Sectarian carnage in Cairo, ethnic reconciliation in Serbia

December 14, 2016, 12:00 pm

Egyptian security forces inspect the scene of a bomb explosion at the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo on December 11, 2016 - AFP

Very specifically, the target in these religion-based terror attacks is secularism, because it is only in a vibrant secular state that one finds government efforts in the direction of religious equality, unity and peace. It ought to be clear that, given this premise, secularism is an essential core of democracy. This is because it is only in a truly democratic system of government that equality in all its dimensions is made manifest. Consequently, those seeking to end religious tolerance and unity are in fact seeking an end to democracy. This is the reason why religious fanaticism and intolerance need to be rooted out tooth-and-nail.

The bombing of a Coptic Christian church in Cairo by suspected Jihadists, which claimed well over 20 lives, is a dastardly act that would further divide religious communities in Egypt and outside it, while aggravating security concerns in particularly the West.

However, along with this major ‘minus’ in international developments comes an almost simultaneous huge ‘plus’ in the form of unprecedented moves towards what could be seen as ethnic reconciliation, in Serbia. Whereas the terror in Egypt should plunge ethnic and religious peace builders the world over into overwhelming sorrow, the events in Serbia should tend to give the same sections tremendous hope and courage to persist in their efforts towards social peace and wholeness. For, who would have imagined that conflict-ridden and ethnically segmented Serbia would seek to bring those responsible for the shocking Srebrenica massacre of 1995 to justice? This is delayed justice, but delayed justice is preferable to no justice.

Over the past 20 years and more, accountability over the Srebrenica mass carnage, that featured the brutal killing of some 8000 Muslim men and boys in Bosnia by Serbian security forces at the height of the convulsive Balkan wars, is an issue that has gone unresolved. Although some other major Balkan war atrocities had been inquired into by the international community with some consistency over the years, the Srebrenica massacre and the issues that grew out of it, did not seem to receive the attention they deserved either locally or internationally, although calls for justice never died down. But, it is a matter for rejoicing that an accountability process over the horror is now taking shape and that the initiative is being taken by none other than Serbia, which was viewed as the aggressor state, to bring the suspected perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

These momentous developments in Serbia notwithstanding, it is the bombing of the Coptic church in Egypt, that has ‘grabbed the headlines’. The incident is sufficient proof that the armed challenges to secularism are not merely alive but growing. It is public knowledge that minority religious communities in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, in particular, have been the targets of terror attacks over the past decade and more. This wave of terror spiked after 9/11 and foreign and security policy makers of the West in particular have been agonizing over how this disturbing trend could be contained.

How would a Donald Trump-run US administration react to these developments? This question is vital because, thus far, the Trump camp has been manifesting confused and superficial thinking on foreign and security policy issues. In fact, the camp is yet to come out with any coherent and constructive foreign policy formulations. Unfortunately, whereas the pro-Trump US public should have been questioning the Trump campaign very searchingly on these issues, all that they have done is endorse their candidate ‘with no questions asked’. How do they expect a Trump presidency to manage the widespread problem of extremist terror?

However, the Barack Obama administration has made it amply clear that a purely military response to extremism of any kind would not yield the best results. It has also emphatically endorsed secularism and religious tolerance. Needless to say, these values provide democracy with the nourishment it needs to grow.

Hopefully, the Trump camp has learned a few lessons from the George Bush Jnr. Tenure, when US efforts to fight terror militarily, in the main, only made the world a more dangerous place to live in. What is important to bear in mind is that while managing terror, governments cannot undermine the core values that sustain democracy.

The developments in Serbia in connection with the Srebrenica horror, however, indicate that all is not lost for humanity, ethnic reconciliation and democracy. What is of note is that the Serbian state is not baulking at the challenge of bringing suspect Serbian military personnel to justice over the incident. In other words, the Serbian state has successfully overcome Serbian ethnicity or majoritarian chauvinism. The state in this instance is operating entirely on the basis of democratic values and secularism, that oblige it to dispense justice impartially.

What is more, the Serbian state is seeing accountability by Serb military leaders for war crimes as central to ethnic reconciliation. ‘This is a very important case as Serbia needs to face its past...Without that there can be no catharsis, no reconciliation in the region’, Serbia’s former war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevik was quoted saying.

The international community could be said to have turned a corner with these initiatives by the Serbian government. A state may be multi-ethnic in composition but its government, if it is of a democratic orientation, is obliged to rise above narrow nationalistic sentiments and dispense justice impartially in disputes involving its communities. If it does not do so, it cannot be described as democratic. Rather, it bears a close affinity to the fascistic state brought into being by German dictator Adolf Hitler in the early thirties.

The international community, while backing Serbia in this context, would need to staunchly oppose and outlaw all political forces and actors that undermine secularism and kindred values that keep democracy alive. If a Trump presidency is seen as siding with the enemies of democracy, the UN, for instance, should be in a position to challenge it and point out the error of its ways. This ought to remind us that the UN system ought to be continually strengthened and reformed to meet these challenges.