Entry 6: Reflection

Reflection

What can I say about blogging? I didn’t think that I would enjoy doing it.  It seemed to be a time consuming hobby, and honestly, I thought, “does anyone really care about what others have to say about a topic?”  But as I started, I realized that blogging could be a good way to state your opinions, as well as, pose questions to others and challenge them to think or “reflect”.  After I was finished, I was proud of my blog, and by being able to add pictures and move paragraphs around, I think that it makes writing a “boring” essay more exciting.  Another thing that I loved about choosing the topic I did is that my dad actually took part in this.  Even though his name isn’t mentioned in any books or articles, he is a part of history.

           

     

  

The worst part of the “Blogging Blue Jays” project was actually learning to use the blog program.  No matter what I did or how many times I uploaded my entries, I couldn’t figure out how to get it in the proper order.  It was so frustrating.  I also wish that I wasn’t limited to defined entries within the topic.  There weren’t many books available to me, but there was a lot of information on the web.  I feel like I could have chosen one entry and written an 1800 word paper on just one of the sub topics.

  

      If I could do this project all over again, I would definitely start sooner.  It seemed to me that different websites gave different information and it would have taken a lot of time to research and find the exact information.  Maybe that has to do with the fact that no one really knows the exact numbers of deaths and refugees.  From what I read, families of the victims are still trying to get the “truth” of what happened.  I also wish I had spent more time on the project because the topic was so interesting.  I wanted to read more on the subject and the history of the region.

Entry 5: Eduring Effects

Enduring Effects of the Bosnian Genocide

          

When one country invades another it affects the whole world.  Other countries compromise their citizens by sending soldiers and peace keepers to aid the war torn area and people.  The United States didn’t lose any soldiers during the conflict, but the same cannot be said about the United Nations (UN) peacekeepers. Virtually every country that is a part of the UN sent peacekeepers to Bosnia, a total of 39,000 people, of which, 320 were killed. 

I know that it is important to help others in need, but at what cost?  Besides other countries sacrificing their sons and daughters, outside countries also feel the impact their economies.  It costs money to take in refugees, and that’s on top of sending money abroad to help the countries. For example, the United States spent about $1.65 billion dollars during the Bosnian war.  $1.5 billion of that went to the cost of deploying troops.  Not only are the affects felt on other countries, but Bosnia itself, and the citizens of the country will never be the same.  With such horrible history and bad blood between the different ethnic groups, I think it’s only a matter of time before something sparks another revolt.  With such lengthy drawn out trials, of which the worst criminals were never properly sentenced, many of the Muslim Bosniaks feel like justice was never dealt.  

Many of the refugees still haven’t returned to their homes.  The country is living at peace now, but is peace living within the hearts of the ethnic groups that were affected by the genocide? “The ethnic violence that occurred in the former Yugoslavia during the mid-1990’s has become one of the defining events of recent history” (Ethnic Cleansing Yes: Genocide No).  Reports show, that on a political level, the divided country is still struggling to come together.  

Does History repeat itself?  It would seem that the Serbs in Bosnia were going to be sure that it didn’t.  This conflict is rooted back in the time of the Ottoman Empire and their attack on the Balkans in the 13^th-15^th centuries A.D.  You see, because of the hardships that the Ottoman Muslims inflicted on the Christians of the area, the majority of them converted to Islam. This caused hatred amongst the people in the region against the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks). The Christians who refused to convert during that time frame became known as the Serbs and the Croats. With Yugoslavia in the middle of breaking up into different countries, it is my opinion that the Serbs felt that the time was right for them to get revenge on the Muslims for the actions that occurred many hundreds of years prior. The Genocide happened because Ottoman Muslims were greedy and wanted more land and invaded Bosnia, and then the Serbs couldn’t let go of the past and justified their actions by committing the worst case of genocide since the Holocaust.  It makes me want to yell, “It was 400 years ago, GET OVER IT!” 

   
Learning about the Bosnian Genocide is important because our generation needs to see just how cruel and evil humans can be, and then vow to never be like that.  If the future generations can see how wrong it is to kill an ethnic group just because you didn’t like their great-grandparents, then hopefully history will not repeat itself.  We should learn from history so that we don’t make the same mistakes as our forefathers, but dwelling on the horrible things that happened throughout history only leads to anger, ignorance, and intolerance. 

Milena Rudez

Everyone needs to live by the golden rule and treat others the way you want to be treated.  In closing I would like to share with you a poem by Bosnian poet, Milena Rudez: “Where do you come from? I come from Bosnia. Are you a Muslim? No, I am not. Then you are a Serb.  No, I am not. Then you must be a Croat?  No. So what are you? Homeless.”

Entry 7: Works Cited

Works Cited

"Bosnian Genocide | World Without Genocide." Bosnian Genocide | World Without Genocide. N.p., 2012. Web. 02 Mar. 2013.

Ching, Jacqueline. Genocide and the Bosnian War. New York, NY: Rosen Pub. Group, 2009. Print.

Danner, Mark. "Ethnic Cleansing in Former Yugoslavia." Ethnic Cleansing in Former Yugoslavia. N.p., 1992. Web. 02 Mar. 2013.

Horvitz, Leslie Alan., and Christopher Catherwood. Encyclopedia of War Crimes and Genocide. New York: Facts on File, 2006. Print.

Lindquis, David. Ethnic Cleansing Yes, Genocide No; Textbook Coverage of Ethnic Violence in Former Yugoslavia by David Lindquis. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.

Massimo, Calabresi. "The Lessons of Bosnia." TIME 05 Apr. 2012: n. pag. Web. 28 Feb. 2013. 
http://www.humanityinaction.org/