Wrong war(s), Serbia (proper) suffered zero damage during those wars. The only time Serbia (proper) suffered any real damage was ~4 years later, in 1999, in response to attacking Kosovo.
Serbs in other countries were fighting their own separatist wars. You (Serbia) didn't do any of that fighting. You dealt with sanctions, hyperinflation and a refugee crisis, which sure wasn't easy, but you saw no death, you experienced no grief, the village you grew up in wasn't burned to the ground, the city you live in wasn't under siege.
The only time you (Serbia) experienced anything war-like was in 1999, and even that was like a two months long air campaign with no boots on the ground.
Around 200,000 Serbs were driven out of Krajina in a few days during Operation Storm in 1995. Roughly a quarter of the ~100,000 dead in Bosnia were Serbs (Bosnian Book of the Dead). By 1996 Serbia was hosting over 600,000 refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in Europe at the time. Those people didn’t “deal with a refugee crisis”. They were the refugee crisis, and today they’re our neighbours, in-laws and classmates. Plenty of families in Serbia also buried conscripts who were sent to Croatia in 1991.
1999 also wasn’t just “a two-month air campaign” to the people who lived through it. It lasted 78 days, killed around 500 civilians by Human Rights Watch’s count, and was followed by another ~200,000 Serbs and Roma leaving Kosovo.
None of this cancels what was done to Bosniaks and Croats, much of it in Serbia’s name, by a regime many of us protested against. Bosniaks suffered and I’m not disputing that. But “you saw no death, you experienced no grief” is simply untrue, and saying it doesn’t make anyone else’s grief count for more.
Also saying Serbia has not experienced anything war-like but the NATO bombing, is delusional. You do seem to forget how many Serbian people died in WWI and WWI.
Whoever taught you this at such a young age, is helping spread and water the seed that is not letting anyone heal from the shit that was organized in the 1990s. I wish you well.
Yes? That's my entire argument? That Serbia proper saw nothing even remotely war-like until 1999?
> I was talking about Serbs, not a line on a map.
No you weren't. You said "we (Serbia)", not "we (Serbs)". That's an entirely different claim. You then spend the rest of your comment talking in third-person, which is all I needed to know to make these generalisations:
You don't carry the name of your uncle who died on the battlefront, I do. You didn't pass through dozens of demolished houses on your way to school, I did. You (very likely) never saw a landmine with your own eyes, I did (on multiple occasions). You didn't grow up with a "crazy uncle" a house from you that to this day suffers from a severe case of PTSD, I did. You don't have to live your life knowing that an extended family member of yours hung himself instead of facing justice for what he did to Bosniak civilians, I do.
For you it's just a bunch of stories you've heard about second-hand. You didn't live through that, you didn't experience that, we did. The worst thing you experienced was a two months long air campaign, which as far as civilian casualties go doesn't even compare to like the tiny town in Bosnia I grew up in, let alone Bosnia as a whole.
Sit this one out and stop talking on behalf of me, a Bosnian Serb.
I also lost an uncle and an aunt in the war. My wife lost countless family members during the 90s. My family was halved and we buried grandparents, uncles and aunts in both world wars. None of that is second-hand to me.
You don’t know where my parents are from or what they lost, or what I have lost. You decided all of it from one word in a comment. That's a bold assumption. As you grow older, you'll learn not to assume. Not everyone tells their grief in the first person. Some of us chose to put it behind us and not lead with it, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Your loss is real and I’m sorry for it. But you told a stranger he “saw no death” and “experienced no grief” without knowing a thing about him. That’s deciding whose pain counts based on where someone lives now, the same thinking that made the 90s possible.
Nobody in this region has a monopoly on grief. I hope you have people around you to help carry yours, as it seems you should relief some of your pain. I hope in ten years time, you will look back at this thread differently.