Qari Asim MBE, the Chief Imam of Makkah Mosque in Leeds, asked me to contribute to the community Iftar on 12th July 2015 which was dedicated to remembering the murder of 8,000 or so Muslim men and boys in Bosnia twenty years ago. I was given five minutes so I didn’t read the text I’d written (it would have taken 20 minutes). I concentrated on the last section of the document. You can access the full text here Understanding genocide 12.7.15 — if you want to.
This was an enlightening event for me, bringing together a survivor of Srebrenica and of the Holocaust with significant figures in the civic life of the city of Leeds. Makkah Mosque is notable for its open-ness and its progressive role in the city. Eating together with local Muslims as they broke their fast was another highlight of the evening.
[Since posting this article, one of my friends has reminded me of the first genocide of the 20th Century, perpetrated against the rebellious Herero-Nama peoples by the Germans who had colonised present-day Namibia. Read about it here.]
