[Marxism] Wahabis attack gay exhibit in Bosnia

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

This report is from Diana Johnstone, just back from a week in Bosnia.
David

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        About Bosnia, where I just spent a week
Date:   Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:37:43 +0000 (GMT)
From:   Johnstone Diana <diana.josto@xxxxxxxx>
To:     Diana <diana.josto@xxxxxxxx>



**

*October 2, 2008 *


 The Harsh Constant


   Bosnia, Year 13

*

by Nebojsa Malic

*

*M*any years ago, Nobel Prize-winning author Ivo Andric wrote about a 
peculiarity of Sarajevo; none of the bell towers in the Old City tolled 
at the same time. However slight, there would always be a lag between 
the chimes of the Catholic cathedral, the Orthodox basilica, and the 
Turkish clock tower that rises alongside the grand mosque. Andric saw 
that as a metaphor for Bosnia, in which differing communities lived not 
together, but alongside each other, and uneasily. Hatred, he wrote, was 
the only constant in this turbulent land.

This is a far cry from the myth forged in the West during the brutal 
1992-95 civil war that ravaged Bosnia, that of a multi-cultural, 
multi-ethnic, harmonious paradise destroyed by outside aggression. Some 
places, like Sarajevo, were mini-oases of tolerance that lasted long 
enough â four decades of Communist rule â for a generation to grow up 
believing that "brotherhood and unity" was the normal state of affairs. 
For the vast majority of Bosnia's inhabitants, however, Andric's 
prophetic analysis remained true.

*

Private Policy

*

*I*t has been five years since the death of Alija Izetbegovic, Islamic 
revolutionary and wartime leader of Bosnian Muslims. No one man managed 
to inherit the mantle of Izetbegovic's power. His son Bakir is an 
influential faction leader within the Party of Democratic Action, but 
the party itself is run by *Sulejman Tihic*. Religious authority is in 
the hands of *Mustafa-/effendi/ Ceric*, top Islamic cleric in the 
country, who routinely meddles in politics. And the Muslim seat in the 
country's three-member Presidency is in the hands of *Haris Silajdzic*, 
Izetbegovic's wartime Foreign Minister.

The perpetually scowling Silajdzic has always had a one-track mind. This 
went a long way in making him popular in the West, where the strength of 
one's convictions is more important than the actual facts presented. 
Given that Silajdzic's speeches are usually fact-free, this has suited 
him just fine.

Silajdzic is currently the presiding member of the three-man Presidency. 
Twice this past month, he has used the position to make incendiary 
speeches, first at the UN General Assembly, then at the Council of 
Europe in Strasbourg. On both occasions, the Serb member of the 
Presidency sent a note to the international institutions that, while 
Silajdzic was the official representative of the country, his words were 
in no way official policy but rather private rants. Embarrassing? 
Certainly. But less so for Bosnia as it should be for Silajdzic, who 
pleaded for the abolition of the Serb Republic and wallowed in the most 
preposterous, debunked wartime propaganda such as "200,000 killed and 
50,000 raped." Shame, however, is a foreign concept to Silajdzic, and 
apparently to his followers as well.

*

The Argument of Force

*

*L*ast week, Wahhabi fanatics rioted in front of the Arts Academy in 
Sarajevo, where an exhibit of photographs was part of a low-key "Queer 
Festival." Photographing the people entering and leaving the building, 
the Wahhabis then ambushed them in the surrounding streets, beating up 
several visitors, organizers and journalists. The festival was called off.

In a statement, Silajdzic's party excused the Wahhabi fanatics, calling 
the festival a "provocation" and pointing out it was scheduled during 
Ramadan. They were not alone: at a prayer celebrating the end of 
Ramadan, one Sarajevo imam told the 5,000 faithful that the festival was 
an insult and an "attack on the Muslim family."

And yet, the festival organizers did their best /not /to provoke. What 
they tried to do was not a pride parade down the main street, but rather 
an exhibit of photographs and a showing of short films. None of that 
mattered, and neither did the scheduling; in the eyes of the Wahhabis, 
and apparently Muslim clerics and politicians in general, there is 
/never/ a good time for such a festival, and no good place. By attacking 
the festival, the Wahhabis were asserting the right to physically put 
down anyone they disagree with. Today it was the homosexuals, tomorrow 
it will be Christians, and after that the Muslims that aren't "pious" 
enough. As one Muslim journalist put it in a TV appearance following the 
Wahhabi attack, "This isn't reminiscent of /Kristallnacht /â it's 
exactly the same."

*

Biting the Friendly Hand

*

*H*aving demonstrated what they mean by "tolerance," Silajdzic's 
followers decided to prove their stupidity as well. On September 27, 
newspapers carried a statement from the party condemning *Daniel Serwer* 
of the U.S. Institute of Peace as a "Greater Serbian propagandist."

Serwer's "crime" was giving an interview to a Bosnian Serb daily, in 
which he allegedly said that the Muslims opposed the census because it 
would show they were no longer the majority. This latter part could be 
speculation, but it's absolutely true that the Muslims have opposed a 
new census for years (there hasn't been one since 1991).

Criticizing Serwer's statement is one thing, but Silajdzic's party did 
not do that. Instead, they attacked Serwer himself, as a "peddler of 
Greater Serbian propaganda since 1992" and "mercenary of Karadzic." Yet 
it is hard to find an American official who has more consistently 
championed the cause of Bosnian Muslims, or Montenegrin and Albanian 
separatists, over the past decade.

Serwer isn't the first foreign official to be denounced by Muslims even 
though he's been their steadfast supporter; anyone who ever questioned 
the Official Truth in any way has faced such hyperbolic vitriol, without 
regard to their contributions to the Muslim cause. Even so, many 
American policymakers continue to believe that helping the Balkans 
Muslims would ingratiate them with the Islamic world, so perhaps the 
Muslim nationalists aren't the real fools here...

*

For Whom the Bells Toll

*

*S*eptember this year coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, 
when the faithful are supposed to show their piety by abstaining from 
any food or water during the day. September 30, 2008 was also 30 Ramadan 
1429 by Muslim reckoning, and the feast of Eid-al-Fitr, known in Bosnia 
by its Turkish name, /Bayram/.

Though there are no official figures, Sarajevo is now thought to be more 
than 90% Muslim. Except early morning and after sunset, when tens of 
thousands of the faithful flocked to the city's numerous mosques, the 
city was empty and silent. Traffic was sparse, and most businesses, 
shops and eateries were shut.

The evening prior was Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the year 5769 by 
Hebrew reckoning. A handful of Sarajevo's remaining Jews gathered in the 
Sephardic synagogue to mark the occasion. Were it not reported on public 
television, hardly anyone would have noticed.

Once upon a time, the Jews â who had settled in Bosnia following their 
expulsion from Spain â numbered in the tens of thousands, and owned more 
than half the shops and buildings in old Sarajevo. They were almost 
wiped out in WW2, when Bosnia was part of the Nazi-allied state of 
Croatia. Most of the remaining Jews left for Israel in 1992, and less 
than a thousand altogether remain in Bosnia now.

Celebrity journalists, agitators and professional victims can talk about 
their multi-ethnic myths all they want. Sarajevo is simply not the city 
it once was. Serbs, Croats, Jews â there aren't enough of them to fill a 
single church or synagogue, while even the host of mosques built after 
the war in every neighborhood aren't enough to hold the Muslim faithful 
on a major holiday.

When Andric wrote about the dissonant chimes in the dead of Sarajevo 
night, they tolled for different people that could not get along but at 
least tried to. Now there is hardly anyone left for whom the bells of 
the cathedral and the basilica have any meaning.

*

What Future Holds

*

*O*nly the hatred has endured. The guns of Bosnia fell silent almost 13 
years ago, but the war has continued to this day. Muslims still insist 
on a centralized state, just as Serbs and Croats doggedly pursue 
autonomy, while the Empire plays them off against each other from the 
position of ultimate authority. What happens when the Empire falters, as 
events everywhere portend it will? Bosnia is living under a shadow of 
the very realistic possibility that the tenuous Dayton peace could 
shatter at any time, plunging the country back into the maelstrom of 
destruction. And this time, there would be no history of coexistence, no 
memory of tolerance, to hold it back.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.7.6/1709 - Release Date: 10/5/2008 9:20 
AM

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu