Srebrenica: The Wound Left Open in Humanity’s Conscience / “Whatever you do, do not forget the genocide. Every genocide that is forgotten is repeated.”
By Dr. Nurfer TERCAN
History is not a book in which only victories are written. It is also the record of the moments when humanity fell silent, of conscience that came too late, and of the heavy prices that were paid.
There are some sorrows that are engraved in the common memory not of one nation alone, but of all humanity. For pain has no nationality; tears have no language, and conscience has no borders.
Srebrenica is such a name.
It is no longer merely a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Srebrenica is a universal symbol that tells of the price of the international community’s silence, of what the delay of justice can cost, and of humanity’s test of conscience.
What happened on 11 July 1995 is not merely a great crime committed in a particular geography, but a heavy note of shame entered in the history of humanity. The loss of thousands of innocent lives deeply wounded not only their families and Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also the common conscience of humanity.
Yet the heaviest legacy Srebrenica has left us is not only the lives that were lost.
The real legacy is the silent resistance of the mothers who waited for years for their children to be given a gravestone.
It is the childhoods left unfinished.
It is the family tables that will remain incomplete forever.
It is the nameless gravestones.
And it is that profound question which still awaits an answer before all of humanity:
“Will humanity live through the same silence once again?”
Today the world is once more on the threshold of great ruptures.
Geopolitical competition is hardening; migration movements, ethnic tensions, regional wars, economic struggles and technological transformations are reshaping the international system. While states update their security policies, the world order is trying to re-establish the delicate balance between power and justice.
But history reminds us again and again of an unchanging truth.
Weapons can change borders.
Diplomacy can sign new agreements.
Economies can grow.
Technology can transform civilisations.
But when conscience is lost, no civilisation can rise in any real sense.
Because civilisation is not merely building cities.
It is being able to protect the human being.
It is not merely developing.
It is being able to keep compassion alive.
It is not only being strong.
It is being able to balance power with justice.
That is why Srebrenica is not a closed file left in the past.
It is a moral responsibility entrusted to every generation.
To remember is not to keep revenge alive.
To remember is to keep the sense of justice alive.
To remember is not to nurture hatred.
It is to protect human dignity.
To remember is not to be condemned to the past.
It is to be able to leave the children of the future a safer, more just and more conscientious world.
Today humanity’s greatest need is not merely stronger armies.
It is stronger consciences.
Not more advanced technologies.
But a sounder legal order.
Not taller skyscrapers.
But higher moral values.
Because peace is not merely the absence of war.
Peace is the presence of justice.
Peace is the recognition of the right to life as inviolable, whatever a person’s language, religion, identity or ethnic origin may be.
Peace is that no mother should lay her child in the earth, that no child should grow up in fear, and that no society should be left alone.
The history of humanity continues to whisper the same truth to us:
Sorrows that are forgotten become ordinary over time.
And evil that has become ordinary finds its courage again.
That is why commemorating Srebrenica is not merely remembering the past.
It is protecting the future.
It is protecting conscience.
It is protecting the meaning of being human.
Today, to be able to show the same principled stance in the face of every act of violence targeting innocent civilians, every discrimination, every instance of hate speech and every human rights violation, wherever in the world it may be, is the greatest moral legacy Srebrenica has left to humanity.
Because peace is the work not of forgetful societies, but of societies that keep their memory alive with justice.
And we know that humanity can build civilisation in the true sense when its sorrows are held in common.
Conscience exists not only to judge the past, but to read the present correctly and build the future more justly.
We remember all the innocents who lost their lives in Srebrenica with a prayer for mercy, with respect and with deep sorrow.
Their memory will continue to live in our search for justice, in our ideal of peace and in our common human conscience.
We have not forgotten.
We will not let it be forgotten.
Because memory is the conscience of humanity.
And when conscience falls silent, not only history but humanity too begins to weep again.
https://www.5gvirusnews.com/yazarlar/aliya-izzetbegovic-bosna-nin-bilge-krali-h1913.html
Translated from the Turkish original.