In 1995, 19 year-old Bosnian, Re拧ad Trbonja, witnessed first-hand the horrors of war, as his home town of Sarajevo was laid siege to by the Yugoslav People鈥檚 Army and later the Bosnian Serb army. This encirclement, masterminded by convicted war criminals Radovan聽Karad啪i膰 and Ratko Mladi膰, was to become the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare, with more than 13,000 deaths on both sides of the conflict.
Re拧ad, now a coordinator for the UK-based charity, Remembering Srebrenica, recalled to an audience of staff, students and members of the public on BU鈥檚 Talbot Campus, how the month of November sits poignantly as the month twenty-three years ago, that he was 鈥榖orn again and freed鈥�, being discharged from the army. 聽
Then a teenager with a love for The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and converse trainers, he described situations whereby friends of seventeen years became enemies, and blood donations became currency in exchange for food. Re拧ad offered chilling perspectives on how the human condition is affected during times of war and conflict.
鈥淚 discovered that my mate, who I was willing to die for, was actually not willing to die for me. There is nothing about war that you can predict. Every day in the war is totally different. Sarajevans were bombarded, scarred, killed by snipers, all sorts of methods that you can鈥檛 even imagine.鈥�
In explaining how divisions between friends and neighbours drove citizens apart, Re拧ad recounted: 鈥淭here might be something in-between two of you, a small crack maybe, that every single politician in this world aims for in order to say that it鈥檚 us and them. We lived next to each other for centuries, saying hi and bye, sharing Eid, sharing Easter and sharing Christmas.
鈥淪ociety was so well integrated that Christian households wouldn鈥檛 keep pork because they knew that if they did, their Muslim friends and neighbours wouldn鈥檛 be able to come and share lunch with them. And yet, we ended up killing each other so beautifully.
鈥淎sk yourself for a second, how much do you really know about the person living next door to you, or the person next to you in your class. Living next to each other is not good enough. This is the person where you knock on their door when you need a cup of sugar 鈥� it鈥檚 not going to be your mum, dad, auntie or uncle. Do you know their joys and fears?
Speaking after the event, Policy and Performance Manager for Bournemouth Council and the Borough of Poole, Sam Johnson, who organised the event alongside BU鈥檚 Head of Community Partnerships, Ian Jones, said: 鈥淭he things that Re拧ad said really stick in my mind as I try to understand how genocide happened. I thought it was important to bring that message here [to BU], it鈥檚 about underestimating rhetoric, which is important to share with academics, and among people in leadership positions. We need to learn the lessons of the past.鈥�
