In the 19th century Croatian Nationalism was resurfaced thank to the Catholic Church’s interest in the Croatian National Literature and History that only strengthened in the following years. With the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires in the twentieth century, Yugoslavia emerged with Serbs dominating the official posts along with the Muslim Slavs and Croats. Such unity was frowned upon by the Orthodox Church and stifled Croatian Nationalist aspirations. Relations between Serbs and Croats strained further during the Second World War. Croatia and Bosnia became parts of the puppet Nazi regime. A fascist militia Ustashe driven by the cause of a “Greater Croatia” led the campaign of cleansing Croatia of Serbs by attacking Krajina-a …show more content…
Croatia was militarily strong, not unlike Serbia, with powerful militia. The Bosniaks, lacking the military might of their neighbours, were caught in the middle making them vulnerable to attacks. Although all three sides committed atrocities, it was the Serbs side that inflicted maximum horrors.

The religious nationalists exploited symbols, the mythology espoused by Sells above, receiving the blessings of the clergy for carrying out God’s own work. For example, Radovan Karadzic, one of the staunchest Bosnian Serb leader held guilty of ethnic cleansing and genocide, was bestowed with the Order of Saint Denys of Xante (an honour meant for those who work for peace and humanity) by the Patriarch Pavle of the Orthodox Church, whose previous recipients include Mother Teresa. This was symbolically a big blow to anyone who believed in peaceful coexistence of the Church and …show more content…
Sune Qvotrup Jensen in his paper, ‘Othering, Identity Formation and Agency’ defines this “othering” as the process “by which powerful groups, who may or may not make up a numerical majority, define subordinate groups into existence in a reductionist way which ascribe problematic and/or inferior characteristics to these subordinate groups. Such discursive processes affirm the legitimacy and superiority of the powerful and condition identity formation among the subordinate.” This othering is justified when the Self claims to have suffered at the hands of the other. The analogy of “Christ Killers” and their growing population at a faster rate than the Bosnian Serbs was enough to antagonize the Muslims. Before the genocide in Srebrenica was quoted as saying, “Here we are in Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. On the eve of yet another great Serbian holiday, we present this city to the Serbian people as a gift. Finally, after the rebellion against the Dahije [local Turk janissary leaders], the time has come to take revenge on the Turks of the region.” (The Relationship of Religion and Ethnic Nationalism in Bosnia- Morgan