“1995: 8,000 Muslims Killed in U.N. Safe Haven”

This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the genocide in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where 8,372 Muslim men were killed in an area that was designated as a U.N. “safe haven.” Most of their bodies were thrown into mass graves, and some of their bodies are still being discovered today. Countless women, many of whom were the wives and mothers of the men killed, were tortured and raped by Serbian soldiers. This genocide has been called the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

My grandfather was born and raised in Bosnia, so as you can imagine, I heard about this massacre at a very young age. I recall learning about the Srebrenica massacre in high school, but it wasn’t called a massacre. My history textbook devoted just two sentences in a sidebar mentioning the massacre, and they referred to it as an “ethnic cleansing.” The word “cleansing” implies that the killing of 8,372 Muslims made Bosnia purer. I couldn’t help but think that if the victims were a group other than Muslims, the coverage and the historic context of this massacre may have been dramatically different.

Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” This was obvious to me considering that our history textbook devoted multiple sections to other genocides, notably the Holocaust. Are the numbers between the Holocaust and the Srebrenica genocide comparable? No. But both involved large groups of people being killed for no other reason besides their religion. The Holocaust is a well-known historic occurrence that almost everyone can recall learning about in school; yet, the Srebrenica genocide is something obscure-sounding that most people have never even heard of before.

Let’s switch gears and fast-forward to 2017. ISIS (or ISIL) is in the Middle East systematically massacring a minority religious group called the Yazidis (ISIS is responsible for killing many other people and groups of people, but their massacre of the Yazidis is the only one officially classified as a genocide by the U.N.). A minority group is being systematically killed for no other reason besides their religion. After the Holocaust, the world said, “NEVER AGAIN.” Fifty years later, the genocide at Srebrenica happened, and much of the world didn’t even know, let alone bat an eye. Twenty-two years later, in a world abundant with media outlets and 24-hour news cycles, much of the world doesn’t know about a genocide happening right in front of them. If we don’t know enough about our history to learn from it, how can we prevent it from happening again?