Bosniak parents in the eastern town of Srebrenica are worried about the safety of their children after a photo taken in a local primary school showing students wearing traditional Serbian clothes, with “brothers Chetniks” written above it, emerged on social media, Bosniak representatives in the town said on Tuesday.
The photo of the nine students, taken during the celebration of Saint Sava Day, an Orthodox Christian holiday, emerged on Monday.
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The Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army was a WWII Serb nationalist movement. During the 1992-95 Bosnian war, Serb nationalists wearing Chetnik insignia committed numerous crimes against humanity against the non-Serb population in the Bosnia – including the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
According to the head of Srebrenica’s branch of the Islamic Community, Damir Pestalic, the incident is only another example of the problems in the education system in Republika Srpska (RS), Bosnia’s Serb-majority region.
Pestalic said it was a well-known fact that Bosniak returnees in Republika Srpska have “a problem with the system, policies and discrimination which takes place daily.”
“This is an ongoing battle, what happened in Srebrenica yesterday is only the final straw,” he said, adding that the RS education system “does not want to recognise anyone different” and that the curriculum there is only put together for one ethnic group.
He mentioned that Bosniaks have been fighting for the introduction of the Bosnian language in schools in the RS and for a different approach by teachers toward Bosniak students for years.
Srebrenica’s former mayor, Camil Durakovic, does not blame the students in the picture for what happened.
“The children are the least to blame, we are talking about a system which wants to raise such generations. Being a Chetnik and being a Serb who has a tradition is not the same thing,” Durakovic told N1 on Tuesday.
“We have various forms of ethnonationalism daily because of the past, but when this happens among children, we, as parents, ask ourselves what we should do now,” he said.
Durakovic explained that the clothes the children are wearing are not the problem but that the fact they are connecting that to the message ‘Brothers Chetniks’ is, arguing that “this has nothing to do” with the Orthodox Christian celebration.
He also said that he spoke to one of the Bosniak parents who told him he would report the incident to school authorities.
However, the former mayor believes that school authorities are the source of the problem because of the system where “it is allowed for schools to be named after war criminals who were proven guilty.”
“If children see this on TV, universities being named after (Radovan) Karadzic, what can we expect from them?” he asked.
“Now, I am forced to tell my daughter that the Chetniks killed her closest cousins, and that is how you bring children into an unnecessary situation,” he added.
The Deputy Municipal Mayor in Srebrenica, Hamdija Fejzic, also raised the issue of safety for Bosniak children, strongly criticising management in the school for failing to react.
“We expect an apology from the principal of the First Primary School Srebrenica, Dragi Jovanovic, to all the Bosniak parents and students,” Fejzic said, adding that he expects Jovanovic to step down because of the issue or to be removed from the position.
He also argued that the “silence from Serb political representatives is worrying” and that it is “a sign of approval.”
“We can not and will not allow our children to feel threatened in the rooms where knowledge should be passed on. Children are supposed to be children, safe and equal in their school, with all the rights that should be ensured to them. That is not ensured for Bosniak children,” he said.
“School should be the place where children should learn about positive values and, above all, to be good people. Obviously, some parents have failed in their mission. The same goes for the principal and the teachers,” he stressed.
