Serbian parliament

Reconciliation lessons from Africa

Africa does many things badly, but one thing especially well. It has perhaps unparalleled ability to reconcile and overcome painful divisions in the aftermath of conflict. 

I was reminded of this last week, in Belgrade, of all places, when I interviewed Boris Tadic, Serbia’s president, for the Talk to Al Jazeera programme.  He wanted to talk about the recent resolution passed by the Serbian parliament, which condemned the 1995 massacre of Bosniak Muslims at Srebrenica, carried out by Serbs.

President Tadic said he was proud of his parliament, arguing that it had shown how Serbia distanced itself from the crimes of the 1990s and "shared Western European values".