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SUMMARY:The Hague Tribunal and the Serbian Elites - Sonja Biserko\, Eric L
 ane Fellow - Clare College and President of the Helsinki Committee for Hum
 an Rights in Serbia
DTSTART:20120613T153000Z
DTEND:20120613T163000Z
UID:TALK38304@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Josip Glaurdic
DESCRIPTION:After serving as a Yugoslav diplomat for more than two decades
 \, Ms Biserko quit her position in 1991 in protest against the policies of
  the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Together with other dissidents\, she fo
 unded the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia\, the European Mov
 ement in Yugoslavia\, and the Centre for Anti-War Action in the Belgrade F
 orum for International Relations. Over the past twenty years\, she has wor
 ked determinedly for peace in the region and for Serbia’s open confronta
 tion with the war crimes committed in its name during the various Yugoslav
  wars. Ms Biserko has lectured extensively at various universities and int
 ernational organizations in the West. In 1994\, she was awarded the Human 
 Rights Award by the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights in New York. Mor
 e recently\, she was a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Pea
 ce. In 2009 she was awarded the Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar\,
  and in 2010 she was awarded the Lisl and Leo Etinger Award for Human Righ
 ts by the University of Oslo.\n\nHer talk will focus on the role of elites
  in the process of coming to terms with a series of verdicts by The Hague 
 Tribunal. Post-war Serbia continues to be deeply imbued with nationalism. 
 The glorification of traditional\, “authentic” Serbian values and a co
 ntinuing political and media campaign against Europe and the West have res
 ulted in wide scepticism toward Western democratic practices\, including t
 he protection of human rights and the promotion of a human rights culture.
  They have resulted in the same identity matrix of the Serb ethno-nation a
 s the one propagated by Milosevic: Serbia as the only historically correct
  nation and victimized by the world powers. This self-delusion has freed t
 he nation from all the wrongs of the past – including the responsibility
  of bringing war criminals to justice – and possible wrongs in the futur
 e. It is a mind-set that plunges the nation into permanent conflict with i
 ts neighbours and the rest of the world\, generating frustration\, arrogan
 ce and aggression. The conservative political class of Serbia has never ac
 tually shown its readiness to seriously embark upon a pro-European road\, 
 despite the image of a European Serbia projected on the international scen
 e since 2000.\n\nThis talk is open to the public!
LOCATION:S2\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road
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