Columbia invites Genocide denier Dodik to give a lecture, uninvites protesters
October 27, 2011 10:11 AM   Subscribe

Columbia University Prevents Bosnian Americans from Attending Dodik Lecture Columbia university invited Milorad Dodik, president of the republika Srpska (a Serb republic within Bosnia and Herzegovina) to give a lecture on 10/25/2011. Dodik is an adamant denier of the massacres of Sebrenica and has said in the past that they were staged. Outraged, the Congress of North American Bosniaks registered to get the required invitations, and were turned away.
posted by Tarumba (27 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Here is a video of the incident (in Bosnian mostly)
posted by Tarumba at 10:16 AM on October 27, 2011


It's been 4 days since they sent that protest letter, and Columbia hasn't bothered to respond? That's almost as dickish and unwise as inviting the dude in the first place.
posted by elizardbits at 10:17 AM on October 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


OCCUPY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY!

Seriously what the fuck sort of genocidal apologists? Fuck that noise.
posted by symbioid at 10:30 AM on October 27, 2011


Didn't Columbia also invite Iran's president ? And Should they have an interest in not inviting /allowing in folks who quite apparently are there to disrupt ?
posted by k5.user at 10:31 AM on October 27, 2011


That's certainly one side of the story.
posted by unSane at 10:34 AM on October 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


Dodik is an adamant denier of the massacres of Sebrenica and has said in the past that they were staged.

But according to your own link, he believes that the mass killings happened, just not that they constitute genocide. While that still sounds like a shitty position to take, it's not the same as denying the massacres happened. It does, however, appear as though he claimed that the Tuzla Massacre was staged.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 10:36 AM on October 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


Unsane, please what the other side of the story is.
posted by Tarumba at 10:39 AM on October 27, 2011


Also, AFAIK Serbia is completely seperate from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:40 AM on October 27, 2011


dunkadunc, Serbia and Republika Srpska are two different places.
posted by Tarumba at 10:42 AM on October 27, 2011


Republika Srpska is part of Bosnia and Herzgovina, alongside the Federation of Bosnia and Herzgovina. Serbia is next door, and is an entirely different country, though as the name implies the there's an ethnic overlap in that both Republika Srpska and Serbia are majority-Serb entities.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:47 AM on October 27, 2011


Reports of the talk and protest from the Columbia Spectator and the Bwog
posted by plastic_animals at 10:49 AM on October 27, 2011


You'd think I'd have known that having worked with Serbs all summer. But no, they just talked about how much they hated Albanians and Turks.
posted by dunkadunc at 10:57 AM on October 27, 2011 [4 favorites]


Unsane, please what the other side of the story is.

Columbia's, presumably.
posted by unSane at 11:03 AM on October 27, 2011 [3 favorites]


That's almost as dickish and unwise as inviting the dude in the first place.

Columbia dickish? Who'd have ever thunk such a thing?!?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:10 AM on October 27, 2011


Mod note: Couple things removed. Tarumba, I dig that you're obviously interested in this but you need to not use the thread as sort of a personal chat session on the subject. Once you make a post to metafilter, it's best to mostly just sit back and let it be, not be super responsive to other folks in here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:20 AM on October 27, 2011


Also, AFAIK Serbia is completely seperate from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The war criminals running Republika Srpska thought otherwise.
posted by atrazine at 11:33 AM on October 27, 2011


It sounds like they didn't allow a specific group to attend, rather then somehow checking people's genealogy to see if they were Bosnian.
posted by delmoi at 11:36 AM on October 27, 2011


too many unanswered question in this.

1. Are all Bosnian-Americans not allowed to attend (as the FPP frames this) or only those registering trough CNAB

2. His talk, at least from the title of it, seems to have little to do with the massacre topic, does CNAB just not want him to talk to audiences at all about anything?*

3. AHAWO brings up a pretty good pint irt what the doink has actually said

4. I like the idea of the FPP, and would be interested in something a bit more in-depth but think the links here are shallow.


* yeah he does seem to be an asshole... but
posted by edgeways at 11:36 AM on October 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


duncadunk, "Turk" is an ethnic slur many Serbs use to refer to Bosniaks.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:10 PM on October 27, 2011


duncadunk, "Turk" is an ethnic slur many Serbs use to refer to Bosniaks.

It is? I've never heard that before, and I'm Serbian.
posted by Aubergine at 2:12 PM on October 27, 2011


Its absolutely fascinating and horrifying that different "true" histories of the war are embedded in the general public, to the point where everyone believes that their side was attacked first, and everyone believes that the other side was the only ones committing atrocities.
posted by stratastar at 3:21 PM on October 27, 2011


And unlike Germany after the war, there was no Vergangenheitsbewältigung.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:23 PM on October 27, 2011


Right, and it bears repeating how local Serb villages and townships were, turned/radicalized by Milosovic : troops (pretending to be muslims) were often used in local villages in fake attacks which reinforced the rumors and radio play of Muslim attacks. This became the true experience of many many people, their memories, and their history of the war. Once they were turned and they took part in their "own defense" there will never be changing that truth though. Their kids will believe it, because they believe it, with no doubt.

Insidious. Fucking Insidious.

(I don't know if the same tactics were employed on the Muslim sides).
posted by stratastar at 3:35 PM on October 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


To clarify some points that I didn't make because I was furious while making the post...

Watching the Bosnian video, it was apparently people with Bosnian names who had got tickets were not allowed to enter (for example, there is a man who was not allowed in, while his American wife was). Bosniaks understood this as being "because they are Muslims", so it adds one more scar to the discrimination they have already suffered.

He's not talking about the massacre, but about the "success" of the Dayton agreement, which is a complete lie to anyone who has heard him speak back home.

For the sake of argument, consider Texas. Imagine a political leader in the sourthern parts of Texas starts stirring shit up in order to convince texans that they actually are mexicans, so much so that people start calling their territory Mexican Republic. This political leader feeds the population BS about non-Mexican people, while he whines that mother Russia doesn't help, and criticizes the US for meddling in his affairs (by meddling, read: preventing the further massacre of men aged 12 and older, although he says this didn't happen in such a bad scale? I dunno, but it doesn't count as genocide!!!1).

So Columbia decides to invite this guy to talk about the success of the Dayton Agreement, when he himself lives preaching about how Dayton screwed them over and how his people are the victims of the world. And true, the Dayton agreement was...not entirely succesful because people still hate each other and BiH has three presidents for Christ's sake. One per religion, so nobody feels left out! So having him, him talking about peace and the hopes of the Balkans, that's just wrong.

People like this guy broke Yugoslavia apart. They also broke families apart. Before this nationalist bulshit, people lived together, married, had a community. His nationalism and the hatred he created between religions/nationalities destroyed the Balkans. He is in no position to discuss peace because he hates peace. He needs conflict to feel superior and to advance his political career.
posted by Tarumba at 4:22 PM on October 27, 2011


Croats and Serbs at the Australian Open tennis tournament.

Sort yourselves out.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 5:55 PM on October 27, 2011


"Turk" is an ethnic slur many Serbs use to refer to Bosniaks.

Bosniaks are ethnically/genetically pretty much the same as Serbs and Croats. The reason they are now a separate group is that during the Ottoman empire, some of the locals converted to Islam. Depending on the particular time this might have been more or less coerced. Benefits for doing this could vary from not getting killed, to becoming a local stand-in for the occupiers in an administrative post.

All this happened long ago, and what's done is done... but this is why the Serbs are so pissy about the Bosniaks: they are (from the Serb perspective) the descendants of Quislings. People there have really long memories.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:41 PM on October 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


All this happened long ago, and what's done is done...

Not in the Balkans, it isn't. Nothing is ever done in the Balkans.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:15 AM on November 1, 2011


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