"Never Again"?: Learning the lessons of the Srebrenica Genocide

Focus

The 1995 genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina constituted a profound failure on the part of the “international community”. In the aftermath, the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO all admitted that more should, and could, have been done to prevent and/or halt the massacre of over 8,000 civilians. Though many “Never Again” commitments were made post-1995, the capacity and, crucially, the willingness of the international community to respond robustly and quickly to looming or actual genocide remains limited.

This panel will reflect on the causes of the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica – with a particular focus on the failings of the international community – to better understand what lessons have not been learned in the years since and why instances of genocide continue to scar humanity.

Speakers

Arnesa Buljusmic-Kustura, Scholars of Genocide Expert Group

Professor Eric Gordy, University College London

Dr Aidan Hehir, University of Westminster

Dr Kim Sadique, DeMontfort University.

Speakers Bios

Arnesa Buljusmic-Kustura is a genocide researcher and educator, writer, and activist. Her work deals with ethnonationalism, genocide denialism, and trauma of children and women in war zones. She is the author of "Letters from Diaspora" and the former Deputy Director of Remembering Srebrenica. Her words and work have been featured and published on the BBC, in The Guardian, The Independent, CNN, The Intercept, amongst others. Currently she is part of the Scholars of Genocide Expert Group working to elevate genocide discourse and research the genocide in the Gaza Strip. Additionally, she is working as an Advisor on the Palestine Genocide case at the ICC.

Eric Gordy is Professor of Political and Cultural Sociology at the School for Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. His research concentrates on Southeast Europe, especially the states of the former Yugoslavia. He is the author of The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives and Guilt, Responsibility and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post-Milošević Serbia,and editor (with Adnan Efendić) of Meaningful reform in the Western Balkans: Between formal institutions and informal practices. He was coordinator and principal investigator for the Horizon 2020 research project INFORM: Closing the Gap Between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans.

Dr Aidan Hehir is a Reader in International Relations at the University of Westminster. His research interests include transitional justice, humanitarian intervention, and statebuilding in Kosovo. He is the author/editor of twelve books; his monograph – Hollow Norms and The Responsibility to Protect (Palgrave Macmillan) – won the 2019 British International Studies Association ‘Working Group on Intervention and R2P’ book prize. He has published over fifty academic book chapters and journal articles. He is co-editor of the Routledge Intervention and Statebuilding book series and is a regular contributor to national and international television and radio.

Dr Kim Sadique is an Associate Professor in Genocide Prevention and Education at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her research takes an interdisciplinary and critical pedagogical approach to genocide and peace education with a particular focus on guiding practices at sites of mass atrocities. Her research interests also include the religion/crime nexus and she is author/lead editor of Religion, Faith and Crime: Theories, Identities and Issues (Palgrave Macmillan). She is Chair of the Academic Advisory Board for Remembering Srebrenica UK, Patron of Bosnia UK Network and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Prevention of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Her recent work involved the development of a Bosnian Genocide virtual learning ‘room’ as part of the Anti-Racist Wales Agenda, supported by a pedagogical textbook chapter entitled Antiracist Education: A Pedagogy for Social Change using a virtual Bosnian Genocide platform. As a scholar-activist she is committed to foregrounding the voices of survivors in educating about genocide, and provided the (overlaid) English voice for Kada Hotić’s testimony in the award-winning podcast series Untold Killing (Season 1: Srebrenica) created by Remembering Srebrenica UK and Message Heard.

Host or Publisher Remembering Srebrenica