dijous, 19 de maig del 2016

THE ISLAMIZATION OF BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.


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https://gianalytics.org/952-the-islamization-of-bosnia-herzegovina-an-historical-perspective



Last November 18th 2015,  an terrorist attack by the  Bosnian Islamist, Enes Omeragic, in Sarajevo killed two policemen and reminded the public that in central Europe there is a Muslim state where fundamentalism is getting stronger: Bosnia Herzegovina, a country which you have already applied to join the EU.
This article presents a historical overview of the situation Islamization and fundamentalism in Bosnia.

A Little of Bosnian History
Bosnians, Serbs and Croats are Slavic people of the same family that arrived to the Balkans around the seventh century. They speak the same language-the Serbo-Croat, although each country named it in a different way: Serbian, Bosnian or Croat; Bosnian and Croats write it with Roman alphabet, while the Serbs use the ciliric one. But there is an element that differentiates them to oppose and confront them throughout history: religion. They were Christianized in different ways:  the Serbs were between 867 and 869 by the Byzantine Emperor, Basil I, after that acknowledged his authority, and therefore became Orthodox Christians; while we have the fact that in 879 Pope John VIII recognized the Croatian sovereign, Duke Branimir, indicating that their Christianization was held in a Roman-Catholic context.
The situation remains so until the impact of the conquest of the Balkans by the Ottoman Empire in 1463, when Bosnia, which until then had been part of Croatia, passed into the hands of the Ottomans and most of its population converted to Islam, which it did not happen with the Serbs, who maintained their religion even in the era of Ottoman rule. Croatia was always defended from the Turkish onslaught by the Most Serene Republic of Venice first, and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is the origin of the atavistic enmity between Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks (name given to the Bosnian Muslim).
Geographically Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into two areas: Bosnia, the north of the country and Herzegovina, which owes its name to Stefan Vukčić, who in a letter to Emperor Frederick II dated shortly before the Turkish invasion, signed as Grand Duke of Bosnia. Duke (Herzog in German), hence that the area was now to be known as Herzegovina (The Duchy) in documents of the time, being formalized in the mid nineteenth century when, even as Turkish province was officially called Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Bosnia remains under Turkish rule until 1878 (although between 1718-1739 was taken by the Austrians), when the Bosnians rebelled against the Sultan Abdul Hamid II, infected by the nationalist revolution of their Serb neighbors. These revolts led to intervention in their favor by the Austro-Hungarians and Russians eventually expel the Ottomans from Bosnia, who happened to be administered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire; after the First World War, Bosnia became part of a new State: Yugoslavia, which would be divided into World War II, when Bosnia was part of the Independent State of Croatia, and remade after 1945.
For centuries Catholics (Croats) and Orthodox (Serbs) who lived in Bosnia Herzegovina, defined themselves as Christians, while Muslims were called Turks, a term that is not equivalent to Osmanlis or turkuse, referring to the actual Turks [i] . If the Bosnian Catholics were fully identified with Croatia, and Bosnian Serbs with Serbia, they laid the Bosnian-Muslims in the position to take Islam as their main identifying feature.
This is how the fundamental question arises. To substantiate the existence of a Bosnian state after the end of Yugoslavia there were two possibilities: include Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims in only unitary Republic (Bosnian nationalism), or take Islam as an element on which to build their national identity leaving (Islamic nationalism) without solving the case of the Catholic and Orthodox "minorities" and its role in a State understood as Muslim.

Alija Izerbegovic

Under the Titosim, Bosnia-Herzegovina was the Yugoslav republic in which most citizens inscribed in the space reserved for "nationality" the term Yugoslavs (without any other reference), in the civil registry. It is during the 60s and even more sharply between the Bosnian emigration to Germany when it starts to spread the Muslim sense of identity among the Bosniaks, feeling that the same Tito recognized Muslims as a "Yugoslav citizenship" in 1961, when they -due to its high rate of natality- they became the largest group in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the detriment of the Orthodox Serbs. This action from Tito is understood within the context of Yugoslavia betting by integrate in so-called Non-Aligned several states of the Muslim faith.
The beginning of the process of disintegration of Yugoslavia with the independence of Slovenia and Croatia opened the doors to the internal conflict in Bosnia and the possibility of creating an independent Bosnian state. For some lit, it was time to build his Muslim state in the Balkans, among these enlightened the most dangerous was a certain Alija Izerbegovic who would become president of the Republic of Bosnia- Herzegovina. Obviously this religious-national definition was the declaration of exclusion for Serbs and Bosnian Croats of a common national project, hence their desire and their need to "re-join" national states where they are recognized as such. Croatia and the then Yugoslavia, respectively.

Islam and the US supporting the Bosnian side.
Alija Izerbegovic had been part of the “Young Muslims” organization, created under the influence of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In 1970 he published a text entitled Islamic Declaration, reprinted in Sarajevo in 1990, where it outlined its political-religious intentions: "Our purpose: the Islamization... everything in the history of the Muslim peoples is a memory of greatness and value has been created under the auspices of Islam. Turkey, while Islamic country has reigned over the world, while its European copy, represents a third-order country like many others in the world. The Islamic movement should and can take power from the moment you have the numerical and moral strength to do (...). The conclusion is important: there can be no coexistence between Islamic and non-Islamic beliefs ... political and social institutions". During the 70s and 80s to the important influence of Egyptian Islamism in Bosnia, we must add a new even more important: Iran. Iranian Islam was more attractive for Bosnians, Iran took advantage of this circumstance, winning the support of future leaders of the SDA (Party of Democratic Action, chaired by Izerbegovic), some of whom were arrested in 1983 while returning from a conference that Iran, then at war with Sada Hussein´s Iraq, had organized in Tehran for the unity of Shiites and Sunnis.
Once the Bosnian conflict erupted, the bulk of Muslim Bosniaks help came from Iran whose networks support  - logistic and sanitary- demonstrated high efficiency, and 86% of the Bosnian Muslims, they said to have a "favorable or very opinion favorable "Iran. In 1992, the Muslim Brotherhood made calls for jihad against the Serbs, although the aid was lower than Iran, with it laying the foundations for a dangerous relationship between Bosnia and most radical of Islamic fundamentalism.

Bosnian fundamentalists.
United States made an appearance in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia supporting the Muslim side and supporting the unity of Bosnia-Herzegovina that would include Serbs and Croats under the command of Muslims and the president Alija Izerbegovic, negating any possibility that the Croatian minority join Croatia (traditional ally of Germany) and to do so with Serbia (friend of Russia). Trim the advantage gained by Germany-EU with the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, and prevent a powerful alliance of Serbia with Russia, he made Washington took the Muslim flag (as in Kosovo would later for the same reasons) and formalized a new entente Islamic-American against any possible rapprochement between the two great continental powers, Germany and Russia.
By its side, the Muslim government in Sarajevo, advised and armed by the Pentagon, caused an irreversible situation for Croats and Bosnian Serbs, hoping his constant provocations unleashed a wave of violence that would allow the Muslim Bosnia have the sympathy of Western Europe and the consequent armed intervention in their favor. As the US Secretary of State recognized: "What at first was a multi-ethnic and legally elected Bosnian government, it has become an extremist and anti-democratic Muslim state." The Government of Sarajevo and its Armija (name of his army) did not have too many scruples to get the Serbs portrayed as barbarians in the West, and thus allow Americans lengthen the conflict with the aim to destabilize and weaken as much as possible this area vital for the European balance. So on May 27, 1992, an explosion in front of a bakery caused 16 Bosniaks killed, shocking and horrifying images appeared on television around the world and were repeated ad nauseam by CNN, blaming no doubt paramilitaries Serbs of such a creepy crime. Later the British and French secret services recognized that it was a car-bombing of Muslims whose only purpose was to attribute the attack to the Serbs in front of the world public opinion: this last "detail" was not reported in world news. On August 27 the same year, another slaughter raged a market in Sarajevo. NATO responded to the slaughter with a great action: 60 bombers attack Serb positions. A month later, British experts also concluded that the missile launched against the market full of civilians came from the Muslim ranks: back the veil of media silence spread.

Islamic radicalism, a threat to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"Bosnia was a model of inter-religious tolerance. This Islam in that area was more secular than you could imagine. Muslims of Sarajevo were so far away from the Middle East. Today, however, after ten years of turmoil, Bosnian Muslims also have entered the international game of fundamentalism [ii]
 Between 1992 and 1995 Bosnia-Herzegovina becomes a matter of first order for international Islamism. After 2001, research on Islamist terrorist networks always pass by Bosnian soil. Islamists from Africa and Asia obtained with astonishing ease Bosnian citizenship, with a clearly complicit attitude of the local authorities, it would appear rather than the arrival of these Africans and Asians responds to a specific will of the Muslim government in Sarajevo. This campaign of "express nationalizations" responded to two reasons; recognize the military merits to the Mujahideen who took up arms for the Armija; and secondly, to allow the arrival for fundamentalist Bosnian acquaintances that "re-islamized" the local population. This second goal caused and still causes a degree of confrontation between the "traditional Islam Bosnian stamp moderate" and "fundamentalist Islam imported" by those neo Wahabi missionaries, who considered Bosnia a territory to be "re-islamized".
That Bosnia lead by Alija Izetbegovic could not contain the desire for self-determination of the Croatian and Serbian communities. The war that caused this tension occupied during the early 90's the front page of all international newspapers, Peace came with the Dayton Agreement of 1995, according to which Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided into two entities but always within a single state. These entities are the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina which includes Muslims and Croats and Republika Srpska for the Serbs, the latter enjoys considerable autonomy and only pressures will prevent it joining Serbia. With this division the governing body of the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina is collegial; two representatives of the Federation (one Catholic and one Muslim) and a third Serb Republika Srpska, whoever gets the most votes of those, becames the nominal president of the Republic. From this division the Serbian area has a surface and administrative relationship with the rest of the country, the problem is that in the Federation witnessing a dual phenomenon, the re-Islamization in Wahhabi key Muslim Bosniaks and marginalization and harassment of Croatian Catholics.
Desde la salida del poder de Alija en 2000 –murió en 2003– hasta hoy los presidentes de la Federación (le sucedió su hijo Barik Izerbegovic) han intensificado el proceso de islamización, especialmente visible en la capital Sarajevo, antaño conocida por la buena convivencia entre serbios, católicos y musulmanes y hoy con un paisaje más parecido a Ankara que la ciudad europea que siempre fue. En palabras del cardenal Franc Rodé “Sarajevo se ha convertido en una ciudad prácticamente musulmana”, después de su viaje a la zona en junio de 2009 , el cardenal declaró en Radio Vaticano “los católicos fueron las principales víctimas de la guerra y muchos huyeron del país, a Croacia y también a países más lejanos como Australia, Canadá y Nueva Zelanda (…) En Sarajevo, una ciudad de 600.000 habitantes, hoy quedan sólo 17.000 católicos”, señalando también que en muchos pueblos donde no las había habido nunca se han construidos mezquitas, indicando que “existe una clara voluntad de islamizar la región de Sarajevo”. Este mismo año el cardenal de Sarajevo, Vinko Puljic, ha denunciado el crecimiento del fundamentalismo en Bosnia, sin que las autoridades hagan nada para detenerlos, como en muchos otros países europeos, la construcción de mezquitas y las madrasas (escuelas coránicas) están financiadas con petrodólares saudíes.
Since the ouster of Alija in 2000 -he died in 2003- until today the presidents of the Federation (Alija was succeeded by his son Barik Izerbegovic) have intensified the process of Islamization, especially visible in the capital Sarajevo, once known for good relations between Serbs, Muslims and Catholics and today with a landscape more like Ankara than the European city that always was. In the words of Cardinal Franc Rode "Sarajevo has become virtually Muslim city" after his trip to the area in June 2009, the cardinal told Vatican Radio "Catholics were the main victims of war and many fled the country, Croatia and more distant countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand (...) in Sarajevo, a city of 600,000 inhabitants, today there are only 17,000 Catholics, "also noting that in many towns where never had been never been any mosques, now are being built, starting that "there is a clear desire to Islamize the region of Sarajevo". This year the Cardinal of Sarajevo, Vinko Puljic, denounced the growth of fundamentalism in Bosnia, but the authorities do nothing to stop them, as in many other European countries, building mosques and madrassas (Koranic schools) that are financed with Saudi petrodollars.

Serbs and Croats have been victims of "religious cleansing" made with kalashnikovs and crescents, but we want to conclude this article pointing out that the main losers are the Bosnians themselves,  Muslim, but an European Slavic people, Islamized by force by the Turkish invader in the Modern Age, and now being re-islamizated with Saudi petrodollars and fanaticism. For them it would be necessary to reconsider the idea of the Bosnian Muslim state as a national state. They should be the ones that they fight Islamic fundamentalism that threatens the identity of its people and to turn Bosnia into an Islamic logistics base in their attack on our Europe.
Today no one should be surprised that the Salafist preacher in Bosnia until 2013, Nusret Imamovic is number 3 of Jabhat the Nusra, the second largest terrorist group in Syria, and that his replacement the Bosnian fundamentalist Bilal Bosnic, is now in charge of Isis recruitment of new members and management "donations" particularly Kuwait [iii]

Enric Ravello.




[i] Therry Mudry “Bosnia-Erzegovina. La nascita di una nazione” en Orion, nº5, mayo 1996. Milan.

[ii] Aldo dei Lello, L´utopia con la toga. L´ideologia del triunale internazionale e il proceso Milosevic. Ed. Sovera Multimedia. Roma 2002-
[iii] Read more at: https://neupic.com/articles/atentado-en-bosnia-habra-mas
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