Safia Lamdaghri, a Danish student completing her masters in Global and Development Studies at Roskilde University, is currently an intern with PCI in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The following is a reflection on her visit to the “Srebrenica–Potočari Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide” to learn more in depth about the atrocities that occurred during the 1992-95 Bosnian War and the legacy it has left on the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, even today.
It’s been a couple months since my trip to Srebrenica, and I am surprised by the toll it has taken on me. I feel mentally drained and worn down. It is like I have become hyperaware of a social reality I had not previously considered in depth. The most draining part is that I cannot be sure whether this hyperawareness of mine is genuine or something I am subconsciously constructing from the stories I have heard and continue to be exposed to: In museums, through conversations with peers, and online via social media.
I have become hyperaware of the fact that I live in a separate entity within the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and of how this entity embodies tales, narratives, and deeply rooted emotions that differ from other parts in the country. I am also aware of how these intense emotions are continuously fueled by political actors who keep renewing the feelings and resentments associated with a war that ended more than three decades ago.
People are not allowed to fully process or move beyond the emotions of the past. They are constantly fed stories that reignite old wounds or dictate how they should feel and think about history. They are forced to carry these emotions in the back of their minds for the rest of their lives, never truly ever experiencing peace. Mentally, they remain in a constant state of conflict. The opportunity to meet people simply as they are becomes nearly impossible. Instead, people are encountered through layers of assumptions about what they might think, believe or represent completely dictated by a third-party: the political sphere. There lingers a haunting sense that enemies are everywhere, and unless you conquer them first, you will eventually be conquered.
We contemplate how to prevent a tragedy like the one that occurred 31 years ago from happening again. But how will we ever succeed in preventing such an event if we fail to recognize the war that continues in the present? A war of minds.
As long as people listen to value-laden political narratives and allow themselves to be influenced by them, it increases the risk that these emotions fueled by hostility, fear, and victimhood will eventually manifest as physical conflict. Physical violence is often the explosion of countless unexpressed or unprocessed feelings and accumulated negativity. Before reaching that point, these emotions are released in smaller forms of violence: such as verbal insults and attacks, and online hostility. Consequently, people may reach a stage where the hatred and sense of victimhood they carry exceed the opportunities they have to express them. What begins with words then risks becoming violence.
In this sense, verbal insults, controversial statements, and hateful speech can be understood as symptoms of an ongoing war: a war fought within people’s minds. It spreads like a plague, transmitted through conversations, storytelling and insults, rooted in the political narratives. Those who absorb these narratives often do not realize that they themselves are victims. They are victims of a hostility-inducing environment, which shapes their worldview and burdens their daily life with disturbing emotions. They fail to recognize that their real enemies are the ones telling them stories, keeping them trapped in a miserable, constructed reality that can ultimately become a disastrous real one, where loved ones are dispatched to the front lines to fight for a “greater” cause. Truly, a never-ending horror.
During our discussions on my trip, we talked about how Turkey potentially is weaponizing the memory of the Bosnian War to create a sense of victimhood. A concern I agree with. We also discussed how the Bosniak community has been very resilient in resisting such narratives. Rather than using these memories as fuel for anger, hatred, or revenge, they use them as lessons from a past that must never be repeated. To quote a prayer engraved in the Srebrenica memorial center: May revenge become justice. May mothers’ tears become prayers, that Srebrenica never happens again, to no one and nowhere!
This sentiment offers hope. A hope that Bosniaks will choose a path centered on peace and justice, despite attempts by political actors to reignite feelings of resentment.
However, is this sustainable? Perhaps not.
If people are constantly surrounded by hateful and divisive speech, by celebrations of the suffering they once endured, by the hostility from those influenced by such rhetoric, it becomes difficult to remain unaffected. Those who are alienated by one group may eventually turn to spaces on the opposite side, where their resentment and desire for retribution can grow. They become vulnerable to narratives rooted in historical trauma and injustice, and in time may begin to respond in the same way as those who marginalized them.
Suddenly, they too become infected by the plague: a mental war in which conflict persists not on the battlefield, but in minds, memories, and narratives that refuse to let go of the past.
We need to create spaces where people can heal and process their experiences. In doing so, they can become self-aware individuals who act autonomously and feel confident in taking control of their own reality. They develop the ability to ignore rhetoric fueled by hatred and instead make conscious choices of their own. They come to realize that they possess free will and the capacity to think critically, questioning whether such divisive and cyclical narratives contribute anything meaningful to their present or future well-being.
Healing is therefore not merely an emotional process but a political and social one. It allows individuals to become confident agents who can engage with others as people rather than as representatives of collective traumas and inherited conflicts. Only when people are given the conditions to let go of the past without forgetting it can peace truly be glimpsed.
Further reading: cf. also Tshepo Madlingozi’s (2010) points in his article: ‘On Transitional Justice Entrepreneurs and the Production of Victims’. Journal of Human Rights Practice 2(2): 208–228.
