My guest today is Dejan Mujkanovic. He is an Australian Army officer with 19 years of military experience. He has completed several tours of Afghanistan and also deployed to East Timor. He was born in Bosnia in 1980 and experienced the full brunt of the civil war in the 90’s. His hometown of Prijedor made global news due to the campaign of ethnic cleansing committed by the Bosnian Serb forces seeking to forcefully remove the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat populations from the area. As a result of these crimes, many of Dejan’s extended family members were lost in concentration camps, which, sadly, includes his father Senad Mujkanovic who was killed in the Omarska concentration camp in 1992. In the ensuing chaos, Dejan was separated from his mother and his siblings, and they have lived apart ever since. During his journey, he was forced to spend over two years in various refugee camps in Croatia and Austria and in late 1995, he was fortunate to settle in Australia with his grandmother. Now, 25 years later, Dejan is married and a proud father to his son. Some of the topics we covered are:
- His reason for joining the Army
- How the war in Bosnia started for him
- The loss of his father and other members of his family
- Fleeing the war and time as a child refugee
- Issues of identity
- Genocide and collective guilt
- The idea of forgiveness
- What good soldiering looks like
- Settling in Australia
- How his experience influenced his military service
91. Dr Greta Uehling - Understanding the Donbas: Identity, People, and its role in the Russia-Ukraine War
90. Dr David Kilcullen - Decoding Geopolitics and the emerging Multipolar World
89. Ambassador Robert ‘Bob’ Bowker - Understanding the Middle East: Lessons from Five Decades of Life and Work in the Region
88. Will Storr - The Status Game: Understanding Its Significance, Implications, and Why We Play It
87. Special Release: Robert Hartley - From War Zone to Ketamine: A Veteran’s Journey Through Trauma and Healing
85. Dr Elizabeth Boulton - Tackling the Climate Change Hyperthreat: Plan E, Entangled Security and harnessing a Hyper-response
84. Amos Fox - Beyond the illusion of manoeuvre: Navigating the clash between intentions and reality in modern warfare
83. Dr Alison Broinowski - How Australia goes to war and the prospect of war powers reform
82. Dr Samir Puri - Decoding the echoes of empire: how imperial legacies shape today’s geopolitics
81. Professor Greg Barton - Understanding radicalisation, extremism and terrorism
80. Dr Alex Lim - On veterans’ mental health: the good, the bad and the promising
79. Announcement of a significant change to The Voices Of War
78. Ye-Min Wu - Multilateral negotiations: on the trials and tribulations of building peace
77. Special Release: Natalia Konstantinova - How Russians view the invasion of Ukraine
76. Andrew Quilty - ’August in Kabul’ and the return of the Taliban
75. Dr Pauline Shanks Kaurin - On obedience and the fine line between hero and villain
74. Special Release: Jasmin Mujanovic - On the unfolding constitutional crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Part 2
73. Special Release: Jasmin Mujanovic - On the unfolding constitutional crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Part 1
72. Special Release: Wolfgang Sporrer - On diplomacy alongside combat operations in Ukraine
71. Dr Alexander Bellamy - R2P, Just War and prospects of World Peace - Part 2
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Just Dumb Enough Podcast
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL