Ratko Mladic is gone. The racial ideology that produced him is not

Ratko Mladic's death signals the end of one of the most notorious perpetrators of the Bosnian genocide, yet the ideology that fueled his atrocities endures. Despite Mladic's passing, the racial ideology of Serbian nationalism that enabled the ethnic cleansing of Bosniak Muslims persists. The man might be gone, but the ideology that made his acts possible remains strong, even gaining new life among far-right movements.

This ideology, akin to Western European and settler-colonial racial ideologies, categorizes Orthodox Christian Serbs as privileged and evicts Bosniaks from the national collective, justifying their mass murder and displacement. Serbian nationalism has a long history, with the Chetniks, a royalist Serbian nationalist movement, carrying out a similar campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosniak Muslims during World War II.

The genocidal ideology that produced Mladic and the Bosnian genocide has roots in the decline of Ottoman rule in the Balkans and has manifested in other genocides across the world. The revival of Serbian nationalism among far-right movements poses a significant threat, as seen in the transnational far-right meme "Remove Kebab" and the influence of Serbian nationalist ideology on notorious white supremacists like Brenton Tarrant and Anders Breivik.

Understanding Serbian nationalism as a racial ideology and genocidal logic is crucial for recognizing the ongoing dangers posed by its revival and glorification, even as individuals like Mladic are no longer with us.