"Nobody Can Say It Wasn’t": Language of Power and the Bosnian Genocide, 1992–1995
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Abstract
Between 1992 and 1995, Bosnian Serb nationalists, with aid from the Republic of Serbia, committed genocide against Bosnian Muslims in an effort to secure territory for a larger Serbian state. General debates over the definition and process of genocide frame specific studies of why and how Europe’s second genocide within fifty years occurred. This thesis argues that, during the Bosnian genocide, the rhetoric of genocide became a language of power that destroyed lines of communication between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs, within the Bosnian Muslim community, and between American politicians and activists. In oral histories, interviews, public speeches, and court testimonies, Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Serb nationalists, and Americans spoke about how the mass atrocity alienated them from each other. In the years since the genocide, a lack of a common understanding of the events has inhibited inter-ethnic healing within current-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. Curtailing nationalist sentiments is necessary to prevent the country’s rising tensions from reigniting the conflict. Preserving survivors’ experiences, especially through oral history, is key to proving that the genocide did occur and to helping individuals and communities heal.
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Introduction -- Review of literature -- Balkan history and Bosnian genocide -- Serb perspectives -- Bosniak perspectives -- United States perspectives -- Conclusion
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M.A. (Master of Arts)