“Instead of learning from the past, we have used it as political ammunition”

DANIJAL HADŽOVIĆ - journalist [Bosnia and Herzegovina]

GENERATION OF LIVED HISTORY

The war does not end with the cessation of the conflict. Survivors continue to carry it deep inside them. The way post-war society relates to war affects individuals and shapes transgenerational memory.

• How has the generation that lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region during the wars in the former Yugoslavia – and especially during the genocide in Srebrenica – experienced and shaped this history in the past 30 years: through personal memories, reflections, but also through narratives in the media, films, books, textbooks and rituals of remembrance?

"The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina did not end in 1995. They just stopped shooting. Everything else – hatred, trauma, ethnic divisions, political manipulation – continued to march, only without a uniform and AK-47s. And while the survivors carried their scars in silence or in psychiatric clinics, the society decided to carry them in campaigns, textbooks and TV News at 19:30 – of course, each their own war, with their dead and their criminals.

The generation that survived the war, and especially the genocide in Srebrenica, did not get a chance to heal collectively. There was no national catharsis, no true transitional justice. There were judgments from The Hague that some celebrated as justice and others welcomed as an insult. And instead of learning from the past, we used it as political ammunition. Schools are divided, textbooks write different truths, and children from the same city live in parallel worlds.

Media: Well, they're like the priests of the new cult of memory. Every July 11, we see the same faces, hear the same speeches, the same moral doctrine – and on July 12, we return to old habits: denial, relativisation and everyday nationalism. Movies and books? There are also valuable works, but too often they slip into cheap pathetic or political agenda. As if it were not enough that we have been through hell – we must also "consume" it in the form of cultural production that serves the nation more than the truth.

Meanwhile, generations born after the war are raised on selective memory, with parents silent and textbooks shouting. Thus, transgenerational trauma has not become a path to understanding, but a bridge to new hostility. Instead of remembering so that it would not happen again, we remember so – if necessary – it would happen again with even greater fervor and better logistics.

The war became an identity here. And this is perhaps the hardest consequence of all – when people do not know who they are without their suffering."

A GENERATION BORN IN HISTORY (THOSE BORN IN 1995)

Thirty years later, we are once again witnessing the shaping of history amidst political manipulations of narratives. That is why transgenerational memory is required to carry a culture of remembrance and responsibility to the truth – in the name of future generations who must learn how peace is built and preserved.

• How does a generation born in the year of the Srebrenica genocide today understand this history? And how did growing up in this heritage shape their sense of identity, memory, and responsibility?

"We were born in ruins, among people who did not know whether they were crying more because of what they had lost or because of what they had become. As the last shells fell and Srebrenica counted their dead, we were entered into birth certificates – as if we had not come into the world, but into a historical file.

Thirty years later, that generation grew up in narratives. Not in conversations, not in confrontations, but in the silence of parents and the noise of politicians. In schools, we learned histories written according to the national key, at home we listened to half-truths, on television we watched ritualized memory with state flags and cameras in the foreground. We grew up with a minute of silence, but without a minute of true introspection.

How do we understand history? As a battlefield of narratives. As a story that is not told in order to know the truth, but to wash "our", "their" condemnation, and turn the war into moral capital for the next elections. We know what happened – but more importantly, we know how to use it. We know that genocide is used as a shield, but also as a weapon. We know that empathy has ethnic boundaries in this country.

Identity It is not something we have chosen – it is something that is served to us on a plate with three flags, three hymns and thirty years of mental siege. You belong to the ones you remember, not the ones you live with.

We have a responsibility. But not one served to us at anniversaries in the form of declarations, flowers and pathetic speeches. We have a responsibility not to repeat what we didn't even understand-because we were never taught to think about war, only to remember it. And selectively.

A generation born in 1995 can be the end of false peace and the beginning of true understanding. But only if we decide to stop living as political projects and start living as people. Because memory without truth is not memory – it's just propaganda with emotional effects."

TRANSGENERATIONAL MEMORY DYNAMICS (1995-2025)

Society in Bosnia and Herzegovina is still marked by war traumas. Prevailing ethno-national policies keep citizens in fear, under constant threat of a new war – for their own interests. Politics has instrumentalized trauma.

• How – and whether – generations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the regions that lived through the wars in the former Yugoslavia, especially the events of 1995, and the generation born that same year have shaped mutual understanding of the past? To what extent are their views aligned today – and how do they differ?

"In Bosnia and Herzegovina, war is not a thing of the past – it is the currency of the present. Ethnational elites live on fear, feed on trauma and throw a new narrative about the "threat to come" to the people every few months – if not with a tank, then at least with a statement. And all this would not be possible if trauma was not institutionalized. In our country, it is not treated – it is exposed, monetized, recycled and used as connective tissue for a divided society.

Generations that lived through the wars of the 1990s, especially in 1995 – the one in which the genocide in Srebrenica was committed, but also ended the war – carry an experience that is not a theory. They lived chaos, loss, exile, destruction, camps, and silence. Their memory is personal, painful and often inarticulate. For many, instead of dealing with trauma, only suppression occurred – wrapped in national colors and covered in silence.

Opposite them is a generation born that same year – 1995 – who did not look at the blood, but grew up in its shadow. They did not hear sirens, but they listened to national anthems and stories about the crimes of others every day. They learned to "remember" the war that they had not lived, but only as far as it was useful to be politically loyal. With them, trauma is not an experience – it is a legacy, often without context. And that makes it even more dangerous.

Are the two views aligned? Only on the surface. Both know "who attacked whom", "who suffered", "who must not be forgotten". But this is not reconciliation with the past – it is a repetition of learned narratives. The difference is that the older generations still carry personal pain, and the younger ones were, in many cases, raised to use that pain as a political compass.

However, there is also a difference in potential. The younger generation, if they break away from the clutches of political indoctrination, has a chance to say: "I've had enough of other people's wars in my mind." To remember, but not hate. Yes, he understands, but he does not justify. To build an identity beyond the trenches of the past.

But they also need new elites to do that. And not those who, 30 years after the war, walk around with a "war hero" card in one pocket and a "contract with a public company" in the other."

REGIONAL FUTURE: TRANSGENERATIONAL MEMORY, HERITAGE OR TRAUMA (2025-2055)

Thirty years after the war, ethnic identity still dominates the civic. In post-war society, the structure of ethnically divided space often makes civic initiatives impossible, as they are automatically attributed an ethnic sign.

• How could political, social, educational and cultural development in Bosnia and Herzegovina – and more broadly in the region – affect how transgenerational memory will be preserved, reinterpreted or denied in the next 30 years?

"Thirty years after the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a laboratory for the production of identities in three colors – the colors of the people, not of citizens. Civil identity is treated as heresy, as a threat to the “constitutional order” that, ironically, is designed to divide us forever. In such a system, any idea of a common society is immediately read as an attempt to dominate one side over the other. The result? Initiatives for civic cohesion are not judged by the content, but by the (alleged) ethnic background of the author.

In this context, transgenerational memory – memory that should be a warning, an insight, a path to healing – becomes a tool of manipulation. The education system is already teaching children not to understand war, but to take sides. Children in Mostar learn different stories in the same building. Young people in RS do not know what happened in Srebrenica. Young people in Sarajevo know nothing about Uzdol and Trusina. The truth is not reinterpreted here – parallel versions of reality are produced.

If the political course does not change – if society continues to be a prisoner of ethno-national policies that profit from fear and the sect of memory – the next 30 years will bring an even more sophisticated version of the same trauma. Memory will be preserved, not for the sake of truth, but for the sake of function. Children will know that there have been wars, but they will still hate the "others".

However, if educational reforms are initiated, if the independent cultural sector is strengthened and the idea of individual, civic identity is affirmed – there is room for memory to become a bridge, not a trench. Cultural production that does not bear an ethnic stamp, but a human voice, can be the key. Movies, books, theatre – if freed from subsidy censorship and political control – can shape a new culture of memory: one that doesn't ask who is yours, but what you learned from what happened.

In the end, the struggle for memory will be fought not only in classrooms and the media – but also in laws, budgets and elections. If citizens do not elect those who want the future, but those who eternally sell the past, there will be neither reinterpretation nor reconciliation – only new narratives will mask old conflicts.

In translation: we will either remember that it does not happen again – or we will repeat it because we did not even know what we had forgotten.
It's just that I'm not optimistic that it can be done. I really do not see these forces that could put something similar into practice, and operate on the territory of the whole country. So I am afraid that ethnopolitics will shape the future of BiH for a long time to come."

GLOBAL FUTURE: TRANSGENERATIONAL MEMORY, INDIFFERENCE OR REVISIONISM (1995-2025-2055)

In the modern world, geopolitics is rapidly conditioning historical narratives and transgenerational memory – openly trading influence in conflicts and party choices through daily-political revisionism.

• How could global political disruptions, conflicting international historical narratives, and changing norms on justice and human rights shape the ways in which knowledge of wartime events from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the region will be transmitted, challenged, or withheld across generations over the next 30 years?

"In today's world, history is no longer a question of what really happened – but who currently has a larger budget, a stronger army and better PR. In such a world, even genocides are not safe from revision. Memory becomes a commodity – and BiH, as always, is a peripheral consumer of someone else's truth.

In the next 30 years, global political disruptions – from the new Cold War blocs, to the redefinition of human rights under the pressure of realpolitik – will have a direct impact on how the war in BiH will be talked about in the world (but also in our country). If tomorrow the West decides that it needs a stable Balkans because of China, Dodik can become a "tricky but important partner". If the geopolitical waves turn, then even Srebrenica can become a "complex incident" – it all depends on who writes the report and who finances it.

International narratives, which are still relatively clear today when it comes to responsibility in war, are already showing signs of fatigue. Memory loses its power when it becomes boring or politically impractical. In the era of TikTok and realpolitik, suffering has no lasting value – unless it fits into the current agenda of the great powers. And we are used to great powers deciding when and how much our pain is worth paying attention to.

In this context, transgenerational memory in BiH and the region will increasingly depend on the ability of local communities, cultural workers and education systems to preserve it from within. If we leave the memory exclusively to international institutions, it will last exactly as long as their grant cycle lasts.

In education, we already see justice becoming relative and truth becoming fragmented. If this dynamic persists, new generations will learn about the war in the same way that some in America today learn about slavery – through debates "whether it really happened exactly" and "who was to blame". And the most dangerous weapon in such a future will not be a rifle – but a PDF textbook.

Our only answer must be: our own narrative, our own memory, our own culture of memory. Because if we don't keep our truths, others will repackage them and sell them back – with a customs declaration and a geopolitical discount."



The opinions and insights expressed in this text reflect solely the views of the author. We publish these contributions to encourage reflection and open space for diverse perspectives on the topic of transgenerational memory in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider region.