by Gurakuç Kuçi 

The glorification of criminals is not just about the past. It teaches future criminals that if they kill for the “national cause,” they may one day end up as heroes.

In Russia and Serbia, a model of patriotism has been built in which violence against others is relativized when done in the name of the nation. The more a perpetrator of crimes is presented as a “defender of the national interest,” the more easily his crime is transformed into a “patriotic sacrifice.”

Therefore, the glorification of Ratko Mladić is not just a matter of historical memory. It has a political function even today. When institutions, politicians, and the media protect or rehabilitate people convicted of crimes, the message is clear: crime can be relativized, justified, and even rewarded if committed in the name of the nation.
In this way, not only an individual is rehabilitated. The logic that produced these people is also rehabilitated. Violence is no longer seen as a path to responsibility, but as a possible path to the status of a patriot.

Even more worrying is the fact that these narratives are transmitted to younger generations. In Serbia and Republika Srpska, Albanians, Bosniaks, Croats and others continue to be frequently presented through ethnocentric and hostile narratives. These ideas are reproduced in texts, publications, documentaries and materials for young people.

Thus, the war does not remain only in the memory of those who experienced it. It is also transmitted to those born after it.
Here lies the key difference: denial says that “the crime did not happen”. Glorification says something even more dangerous: “even if it did happen, it was justifiable because it served the nation.”

Therefore, the glorification of Mladić and similar figures should also be seen as a matter of security. A society that teaches young people that extreme violence can turn the perpetrator into a hero lowers the moral barrier to future violence.

Glorification does not only produce heroes from the criminals of the past. It can also produce the criminals of the future.