“Islamophobic.” “Bosnian Genocide denier.”
These are just two of the labels that Ana Komnenić, a 4th year International Relations major at UBC and a Bosnian-Canadian, used to describe Dr Srdja Trifković.
Trifković, whose lecture at UBC is being sponsored by the Serbian Students Assocation (SSA), has some students concerned about what they consider hate speech targeted at Bosnians and Muslims.
Aside from being employed by BBC and The Washington Times and holding professor positions at universities around the world, he also worked as an advisor for former President of Republic Srpska, Biljana Plavšić, who was tried and convicted as a war criminal after the Bosnian war.
When Komnenić heard of the event, she immediately contacted university administration and sent numerous messages to the SSA requesting information. “I was blocked from the [Facebook] group and my comment deleted,” she said.
When asked about the concern that some opinions might be stifled at the event, the president of the SSA, Rastko Stanisavljević, said that “I can assure you that Ms. Komnenić should not be worried about any issues of stifling of opinion, because the security presence that we likely will have there is precisely there to ensure that respectful dialogue is held as outlined by the letter that we received from Dr Toope’s associate.”
The letter emphasizes respectful dialogue, saying that, “for a university, anything that detracts from the free expression of ideas is just not acceptable.”
Chad Hyson, executive co-ordinator of the office of the VP Students, said that he is not aware of a speaker being cancelled in the past due to a controversial viewpoint. “This isn’t the first time that the UBC community has had speakers who’ve been outspoken and whose views have been controversial,” he said, noting Norman
Finkelstein’s lecture in October 2010. He encouraged students who are against the views of a particular
speaker to voice their concerns and attend the event to engage in respectful debate.
Komnenić was uncertain just how respectful the event would be.
“I don’t see how this is respectful dialogue, because it seems like they’re trying to cover up who this guy really is,” she said.
Komnenić said that there should be someone to monitor UBC speakers and complaints like hers.
“I think that clubs have a lot of liberty to invite whoever they want, but I think it’s sort of on the clubs to be cautious and respectful and careful about who they invite and who that could offend,” she said. “Of course, a lot of speakers will be controversial, I know that, but I think there is a line that needs to be drawn.”
This line, she said, should fall under the purview of an administrative board created for the purpose of evaluating speakers.
If the lecture does not get cancelled, Komnenić hopes a letter will be sent to Trifković warning him about Canada’s laws against hate speech, as well as assurance from the SSA that she would be welcome to voice her opinion at the event.
Stanisavljević does not see a need for the university to change its policy on speakers.
“I think the outline made it clear how to organize respectful dialogue,” he said. “I think that a university should be a place of free speech, and ultimately that anyone is able to voice their opinions as long as they do so in a respectful manner and allow the other party to engage them.”
The event has been approved by the university and will be held on Thursday, Feb 24th at Swing Space 222 from 5-7:30pm.
(+5 rating, 7 votes)
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Mrs. Ana Komnenic, according to her name, she should be Serb origin from Bosna and Hercegovina, but anyway, if there was a genocide during war in B. and H. it would be at least reasonable to say that it was made by all three sides in conflict. So dear Ana, you should check your origins first, then you should start to study much harder Balkan history, especially recent, and seek for the truth and facts but not to copy CNN, BBC, or any other (White House) brain washed western media. On the other hand Serbophobic behavior is so out of date and metaphorically said worn out, so instead of spreading intolerance and and asking for censure in “nazi” way, we should all concentrate in support to the tolerance, cohabitation and return of trust between three ethnic groups in Bosna and Hercegovina. To label Dr Srdja Trifkovic in those words is offensive and just rude, dear Ana as a student you should know it and not behave like that. You will not gain any benefit from this as I already said, spiting on the Serb is just not fashionable any more. If you don’t have solid facts better do not enter debate about such a sensitive matter as genocide is.
“It is the particular emphasis of my book that we need an absolute moratorium on the immigration of Muslims into both Western Europe and North America, coupled with the denial of citizenship to all practicing Muslims, the denial of security clearances, and the policy of systematic deportation of all jihadists activists.”
http://carnageandculture.blogspot.com/2006/04/srdja-trifkovic-islam-as-agent-of.html
Mr Dubajic,
What is ‘out of date’ is a tribal approach to history. You do not have to blindly defend wrong deeds, just because you belong to specific tribe or nation (for your info,I am not a Muslim, hence no islamic conspiracy here).
Simo dragi,
“If there was a genocide during war in B. and H. it would be at least reasonable to say that it was made by all three sides in conflict.”
What do you mean “if” there was a genocide? Foca, Zepa, Gorazde, Srebrenica were ALL genocides. The US Department of State submitted to the United Nations eight reports on atrocities and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, and 88% were attributable to Serbs, 7% to Bosnian Muslims, and 5% to Croats. They also declared that 100% (100%!) of the genocidal acts in the war were committed by the Serbs.
Dr. Trifkovic may have gone to school, but he is no intellectual. He is only another mouthpiece for “Greater Serbia”
Bravo Ana!!!
Fabian,
I’m fascinated by your certainty that the US government is correct in all of it’s assertions.
Should we base all of our decisions on what they say?
I am always astonished at how tenuous the commitment to free speech is in universities. Many apparently believe that their labeling something as “hate speech” provides all the justification needed for censorship.
But we all tend to dismiss as hate speech those opinions we loath. Even when there is nothing overtly hateful about someone’s speech, we have a tendency to suspect they are “speaking in code” if we disagree with them enough.
Komnenić’s suggestion that there should be an administration board to vet outside speakers is particularly pernicious. Students are not children – they do not need nor should have such “protection”.
Noam Chomsky said “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” It’s time for UBC to show that it has the courage not to censor.
And give haters a voice? Never!
And who has the wisdom to decide who the haters are? You? Some university board?
Women advocating birth control were once jailed for their efforts, and almost everyone at the time thought that was right and proper. Japanese Canadians were once interned and had their property confiscated, and again most people agreed with this.
Free speech — speech that many people found offensive — forced us to reconsider these things.
But having walked through the open door of free speech, have we reached such a degree of enlightenment that we can now safely slam it shut behind us?
Most certainly not. The cost of free speech is that a lot of stupid, hateful, and offensive things get said, but it’s well worth the price.
I think I was slightly misunderstood (misquoted) about the “administration board to vet outside speakers” — i said there should be a system for students voice their concerns about speakers other than just bombarding the President with e-mails.
Matt,
I give the findings of the United States because, other than the belligerents, the United States was the nation most intimately involved in the course of the war – look at its influence in UNPROFOR, its advocating and spearheading of military force against the Bosnian Serbs through NATO, and notably its leadership during the peace process from the outset of the war through to Dayton.
Having said all this, whose facts would you trust? I reckon that we could both agree that a neutral party’s findings would be most sensible to examine, correct? The UN’s findings mirror those of the United States’. The CIA came to similar findings, though I assume that you would also dismiss those blindly as well. Perhaps your interest might be piqued by the conclusions of the European Community and the Helsinki Commission?
I’m going to assume by your comment that you are suggesting that the US has acted, perhaps, spuriously in the past (this is not unfounded, and I do agree with you to an extent). Having said that, such instances of ‘ulterior American motives’ usually appear where their national interests are at stake, and I think we could agree that Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, etc. are such places. It is no great mystery that the former Yugoslavia was of no greater interest to the Americans (and if it were, they would have helped the secessionist republics [or at least made their military presence felt] four years earlier). What benefit would they have derived from revising the facts on the Bosnian War? Moreover, the assertion that the US would attempt to revise this history, and thus your partial assumption that the history itself was different, is senseless and utterly absurd. Your comment, though I’m sure you didn’t intend it, is an insult to the victims of the war and the victims of Srebrenica, whose deaths our speaker, Dr. Trifkovic, has failed to acknowledge.
The UN and the US were belligerents in the Bosnian war. The UN called in NATO air strikes against the Bosnian-Serbs and the US carried them out.
In fact, long before Srebrenica, and before the war itself even started the United States sabotaged the Lisbon Agreement by convincing the Muslims to reject it (after they signed it).
If the Americans hadn’t sabotaged that peace agreement and others the war itself could have been avoided along with all of the ethnic cleansing and the Srebrenica massacre.
The Serbs by no means have a monopoly on atrocities. Just like the Muslims, thousands upon thousands of Serbian civilians were driven from their homes in Bosnia. During the war, Serbia hosted more Bosnian war refugees than any other country. Just like the Muslims, Serb civilians were rounded up and held in camps under inhumane conditions. Just like the Muslims, Serbian civilians were subjected to gruesome massacres. In fact, in the region around Srebrenica between 1992 and 1995, many Serbian villages were massacred by the Muslims from Srebrenica under the command of Nasir Oric and some of proof is in this horribly gruesome video — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8o7ozy3fMc
Everybody involved in the Bosnian War is guilty of ethnic cleansing. Before the war, Muslims made-up almost a third of the population in what is now Republika Srpska — after the war their share of the population was just shy of 2%. Likewise, in what is now the B-H Federation, Serbs had comprised about a third of the population before the war, and after the war they were just over 3%. Those people didn’t just voluntarily decide to walk away from their homes, their property, and all of their possessions in order to be refugees.
The Bosnian-Muslims have no right to point fingers at the Serbs, because they themselves did a lot of the same things they’re accusing the Serbs of doing. There won’t be reconciliation in that part of the world until everybody admits their guilt.
Serbs may have committed a few more crimes during the war, but the Muslims bear the most responsibility for starting the war and prolonging it. It was the illegal secession of Bosnia from Yugoslavia that started this whole mess in motion in the first place.
“During the war, Serbia hosted more Bosnian war refugees than any other country.”
Yeah, they hosted more SERBIAN refugees during the war. Get your facts right.
Yes, most of the Bosnian war refugees who came to Serbia were Serbs from Bosnia, but there were also thousands of Muslims and Croats among them. What I am saying is that Serbia hosted more refugees from that war (regardless of the refugees’ ethnicity) than any other country. That’s a fact.
What you’re confused by is the semantics. During the war, the Bosnian-Muslims took to calling themselves “Bosniaks” or “Bosnians”. So when I said “Bosnian war refugees” you thought I meant Muslim refugees, when what I meant was refugees from the Bosnian war.
The Muslim use of the term “Bosnian” is a propaganda trick designed to create the illusion that they are the only real Bosnians and the Croats and the Serbs are some kind of interlopers in Bosnia.
Croats and Serbs are every bit as indiginous to Bosnia as the Muslims and they have an equal right to Bosnia’s territory. In fact, the ancestors of the Bosnian-Muslims are Croats and Serbs who converted to Islam when the Balkans were under Ottoman control. Serbs, Croats, and Muslims share a common language and a common ethnic herritage. It’s too bad they couldn’t share a common state (Yugoslavia) too.
Here is an interesting news report done on Dr.Trifkovic, which may shine some light on this for some of you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ