This week we marked the anniversary of a modern genocide
I spoke at the Bosnian Genocide Remembrance Ceremony on Saturday to offer hope but we cannot forget
An honor
On Saturday I had the privilege to speak at the Bosnian Genocide Remembrance ceremony and walk in South St. Louis. Members of the community asked me to join them and share my thoughts on the 31st anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica and the slaughter of 8,372 Bosnian muslim men and boys at the hands of Serbian militias.
It is such a shocking event with a scope that is hard to capture with normal sense and logic. So many innocent people killed because of nothing but their religion and ethnicity in modern Europe.
When I was asked to speak as a leader of our region and potential member of Congress I wanted to do it by honoring the memory of those lost but also those who survived and came here to enrich our lives and start anew. The Bosnian community in the St. Louis area has become integral to our identity and the vitality of our region.
While many were lost…much was also gained and in that is hope. Here is the speech I delivered on that drizzly day.
Srebrenica- 31 years and counting.
As-salamu alaykum
Srebrenica - 31 years.
Today is 31 years of remembering…mourning…grieving…bearing the unbearable…and in the end, I hope, a renewed sense of purpose.
But before I speak of all of that, let me be quiet with you, because some of you carry names today that I will never know. Fathers, brothers, uncles, and more who were taken that day and so many others lost in that terrible grinding attack on humanity.
We are here to remember all of them but I want to honor the survivors and families who have had to carry on. Loss so great carries a burden for those who must carry on. The task of survival carries its own weight that comes with pain and struggle we don’t talk about enough.
I am here to remember those who were lost but to honor and support those who remain.
I stand before you today not as a leader of our community, a politician, and activist…I am here as a soldier and a man who has struggled with loss of my own for over 35 years.
That is the only reason I presume to speak about war or loss at all. I would not have taken on this invitation were it not for that. For those who don’t know my story, I am a veteran of the United States Army who went to war four times, lost men and allies during those tours but most pointedly for today, I lost my pregnant wife to a car accident when she was 7 months pregnant.
My experience in war did not make me an expert on your loss. My experience as a widower didn’t give me the experience of having my son taken from my arms and murdered simply for his faith.
But loss does teach you things. Going to war did teach me many things. Losing men in war did teach me the strange disconnect between the world’s perspective and the lived experience of the horrors of it all
For those that have lived it, war is never a number. It’s not a casualty count in the paper or a sterile list of statistics on a computer screen. With my war, my men are names on a memorial in Georgia with a dozen or so others.
But for those that have lived this horror ,it’s a recurring nightmare, a phone call, an empty chair at the table. It’s a memory of separation and the desperate search for answers. For you all it’s the shocking revelations as history unfolds of not just the deaths, but the failure of justice that followed.
What I learned in my life is that grief does not scale down or scale up with numbers. One loss is total. It takes the whole world.
But, our experiences part dramatically in the details. I wore a uniform. I carried a weapon. I chose to serve. I chose to go to war.
The people lost at Srebrenica chose nothing. They were fathers, sons, and boys, hunted for their name and their faith.
I went to war. They had war brought down on top of them.
A place called a safe area was not safe. The world made a promise and broke it.
More than 8,000 men and boys, separated from their families and murdered in a matter of days. The worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
Not distant history. Living memory.
Living memory in so many of you standing here today.
The graves are still being filled. Remains identified and buried three decades later. Just standing here this morning I was told of the recent discovery of the remains of a baby in the arms of its father.
The grief is present tense. I see it in your eyes. I see in the slumped shoulders. The lines on your faces. I see it in the pause before telling their stories.
I want you to know I see it.
Not just victims here
But as one who was asked to stand on this stage with you, not as one of you, but as a potential leader for this community I want you to know I see you not as victims but as hope.
As you know, St. Louis holds one of the largest Bosnian communities in the world. Survivors who came here for escape and safety and rebuilt their lives.
You are not victims frozen in 1995. You are neighbors, builders, business owners, believers. You are the answer to what they tried to erase. You have built a vibrant community that showed the entire world what that looks like just this month as your native country rose to the highest levels of world sports.
I saw so many of you wearing the colors of that nation but also wrapped in the flag of your new one.
“Never again” is not a slogan. It is an assignment. Tell the truth. Name genocide. Refuse the lie that it cannot happen again. Fight for justice. Fight for truth but also…fight for hope. Fight to make sure that those who are suffering now know that the fight is worth it. The fight for a new life and a new generation that will know only peace is worth the sacrifices and suffering.
Not a day goes by I don’t think of those I have lost: Jennifer, Madison, Hal, Mike, Mohammed, Ra’ad, and Bassam. I hold on to their memories not just for how they died but for how they lived.
You have the names of those you lost too.
As long as we can say their names, they are not gone. As long as we live on, we are honoring their loss. As long as we remember but move forward with hope for a better future for those that survived and what they have built then we win.
They tried to erase you. They failed.
We must renew our promise to ensure none of those monsters ever will.
Thank you for allowing me the privilege to speak to you and thank you for being here in our community making us better, not just for those you lost, but for those who survived.
Then we walked
After the ceremony the hundreds in attendance took to the streets in a symbolic march remembering the death riddled march of over 10,000 men and boys who attempted to flee Srebrenica after it fell through the mountains to Tuzla. Only 3,000 survived.
It was a heavy day with the memories of such painful loss. It was truly an honor to be part of it and support this amazing community that has done so much for our region as they have settled and built new lives.
It would be an honor to represent them in Congress.
Fred
Beautifully written, with empathy, sensitivity, and humility.
This country would be transformed by 435 representatives like Fred.
That may be impossible, but St.Louis has the opportunity of a lifetime within their grasp.
Fred, in 2001, before 9/11, as a newly hatched defense official, I went to Bosnia on a leadership visit. I was taken by a US natl guard company to a dig site near Srebrenica. It was years after the massacre, but locals had found a mass grave, left behind when Serbs evacuated. There were still thousands in the grave, all of whom had been dismembered before burial. The UN was excavating with scientific precision. Sites and smells that will never leave me. Ironically, UN guards were all Iraqi policemen. We must not forget this massacre and all the others of the 20th century.