Democracy and Human Rights

The statements by state and city officials since the beginning of the construction works on the monument have made it clear that the monument is not only about Stefan Nemanja or medieval history. The war in Kosovo and the NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia in 1999 constitute key points of the official memory politics in which the current state actors invest incredible efforts. 

What happened in Skopje was a neoliberal appropriation of the public space. While everyone talks about the state expropriation of land in the city centre, coloured by a symbolic nationalist attack on all senses, the capitalist plunder of the public space throughout the city happened quietly - and that is the most important element of this endeavour.

The year 2020 has been a difficult one. But perhaps in retrospect we will be able to say that for this very reason, it was a year in which the determination to initiate change grew and the forces were gathered for a fundamental Building Back Better.

From the online conference ‘Srebrenica: 25 years of remembrance, justice and reconciliation’, organized by the Green parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.