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Galvanizing Fear of Islam:
The 1983 Trial of Alija Izetbegovic in Context
Institute on East Central Europe
Columbia University
March, 1996
It is difficult to categorically state now that if Izetbegovic's book [The Islamic Declaration] had been read more closely on time numerous young Moslems wouldn't be losing their lives now, but it is sure that our wonder over events in Bosnia would be less. First of all, the careful analyst would realize that Izetbegovic did not see himself and his ideas as a European factor of small importance, tucked away in the mountains of Bosnia whence he had no desire to stir. This careful analyst would also see that the author saw himself(and his project and people) as the diamond tip on the great sword of Islam, which is now penetrating the belly and heart of Europe, but could turn tomorrow against Africa, Asia, America... as it surely will.
The truth is that the Muslims in this country do not understand Islam. They do not practice Islam, they have only their names which are Muslim, and that is a tradition... And yet, as Muslims in this country, we live in a paradox all the time. On the one hand we are European, on the other we don't know what to do about Europe... We are in a similar position in relation to the Serbs and the Croats, with whom we share this country, and who disagree between themselves over everything except one thing: their relationship to the Muslims, and their common need to destroy us. We simply do not know what to do, or where to place our faith.
More than any other text, the Islamic Declaration is cited by Serbian and Croatian nationalist propaganda as evidence of dangerous Islamic fundamentalism in Europe which must be suppressed... or else. Often cited to justify persecution of the Bosnian Muslim civilian population during the current war, the Declaration and its author, Alija Izetbegovic, now president of Bosnia, have been demonized and frequently blamed for the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. One might explain these accusations as viscous political propaganda brought on by war. However, as early as 1983, Izetbegovic and his writings were the target of a virulent campaign against Islam in Yugoslavia. This campaign had its contemporary roots in the early 1970's when Bosnian Muslims were allowed for the first time to declare themselves as a national group, but its deeper roots may lie in what Yugoslav scholar Bogdan Denitch calls "the pathological suspicion and hatred of Muslim Slavs." 3
The trial of Izetbegovic and 12 other "Islamic Fundamentalists" in 1983 was one of the most highly publicized political trials of the decade. The defendants were charged with attempting to create an Islamic state in Yugoslavia based on the ideas of Muslim nationhood expressed in The Islamic Declaration, written in 1970. Although parts of the document were published legally in Yugoslavia during the l970s, 4 rising Islamic consciousness worldwide and in Bosnia concerned the Serbian, Croatian and Muslim leadership of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY); each for political reasons hoped to define Muslim identity in its own terms. Only after the death of Tito in 1980, with Yugoslavia's already weak economy spiraling into ruin, and ethnic tensions accelerating in Kosovo, did the LCY target Izetbegovic and other proponents of the Islamic faith.
The Bosnian Muslims were not singled out for repression. The trial of Izetbegovic took place in the midst of an overall LCY crackdown on any element perceived to be "nationalistic" or antagonistic to a unified Yugoslavia. State violations of civil and political rights against Bosnian Muslims, rights which were guaranteed under the 1974 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) Constitution as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (both of which the SFRY signed), were no more or less severe than those against Serbian and Croatian nationalists at that time. 5 However, the trial had sinister implications for the future of Muslim relations in Yugoslavia, unleashing a torrent of anti-Islamic attacks in the state-run media. Given that neither Izetbegovic nor the larger Islamic movement to which he belonged advocated or used violence, the veracity of the attacks was unfounded. 6 Nevertheless, the Yugoslav media alternately portrayed Izetbegovic and other Muslim leaders either as specters of Ottoman invaders or Balkan versions of Ayatollah Khomeini, providing much of the rhetoric used in recent years to justify Serbian and Croatian nationalists' perceived threat of dangerous Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia.
Equally interesting is the keen attention that Western media paid to the Izetbegovic trial. Drawing "clear" linkages between the rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East and the "danger" posed by Muslims in Yugoslavia, the West tacitly condoned the increasingly repressive Yugoslav government.
While fear of Islam was not the cause of the current war, the amount of anti-Islamic propaganda that continues to be produced by both Serbian and Croatian nationalists suggests that it has played a significant role in defining the common enemy. The Islamic Declaration was strategically used by Serbian and Croatian nationalists for this purpose. After being banned in Yugoslavia during and after the 1983 trial of Izetbegovic, the Declaration was resurrected (in an edited form) in Serbia and Croatia and was also distributed among nationalist Serbian and Croatian emigre groups abroad during the late 1980s and throughout the war as evidence of an Islamic threat. 7
This article will examine the pre-war processes which constructed the identity of Bosnian Muslims as radical Islamic fundamentalists. This identity was adopted more by outsiders hostile to Islam than Bosnian Muslims themselves. During the course of the war, as Tom Gjelten and others have pointed out, the Bosnian Muslims and their governing Party for Democratic Action (SDA) led by Izetbegovic have become progressively more nationalistic. 8 he complex restructuring of Muslim personal and national identity during wartime is certainly a topic for further research. However, a genuine account of the emergence of Muslim nationalism should be pursued through extensive research in the field, where personal and national conceptions of identity have shifted during the course of the war according to one's demography, status as a refugee or displaced person, and personal experience of trauma. 9 This essay does not intend to justify the growing nationalism among Bosnian Muslims, nor to portray Izetbegovic as an entirely benign figure of the Balkans, but simply to chart the contemporary roots of this war's inter-ethnic hostility.
The movement to declare Bosnian Muslims a national group is usually traced to 1878 when Bosnian Muslim elites organized against Austrian occupation. It has since been characterized by political fits and starts that were interrupted by war and led nowhere. 10 Part of the problem in consolidating Muslim national identity has been the group's relative isolation from Muslim allies since the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1800s. Since the fall of the Ottomans, Bosnia has been surrounded by Serbian and Croatian neighbors, both of whom claim that Bosnia's Muslims are historically and culturally Serbs or Croats who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule. Many scholars of Bosnian history also agree that the Muslims, unlike the Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic churches, have historically lacked formal political and cultural organizations and adequate leadership to shape a collective identity. 11 As a result, the question of Bosnian Muslim identity throughout the late 19th and the 20th century has been defined and manipulated primarily by non-Muslim forces, the Austrians during Austro-Hungarian rule and the LCY during the reign of Tito in Yugoslavia. The LCY decision to give Muslims national status in 1968 did not digress from this pattern~
Under Tito there had always been confusion about how to identify the Bosnian Muslims. The reasons were both ideological and political. The LCY had to accommodate Yugoslavia's four million Muslims in some way. Giving them national recognition and all its attendant privileges based on a religious distinction, however, was diametrically opposed to the LCY's strict separation of national and religious identity (discussed further below). Politically, giving the Muslims national status would infuriate stronger national interest groups, namely the Serbs and Croats, each of whom had sizeable minorities living in Bosnia. Thus, the communist era in Yugoslavia is characterized by increasing recognition of Muslim national status as part of Tito's strategy to balance competing national interests.
The Yugoslav communists initially regarded the Muslims only as a religious community. By 1940, failure to recruit Muslims to the party led Tito to appeal to them as an "ethnic" group, promising rights equal to those of the Serbs and Croats. 12 However, in spite of Muslim participation in the National Liberation movement against fascism in World War II, it was immediately apparent after the war that the Muslims would not be given ethnic, let alone national, recognition. 13
Attempts by Muslims to assert their own identity in the postwar years were violently suppressed. One such group was Mladi Muslimani (Young Muslims). Formed in 1941, the group's objectives were "the revitalization of Islamic thought and Culture to their pristine and dynamic form, the re-education of the Muslims as to the true nature of their historical and religious traditions, and the development of social and charitable institutions through which the Muslim refugees, orphans and victims of the war could be cared for. 14 Accused of being a terrorist organization, the group was banned and members were arbitrarily imprisoned. Among those arrested was 21-year-old Alija Izetbegovic who in 1946 was sentenced to three years in prison for "pan-Islamic" activities. In 1949, four leaders of MIadi Muslimani were executed.
The only Muslim organization which remained open during this period was the Islamic Religious Community (IZV). The leadership of IZV was mildly critical of the new regime. In retaliation, Tito refused to support the organization financially and forbade IZV from collecting funds. Facing financial ruin, the Reis ul-Ulema (the state-appointed leader of the Islamic community in Yugoslavia and highest-ranking Muslim leader) formally pronounced IZV's loyalty to Marshall Tito in August, 1947. Shortly after, new religious leaders loyal to the party were "elected" and the period of Muslim accommodation under Tito began. 15
The IZV was useful to the communist regime in several key ways, and the regime generously returned the favor. The IZV was apolitical, maintaining a strict distance from both internal and external pan-Islamic sentiments and showing contempt for outsiders who criticized the Yugoslav government's treatment of Muslims. Deflecting criticisms leveled against Yugoslavia at the 1952 world Islamic Conference in Karachi, the Reis ul-Ulema (who refused to attend the conference) compared the favorable conditions of Bosnian Muslims with those Muslims of the Soviet Union who were forcibly deported by Stalin for their alleged collaboration with the Germans. This public statement won favor with Tito in his struggle to lead the non-aligned world. The IZV was also useful as a showcase for Muslim dignitaries and heads of state from other non-aligned countries who met with the Reis ul-Ulema during official state visits to Yugoslavia. In return, the IZV was given substantial benefits including relative autonomy in managing its affairs and property according to Shariat law, millions of dinars in government financial support, and permission to make pilgrimages to Mecca.' 16 The IZV was a model for church and state relations in Yugoslavia. Pursuing religion as a distinctly apolitical activity, the Islamic leadership publicly touted the Titoist mantra of "brotherhood and unity."
In 1961, the term "ethnic Muslims" was included in the census. Previously, Muslims were presumed to be ethnic Serbs or Croats of Muslim faith. Throughout the 60's, however, Bosnian communist party leaders strongly pushed for Muslim national identity, basing their claims on historic, cultural, and political factors. Muslims were the third largest group in Yugoslavia and yet were not defined as a nationality. Given that the country based its federalism on nationality, and this in turn determined proportional representation in the Party, the Muslims were severely underrepresented in the LCY because they lacked national Status. 17
Claiming Muslim nationality based on historic and cultural factors was much more of a public relations nightmare for Bosnian communists. It was clear (to Muslims and other Yugoslavs) that the Muslims were a distinct group, but given the state's sensitivity to the absolute separation of church and state, how could they justify defining nationality using an unambiguously religious name? Another problem was that outside of their religious heritage Muslims were linguistically, and to a lesser degree culturally, identical to other Yugoslav national groups, namely the Serbs and Croats. To get around this issue, Bosnian party leaders often defined Muslim identity not in and of itself, but in contradistinction to Serbs and Croats. Muslims were identified by what they were not, that is to say not Serbian, Croatian, Orthodox, or Catholic (and in many cases, not Islamic either). Religious aspects of Muslim identity were either relegated to the past and credited with shaping contemporary secular values of the Muslim community, or were accommodated under socialism; in harmony with, but distinctly separate from the nation. Atif Purivatra, President of the Commission for Internationality Relations of the Bosnian Socialist Alliance, is often cited as the foremost spokesperson for the Bosnian party line of Muslim nationality. He wrote,
In the course of historical development..., it became evident that many other factors besides religion] contributed to the separate national formation of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian Moslems, with religious elements shedding their one-time significance and giving way to a complex of other spiritual and material factors similar to those at work among other Yugoslav nations. It is true, therefore, that in national terms the Moslems differ... from the Serbs and Croats at least as much as these latter two differ from each other. 18 [emphasis added]
To further distinguish between the national and religious aspects of "Muslim" identity, it was common protocol in Yugoslav print media to refer to a person who practices the Islamic faith as a "muslim" (lower-case "m") whereas national, presumably secular, Bosnians whose ethnicity had historically been formed by Islamic culture, were referred to as "Muslims" (capital "M"). 19 By denying the continuing influence of Islam on the contemporary Muslim community, Purivatra and others helped to shape a Muslim national identity that was palatable to socialists as well as nervous Serbian and Croatian nationalists who feared an independent Muslim national identity. In short, the Muslim leadership of the LCY took the Islam out of Muslim national identity.
Tito had his own reasons for allowing Muslims to claim a national identity. In the late 1 960s through 1971, Yugoslavia experienced a crisis that threatened to destroy the republic, Liberal members of the Croatian communist party, led by Savka DabcevicKucar and Miko Tripalo, allied with Croatian nationalists to push for a reformed federalism which would integrate nationalism into the political system "so Croats might be concerned first with Croatian interests, and second with the interests of Yugoslavia. " 20 The LCY reacted strongly, purging Croatian, as well as Slovenian and Macedonian, liberals from the Communist Party. The result was increased ethnic tensions and deep distrust by all ethnic groups towards Serbs who were perceived to control the LCY.
Instead of quelling nationalism, the "Croatian Spring," as many Croatians still call the events of 1971, transformed Kucar and Tripalo into Croatian folk heroes. A rehabilitation of other Croatian folk heroes soon followed, including a new cult around the memory of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, imprisoned by Tito after World War II because of alleged collaboration with the fascist Ustase regime. Also resurrected were the leader of the Ustase, Ante Pavelic, the pro-Rabsburg Ban Josip Jelacic, and Croatian Peasant Party leader Stjepan Radic. 21 Though the newly-rehabilitated Croatian heroes had very different political visions and methods, all were perceived to be united in their struggle to defend Croatian national rights. The Croatian Spring inspired determination to continue the historic battle for the life of the nation. Young men sang Ustase songs publicly in defiance of Yugoslav law, and Croatian separatist groups re-emerged both in Yugoslavia and abroad among large emigre populations, many of whom were former Ustase or sympathizers who fled Yugoslavia when Tito claimed power. Tito was not unaware of the powerful historic role emigres had played in Yugoslav history. The Ustase regime was formed in Italy and re-imported to Croatia; the partisans themselves were all trained in Moscow. When foreign emigres began organizing mass demonstrations in support of Croatian independence, and Serbian nationalists followed suit, Tito attempted to balance the two by placing a wedge between them. In an effort to contain rising Serbian and Croatian nationalism, many scholars of Yugoslav history argue, Tito granted Muslims national status as a buffer against Serbian and Croatian expansionist claims on Bosnia. 22
The achievement of Muslim national status was an important victory for socialist (read, secular) Muslims. Among religious Muslims, however, the official negation of Islam as an integral part of Muslim national identity was an insult. An Islamic awakening began in Bosnia simultaneously with national recognition, and coincided with the global Islamic renaissance. The movement in Bosnia was led primarily by religious leaders (outside of the IZV) and intellectuals such as Izetbegovic. The Islamic Declaration expressed views that are common to the movement at large.
Viewed within the context of Tito's political machinations and the LCY's limited definition of Muslim identity, the Islamic Declaration can be seen less as a political call to action than an attempt to reconcile Bosnia's new national identity with its historic Islamic roots. Even though Izetbegovic never mentions Bosnia or Yugoslavia in the Declaration, one can read through the lens of his personal experience when he implores in the introduction,
Just like an individual, a people that has accepted Islam is thereafter incapable of living and dying for any other ideal. It is unthinkable that a Muslim should sacrifice himself for any king or ruler, no matter who he might be, or for the glory of any nation or party, because the strongest Islamic instinct recognizes in this a kind of paganism and idolatry. 23
The Islamic Declaration, subtitled "A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims and the Muslim Peoples," claims that Muslim people worldwide are "in a state of spiritual helplessness and material and political dependence. " 24 In Part I of the Declaration, Izetbegovic calls for Islamic renewal and a return to a strict reading and practice of the Qu'ran to save the Muslim people from imminent destruction. Interestingly, Izetbegovic does not scapegoat the West for what he calls "The Backwardness of the Muslim Peoples." Instead, he reserves his harshest criticism for Muslim leaders themselves, in particular those he calls conservatives" and "modernists." Both err primarily in seeing Islam only as a religion rather than a way of "ordering the world. " 25
The conservatives, defined as the hajjs and the sheiks, have failed the Muslim world by setting themselves up as intermediaries between man and God, creating a hierarchy that is not intended in the Qu'ran. "Invariably dogmatic," these conservatives maintain a strict interpretation of Sharia law. They fail to understand and make accommodations for the contemporary world. "Any further remodeling of the Sharia as law.... of applying Qu'ranic principles to new situations which continue to emerge from world developments, is equated with an attack on the integrity of the faith. " 26
On the other hand, the modernists -- usually government and societal leaders -- are often educated in the West and upon their return to the Muslim world feel a deep sense of Islamic inferiority. These modernists attempt to transplant European and American values and ways to their own people to "rescue" and "reform" them. Here, Izetbegovic reveals his own ambiguity about the West and Western values. Though he chastises modernists for failing to recognize the value of their own Islamic principles, he does not simultaneously criticize Western values. In fact, he praises them.
[The modernists] can not see that the power of the Western world does not lie in how it lives, but in how it works; that its strength is not in fashion, godlessness, night clubs, a younger generation out of control, but in the extraordinary diligence, persistence, knowledge and responsibility of its people 27
A generous description of Western culture by any standard, Izetbegovi's view seems particularly out of place in a pan-Islamic text, especially one that has so often been cited as a warning to the West about the dangerous spread of Islam. Izetbegovi's admiration for the West may be a result of his own experience as a Muslim in a culture that was itself shaped by both Western and Eastern, Christian and Muslim values. The real point of Izetbegovi's praise of the West, though, is to indicate the relative laziness and shortsightedness of the modernists in their search for quick solutions to complicated Muslim social problems such as poverty and underdevelopment. This theme is reiterated throughout the Declaration. The path to a better society requires tremendous determination by the Muslim peoples, and disciplined reading and practice of the Qu' ran.
Part II of the Declaration, "The Islamic Order," explains how Muslim society m should be reorganized based on Islamic principles. Parts of this section are often quoted out of context to prove that the Declaration advocates violence. The Islamic order, according to Izetbegovic, "posits two fundamental assumptions: an Islamic society and Islamic governance... An Islamic society without an Islamic authority is incomplete and without power; Islamic governance without an Islamic society is either utopia or violence." 28 Izetbegovic seems to further implicate himself when he says, "There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political institutions. " 29 While these statements, taken out of context, might justify alarm on the part of non-Islamic peoples in Yugoslavia, it is crucial to note that Izetbegovic is speaking here of Muslim countries in which false modernist or conservative Islamic doctrines have been institutionalized in the political and social system. He is not speaking of Western countries. The introduction to the Declaration makes this point clearer. Re addresses the Declaration specifically to Muslim peoples and not "China, Russia, and the Western Countries" who fight among themselves for pieces of the Muslim world. "The Islamic world does not belong to them, but to the Muslim peoples. " 30 Similarly, the Western world does not belong to the Muslims. Any doubt that Izetbegovic intended to overthrow the Yugoslav government should have been assuaged by his further assertion that "The Islamic order can only be established in countries where Muslims represent the majority of the population. 31
Part III, "Present Day Problems of the Islamic Order," is a prescription for carrying out Islamic renewal. Again, parts of this section are often quoted out of context, for example, "Islamic rebirth cannot begin without religious revolution, but it cannot be successfully continued and completed without a political one." 32 What is often disregarded by anti-Muslim propagandists is that Izetbegovic explicitly advocates non-violent means to achieve this end:
When considering these matters, the dilemma inevitably arises... that a shorter way to the Islamic order would be by taking power... This is mere temptation. History does not relate any true revolution which came from power. All began with education and meant in essence a moral summons. 33
He further explains his stance on non-violence by discussing the sacrifice and personal searching that each Muslim must undertake in order to live according to the Qu'ran. The "hardest phase of the jihad," he argues, is "the struggle against oneself. By definition religious renewal means beginning with the self, with one's own life. In contrast, violence and force always have someone else in mind. " 34
A close reading of the Declaration reveals that Izetbegovic was advocating a cultural, not a political revolution, especially in countries (like Yugoslavia) where Muslims were a minority. It is difficult to say how the Declaration affected Izetbegovi 's fellow Bosnian Muslims, and whether or not it inspired some to pursue a political Islamic agenda 35 S However, it seems that for the most part Bosnian Muslims "got" the message; what was needed among Bosnia's new national group was a revitalization of Islamic culture and values, not a return to Shariat law. Cornelia Sorabji, an anthropologist who studied Bosnian religious Muslims in Sarajevo, contends that the revival movement in Bosnia differed from the trends in other Muslim-dominated countries in two distinct ways.
Firstly, it is not a political movement and makes no calls for the reinstatement of Shariat law. ... second... In the pursuit of values seen as Islamic... Sarajevan revivalists look constantly to the outside Muslim world, seeking to identify their own practice with that of the Arabs and Turks. Modesty, respect and obedience within the family are not only considered to be intrinsically Islamic but also seen and asserted as values which link Bosnians to the wider Muslim Ummah. This self association with the outside Islamic world is related to the Bosnian Muslims' situation as a minority in a non-Muslim state. 36
However, perhaps the more convincing evidence that the Bosnian people clung to the idea of a cultural Islamic renaissance (and even secularism) rather than political revolution was the platform of Izetbegovi's 1990 political Party for Democratic Action (SDA). Though the SDA was clearly the party of Muslims in Bosnia, it appealed primarily to secular values of tolerance and multi-ethnicity and did not explicitly advocate the establishment of an Islamic state. While Article VII of the SDA Platform declares that Bosnian Muslims are a distinct national group in Yugoslavia with full rights to autonomy, it continues by stating, "Simultaneously we recognize the [sicj similar rights (as those mentioned above) for the Serbian, Croatian and other national/ethnic groupings currently residing within Bosnia and Herzegovina. In connection with the aforementioned, we point out our particular interest in the preservation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the common state of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats." 37 Ultimately, it was these values, and not nationalism or Islamic fundamentalism, which won the votes of Bosnia's Muslim and muslim citizens. The SDA won 87 out of 240 seats in the Bosnian Assembly, taking 37.8 percent of the popular vote. 38
Interestingly, neither Izetbegovic nor his writings were perceived to be a sufficient threat until 1983.
The trial of Izetbegovic and twelve others accused of trying to establish an Islamic state in Yugoslavia took place just months before much of the international community would be introduced to Sarajevo at the 1984 winter Olympics as a model of multiethnicity and tolerance. The trial came on the heels of a 1983 Amnesty International report on the dramatic rise in me numbers of prisoners of conscience in Yugoslavia. According to the report, there was a marked increase in prosecutions of political offenses since the death of Tito in 1980. The Federal Public Prosecutor reported 553 political crimes in 1980, an 83 percent increase from me previous year, 39 and by 1983 an independent report claimed that there were 3,000 political prisoners in Yugoslavia, mostly ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. 40 Several factors contributed to this, not least among them a power vacuum left by Tito 's death. Yugoslavia was experiencing intense social and economic upheaval. In Kosovo, the majority ethnic Albanians began rioting for independence in 1981 triggering a resurgence of nationalism among the Serb minority in me province. Serb party leaders would later describe the rise in Serbian nationalism as a "defense against Albanian irredentism." 41 The economy was sliding into ruin. By 1983 inflation surged to 50 percent, the cost of living went up 15 percent, and foreign debt was in the billions. 42
In the wake of Tito's death, Yugoslavia experienced a temporary opening up of the state-run press. Several highly controversial novels and plays were produced. In 1982, Tren 2, a novel by Antonije Isakovic, described the notorious political prison of Goli Otok and portrayed the Partisans as crude Stalinists. A very popular play, Golubnjaca, was eventually banned because it suggested mat Serbian-Croatian hatred was still alive and well after World War II. By May, 1983, however, the editorial boards of practically all of Yugoslavia's main newspapers were either censured or fired. 43
In this climate of political and economic insecurity any element perceived as a threat to stability was repressed. Within this context, the trial of Izetbegovic is unremarkable. Izetbegovic was as much a victim of discriminatory legal practices as other political dissidents, among them his contemporaries Franjo Tudjman, current president of Croatia, and Vojislav Seselj, founder of an ultra-nationalist Serbian party and leader of a Serbian Chetnik paramilitary group alleged to have committed some of the worst atrocities of me current war. However, an analysis of the trial reveals that the accusations against the defendants were based almost exclusively on pervasive stereotypes of Islamic peoples as "terrorists" and had little to do with the alleged aspirations of the accused to wage a jihad against Yugoslavia.
On June 22, 1983, Izetbegovic and twelve others were charged with "hostile activity inspired by Muslim nationalism" under Article 136 Paragraph One of the Criminal Code, "Association for Purposes of Hostile Activity," and Criminal Code Article 133 "Hostile Propaganda. " 44 Specifically, the defendants were accused of intending to create "an ethnically pure Moslem Bosnia-Herzegovina," based chiefly on Izetbegovi's Islamic Declaration and 80 other items of written evidence. Some of the defendants were also accused of maintaining contact with the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, and Izetbegovic was further accused of organizing a visit to a Muslim Congress in Iran. 45 The other defendants were: Omer Behem, an engineer; Hasan Cengic, an imam; Ismet Kasumagic, an engineer and university lecturer; Edhem Bicakcic, an engineer; Szemal Latic, a teacher of SerboCroatian; Huso Zivali, an engineer; Dervis Djurdjevic, a lawyer; Salih Behmen, a math teacher; Melika Salihbegovic, a writer; Djulejka Bicakcic, a secretary; and Rusid Prguda, a retired economist and ex-Partisan. 46According to Amnesty International, Article 136 was often used in connection with Article 114, "Counterrevolutionary Endangering of the Social Order," and was a common legal tool used to prosecute prisoners of conscience in Yugoslavia. Similar in nature to Article 114, Article 136 was loosely worded to encompass association for the purpose of committing crimes listed in Article 114. Likewise, Article 133 on "Hostile Propaganda" was liberally used to convict prisoners of conscience. 47
The trial began on July 18 and ended just one month later on August 20 after all of the accused and more than 60 witnesses were heard, and written evidence by ten witnesses was read. The trial was presided over by Rizah Hadzic, himself a Bosnian Muslim. The accused were sentenced to a total of 90 years imprisonment, with the harshest sentences for Izetbegovic, 14 years, and Omer Behmen, 15 years.
Amnesty International, which observed the trial, concluded that the accused were not charged with either using or advocating violence 48 and Helsinki Watch condemned the trial, noting that many of those arrested neither used nor advocated violence and that authorities often "alluded to 'another Kosovo' when evaluating the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina." 49
Yugoslavia ratified both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 1971. Clearly, the arrest and trial of Izetbegovic violated basic principles of human rights protected under the ICCPR. However, like the Criminal Code, the Yugoslav Constitution, which was revised in 1974, contained an "emergency clause" in Chapter III, "The Freedoms, Rights, and Duties of Man and the Citizens." 50 article 203 allows for broad government interpretation of crimes against the state and virtually cancels out the rights protected in the remainder of Chapter III, namely: Article 167 guaranteeing "freedom of the press and other media of information and public expression, freedom of association, freedom of speech and public expression, freedom of gathering and public assembly;" and Article 183 guaranteeing "freedom of movement and abode." 51
Regardless, as signatories of the ICCPR, Yugoslavia violated internationally protected human rights, namely; Articles 21 and 22 guaranteeing freedom of "peaceful assembly" and "freedom of association;" Article 12/2 guaranteeing "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own;" and Article 19 guaranteeing "freedom of expression. " 52
In Yugoslavia, the state-run press proclaimed the defendants guilty before the trial even began by announcing, "Thirteen members of a former secret organization which aimed to turn Bosnia-Hercegovina into a Muslim state organized on Islamic principles and break up the Yugoslav Federation, went on trial in Sarajevo on 18th July." 53 In the verdict, Judge Hadzic denied any allegation that the trial was aimed at religion, stressing that the accused were guilty of crimes against "brotherhood and unity." 54
His distinction highlights the Yugoslav conception of religion and its relationship to politics; as well as the LCY's sensitivity to any criticism against its much-touted religious freedom policy. The Yugoslav Constitution maintains strict separation of church and state. The practice of religion is an exclusively private experience that has no place in the political sphere. Article 174 of the Constitution spells this out,
Profession of religion shall be free and shall be an individual's private affair. Religious communities shall be separate from the state and shall be free to conduct their religious affairs and religious services... Abuse of religion and religious activities for political purposes shall be unconstitutional . 55
Thus, in theory, freedom of religion is guaranteed, but its purpose and its practice are clearly defined by the state. Rather than seeing this as a constraint on religion, Yugoslav socialists viewed Article 174 as liberating religion from politics, and politics from religion, allowing believers to pursue their faith genuinely, without being compelled by the state. This right is not derived from socialists' fondness for religion; rather, it follows from other socialist conceptions of freedom. As Yugoslav scholar Radovan Samardzic argued,
In a political community where religion constitutes the measure of political truth, those principles, criteria and attitudes according to which an individual appraises his future or already performed acts as morally good or bad are the result of "external necessity," and not of man's internal postulates, of his self-determination, that is. of man's freedom. 56
Since religion is a strictly private matter, when it is used for political purposes, it ceases to be religion at all in the Yugoslav conception. It becomes instead, a tool for politics. Thus, Judge Hadzic emphasized the crimes of the accused as crimes against brotherhood and unity, not religion.
Judge Hadzic and other secular Bosnian Muslim party members also had political reasons for making the distinction. After 1971, when Muslims were formally recognized as a national group, Bosnian party leaders wanted to ensure that the newly-recognized identity remained secular, rather than religious. 57 Any accusations that the trial of Izetbegovic was directed at believers of Islam as a religion were rejected outright. This Yugoslavia News Agency editorial was typical of the outrage towards allegations that the trial religiously motivated,
Those occupying the accused bench... were enemies of the community of Yugoslav nations and nationalities, and not believers in a religious faith. No one in this country has ever been convicted for his religious affiliation. But if someone uses religion for political goals, particularly goals opposed to the interests of the state, he must feel the full force of the law... the verdict in Sarajevo is ... [was] a defense of the Yugoslav Constitution. 58
Less than one year later, on May 30, 1984, the Supreme Court of Bosnia-Hercegovina announced that "some of the actions of the accused, on the grounds of which the court of the first instance had found them guilty, did not have the characteristics of criminal acts." Izetbegovi's sentence was reduced to 12 years, and the other's were reduced proportionately. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Fear of dangerous fundamentalist Islam in Bosnia was released. The Yugoslav press was accurate that this was not a trial about religion, at least not in the Yugoslav conception; it was a trial about Islam, intrinsically defined as a political system. Regardless of the fate of the those convicted in 1983, Islam itself had been found guilty and was fast galvanizing hatred and fear of Muslims. Both socialists and nationalists alike manipulated this fear to alternately hold Yugoslavia together, and to rip it apart.
The trial of Izetbegovic and the larger Islamic renaissance in Bosnia led to a virulent media campaign against Islam in Yugoslavia. Negative coverage of Islamic activities worldwide and obsessive speculation about Islamic conspiracies were commonplace in Yugoslav newspapers and journals. Serbian nationalists, Muslim communists, Islamic religious leaders accommodated under socialism, and Western media all contributed to fostering an atmosphere of intolerance toward Islam.
The thrust of the attacks against Bosnian Muslims was to portray them as dangerous outsiders. They could not be trusted to pursue either Yugoslav socialist interests (this was the LCY argument) or to guarantee the rights of their Serbian and Croatian neighbors (the nationalist argument) because their loyalties were with Islam. Although the Bosnian Muslims are ethnically Slavic and are as indigenous to the region as Serbs and Croats, their religious identity is perceived to supersede their ethnicity. Whereas the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Croatian Catholic Church are distinctly rooted to their respective ethnicities, Islam is perceived as a global force pulling all Muslims toward it, compelling them to forsake local historical and cultural alliances for the larger goal of creating a pan-Islamic world. As Zagreb University Professor Milan Kangrga said in 1982,
the danger of Islam lies not in itself, as such, but rather in the tendencies contained within it, which do not shrink from openly and militantly advocating that Marx's science... be replaced by the Islamic religion and the Koranic way of life. 59
Therefore, unlike Croatian and Serbian nationalism, which is distinctly homegrown in the Balkans and rests primarily on disputes over relatively limited national borders, Islam is regarded as a worldwide phenomenon that threatens to engulf all of Yugoslavia, the Balkans, and Europe.
This view of Islam has historic resonance for Serbs and Croats who, even today, see themselves as Europe's front line against Islam. For Serbs, the period of Ottoman rule, specifically their crucial loss of the "sacred" Serbian homeland Kosovo to the Ottomans in 1389, was a historically defining moment with vast cultural, political, and religious implications even today. A volatile combination of bitterness and pride, the memory of Kosovo is captured in traditional Serbian folklore, music, and poetry such as this verse:
So tear down minarets and mosques,and kindle the Serbian yule logs and let us paint our Easter eggs
Observe the two fasts honestly, and as for the remainder do as you like.
I swear to you by the creed of Milos Oblilic and by the trusty weapons that I carry,
our faiths will be submerged in blood.
The better of the two will rise redeemed.
The 'Id can never live in peace with Christmas Day.
[Milos Oblilic refers to the Serbian knight alleged to have assassinated the Ottoman Sultan Murad I at Kosovo; the 'Id refers to a Muslim festival following Ramadan 60
Since the battle of Kosovo, Serbian nationalists have defined Islam as the religion of the invader; and contemporary Muslims are perceived to be the descendants of the Turkish occupiers. For Serbian nationalists today's Bosnian Muslim "enemy" has been conjured primarily through the interpretation of certain historical "facts" which can only be properly understood through blood-ties to the Serbian nation. Kosovo is a prime example, but also the Serbian experience of World War II, in which Serbian nationalists are viewed simply as the victims regardless of the brutal massacres carried out by Serbian Chetnik forces against other ethnic groups. "Outsiders" by virtue of their "otherness" cannot possibly understand the experience of the Serbian people; "outsider" interpretation or criticism of the group's attitudes and behavior are therefore invalid. The distrust and outright denial of "outsider" interpretations of Serbian experience has been manifested continually throughout the current war; from Radovan Karadzic's insistence throughout the siege of Sarajevo that Muslims were attacking themselves to gain Western sympathy, to General Ratko Mladic's genuine wonder on Belgrade TV at the "demonization' of Serbia in the Western media, to Belgrade'5 "shock" that Europe and the United States were beginning diplomatic and economic sanctions after warning the regime for weeks of the potential for isolation. To this, Branko Brankovic, a senior Foreign Ministry official, declared that the West was "opening the door to Islamic fundamentalism in Europe. " 61
Michael Ignatieff, traveling through Croatia and Serbia during the early years of the war, described the "nobody understands us" stance as a "ritual style of Serbian nationalism itself. " 62 Ask a Serb steeped in national consciousness why the Serbs are fighting the current war and most will declare that there is no way to understand without knowing the full story of the Serbian nation. He will dip 600 years into Serbian history to locate the roots of their hatred towards contemporary Bosnian Muslims, or 50 years when justifying the war in Croatia. After all, it was in 1389 that the Turks defeated the Serbs in a devastating battle at Kosovo and in World War II that Serbs were brutalized by the Nazi-supported Croatian Ustase regime. The answers are rote, but the belief in their truth is thorough. Ignatieff, in his compelling story of traveling down the Highway of Brotherhood and Unity during the Croatian-Serbian war, observed,
It was in Vukovar that I began to see how nationalism works as a moral vocabulary of self-exoneration. No one is responsible for anything but the other side. In the moral universe of pure nationalist delusion, all action is compelled by tragic necessity. Towns must be destroyed in order to liberate them. Hostages must be shot. Massacres must be undertaken. Why? Because the other side started it first. Because the other side are beasts and understand no language but violence and reprisal. And so on. 63
The Turkish invasion began the period of conversion to Islam in the region, primarily by the ethnically Slavic peoples living in the territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina Today, both Serbian and Croatian nationalists claim with varying degrees of hostility that Bosnian Muslims are simply ethnic Croatians or Serbians who either betrayed their fellow Slavs by converting to the enemy's religion (and therefore deserve nothing short of contempt) or who are still ethnically aligned to Croatia or Serbia (and therefore should be subsumed under the appropriate "mother" nation). 64 Although Serbian and Croatian nationalists disagree on most things, they are in agreement that the Muslims are a threat to Christianity. As mentioned earlier, both nations see themselves as the vanguard against Islam. Both refer to the current war as an example of their continuing legacy of defending the world against the infidels. In 1992, General Zivota Panic, the chief of staff for the federal Yugoslav army proudly showed New York Times correspondent Roger Cohen maps with penciled-in sketches of "the green transversal" an "alleged Islamic plan of sinister scope to establish power from Bihac, south of Zagreb, all the way eastward to Albania and so... cut the Christian world in half. " 65 And recently, a Croatian priest in Hercegovina told New York Times reporter Mike O'Connor why the Croats must resist the Dayton Peace Plan as part of their historic effort to defend Christianity against Islam. Said one Rev. Vinko Mikolic referring to the Bosnian Muslim government led by Izetbegovic, "That is a government of Muslims They are no better than the Turkish occupiers from our history. We cannot let them occupy us again, never. " 66
Similar sentiments were prominent throughout the 1980s as the Serbian controlled press increasingly drew upon the mythology of Kosovo to evoke threats of "invaders from within" and "fundamentalists" like Izetbegovic, as well as Muslim communist party leaders.
H.T. Norris, author of Islam in the Balkans, contends that the thousands of anti-Islamic articles that appeared in Yugoslav newspapers throughout the 1980s have four typical elements upon which the Serb nationalists base their attack on Islam, namely: (1) the rise of fundamentalism in Yugoslavia is due to Tito's close relations with the Arab world and his liberal treatment of Muslims in Yugoslavia, (2) the Arab Muslims have a global strategy to form a single Islamic state, and Yugoslavia is but a pawn in their larger game, (3) Islam inherently allows for the "extermination" of non-believers, hence Islamization in Yugoslavia poses a terrifying security threat, and (4) the Bosnian Muslims are the descendants of the Ottoman Turks and therefore should be held accountable for their ancestor's conversion 500 years ago. 67
A typical example of Serbian anti-Muslim propaganda is found in a 1989 interview in Duga with Dr. Miroljub Jevtic, described as an expert on Islam and author of a 1987 book entitled The Current Jihad as a War. He says,
Bosnia has sunk to the lowest depths through the name of Islam. Those who embraced Islam betrayed Bosnia. The Ottomans came to the Balkans in the name of Islam, and in the name of Islam they slaughtered and exterminated the inhabitants. Those who embraced Islam in fact acknowledged the occupiers as their own brothers, just as they took on their shoulders the deeds which were committed by their "brothers." Because of this, the hands of the Muslims who are with us are stained and polluted with the blood of their ancestors from among the inhabitants of Bosnia at that time, namely those who did not embrace Islam. 68
Bosnian Muslim party leaders, nervous that "Islamic fundamentalists" would tarnish their new status as a national group, and thereby their claims to proportional representation in the party, joined the anti-Islamic fray. Throughout the 1970s, party spokesmen were adamant in defining themselves as a national group that differentiated itself on the basis of ethnicity, not religion, sharing with Serbs and Croatians a common Slavic origin. They were careful to claim no affiliation with other non-Slavic Islamic peoples of Yugoslavia, namely the highly unpopular Albanian and Turkish minorities. By 1979, however, the sole Muslim member of the LCY Presidium, Hamdija Pozderac, publicly condemned Islamic clergy for misusing Islam for political purposes. The views expressed by some Islamic clerics and by the popular Islamic journal, Preporod, were similar to those found in the Islamic Declaration. Pozderac regarded these "pan-Islamic" views as intrinsically dangerous claiming, "In the name of a pan-Islamic, universal link based on faith, all national differences, which are the result of class development, would be wiped out. This is, however, directed against the national emancipation of Muslims." 69 By portraying "fundamentalists" as the real threat against Muslim national identity, Pozderac and other Bosnian intellectuals bolstered the LCY as the true champion of the Muslim peoples. "Under Tito... the Yugoslav Muslims were enabled for the first time to achieve a position of equal rights in their homeland. " 70 Those seeking to combine a religious and ethnic identity, let alone link it to a larger Islamic movement, were simply ungrateful. They had taken advantage of the LCY and Tito's generosity to improve their own position as part of a strategy to Islamicize Yugoslavia.
Even more sinister than the image of ungrateful, scheming Muslims were statements by Bosnian party members that sound eerily similar to anti-Semitism. Pozderac complained in the Economist that Muslim intellectuals "had too much influence in the press, the universities and the publishing houses, " 71 a paradoxical accusation, given that all three of these institutions were run by the state.
In fairness to the Muslim LCY leaders, it must be noted that in 1983 the idea of Muslim nationality still lacked legitimacy, especially among Bosnia's Serbian and Croatian minorities. Serbian nationalists, especially wary of all Muslims since Albanian Muslims began rioting in Kosovo, eyed the development of Bosnian Muslim nationality with deep suspicion. Prior to the 1971 census, figures showed a majority of Serbians in Bosnia-Hercegovina since Muslims could choose only to be of Serbian or Croatian nationality. This changed dramatically when Muslims attained national Status in 1968 and became the majority nationality in Bosnia. 72 With the revival of Islam in Bosnia, albeit cultural rather than political, the minority Serb group saw Kosovo repeating itself in Bosnia. The best way to assuage this fear, Bosnian Muslim socialists seemed to agree, was to openly criticize and persecute Muslims who sought to incorporate Islam into the Muslim national identity.
But Muslim communists were not alone in criticizing the Islamic awakening in Bosnia. Islamic religious leaders, with their tenuous power still accommodated under socialism, disqualified this "militant" movement as contrary to Qu'ranic principles. The Yugoslav News Agency gave substantial space to this view. In a 1983 interview, Dr Ahmed Smajlovic, professor at the Islamic Theological Faculty, accused Khomeini-like fundamentalists of behaving in ways that are "diametrically opposed to Islamic rules. 73 In a 1981 interview in NIN, the Reis-ul-Ulema said, "A true adherent of Islam cannot, must not and has no reason to become a clerical nationalist... In Yugoslavia, he has achieved full equality and the possibility to develop his own values and his own historical being. " 74
The stance of Bosnian party and religious leaders divided the Muslim community. Many Bosnian intellectuals, and arguably Izetbegovic, viewed the so-called "Islamic awakening" primarily as a struggle to maintain and develop their cultural heritage free from communist constraints and Serbian and Croatian nationalist claims. They accused the Muslim communists and communist-appointed religious leaders of being "compliant" and "conformist," and alienated from fellow Muslims. "They probably have not had education in the sense intended by the Islamic faith. Yet they are ready to contribute to the destruction of the culture from its very roots, a culture which they have not taken the trouble to know. " 75
The Western media also did not take the trouble to get to know the Muslims of Bosnia. The West was quick to link any hint of Bosnian fundamentalism to the Iranian Revolution and the larger Islamic movement. According to Dennison Rusinow, foreign journalists "seeking Middle Eastern echoes have beaten the backwoods for a 'Yugoslav Khomeini' and evidence of fanatic Muslim fundamentalism in vain. " 76 This did not prevent journalists from printing "facts" about Bosnia's Muslims that seem straight out of Yugoslav propaganda. The New York Times, in an article about the "surge in fundamentalism" in the Muslim world, warns that even in Yugoslavia, home to a secular communist government for more than 40 years, "fundamentalist activism" is growing. 77 More alarming were statements in a 1985 Washington Quarterly essay entitled, "Islamic Fundamentalism." The author, Bernard Lewis, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and the Near Eastern Studies department at Princeton University, warned,
Muslims in many parts of the Muslim world are willing to explain, or to condone, or even to accept, the horrors of the Iranian revolution because of the feeling that fundamentally this is something of tremendous importance and tremendous change.... [TJhe most extraordinary example is Sarajevo... which... last year held a series of trials of young men... accused of plotting to overthrow the regime and establish an Islamic republic in Bosnia. If this could happen in Sarajevo, one might imagine that there must be some sort of stirring among the 50 or 60 million Muslims of the Soviet Union, and certainly among the Muslims of Asia and Africa. 78
This portrayal of Bosnian Islam is similar to those expressed in other Western news media, like the Economist, the Los Angeles Times, and the Christian Science Monitor which announced on September 1983, "Yugoslavia's Muslims, the third largest religious group, are becoming restive." In a story about Izetbegovi's trial -- when he was well in his middle-age as were the other defendants -- the headline stated, "Young Muslims Fuel Ethnic Fire in Yugoslavia." The "ethnic fire" to which the Monitor referred was the Kosovo riots. The fact that Albanians rioting in Kosovo were predominantly Muslim seemed to be evidence enough of Islamic fundamentalism taking over in Bosnia. Thus the bizarre logic behind this incomprehensible statement: "Almost all [Muslims in Bosnia are Sunnis, which means the militants among them.... are not necessarily supporters of a Khomeini-style Islamic Revolution. But many are fundamentalists and fanatic in demanding a 'purely Muslim' Bosnian Republic."
Lacking any understanding of Islam in Yugoslavia, foreign journalists tended to assume a) that the Iranian revolution had a significant impact on Bosnian Muslim self-identity, b) that Bosnian Muslims lack their own historical process and culture, c) that those accused of plotting to overthrow the government are guilty, and d) that Muslim people everywhere are not culturally and historically bound to a particular place and can easily become unhinged by global Islam. These views are similar to those espoused by the Yugoslav News Agency, no doubt the primary source of information for foreign journalists.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Bosnian Muslim national identity was up for grabs. There was little consensus among Muslims about what the term meant. During the 1970s questions of Muslim identity were primarily an internal community dispute. However, by the early 1980s in the height of social and economic insecurity, and with images of the Iranian revolution, let alone Kosovo, fresh in everyone's mind, the issue of Bosnian Muslim national identity was raised to the level of a national security threat. Opportunistic leaders constructed the specter of Islamic fundamentalism to consolidate political support.
For Serbian nationalists, the trial of Izetbegovic was a ripe opportunity to discredit< Muslim claims to national identity. Evoking the potent memory of Kosovo, nationalists attempted to establish the historical continuity of contemporary Bosnian "fundamentalists" with conquering Turks. Vengeance against Bosnian Muslims for the Turkish invasion 600 years ago was justified and Serbian claims to the territory and people of Bosnia were legitimized. Nowhere was this more dramatically portrayed than on the 600th anniversary of Turkish invasion, when Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic addressed hundreds of thousands of Serbs on the former battlegrounds of Kosovo. "Six centuries [after the Battle of Kosovo Polje], we are again engaged in battles and quarrels. They are not armed battles, but this cannot be excluded yet." 79
Interestingly, Bosnian Muslim communists, seeking to bolster their right to a national identity on a par with Serbs and Croats, behaved similarly. Muslim communists fought bitterly to justify their claims to national status. Anticipating hostile reactions from Serbian and Croatian nationalists, the Muslims purposely took the "Islam" out of "Muslim" identity.
The Western media unwittingly played along, challenging neither the nationalists nor the LCY. The Izetbegovic trial had little political impact in the West per se. However, it was certainly used to intensify fears of fanatic Islam on Europe's doorstep, and perhaps to justify actions the West might take to suppress this threat (read: protect its oil interests) in the future.
The anti-Islamic rhetoric produced throughout the 1970s and 80s has deep implications for understanding the current war. If nothing else this rhetoric helped Serbian and Croatian nationalists define the enemy. But the rhetoric is in many ways also determining who the Bosnian Muslims are becoming, as evidenced most dramatically of late by the discovery of Mujahadin "terrorist" training camps in Central Bosnia. The "Islamization" of Bosnian Muslims during the war is a topic for further research which would shed light not only on how individuals and groups construct a "nationalist" identity as a response to tragic circumstances, but also how others reject "nationalist" identity altogether. Amazingly, there are still pockets (though getting smaller) of Muslims and non-Muslims who maintain the idea of a multi-ethnic Bosnia. What are the common denominators among non-nationalists and what can they teach us about putting the nationalist "genie" back in its bottle?
An astute man from the Serbian Ministry of Information, whom I quoted at the beginning of this paper, wrote, "It is difficult to categorically state now that if Izetbegovic 's book had been read more closely on time numerous young Moslems wouldn't be losing their lives now, but it is sure that our wonder over events in Bosnia would be less. " I couldn't agree more.
Note 1: Published by the Serbian Ministry of Information, 1992. Back.Note 2: Excerpted from Ed Vulliamy, Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994). Back.
Note 3: Bogdan Denitch, Ethnic Nationalism: The Tragic Death of Yugoslavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 211. Back.
Note 4: The Trial of Moslem Intellectuals in Sarajevo," South Slav Journal 6, no. I (Spring 1983), 56. Back.
Note 5: However, thousands of ethnic Albanians were imprisoned throughout the I 980s during uprisings in Kosovo. I will not discuss the uprisings in detail in this paper; but will refer to them later as a contributing factor to anti-Islamic sentiment in Yugoslavia. For more detail on the Kosovo uprisings and subsequent imprisonment of Albanians see Pedro Ramet, ed., Yugoslavia in the 1980s (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985), and Amnesty International, Yugoslavia: Prisoners of Conscience (London: Amnesty International, 1983). Back.
Note 6: In fact, I have not found a single case against Bosnian Muslims in which the defendant is charged with using violence. This is in sharp contrast to other national groups, namely the Croatians, who did use terrorist tactics both in Yugoslavia and abroad to advance their cause. Back.
Note 7: Roger Cohen, "Cross vs. Crescent; The Battle Lines Are Being Redrawn in Bosnia Along Old Religious Scars," New York Times, September 17, 1992, A14, and Ed Vulliamy, Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), 67. Back.
Note 8: See Tom Gjelten, Sarajevo Daily New York: Harper Collins, 1995). Back.
Note 9: This is my personal Opinion from Speaking with Bosnian refugees now living in the United States and in Croatia. In my experience, refugees that I met changed their minds over time about how to identify themselves. For instance, one refugee woman called herself a Bosnian when I first met her in 1992, referring to Bosnian as a mulu-ethnic identity. When I met her again a year later, she was a "Muslim" in the secular sense, and again later a "Bosniak," which was a term used by the Austrians in the late I8OOs to define the Bosnians as a national group distinct from Serbians or Croatians. Back.
Note 10: Robert I. Donia, Islam Under the Double Eagle: The Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina, ]878-19J4 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1981), 5. Back.
Note 11: Mark Pinson, "The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina Under Austro-Hungarian Rule, 1878-1918," in Pinson, ed., The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Cambridge: Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs, 1994), 89. Back.
Note 12: Ivo Banac, "Bosnian Muslims: From Religious Community to Socialist Nationhood and Post communist Statehood, 1918-1992," in The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 144. Back.
Note 13: Zachary T. Irwin, "The Islamic Revival and the Muslims of ~ East European Quarterly 17, no.4 (January 1984), 440. Back.
Note 14: Saffet Abid, "Europe's Endangered Species: The Forgotten Muslims of the Balkans," Pamphlet published by the Balkan Muslim Association, Clifton, NJ, 1992, 11. Back.
Note 15: Glasnik Vrhovnog Islamskog Starjesinstv (1950), 68-69, quoted from the original Serbo-Croatian in Irwin, "The Islamic Revival," 440. Back.
Note 16: Ibid., 441-442. Back.
Note 17: Pedro Ratnet, "Primordial Ethnicity or Modem Nationalism: The Case of Yugoslavia's Muslims," Nationalities Papers 13, no.2 (Fall 1985), 184. Back.
Note 18: Atif Purivatra, "The National Phenomenon of the Moslems of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Socialist Thought and Practice 12, no.12 (Belgrade, 1974), 34. Back.
Note 20: Pedro Ramet, "Yugoslavia and the Threat of Internal and External Discontents," Orbis (Spring1984), 114. Back.
Note 22: See both Irwin, "Islamic Revival," and Banac, "Bosnian Muslims" Back.
Note 23: Alija Izetbegovic, The Islamic Declaration (Sarajevo, 1990), 6. Back.
Note 35: Unfortunately, not much is available in the English language that is written from a religious Bosnian Muslim perspective. Back.
Note 36:Cornelia Sorabji, "Islamic Revival and Marriage in Bosnia," Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 9, no.2 (London, July 1988), 333-336. Back.
Note 37: Saffet Abid, ed., Program Declaration of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA), pamphlet published by the Balkan Muslim Association, Clifton, NJ, 1993, 9. Back.
Note 38: Yahya M. Sadowski, "Bosnia's Muslims? A Fundamentalist Threat?" Brookings Review 13, no.1 (January 1995). Back.
Note 39: Amnesty International, Yugoslavia: Prisoners of conscience, (London: Amnesty International,(1983), 7. Back.
Note 40: Ramet, "Yugoslavia and the Threat," 112. Back.
Note 41: From Yugoslav News Agency in Serbo-Croat 1450 gmt, February 17,1986, "LCY Central Committee Consultations Examine Nationalism," broadcast by the British Broadcast Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, February 19, 1986, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 42: See Ramet, "Yugoslavia and the Threat." For detailed information about the state of the Yugoslav economy during the I 980s, see Yugoslavia in the 1980s. Back.
Note 44: Yugoslav News Agency 1547 gmt, June 22, 1983, "Other Reports in Brief: Bosnia Hercegovina: Muslim Nationalist Group Charged," broadcast by British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, June 29, 1983, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 45: Amnesty International, "Yugoslavia" in Amnesty International Report 1984 (London: Amnesty International, 1984), 321. Back.
Note 46: Trial of Moslem Intellectuals," 55. Back.
Note 47: From Amnesty International, Yugoslavia: Prisoners of Conscience. Article 114 of the Yugoslav Federal Criminal Code reads, "Whoever commits an act aimed at limiting or overthrowing the authority of the working class and working people; at undermining the socio-economic system, the socio-political system or the system of self-management established by the constitution; at the unconstitutional overthrow of the bodies of self-management and government, their executive agencies or representatives of the highest government bodies; at undermining the country's economic basis, breaking up the brotherhood and unity or destroying the equality of the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia, or the unconstitutional change of the federal organization of the state, shall be punished by imprisonment for at least one year.
Article 133 of the Yugoslav Federal Criminal Code reads:
"1) Whoever, by means of an article, leaflet, drawing, speech or some other way, advocates or incites the overthrow of the rule of the working class and the working people, the unconstitutional alteration of the socialist social system of self-management, the disruption of the brotherhood, unity and equality of the nations and nationalities, the overthrow of the bodies of social self-management and government or their executive agencies, resistance to the decisions of competent government and self-management bodies which are significant for the protection and defense of the country; or whoever maliciously and untruthfully portrays socio-political conditions in the country shall be punished by imprisonment for from one to 10 years.
2) Whoever commits an offense as mentioned in paragraph 1) of this Article with aid or under influence from abroad, shall be punished by imprisonment for at least three years.
3) Whoever sends or infiltrates agitators or propaganda material into the territory of the SFRJ in order to perform an offense as mentioned in paragraph 1) of this Article shall be punished by imprisonment for at least one year.
4) Whoever, with the intention of distribution, prepares or reproduces hostile propaganda material or whoever has such material in his possession knowing that it is intended for distribution, shall be punished by imprisonment for at least six months and not more than five years" Back.
Note 48: Amnesty International Report 1984, 321. Back.
Note 49: U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, Violations of the Helsinki Accords: Yugoslavia New York: U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, 1986), 42. Back.
Note 50: From Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Belgrade: Jugoslovenski Pregled, 1989). Article 203 of the Yugoslav Constitution reads, "The freedoms and rights guaranteed by the present Constitution may not be denied or restricted. No one may use the freedoms and rights established by the present Constitution in order to disrupt the foundations of the socialist self-management democratic order established by the present Constitution , to endanger the independence of the country, violate the freedoms and rights of man and the citizen guaranteed by the present Constitution, endanger peace and equality in international cooperation, stir up national, racial, or religious hatred or intolerance or abet commission of criminal offenses, nor may these freedoms be used in a way which offends public morals. It shall be specified by statute in what case and under what conditions the use of these freedoms, in a way contrary to the present Constitution, will entail a restriction or a ban on their use. These freedoms and rights shall he realized and duties performed pursuant to the present Constitution. The mode of realization of individual freedoms and rights may only be regulated by statute, and this only when so provided by the present Constitution, or when this is indispensable for their realization. The freedoms and rights guaranteed by the present Constitution shall enjoy judicial protection." Back.
Note 51: The Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 93-105. Back.
Note 52: International Convention on Civil and Political Rights," in Twenty-Five Human Rights Documents New York: Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University Press), 17-29. Back.
Note 53: Yugoslav News Agency 1906 gmt, July 18, 1983, "Other Reports in Brief: Trial of Muslim Fundamentalists in Sarajevo," broadcast by British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, August 2, 1983, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 54: "Trial of Moslem Intellectuals," 56. Back.
Note 55: Constitution of The Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, 98. Back.
Note 56: Radovan Samardzic, "Religious Rights and Freedoms,"in Self Management Human Rights and Freedoms (Belgrade: Socialist Thought and Practice, 1985), 149. Back.
Note 57: Robert J. Donia and John V.A. Fine, Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed , New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 201. Back.
Note 58: Yugoslav News Agency 0224 gmt, August 21, 1983, "Comment on Verdict in Muslim Nationalist Trial," by Mladen Gavrilovic, broadcast by British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts ,August 23, 1983, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 59: Filozofska Istrazivanja, nos. 4-5 (April and May 1982) translated from the original Serbo-Croatian in Pedro Ramet, "The Dynamics of Yugoslav Religious Policy: Some Insights from Organizational Theory," in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, 174. Back.
Note 60: Fouad Ajatni, "In Europe's Shadows: The Tragedy of Bosnia and the Long Troubled History of Islam in the Balkans," The New Republic 211, no.21(21 November, 1994), 29. Back.
Note 61: John F. Bums, "Belgrade Shocked by European Move," New York Times, May 13, 1992, AlO, and transcript from Belgrade TV 2150 gmt, November23, 1992, "Bosnian Serb Army's General Mladic on the War, Military Intervention, the UN," interview by Milena Tanjga, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 62: Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993), 49. Back.
Note 64: For more information see Pedro Ramet, "Primordial Ethnicity;" and "Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslavia," in Ramed, ed., Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics (Durham: Duke Press Policy Studies, 1984); Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging; and Robert D. Kaplan,Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History New York: Vintage Books, 1994). Back.
Note 65: Roger Cohen, "Cross vs. Crescent: The Battle Lines are Being Redrawn in Bosnia Along Old Religious Scars," New York Times, September 12, 1992, A14. Back.
Note 66: Mike O'Connor, "Bosnian Croats Vow Never To Share Power with Government," New York Times, February 13, 1996. Back.
Note 67: N.T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans (London: Hurst & Company, 1993), 295. Back.
Note 68: Ibid., 298, translated from the original Serbo-Croatian by H.T. Norris. Dr. Miroljub Jevtic also published a 1993 book entitled Od lslamske Deklaracije do Verskag Rata u BiH (From the Islamic Declaration to Religious War in Bosnia-Hercegovina). Back.
Note 69: Borba, 6 November 1979, translated from the original Serbo-Croatian in Irwin, "Islamic Revival," 450. Back.
Note 70: Ahmed Smajlovie, "Muslims in Yugoslavia," Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs I, no.2 (Winter 1979) and 2, no.1 (Summer 1980), 134. Back.
Note 71: "Jugoslavia: The Moslem Challenge," Economist, May21, 1983, 67. Back.
Note 72: "Jugoslavia; Mullahs Keep Out," Economist, December22, 1979, 35. Back.
Note 73: Yugoslav News Agency in English 1331 gmt, September 9, 1983, 'Head of Islamic Community on Muslim Fundamentalism," broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, September 13, 1983, Lexis-Nexis Back.
Note 74: Yugoslav News Agency in English 1323 gmt, July 31, 1981, "Head of Islamic Community Interviewed by 'NIN,"' broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation on BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, August 7, 1981, Lexis-Nexis. Back.
Note 75: Abdullah Dedic, "The Muslim Predicament in Yugoslavia: An Impression," Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs 8, no.1 (January 1987), 129. Back.
Note 76: Dennison Rusinow, "Nationalities Policy and the 'National Question,"' in Yugoslavia in the1980s, 150. Back.
Note 77: Judith Miller, "Moslem World is Unsettled by Surge in Fundamentalism," New York Times, December 18, 1983. Back.
Note 78: Bernard Lewis, "Islamic Fundamentalism," The Washington Quarterly 8, no.3 (Summer 1985),46. Back.
Note 79: Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (London: Penguin, 1992), 35. Back.
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