Last Wednesday on 11 July, I was in Srebrenica for the very first time. The above is the main prayer that I heard from the outgoing Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Dr Mustafa Ceric in this year's commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide in 1995. His sermon in front of grieving families and tens of thousands of people at Potocari Memorial Park was about rebuilding Bosnia and rekindling hope. The Srebrenica Genocide was Europe's largest massacre since World War II.
In an attempt to down-scale the horrific, unacceptable act of genocide committed by Serbian Troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where more than 8000 Muslim men and boys were massacred some 17 years ago, Serbia's new President Tomislav Nikolic, said last month that the killings in Srebrenica constituted "grave war crimes" but not genocide.
Strange that in an industry so hungry for stories, it's taken someone of Angelina Jolie's stature to get a film about Bosnia off the ground. It doesn't matter how much real human drama and tragedy stalked its mountains, there's a perception in Hollywood that films about Bosnia don't make money. Too complicated, they say, three sides.