Welcome to the Dean show.
>> How much this country has suffered and
to see this happiness
[music]
[chanting]
Oh my god.
Makes me very emotional. gives me
goosebumps because my father that's my
father's roots and just to see 70,000
singing probably the Bosnian fans won
already the World Cup.
>> My next guest Harun Mhmedovich is a
Bosnian film maker, cinematographer,
producer and writer. He's also a
survivor of the siege of SVO, the
longest siege of a capital city in
modern history during the Bosian war.
Through his work, he's documented
history, memory, and the human cost of
war. Harun,
how are you?
>> I'm good. Uh, thanks for having me.
>> Thank you for accepting.Amikum. I'm
going to go ahead and um I want to first
start off with with this um this video
here and
I want to ask you what is it that caught
the attention of the football fans
around the world. We recently saw this
Zlatan
Ibrahimovic get really emotional while
listening to uh this Bosnian fan
singing. And for those that might not
know the background, we'll get into it,
but I want to go ahead and play this and
then go from there.
>> That's all about what football is all
about. Bringing people together and
especially for Bosnia, how much this
country has suffered and to see this
happiness
makes me very emotional. gives me
goosebumps because my father that's my
father's roots and uh just to see 70,000
singing probably the Bosnian fans won
already the World Cup and uh it makes me
happy very proud over them and uh and
see them also advance from the group
stage and but the special moment is when
the fans are singing this is
makes me emotional I cannot even express
myself good now but very very emotional
moment And uh I'm just happy. I'm just
happy.
>> Give us some background to this, what
he's actually talking about for soccer
fans. They're hearing this. They're fans
of his. They don't know much about what
happened in Bosnia, but it got a lot of
people emotional, him included. If you
can give us some of the background,
please.
>> So, basically, in the four games that
were played in a World Cup in United
States, uh it just so happened that US
is located where like the largest
Bosnian diaspora is outside of Bosnia
pretty much, which is in United States.
So they packed all the stadiums and they
also came from Europe to be in in these
games. And one thing that people noticed
when they showed up is they obviously
did the very pro Palestine marches prior
to the games.
>> Which kind of stuck out to a lot of
people. I saw a lot of videos about
that. But separately from that, once
they were in the games, they sang a
particular song in every one of these
games and actually multiple times
depending on which game it was. And all
of them were singing in a chorus. So he
was really t but he was because this
song is a reference uh to a halib bash
song back from 91 right at the beginning
of the war like right prior to war
beginning about the liies and lily
became the symbol of the multithnic
Bosnia meaning the sort of the opponents
of the greater Serbia ethnostate which
was what the was all about really in in
Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. It was an
attempt to create an ethnostate by the
Serb extremists and everybody, not just
the Bosnjaks, but everybody who was
opposed to this idea of an ethnostate
was fighting in a Bosnian army or was in
some way helping uh the cause of the
Bosnians.
And that song has become ever since then
really a kind of a rallying song for a
lot of the supporters of Bosnia, for
survivors of the and so on. It's not
really a political song. It's a love
song, but it has this reference to the
liies. And liies became a symbol of the
multi-thnic state. And it's on the first
Bosnian flag, which some people may have
noticed at the games that people are
carrying two flags. They're carrying the
original flag under which the country
was recognized as an independent country
in 1992. and it has some liies on it
which is a reference to the Bosnian
kingdom
uh and a kind of a rallying flag for a
lot of Bosnjaks.
And then the second flag is the sort of
internationally mandated flag post
agreement. And so he was talking really
about the song and hearing so many fans
echoing singing at the same time. And
obviously his father is from Bina in
Bosnia and he was very emotionally taken
hearing that song and hearing that many
fans and he knows that it's more than a
soccer game. It doesn't they didn't come
there because they thought Bosnia was
going to win the cup. They came there
because it meant so much that a country
was in the World Cup given that it was
meant not to even exist.
>> Wow. Tell me, this is truly amazing.
Tell me, can you tell us uh about
another World Cup player, Edin
Joeko? Is am I pronouncing his name
right? He has an incredible story
because he wasn't even supposed to be
there. He wasn't supposed to exist.
>> Yeah. So Edin Jo and I share a back
background because Edin Jo, who's a
little younger than me, not much by a
couple of years, he and I were in the
sie under the siege of Sieo for four
years.
And at that time obviously we were not
able to really play outside much. And
then at some point when I think
everybody in Sieo that was under siege
since uh early 1992
at some point all of us as people living
under that siege decided to I I guess
have their our own versions of of
resistance or protest. Obviously some
people were in the army and were
actually defending the city from uh from
basically falling. And if it had fallen,
anybody that's studied anything about
the Bosnian has seen what happened in
places where Serb units entered that
fell. These are brutal, brutal and war
crimes that happened in them. So our
lives were depending obviously on people
defending the city, but also we all
found our ways to be uh to be to have a
resistance, right? And one thing you'll
notice a lot if you look at the photos
of the siege of Sieo is you'll notice
how many kids are in those photos and
often the kids are playing soccer out on
the streets of Sieo not on football
pitches because football pitches had
become graveyards cuz so many people
were dying in Sieo. There was no room
for graveyards anymore. So they used any
bit of uh things like gardens, things
like parks and things like football
pitches in order to convert them
essentially to graveyards. So you'll see
a lot of kids and Ed and Jacob being one
of them and I being one of them as many
of us were playing soccer as a form of
resistance in a way. We would go outside
even though we knew it was dangerous but
we did it as sort of a statement. you
can't kill. So, you can't kill a spirit.
And we were out on these concrete
streets where a lot of grenades or
shells fell and killed a lot of people.
And some people unfortunately died
during uh these times when kids were
outside playing. In fact, one famous
massacre in SVO was a shell that fell in
the middle of a children's game in
Dorya.
Uh but it was for him and for me and for
everybody else, it was a way to sort of
resist and to keep our sanity. and he
had survived and he became uh I think
probably one of the most underrated top
level players in Europe given that he
had scored well over 400 goals which
puts him in a very elite group of
players and he used I guess his
experience of being under siege as a
motivating factor of having survived it
but also he knew that he was playing for
something bigger because every time his
name is called and Bosnia is discussed
we're also talking about the that
happened So there's all this deeper
meaning behind it all. And I do think
that was the same case with Ibrahimovic.
Even though he was born in uh Sweden,
uh if you notice in a lot of his
interviews, he always felt like he had
something to prove and he wanted to he
had this incredible confidence and and a
lot of that confidence is drawn from the
fact that we had, you know, as people
had survived and we were meant to not to
be alive. Um and I think that's meant a
lot for a lot of people that come from
that region. and Jacob just happened to
be the most successful probably
well-known name as far as sports people
from Bosnia. But you could also put
Ibrahim in the same discussion because
even though he wasn't born in Bosnia,
his daughter is from there and he's
obviously emotionally familiarly highly
tied to Bosnia.
>> I recently had a guest on my program.
We're talking about Albania, what's
happening there, the uh protests and
also uh what's happening in Bosnia and
his name was Beck and he was explaining
that [snorts] they were and I want to
get your thoughts on this. Are do you
believe that uh he believes that they're
getting ready to start a war in Bosnia?
And he goes into why was it selling
weapons to Serbia including this drone
technology signing a recent deal of $1.6
6 billion arm deal and then you had we
can get into this uh video real quick
and then uh have you re respond to it
[music]
for for people that don't know who is
this lady and uh what do you think about
his statement uh that they're getting
ready to start a war in Bosnia and with
this $ 1.6 6 billion arms deal.
What are your thoughts?
>> Well, I I've been wording given I'm
doing working on a project that
documents the in Bosnia. I often get the
question, how did this come about and do
you fear there could ever be another?
And my answer has always been I not only
do I think there's going to be another I
can practically guarantee that it would
would be and people often tell me why do
you say that? Well, it's because the
ideology that drove the previous
instances of whether that be in 1870s
uh uh whether that be 1941 when another
one started or whether that be 1992 when
a whole other one started against the
Bosnjaks, it's really always been about
this ethnostate ideology and the idea
that Bosnjaks don't belong to being in a
region even though we are as Bosnjaks
indigenous to Bosnia. It just happens to
be a lot of Bosnjaks that converted to
Islam under the Ottoman rule and they've
been propagandized against as people
that don't belong in the region because
a lot of them tend to be Muslim. Not all
of them, but a lot of Bosnjaks are
Muslim, a fairly large majority.
And uh the ideology that drove the
previous has not gone away. And there's
not a single single piece of evidence
that I've come across where there's been
any kind of meaningful reconciliation
and reintegration after the last meaning
that 99% of the criminals are still
unpunished and walking free, the ones
that are still alive 30 years later. And
the the vitriol and the uh propaganda is
still running pretty strong. And now you
could say it's even more aggressive
because they have the internet now to
try to propaganda as before it was over
the radio and television and in the
households and so on. But now there's
the internet which is hugely like
influential obviously with reaching as
many people and also the uh people in
the region are more separated than ever
now because of this these separations
that occurred in Bosnia under the Dayton
agreement but also just in general. uh
Yugoslavia was much more sort of mixed
up. People were living next to one
another. There there's way less of that
happening now, meaning there's a lot
more room for propaganda to spread. And
there's a lot of red flags that I'm
seeing. One of the red flags is some of
the the uh politicians and other people
of influence. The kinds of rhetoric that
that's coming out of them is almost
identical to the kind of rhetoric we saw
in 1989, 1990, 1991 in the buildup to
the Bosnian.
I'm also seeing the armaments issue
which I think Beck was talking about
which was that there was a kind of a
push to arm with new weapons and so on.
Uh there was a lot of uh arming of the
civilian population in 1990 1991 around
Bosnia and I mean the Serb civilian
population because there was a plan for
and they were preparing to do it and
they did a lot of armying under the
table. Now they're actually way more
brazen about it. I think when you look
at some of these drones like investing
in drones, who are they really going to
attack in a region like the the two
options are really Kasovo which they
attempted to in 1999 but chance of that
happening is probably low because United
States military presence in Kasovo I
don't think they're going to allow a war
to to steamroll through the military
bases that are down there might happen
but I'm saying that the more realistic
set of circumstances here is that the
attempt to uh reignite the Bosnian to
keep it going because you people have to
understand it never ended. It just got
frozen in 1995 based on Dayton agreement
which didn't resolve anything. It just
froze the situation and now the people
that committed a lot of those crimes
which basically were rewarded with half
the state that they
49% of it uh they're all ramping up with
their with their uh rhetoric about you
know get rid of the the Bosnjaks. So the
fact that these weapons are being sold
to Serbia and also the fact that there's
now some weapons factories being opened
in SSKA which is the the Serb entity
within Bosnia. I think people have to
understand that these are not just
random events that this is definitely
part of this idea that if we were to
start another it's probably not going to
be like the old one. meaning you're
going to have heavy weaponry of the
Yugoslav National Army and you're going
to dig into high positions across the
country and put everything under siege.
More than likely, the vision of that's
coming is one where you have tools like
drones or something like bombing a
mosque by going in it and large amounts
of people and you only require one or
two people to do that or even a machine.
Right? So in other words, I think people
are, let's just say, engaging with large
amounts of cognitive dissonance when
they look at what's happening and they
say none of this could ever happen again
or it's not possible. I look at just
evidence at hand, like just things that
I'm noticing, same as Beck noticed it.
And I don't think his his gut roll
feeling is this is bad. This is bad red
flags. And I would I would agree with
him. I I think you have to look at these
things as incredibly dangerous
precedents as the Overton window so to
say keeps moving towards making another
acceptable and you have to look at also
Serb relation with right-wing movements
across Europe which are all anti-Muslim
right like all of them are and they're
trying to gain support across the board
with those people and I I bet you they
also want them to come and fight on
their side if there is another meaning
to draw a lot the fighters from Western
Europe, they just want to Muslims
because if that opens up in Bosnia,
their next thing in their mind is going
to be, well, once we get rid of all the
Bosnjaks and kill the 2 million of them,
we can go ahead and move and kill the
rest of the Muslims in all of Europe.
You have to understand how these people
think. And the idea that this can't
happen or won't happen is just is is
just cognitive dissonance. It's meaning
like your brain is telling you uh that
things are better than they seem to be
and you're essentially engaging in
self-d delusion that this could happen,
right? And and in Bosnia, this will
affect everybody. It's not just the
Muslims of Bosnia. It's anybody that has
a name that sounds like they may be a
Muslim. Anybody that lives in the areas
where there's Muslim majority
population, like if you're a Serb that's
still in Sieo and believes in
multi-thnic Bosnia, you're going to get
targeted too. Or Croat that believes in
multi-thnic Bosnia, you're going to get
targeted too. So, so again, people have
to understand that this is a just a
frozen situation which is currently in
stage 10 denial of genocide has 10
stages, right? Right now, it's in stage
10 denial of the last and it's probably
in stage four or five of the next.
That's where we're at.
>> You said there's 10 and we're in what?
>> I think in as far as the last the one
from 1992 to 1995, we're in stage 10 of
it, which is denial, meaning erasure of
evidence, a cover up of what happened.
And we have many many examples of that.
I could write 10 books on examples of
how the has been covered up.
>> Mhm.
>> Right. And then there's also you can
look at the next coming as a separate
just for sake of argument and say that
we're probably in in stage four or five
of that meaning we're in the
dehumanization stage. We just haven't
gotten to the stage where we're fully
now ramping up like paramilitary units
or whatever plan is going to be to fully
annihilate everybody. But that could
happen very quickly in this day and age.
We have to understand that in 1991 1992
Bosnia it went from a stable state to
essentially dark ages within a few
months and in in Sievo it felt like that
was more like 2 weeks.
>> So that's that answers my my next
question. Sorry to cut you off is that
people will say well there's so much
investment going on in in Bosnia. It's
growing the economy. People wouldn't be
investing.
>> But uh what would you say to that?
I think that's delusional thinking
because you have to understand where the
priority list is for these people. The
priority is to get to their ethnostate.
They will sacrifice massive amounts to
get their ethnostate. You have to
understand that last time around 25,000
Serbs died as soldiers in that they gave
their life away in order to accomplish
their ethnost state. That's still their
goal. So the idea that they're building
a house or building a factory, you're
building a building, that is far less
important than accomplishing the ethnost
state. So people have to understand that
they're willing to sacrifice everybody
and their mom as long as they get the
goal that they have at the end. And the
goal is to have an ethnically pure
ethnostate. And the idea is these people
think long term. Even if they lose every
single business they built, even if they
lose every single building they built or
whatever investment they made in a
country, once they get their ethnostate,
they think long term. We will rebuild
and in a 100 years our ethnostate is
going to be successful. That's how they
think, right? The reality may dictate
things very differently. But this idea
that because they're investing, they're
not interested. That is just complete
delusional thinking. That is not based
by any any fact. And in fact, find me
one case of anywhere and people trying
to build an ethnostate where they where
their business interest supersedes the
ethnostate. That's not the way it works.
Tell me, we don't hear much about u
religion mentioned here. When it comes,
we hear ethnostate, we hear um uh Serb
extremist, we hear the term chutnik, but
uh from looking into it deeper, people
have seen that many of these priests
were blessing the guns. We see that and
I'm not trying to in any which way blame
Christianity but what religion were
ratum ladich these war criminals we see
them in church we see them uh if you
were to ask many of these people that
you talk about what religion would they
identify with and this is in no way
blaming the religion but I'm just asking
because we anytime a nut job does
something and just because his name
might be you know connected to an Arabic
name or something Islam is like put
under the microscope. But what religion
would these people identify with?
>> So I'll answer that question in two
parts. I'm going to put as as a preface
to my answer. I think if B if Bosnjaks
were Buddhist, the same would happen. If
Bosnjaks were Jewish, same would happen.
If Bosnjaks were any religion, the same
would happen. So I'm going to put that
as a as a as a preface to this answer.
The idea here was that uh uh there is
the the Serb ethnost state that that
that Serb extremists wanted to build.
That does not include all Serbs. There
were Serbs that fought uh in a Bosnian
army. There were Serbs that were against
the ethnostates. I'm saying the
extremists. They are highly entrenched
with the the Orthodox Church of Serbia,
which by and large probably yet a
massive percentage uh has supported
them. There's of course exceptions to
that. There are Serb Orthodox priests
which are against the ethnostate. But by
and large, this has been an an
institution that brainwashes people
along with any other uh institution in
Serbia that was controlled by the Serb
extremists. It's just another
institution controlled by Serbic
extremists and they use religion as a
way to spurn it. So meaning like to
motivate people to get into it is partly
to scare them to say that you know these
Catholic croats are coming to kill us.
For example, as it was in eastern
Croatia, southern and Delatia when in
1991 they were committing all sorts of
uh attacks and and genocide. One could
argue in some cases in Croatia they uh
used religion there as a as a way to
motivate people, right? To scare them to
say there's these other people with
other religion. But the Bosnia was a
major major goal for them because they
were entrenched across most of the
country. So if they were going to
accomplish the greater Serbia
ethnostate, the Bosnia was their best
chance to do that.
>> And because they existed practically
they had pockets of extremists
everywhere in the country. So who was
who was going to be their number one
target? Well, it was going to be the
Muslims or the Bosnjaks. Majority of
Bosnjaks are Muslims because they're the
largest population that you have to in
order to get the atan state and in order
to clear, you know, keep them in the
areas which Serbs had split population
in. Like for example, Podrinia, which is
the eastern Bosnia, was about equally
split population between Muslims and
Serbs, right? Or Bosnjaks and Serbs. And
of course, you're going in order to
ethnically remove everybody from that
area except for the Serbs, you're going
to use something as a motivating factor.
Of course, religion was used and there's
a long set of myths going all the way
back to to Ottoman times when Serbs lost
the battle of Kasovo. Of course, they
never talk about the fact that Bosnjaks
were part of the the battle of Kasovo.
They fought on the same side as Serbs
and Albanians were in the battle of
Kasovo also fought alongside Serbs
against the Ottomans. But now all the
sort of mythology stemming from Ottoman
Empire is aimed at any other population
in the region that's not the Serbs.
My concern this time which what makes
this one a little different than the
previous is that this time the amount of
Croatian extremists is even bigger. And
th those are the guys that are saying,
"Look, if we're going to split up
Bosnia, why don't we just split it up in
two crotz will take one chunk of Bosnia,
Serbs will take the other chunk of
Bosnia." So now what you're seeing a lot
is Croatian extremists also demonizing
the Bosnjaks
who they actually share an area in
Bosnia with which is the Federation. The
entity is a shared entity between the
two. But there's a lot of propaganda
saying, you know, crotz in Bosnia are
endangered because of the dangerous
Muslims, right? We recently saw a
situation where a a Roman Catholic uh uh
uh w woman who was a nun in in you may
have heard of this. There was a nun in I
think it was in Zagreb where this
happened where she came to a hospital
and she said a couple of Muslims stabbed
me and she was blaming a couple of
people from the Middle East right that
had stabbed her. Later on they found out
that she actually lied and she admitted
later to have lied. She faked the
stabbing in order to blame the Muslims.
You guys I mean everybody who's paying
attention to this and looks at these
situations has to understand that
they're not isolated incidents. These
are organized incidents part of an
ideology and the ideology that's now
occurring in Bosnia is not just greater
Serbia ethnostate ideology. There's also
greater Croatia ethnostate ideology. And
who stands to lose in that whole deal?
It's going to be the Bosnjaks because
they're in between those two in the
regions they would like to control in
the cities and the remote regions and
the villages and everything else that
that those guys want to control. So in
other words, if another happens, this is
going to be a twosided
how many twoside genocides have we seen
really ever, right? So it's shaping up
to be a total situation and
unfortunately a lot of Bosnjaks are
mired in cognitive dissonance, meaning
they're not understanding their their
geopolitical positions correctly in a
way that for example Kosavars are much
more in tune with their geopolitical
position. Albanians happen to be much
more in tune with their geopolitical
position. Bosnjaks are like we nothing
will happen. Everything's going to be
fine. The same attitude they had in
1991. And people have to understand that
is the way their trauma has expressed
which is cognitive dissonance. And that
cognitive dissonance in a situation will
get you period.
>> You've been documenting so many
different stories. I even talked to
yesterday had a conversation with
someone from SVO who was there also. He
was a survivor and some of the stories I
mentioned that you talk about he didn't
even know about. So I was like wow
there's so many of these stories. Uh let
let's share some of those. One of them
that come to mind when you talk about
the programming the conditioning you
think you know how can a mother a mother
who's the mer the mercy towards that
child. But then you mentioned a
15-year-old steepo
>> this story about steo
>> and what was that about? Please uh fill
us in about this. Um even uh you
couldn't even trust your own mother.
>> Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's one of
the there are many crazy stories, but
that's one of the craziest, right, that
I've heard, which was there was a guy
called Stipa Variota who was a
15year-old disabled child in Sieo. He
was had me cognitive disabilities, okay?
And he was in the home for disabled. And
when Sieo started to descend into what
it descended into, which is just dark
ages, right at the beginning, they let a
lot of kids out of that school for
disabled that whose parents were further
away from the city, maybe in villages or
towns away. And he happened to be from
Kalenovique, which is a basically a town
that's an hour away from Sievo. He was
under Serb control, all right, at that
time. and he went back to his mom and
his mom was this Bosnian Serb woman and
his dad was a Bosnian Serb crot and he
was born out of wedlock
and his father and mother had separated
and he went back to his mother's house
and when Serbs showed up and started to
organize in Kalanovik meaning to get all
the local Serbs to join the Serb
extremist forces
they came to her and she agreed to join
them I believe as a nurse in that case
and uh as part of that because they were
doubtful of her. She was they were like,
"You had sex and produced a child with
somebody who's not a Serb. You need to
prove yourself that you are loyal to the
Serbs." So, she actually ended up
telling them, "You could take my
disabled child and take him away. That's
going to be my way of proving my
loyalty." So, you have to understand how
deeply entrenched that ideology is to
get somebody to do that. Mhm.
>> And not it was it wasn't like that she
was a straight psychopath.
Uh that just shows you just how
brainwashed people get and what they're
willing to do and and that is a story
I've heard thousands of times during the
last
there's also another story that this one
I is the one I particularly shared that
you talk about where you had a mass
grave in Sanski Mos and of 124 men uh
that were thrown into this woods like a
hole but not Not only did they uncover
those later because of a survivor, you
had bones dating back to like 1944.
There was a before that that happened.
Can you just summarize that story and
where that happened?
>> Yes.
>> And then one key one key thing I really
want people to really reflect the
perpetrators you talk about, they're
still roaming around free.
>> Yes. As they did during Yugoslavia.
That's the thing. During Yugoslavia in
between the attitude.
So this is another story that sounds
crazy. It actually happened but
basically uh they took a group of men
from Omar concentration camp in Pedor
and they took them to an execution site
which is close to Sanskos a different
town and they executed in there and then
some years later somebody gave away the
location. So they it was actually a
survivor that had lived long enough to
tell the story and then somebody was
able to kind of coordinate that story to
a particular spot. So they found this
this mass grave. So they found all these
bodies and it there's actually horrific
image of it. You could see where it's a
room full of bones because it was in a
little cavern that it got thrown in from
the top. So it was just a pile of bones
at the bottom. And when they took all
these bones out, two of the skeletons
were very odd. Like their bones were
very porous. They didn't look right to
to the investigators. So they found out
that these two were actually two
Bosnjaks executed that went missing but
were executed there in 1943 I believe.
And uh so what's the story there? The
locals in in the 1940s also were
conducting a genocide of the Bosnjaks
and they these two men and kept it a
secret for 48 years. Nobody knew that
they were thrown into those into that
cavern. And then in 1992 when they
continued they resumed the the same
locals told the Serb army we have this
great location for you guys to execute a
large amount of people and they knew
that because they two people 48 years
earlier and not a single person out of
that village that was near that
execution site had ever spoken up about
it or let anybody know that those two
bodies were in it. So in 1992 they
execute 14 124 more people and then in
1998 they pull all those bodies out and
realize that this is actually a sheer
massive mass grave between two. But
what's in common? What's in common is
the perpetrators. What's also in common
is the victims. Perpetrators there
Serbic extremists. The victims are
Bosnjaks.
>> Where was this located this town? What
is it called? So Sanski Mos is the
region where
>> is where this grave is in. But there's a
little village called Pod Vidacha which
is avid
>> a little Serb village that have been a
Serb village for a long time. And they
uh basically had quote unquote
ethnically cleansed. I don't like that
term ethnically cleansed. That's what
they like to say. They the Bosnjaks out
of that region mostly 1940s.
But they kept all the secrets a lot of
that meaning they did not share where
they disposed the bodies. So we now
found out one of those places.
>> Help us understand where is this? Is
this by Fcha? Is this by Gage? Where is
this uh this town?
>> This is in so this Sanskimos area is
basically in the very northwest of
Bosnia. So in Kina which is the region
on the very
>> towards which way is it?
>> Towards Croatia. So if you look at the
Basian map, west is towards Croatia,
east is towards Serbia. So the 1940s and
the 1990s happened in all those regions.
It happened in China on the in the west,
in the north, in the east and in the
south. Same regions that were in 1940s
were again in 1990
>> because people often what just passed
the July 11th remembrance of so people
uh who don't know they restricted just
to that. But you just mentioned there's
like all over it was happening.
>> Yes. So before before 78 ever happened
>> 23,000 people had already been executed
across the whole country. So in other
words started in April on April 1st of
1992
is when Bina was attacked and
so once that attack happened the attacks
began across the entire country where
they put essentially villages under
siege and started eradicating village by
village and people were forced to flee
and people that survived were people
that were able to flee across mountains
and and and forests and so on. Thousands
of people flee that way. For example, in
Kina, which is close to uh where this
story took place with 124 executed men,
they all hid into Bhaj. Bhaj was a
little town uh basically next to
Croatian border and that town was put
under siege. And the reason why people
in it survived is because the siege
didn't collapse. If the siege had
collapsed, we're talking tens of
thousands of people dead there. Sieo had
several hundred thousand people under
siege. If that fell, that's hundreds of
thousands of people dead right there.
>> Monstar was under siege. If Monar siege
fell, that would have been 100,000
people right there. So, we have to
understand that the reason why numbers
are even not much higher is because
those people fought for their very lives
under siege in order to survive.
>> Do you know anything about the t town
called Chinicha?
[clears throat]
>> Of course. Chiniche is a little town
between Fcha. Technically, if you draw a
line, it's between Fchae and Vishagrad.
And Chiniche was a little town that was
in 1940s and was then again in 1990s.
Actually, quite effectively, I think not
a single Bosnjak had remained in China,
I believe, after 1992. So, they were
pretty much entirely those that survived
escaped out of China on foot in the
forests and ended up making their way to
uh if I'm not mistaken, Gage. [snorts]
So again, the reason why they survived,
the few that survived is they made their
way to uh under siege city managed to
break through the siege from the other
end and and save their lives that way.
So yeah, China is one of many many
hundreds of towns that could.
>> Now I'm going to show you this next
video and I'm surprised it's still up.
It's been viewed, I believe, over 5
million times. And I want people to just
picture if this video was talking about
the people who were exterminated by the
Nazis and praising the Nazis of that
time. [snorts] What would happen with
this video? And I want to get your take
on this. See if you've uh listened to
this before. You could translate it. And
it goes into this ideology and this
boldness. It's it's really disturbing.
>> What were they saying for people that
It's basically a song that was made post
and the song says uh proudly my dad is a
war criminal. So he's saying this is a
Serb extremist saying my dad is a war
criminal and nobody has the balls to
take him to court and basically they're
saying with impunity come take him to
court. Go ahead. Come on come come on
over. Essentially we're very proud of
everything we did. We like the fact that
we raped and killed and murdered and and
you know threw babies into caverns which
is what happened in Bosnia and come on
come on come and come and grab us and
take us to court if we got the you know
the balls to do that but um that is
really comes to uh symbolize the entire
impunity right and ideology that's
happening there which is that they were
never really punished for what they did.
the punishment was very uh let's just
say a slap in the wrist in the context
of the and they're now saying uh well
now that we can get away with all that
we did you know we'd love to do it again
and they will try to do it again I was
sitting with a person who is u bringing
the story to light you talked about it
and reminded me it was a few weeks back
actually last month and he's actually
from the town of Arnold Schwarzenegger
what was his friend that Arnold
Schwarzenegger considered this man
I believe his name was Fikaret. And the
person that was telling me about the
story, he wanted to create awareness of
it and he was bringing it to my
attention. Then I saw you talking about
it. Can you talk about Arnold
Schwarzenegger's friend and what
happened to him
in the town of
>> So this was basically a guy born in
Keani which is in Pedor in Bosnia which
is also an area in uh the northwest side
of Bosnia close to Sanskos where the
other event happened. Uh so he was
actually a one of the most successful
athletes in ex Yugoslavia. People that
don't know Bosnia was part of
Yugoslavia. was unified into this larger
country after World War II. Uh, and he
was one of the biggest athletes. He was
actually the bodybuilding champion of
Yugoslavia for 15 years straight. I
think between 1976 and 1991,
he had held that title and he was also
competing internationally and he had he
was third place Mr. Universe and anybody
that knows about Mr. universe is the
largest bodybuilding uh prize in the
world and it's the one that
Schwarzenegger had won several times
and it's actually what made him famous
as a young man and when uh Fikret was
competing for those titles
internationally eventually he met Arnold
Schwarzenegger and they became friends
and actually when Fikrret was killed in
Pedor in 1992 was actually executed by
some of his own students from his from
his uh bodybuilding gym Uh
Schwarzenegger heard about the death of
Figret and he sent this letter pretty
much right away to his wife really to
his child to his son uh Je uh and he
wrote to him essentially he wanted to
encourage him not to give up cuz he knew
what this meant that his father died and
that his family would have to rebuild
from scratch. So there's this letter,
you can read it, uh it's online, where
he encouraged them not to give up and to
have a constructive life and to take
care of his mother, which is
unfortunately what happened with a lot
of people is the executions were largely
focused on men in Bosnia. It was it was
large percentage of those that were men
uh that were taken away to concentration
camps often and executed and often the
women would be left uh that that were
able to survive would be left with
children basically without the dad. So
that letter was in in many ways was a
letter to basically all children that
were in that position. But it was
through a guy that he knew was a friend
of his. So
>> So what's happening now is I want people
to imagine if you had let's say some
really radical extreme individual out
there and uh the whole world knows about
him. Uh he's he's some Islam let's say
Muslim extremist. Okay. And now you have
whole countries who are parading him.
Can we say this is people who are
convicted war criminals, perpetrators of
the greatest after World War II
celebrated as national heroes? Is is
this what is happening? And children in
the schools are being taught the a
fictional version of history like this
never actually happened.
>> That's right. So in in 48 49% of Bosnia
there's active denying of right and part
of that denial of is to have the school
systems
present at the best they were criminals
in in in in okay light like okay they
were just fighters for our homeland but
in many cases it's like these were
actual like heroes you know that did the
right things and because the entire
world is against us all the courts that
these people were taken to were were
rigged and you know this is because the
entire world is against us right which
you could hear from any uh supremacist
ideology they always say the same thing
which is the entire world is against us
you know but the the reality is in in
Serbia and in the Serb entity in Bosnia
and actually in Serbian diaspora as well
largely is that uh these guys like Karaj
like Madic who were you know either
given orders murders or some cases
carrying out the murders themselves
uh are celebrated as heroes like their
acts of murdering uh Muslims but not
just Muslims meaning Bosnjaks
or anybody else is viewed as as an act
of heroism because they're helping us
establish our state. It's always about
the ethnostate, right? In supremacist
ideologies, it's always about creating
an ethnostate. So anybody that's that
that's helping do that doesn't matter
what they do it can never be wrong. And
in fact the worst that they transgress
the more of a hero they are. And that is
definitely the true in terms of Serbia.
There's some people that haven't even
gotten their uh uh chance to be called a
hero because they simply just didn't
have enough people. You know, if you
killed only quote unquote 200 people,
well, you're just not on level of ladage
who killed at least 8,372
people in Sanita, right? But uh he
killed way more than that because he
gave orders and and and commanded
attacks that killed way more people than
that. But by by sheer numbers and the
amount of crimes he committed, he's of
course the hero number one. And if you
were to remove one person out of
equation, which is NovakJokovic, right,
who who is a tennis player in Serbia and
he has he commands a certain amount of
fandom because he's a tennis player,
right? If you were to remove him out of
equation, the number one unquestionably
hero in Serbia would be Rat Kumad.
Wow. And where does Nobo Jacage, the
tennis player, where does he stand with
all this? Are there people like him? And
like our religion, I mean, Islam doesn't
teach us to hate someone because they're
actually Islam saved the and according
to David Warrenstein, the academics, you
know, Islam saved the jury. You, we
don't have to go into that history now,
but they fled persecution of Christians
over to Albania, to Baza, to Turkey, and
the list goes on. Same thing. We don't
hate people because they're Serbian, but
um are there people on the ground from
Serbs and others who are trying to push
back against is Novo Javovich and others
who have a role to play as people who
are influencers, people who people look
up to, they're national heroes. What are
their thoughts on this?
Well, some of them ended up uh being,
for example, supporters of Bosnian
soccer team in a World Cup and they got
attacked for doing that. Like in his
case, he showed up physically at to the
game against Italy when Bosnia was
fighting for its life to make it to the
cup, right? It was the qualification
game and he showed up and he actually
got blasted by Serb extremists for doing
that. So essentially yes there of course
there are people who are not in favor of
the ethnost state and there are people
who are basically uh trying to uh have
like spread the ideas that there needs
to be like reconciliation and
cooperation between the countries and so
on. But you have to understand that that
the people that are controlling the
levers of power are the extremists. And
anybody that steps out of line is going
to be at best attacked publicly for
doing so like Jookovic was. Right. But
there's going to be also some people
that are just outright killed for trying
to do the right thing. And in fact, I
have a whole series that I do as part of
my project which is called the great
Serb heroes series. And I tell stories
of all these Serbs that did these
incredibly righteous things during the
where they risk their lives lives of
their family where they gave up their
life in order to try to stop the so yeah
I think demonizing an entire nation
based on the acts of extremists is just
wrong. There's lots of people who are
not extremists and who actually in fact
gave up their life. But with that being
said, the extremists are in control of
everything. And the the system that they
run is such that if you step out of
line, your life is going to become
miserable and you're going to be
excommunicated. You're going to be
blacklisted.
You're going to be attacked, potentially
murdered, and you you have no option
than than to leave the country in order
to go somewhere else in order to
survive. Right? So you have to, I guess,
understand that first and foremost, an
extre extremist in Serbia are holding
Serbs hostage. they're holding any Serb
that disagrees hostage and in fear and
in a potential threat for to for their
life. So, um yeah, that's an important
point to state that really it's we
should not paint with broad brush
strokes. We should understand that
there's a system in place that's there
to uh discourage, threaten, intimidate
anybody that has any other opinion and
that wants any other future for the
region.
So you did answer the question earlier
and we'll conclude with that that it it
will happen. I asked you are they
planning a an attack like they did
before. You're saying it it is eminent
and let me ask you what's the timeline
if you were going to prophesize if you
are someone who's going to predict if
you're going to predict what do you
think how long?
Well, in our region, uh seems to happen
every about 40 to 50 years. So, we're in
year 31 now since the end of right since
1995. Well, I was I should say it's not
the end of it's this when we cross into
stage 10 meaning stage 10 is the denial
stage. The murders stopped but the
denial continues. Right? So, if and that
happened in Yugoslavia too. there was
denial of everything that happened in
World War II uh by the state too. Uh so
basically if we were to just follow the
timeline I would say people should be
very worried about what may happen in
the next say uh within like 10 years to
about at most 20 years. But I should I
should also say something there's always
events that play a role in this right
right now there's a lot of
dehumanization and radicalization
happening. Usually there's a catalyst
for when things really kick off. And I
would be very concerned especially in
this region if there's any kind of a big
destabilizing war somewhere that happens
and then the effects of that reach
Balkans or if there's a huge economic
crisis that happens and then the effects
of it reach Balkans because those are
the kind of like seismic events which
could quickly tip things over into
again. So, uh, as much as I could
predict maybe when could this happen,
again, I always preface when I say
anything is I want to be wrong when I
make these predictions. I want to say
that things that that when things don't
happen, I'm going to say that's
fantastic.
I'm just I'm just pressing the alarm
button because I'm compelled to press
the alarm button because of the proof on
sort of the proofs in the pudding. And
what I'm seeing as red flags is highly
uh uh dangerous things that are shaping
up, right? So all I'm going to say is
like if things don't happen, that'd be
amazing. I I I you know, pray things
don't happen. But I'm going to say based
on all the evidence, things will happen
>> and things could happen much faster if
there's a destabilization. But what I'm
seeing now is a ramp up of
dehumanization. When that reaches the
point where people are getting executed
on the street, even if it's one or two
people somewhere or three people
somewhere, that is the next stage,
that's when you cross from
dehumanization to now executions. And as
as soon as you start getting into the
execution stage of things, you are
moving the orbit window to make it
acceptable to execute. So in other
words, people should not engage in
cognitive dissonance and say no things
are going to work out fine. things are
not going to work out fine.
>> If they work out fine, it's because
things have moved massively in the other
direction because of some positive thing
that has happened. But that means
there's an action that was taken and
things are not just on their own going
to turn out okay. It's just not going to
happen that way. What's going to happen
is they will they will keep pushing the
boundaries uh theers right people that
want to j they'll keep pushing the
boundaries till they get what they want.
And one of those boundaries is going to
be stepping into executions and then
going from executions to wholesale
executions, which is what happened in
1999, 1991, 1992. They were executions
of Bosnia in 1990. But they were
isolated events
and uh people didn't pay attention to
that that much. They were like, "Ah,
well, it's an isolated event." No, it's
not an isolated event. It is a stage
that's going to lead to the next stage,
which is wholesale murder.
>> What's the benefit? You always hear uh
never forget. And the Holocaust is
always always always um [snorts] talked
about in a certain community. They
really don't want you to forget. What's
the benefit of do you feel Bosnian the
Muslims and Bosnians Bosnjaks are kind
of uh forgetting about this and what's
the benefit of us uh talking about it?
>> Absolutely. They're forgetting about it
because and I'll tell you where you
could clearly see that when you go to
the different commemorations around the
country there are commemorations to the
murders of thousands of people. I mean
you look at an example of pedor for
example or kujanskimo is just as few
areas where thousands of people were
executed across those areas. Uh I was at
some commemorations where like 10 to 20
people show up. So they can't even get
one person to show up per person killed.
Right? So in other words people are
disengaging from the memory of it. And
also like a lot of the Bosnian diaspora,
they don't speak the language. So their
children don't read about what happened,
which is why I started doing this
project in English. So they can
understand what happened in each
village, in each area. So each of their
families was affected by the they
wouldn't be in St. Louis, United States
of America, unless they were pushed out
of Bosnia. They probably were not just
going to get up and go to St. Louis.
They ended up there because they
probably had to escape for their very
lives. So the idea that you that your
child should forget about that is crazy.
that like if you forget about it, it is
basically a betrayal of everybody who
died and everybody who suffered and it's
also a betrayal of the people who are
coming who could potentially fall under
another.
So you you cannot forget I mean
forgetting is just crazy exercise and
really it dooms you essentially to
sleepwalk into another genocide and as I
say sleepwalked into a mass grave. Uh
and we have done this several times now
as Bosnjaks. We did this in 1800s in
1941 to 45 and now we did it in 1992 to
1995. So I always called this the
Bosnjak
culture of amnesia like we engage
constantly in culture of amnesia and
that is a trauma response. Like the way
we deal with trauma is like to say ah
let's forget about it nothing will
happen. We forgive we forget. You can't
do that because the people that are that
did that to you are not forgetting
anything. They're pushing the same
agenda now. Like they're like the
terminator. like they're basically
pre-programmed to get their atnost state
and they're going to keep pushing
regardless of what generation of these
guys it is. They were doing it six
generations ago and they're still doing
it now. They're not going to give up the
atma state. So if you're not ready to
defend yourself and defend your
position, you're going to eventually get
killed or you're going to get expel
expelled out of the region forcefully,
which is what essentially happened to
half the Bosnjaks. Half the Bosnjaks
left Bosnia. like it was 50% of the
population from 1991
was left after 1995 meaning they left to
western Europe they left to Australia
they left to America they left to Canada
and all these other places where they
left to right some even ended up in Iran
and places like that like and most of
them never came back right so in other
words were 50% successful that's the way
to look at it last time and if they look
at those percentages they're going to be
like well we just need one more and we
can get rid of them that's their
mentality
and the rest of the Bosniaaks are like,
"Well, I hope it's not going to happen."
And they still think like the outside
world will come and help them. Bosnia
was for all intents and purposes a live
streamed for all intents and purposes.
You can find all those videos of Sieo
massacres, right? And children dying out
in the street. Nobody cared about that.
World didn't get up and come and help
us. UN was present to the ground and in
fact in some cases collaborated with the
Serbs and murdering people. Just look at
what happened in Sebins, right? So in
other words, this idea that the outside
world will come in and save us, that is
just crazy. There's no proof for that.
The only people that can save you is you
by being organized by being well armed
and being ready for these kinds of
situations. Like instead of living like
a fool that's hoping things are going to
be fine. I mean, it is literally like an
infantile childlike mentality where
you're essentially saying, "Oh,
everything's going to be fine. You
nothing will happen, but if it happens,
things people will come and support us."
I remember like when I was a child when
SEO fell under siege lots of people came
and told us are the war war is going to
be over in two months because UN will
just stop this there's going to be a
military intervention
by the west in order to stop the Bosnia
nothing happened none of that happened
and in fact when people tell me like
what about the NATO that came in and
bombed Serbia that was Kosovo
that was like 10 years worth of carnage
and murder that happened and the only
reason why they did that meaning inter
NATO interjected because United States
really needed to place a base in Kasovo.
They saw it as an opportunity to park
American army in Kasovo. So they of
course interjected into that situation
for self selfish reasons and none of
them did much in Bosnia and I'm going to
come up with lots of different examples
where they did some quite bad things and
collaborated on some of the aspects of
Right. So in other words, um this idea
that like the UN will come to help you
or NATO will come to help you is just
madness. It's complete insanity. Uh it's
not going to happen. So in other words,
if you do not become an adult and start
behaving like like the way we are as
Bosnjaks is I feel like we stick our
hand in boiling water every 50 years and
we get really badly burned and then we
forget we stuck the hand in the boiling
water and that the water is boiling and
then we stick it in there again. Like
you have to understand you're surrounded
by total wolves and they're treating you
like sheep and you can't afford to be
like a little sheep hanging around
because you're going to get eaten
eventually. And that's the problem with
Bosnjaks. They need to get over a
problem that they have culturally of
forgetting by design almost at this
point. They are they are wanting to
forget. They're wanting to pretend
didn't happen. It's not going to happen,
but it will. It'll happen again. How
many mosques were destroyed during this
um aggression that happened versus
churches?
>> So in the Serb controlled areas of the
country, meaning the areas that their
army controlled, all but one mosque was
destroyed.
So that is if I'm not mistaken, I
believe it was like 500 some mosques
were destroyed in Serb and then Croat
destroyed about 100 mosques as well.
>> So 600
>> over 600. Yeah. So
50 or something masks and then they also
destroyed all the other religious
buildings. So any other religious
building like religious school uh and so
on those were all destroyed. So I think
the total number was something like,00
Islamic objects were destroyed in
Bosnia. Uh and also there were many
damaged beyond repair meaning they could
not be restored back to the original
condition. So the numbers are actually
higher. It's Florida closer to 2,000
when you count fully destroyed and
partly destroyed, right? Objects. So
that was by design to erase any presence
of Muslims in the region to make it
disappear. And most of those objects
under Serb control were not just
destroyed. They were taken apart. The
little bits and pieces of those things
were moved somewhere else, thrown into
rivers, thrown into fields, other things
were built with them kind of stuff. So
in other words, they were erased like
they were never there. You wouldn't even
know in most of those places. And um
that was part of I I call it the
cultural.
Uh and then the other part of genocide
of course is to prohibit marking those
places meaning to say there used to be a
place here or making it really hard to
rebuild say a religious object which
happened in a lot of places. And in some
places they built a church on top of a
mosque. So then you had to go through a
really lengthy legal process to get rid
of that object because it was illegally
built on top of what was a mosque for
500 years. So in other words, that was
all part of the genocide. And now I
heard even another really weird thing
that's happening in Bosnia which is that
and it's specific to mosques uh mosques
which were rebuilt in the Serb
part of Bosnia like the Serb uh uh
entities what I call it like 49% of the
country. uh when they did rebuild the
masks uh when you put them on Google
search like on Google Maps, there's been
a lot somebody or an or like a group of
organized people going around and
removing any mask that's on Google
search
>> which makes you wonder what what's that
about? Why would they do do that? But
that's part of this idea of eraser. Like
if we can't get rid of it in like being
present in a landscape, we're going to
try to do our best to get rid of it
digitally. Meaning like if people are
going to want going want to go visit to
make it harder for them to visit those
places to find them to know that they're
even there and uh they have not marked
any mass graves right in Serb entities.
So all the mass graves are pretty much
unmarked. I think there's a couple of
areas where but we're talking here about
thousands of you know several thousand
mass or individual graves right that
exist and they're all out there you know
being unmarked. People don't know where
they are. they don't know how to go pay
respects to where the people were
killed. So that's all part of this
eraser or denial stat side of so things
are happening right now that are like
alarming enough. I mean I'll give you
one example uh init which we've talked a
lot about compared to the rest of
Bosnia. There was a a large execution
site where most people were really
executed called Kavitz. It's a
warehouse. People have seen that photo
if they ever search murders. There's a
video of these bodies in front of a
warehouse. It's one of the few videos we
have of of people that were executed
during that warehouse was recently
rebuilt. Not rebuilt, but like renovated
quote unquote so it can be put back to
use. Nobody's going to be using that
building. Let's make that clear.
Nobody's going to be using that
building. They have changed it, meaning
they've uh uh rebuilt it for intents and
purposes because they want to remove all
the bullet holes and bomb remnants and
other things that are in that building
because it was when you passed by it, it
was very clearly a place of execution.
It had like hundreds of thousands of
bullets riddled across of it cuz they
shoved thousands of people into that
object and they murdered them all by
shooting at the object and throwing
bombs into it. Right. So now they
rebuilt it supposedly or like renovated
it. That renovation is all about eraser
of a location of murder which in any
other situation in any other healthy
society that is trying to have a
reconciliation process those would be
like places of visitation. like there
would be like museums, they would be
memorials where people can go and learn
about what had happened with the whole
never again situation, right? But in
Bosnia, those places are just
disappearing. They're getting destroyed.
They're getting knocked down. They're
getting we're pretending these things
never happened. And that is a really
concerted effort to erase any of that
and then when next that comes just erase
all these people all together then erase
all the places and then we'll just
pretend nothing ever happened here. What
happens uh when you have you had
conversations with someone who
identifies nationally as a Serb and
you're having a conversation?
What is usually the talking points if
this comes up? Are is there regret um
with the majority? We're sorry what
happened or do you get into this denial?
Like give me an experience. Have you had
some experience with uh some locals from
rep from the Republic of Serbia or any
that you've engaged with as a filmmaker
and how do those conversations go? So uh
I'll make a preface to this that there
were a lot of Serbs that fought in the
Bosnian army that were in Syria during
war for example and so on. So there were
Serbs that were pro multiing Bosnia or
against ethno ethnostate and fought on
on together with all the Bosnjaks right
and the Muslims right and and Kats as
well. So with that being said, they did
a a poll in 2018. I think it was an
Alazer poll of the Serb entity in
Bosnia, meaning the 49% controlled by
the Serbs in Bosnia. And they asked the
question, uh, do you believe there was
in Serban? They asked the question, do
you believe that Rat Kumladic, who was
the butcher of Sony, is he a hero? Is
Karaj who was the lead the political
leader of of Bosnian Serb extremist, is
he a hero? Between all those people I
think on average about 74 or 5% uh said
that this was not a and these people are
heroes.
>> What's the percentage?
>> 76
>> like 75 76. So that is virtually three
four three out of four people
essentially subscribe to extremism.
>> Wow. But as I always say jokingly, don't
let the 75%
in that poll ruin the 25% that maybe are
not. You have to give credit either way.
People that are saying they're
extremists, believe them. People that
are fighting on behalf of multithnic
Bosnia and do not want extremism and do
not want uh you know to happen again,
you have to give them credit, too. You
can't just with a broad. Now, with that
being said, is there a single example of
reconciliary action by criminals
involved with things that happened,
right, war criminals? No, there is none.
The closest to it was people that in
jail said, "We admit to have done it."
But almost all of them after they were
let out of jail reversed their position.
And they said, "The reason why when we
went to the Hague, we said we did it is
because we wanted a shorter sentence.
And as part of our bargaining, if we
admitted our guilt, we were given short
sentence, but we really are don't
believe in in you know what we said. We
really are still ethnostatists and
believe in it. And you know what you
should believe when people tell you what
they're telling you honestly, right?
When they were under pressure of court,
that was one thing. When they're out
free out in the country and people
asking them questions, that's going to
be closer to their real point of view.
And the real point of view is that all
these people, they have zero regret.
zero regret of what they did. And in
fact, I think Bosnia may be one of the
most extreme examples in all of the
world where you literally cannot find
reconciliatory uh uh uh action between
victims and the perpetrators. Right?
There may be some groups ink who are pro
multi Bosnia. I'll give you that. That's
not what I'm talking about here. I'm
talking about people that committed
crimes going back and having a
reconciliary action with the people to
whom they've committed crimes to. In
fact, in all of Bosnia, I can find one
example of this happening, but it was
actually a Bosnjak who did it. In the
case of Chbichi, which was a camp held
by the Bosnian army where there were
some war crimes that happened, right?
The guy who did it, Alandra is his name.
He was taken to court in HG was given I
think 10 years or 15 years whatever his
sentence was. He came back he sought out
people who he kept prisoner and who he
committed uh atrocities to for
forgiveness and to try to help them and
tried to work with them. One guy who
happens to be Bosnjak in all of the did
anything like that. And mind you,
Bosnian army committed less than 5% of
all war crimes that happened in Bosnia.
>> Less than 5%.
>> Less than 5%. 85 80 to 85% were towards
Bosnjaks mainly by Serbs. So like Serb
extreme,
>> this is documented. There's receipts for
this. People can go Yeah.
>> Yeah. So if you search, if you go and
search uh crimes by who did it, right?
By factions. So like Serbs, Karatsu,
Bosnjaks, it's something like 8055. Like
80% Serbs, 15% Karats, 5% Bosnjaks.
And the only example of reconciliation
that I can think of is a is a single
Bosnjak guy from Chileichi.
So we're talking about a region not only
that is so steep in denial and where
propaganda is really strong, it is an
unreconcilable region in the way that
people have approached the sit
situation. essentially saying we are not
giving up our position. We are not going
to reconcile and we will just continue
our when the the situation presents
itself. remember the last time couple
years ago I was in Bosnia I did a put
together a documentary and in talking to
some of the survivors there exactly what
you were saying that they I didn't see
them carrying such a hate but they were
talking as if look um we'd like to
forgive but nobody's asking for
forgiveness I remember that how can we
forgive if no one's even asking for
forgiveness so there there is this
denial and people are still wandering
the streets. These criminal, no one's
bringing them to justice. So that's the
sad part of it.
>> No. No. And also like I think Bosnjaks
by nature, and I did some videos on
this, by nature they're a little bit
forgiven and forget people. So I feel
like they would probably issue a lot of
uh forgiveness if if it was asked,
right? But I'm not so sure they should
because somebody asking it doesn't
really mean much. They have to engage in
meaningful reconciliation. Meaning they
have to reintegrate with community and
help community and build community and
do all these actions to show like
tangibly show that they've changed and
they want to make a difference and to
put things into in towards positive. So
in other words, somebody just coming
down and saying can you please apologize
that doesn't mean anything
>> right? That could be that could simply
be that there as there are many examples
their child got sick and they got they
suddenly are afraid of God and they want
some forgiveness or like they give away
the location of a mass grave because
they're afraid that their child is being
punished because of their silence. Like
they're even their guilt is fake. It's
it's driven by selfserving like uh
tendencies, right? Like I'm afraid that
I'm getting sick. My child is getting
sick. Oo, you know, I'll give you one
example. Funny one about that. uh not
funny or not so funny, right? But there
was a mosque in Kuna which is near which
was bombed as the first object they
bombed when they shot rockets onto the
town and they they hit the the the
monara as we call it of the mosque uh
the minret they hit it with rockets but
it wouldn't fall down. It was actually
fairly newly built mosque or rebuilt I
should say in that case and they uh
couldn't knock it down. So then when
they the village they brought all these
trucks and bombs and it took them like a
full day in order to knock that min
down. It was just holding up because it
had all these like steel sports and so
on. And then they busted into mosque and
started stealing stuff. So something
really odd happened like in 1996 there
were people that were coming back after
the uh day agreement and people were
reaccessing those areas. They were
survivors of Cloa. They came back to
their village and they noticed something
really odd. All the houses were burned,
but the mosque building was still
intact. Except for the minet, the
building was intact. So, they went in
and a lot of the things were in there.
And they were like, "What? How did that
happen?" Well, there was something that
they noticed that was interesting.
They'd built these little scaffolds that
went up to the top and they were clearly
stealing some stuff from the mosque from
like the roof of it cuz there was these
beautiful ornaments and stuff.
>> And then the locals told them one of
these guys that were stealing tripped,
fell down, and died. And all of them got
scared that this was like punishment
from God for stealing from the mosque.
So they took all the things they stole
and they brought it back in bags and put
it in the haram which is the little
cemetery next to the mosque and they
left all those objects and they said we
apologize, we apologize, we apologize.
So like when seems something seems to
suggest there's almost like a divine
intervention that's happening suddenly
they're scared and they're very sorry
>> like you know don't kill us for having
done this. So that is like another
example of just this sort of mentality,
right? Where they have like such
impunity, but yeah, every so often one
of them is like, "Ooh, but what if we're
wrong, you know? What if we're wrong?"
And there's something called divine
judgment and punishment. Well, now we
have to be careful. And sometimes we got
to start try to seek apologies and other
things, but it's all in bad faith.
[snorts]
>> I don't Thank you very much. Um, I was
really impressed with a lot of the
stories. is very sad, but I think it's
something that's very important that
they're told and you're telling uh
stories for victims who can't tell those
stories for themselves. So, I commend
you for that. God bless you and uh I
look forward to hopefully meeting you
one day in person if I come down again
to to Bosnia, inshallah.
>> Yeah, I I'd be glad to hang out. Thank
you so much.
>> Yeah. What's the name of your
organization again?
So the project that I'm doing is called
the acts of rearial and it's essentially
social media campaign to educate the
world about the Bosnian all the things
leading up to itself and all the post
genocide issues so they have a clear
understanding of what happened in Bosnia
and also ideally if I'm able to every
single crime that I can that I have
evidence for as best as I can that is
documented so people can get almost like
a beat by beat of the entire which you
can't really get about any job really.
>> Yeah. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> Peace be with you.
>> Wow. Truly sad. [sighs] And this can
never be forgotten. Just because your
head is in the sand
and you're caught in this delusion or
cognitive dissonance as my guest was
talking about doesn't mean this reality
isn't true. You're intoxicated with the
world. You're chasing the dunya and
you're not thinking of this reality.
Now, you know, as I said earlier, Islam,
submission to the creator, not the
creation,
doesn't teach us as Muslims to just hate
someone because they're of another
religion, a ethnicity. No. I've
interviewed many Serbs and Croats who
have actually accepted this way of life
from the creator, Islam, submission to
the will of God. But this hate, this
hate propaganda is extremely dangerous,
no matter who it comes from. And
unfortunately, it's among many of the
people from this region who identify as
Christians. Yet, you'll never see their
religion being blamed. Nor do we blame
Christianity. But that's the hypocrisy.
Over 600
places of worship. Monotheist houses of
worship worshiping the creator were
destroyed while the churches in SVO like
this is the Jerusalem of Europe, they're
still standing. And this is because of
Islam. So this extreme nationalism as I
said and my guest talks about is very
very very dangerous. God Almighty the
creator did not create us to just hate
one another. He created us in different
nations and colors and languages so that
we get to know one another, not hate one
another. And whoever is preaching and
teaching this dangerous rhetoric, you're
in your community need to stand up and
speak out against it. No matter if
you're Serb, Croatian, Bosnian, whoever,
this hate propaganda needs to stop. And
just like I went up and I interviewed
one of these uh Chutniks, I sat with him
and I said, "Is this what your Bible
teaches you?" You can watch the
interview
where Jesus, as you call him, the prince
of peace, who we love, by the way, is
one of the mightiest messengers sent by
God, the Messiah. We believe in him,
love him. But are you following? That's
what you asked him. Are you really
following Jesus, peace be upon him? who
said to love your your neighbor. Are you
really following his way or are you
following the way of the devil, the
satanic forces?
So, never forget, don't be delusional.
Don't be in a state of cognitive
dissonance as my guest was explaining.
Do your part now. Do your part and share
this. That's the least you can do to
create awareness so we can truly never
forget and good will always prevail. We
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Asalamikum.