A high level commemorative event “Srebrenica: Remembering and honouring the victims of the genocide” was held on July 1st at the UN headquarters in New York. On that occasion, video made by Tarik Samarah was shown and his short speech was also read:
Ladies and gentlemen,
After the Holocaust, Primo Levi, philosopher and Auschwitz survivor, wrote: “It happened, therefore it can happen again… It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
Twenty years after the Srebrenica genocide and seventy years after the Holocaust, the world has not been saved from the possibility of a repetition of the history of evil. As wars rage in the world, as islamophobia, anti-Semitism, the extremist right and all kinds of discriminatory practices and policies against all those who are identified as the Other, Primo Levi’s words have never been more true.
Today, I want to call us all to account – let us not be indifferent to what is happening around us, let us be responsible witnesses, for if we are indifferent – silence is a tacit acceptance of injustice.
Thank you!
The commemoration was attended by numerous officials and prominent figures: the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Chairman of the UN Security Kahambi Sam Kutesa, chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Serge Brammertz, the US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and many others.