The Wages of Nationalism

 “Quo Vadis, Aida?”film directed by Jasmila Žbanić, 2020             

This film is about the ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  It reflects the consequence of imperialism’s destruction of the Yugoslav workers’ state, as well as that state’s internal national contradictions.  It focuses on the situation in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the July, 1995 massacre there. This is in the context of war and intense partisan ethnic hatred on both sides.  Bosnian Serb nationalists in the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under Ratko Miladić enter the town with tanks while Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) civilians crowd into and around a U.N. ‘safe space’ outside of the city. The key character, Aida, is a local U.N. translator with a family – a husband and two grown sons.  They are Bosniak. The family is fictional but ‘personalize’ the story as films tend to do.

Bosniak civilians inside U.N. compound

The film focuses on the flawed attitude of the U.N. Dutch ‘peace-keepers’ and the absence of a U.N. response to the invasion of Srebrenica by the Army of Republika Srpska under Miladić.  The whole town was supposed to be a ‘safe zone’ after 3.5 years of civil war.  Eventually the Bosnian Serb soldiers are allowed inside the U.N. compound, allowed to bus female and children civilians to a nearby ‘Muslim Bosnian’ town, allowed to bus the men ‘somewhere else’.  The U.N. is forced to evacuate their own compound, which makes no sense.  The U.N. demands that they have a soldier on each bus to make sure the civilians are safe.  Their soldiers are nowhere to be seen on the buses.  The Dutch soldiers are wearing ‘short pants,’ are very young and inexperienced, while their leaders buckle under the pressure of the aggressive Miladić. 

What is odd but most significant is that a local whispers to Aida that VRS soldiers just killed some Bosnian Muslim men right behind the U.N. compound.  The U.N. is either oblivious or ignoring the issue – and do nothing.  They continue the evacuation. Aida suspects this will happen again and tries to protect her husband and sons within the U.N. compound, eventually hiding them.  They are nevertheless discovered and bused out, as are all the Bosniak civilians in the U.N. compound, including the men.  The Dutch U.N. military leader claims she is fantasizing the killings or potential of killings.  He doesn’t investigate.  Aida never brings the subject up again in her many arguments – the odd part, as this seems to be key.  The U.N. soldier tells her not to create ‘panic’ but panic might be the best thing.  The more aware Bosniak civilians had run into the woods and not trusted the U.N. 

We see Bosnian Muslim men from the compound bused to a gymnasium, herded into it after dropping their wallets on a blanket and then shot inside from above with automatic AKs.  If this might remind some of trains dropping off Jews and leaving their suitcases outside a building, this is intentional.  Records indicate around 8,300 men of all ages were shot.

Aida eventually returns to Srebrenica after the war is over.  More Serbian civilians now live in the town, while her apartment is occupied by a young family – one of whom is one of the most aggressive VRS officers.  Later she discovers the exhumed body parts of her sons and husband.  Aida knew many people in Srebrenica when it was an integrated town before the war - including Serbs who became soldiers, some her own students. She takes her apartment back and begins teaching again – teaching young students who seem to be the only hope for the future.

V.R.S. and U.N.

The film does not mention the massacres by Bosniak Muslims of Bosnian Serb Orthodox civilians or any prior context of the destruction of the multi-national Yugoslav workers’ state by German and U.S. imperialism.  Nor does it mention British intelligence’s analysis that Miladić would not have gone into Srebrenica if not for an attack by 2,000 Bosniak Army soldiers from that direction.  The film is really a reflection of the poison of ethnic communal nationalism promoted by capital – leading to slaughters in places like India, Ethiopia, Israel and Yugoslavia. This is their ideology, not that of internationalism, which is the view of socialism. Proletarian internationalism is the only way to rise above these identity slaughters based on religion, skin color, language, tribe or nation. 

Ratko Miladić was convicted of mass murder (which the Tribunal incorrectly called ‘genocide’) by the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague in 2017 and now sits in prison for life.  The Dutch officials in charge were also rebuked, while in the Netherlands itself, compensation has been weighed for the men inside the compound turned over to the VRS and subsequently killed. The film got an Academy Award nomination.

The title seems to have little connection to the Verdi Opera Aida, or ‘quo vadis’ – Latin for “where are you going?" or "What are you going to do?"  Though Aida in the opera was a captive and asking "what are you going to do?" seems to be apropos, but generic.  Perhaps the title is just to give the film some aesthetic cred.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use the search box at upper left for the 14 year archive using these terms:  “The Paper / Novine,”  “Yugoslavia – Peace, War and Dissolution” (Chomsky); “Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism,” “WR: Mysteries of the Organism,” "Siege of Jadotville."

The Kulture Kommissar

May 14, 2021