorial to the children murdered in the genocide, among other things. Instead, there is a memorial in the Trnopolie concentration camp that commemorates the perpetrators. The genocide of Bosniaks between 1992 and 1996 is a central component of right-wing extremist and racist ideology. Many far-right terrorists have made reference to the genocide and used it as inspiration: from Utøya to Munich, from Halle to Christchurch. How can we counter them if we don’t know about the genocide of the Bosniaks? It happened in the nineties, in the middle of Europe. Just a five-hour drive from Germany. If you live in Munich, you live closer to the Omarska death camp than you do to Hamburg.
