By SerbianFighter
All of this is backed up with facts…
A lot of people think that Albanian Muslims have a less religious character than the rest of the Islamic world. Which is, of course, not true. The real question is why the Islamic character of Albanian terrorism is concealed. (And I will call it terrorism, because actions where one group of people are trying to seclude a part of tne country in a illegal way is terrorism.) Maybe the answer is that there is a fear that the public will recognize that, in the heart of Europe, a new Islamic state has been formed by taxpaying citizens of the “West”.
Nothing new about the push to Islamize the Balkans
However, the Islamization of the territory around Albania – especially the effort to force Islamization upon Kosovo and Metohia – isn’t a recent process. It has been active for centuries and has gone through a number of phases. In certain phases, Islamization was interlaced with solving a national territorial question; that is, joining all territories with Islamic populations in one state.
At this point, I would like to point out that Kosovo and Metohia (the full name of the region) was Serbian before the first Albanian tribe came down from the mountains and set up there. In 1389 there was a famous Battle of Kosovo, of Serbs and their allies against the Ottoman Turkish empire. The Turks conquered Serbia and stayed there for 500 years before they were forced out, and Serbia was declared an independent state once more. When Turks came and brought Islam on Balkan soil, the Serbs and other people had a choice to join Islam or to become a form of slave to the newly-established and mighty Ottoman Empire.
Icon of Nemanjic Dynasty, medieval rulers of Serbia
An unthinkable surrender for the Serbs
Now we are talking about proud people who had a holy lineage of rulers during the previous couple of centuries, and such thing was unthinkable. When I say holy, I mean holy like saints – they were acknowledged to be saints and they are celebrated even today. It is even said that one of the descendants could perform miracles… so I hope this will shed a little light on what was going through people’s minds.
Oh, and I said a form of slaves – well, the main difference is that Ottomans took the Serbs’ firstborn male children 7-14 years old, and trained them to be an elite army for the empire, never to return home.
Well, unlike Serbs, Albanians were a group of mountain tribes without a significant heritage, so they didn’t have any problem with accepting Islam. Under the Ottoman Empire, this gave them an advantage over other people in this region. They also participated in violence against the Christian people. In spite of this, a great number of Serbs survived to see the fall of Ottoman Empire in this region, and, after the Balkan Wars, the rejoining of Kosovo and Metohia to Serbia. Albanians, of course, were not satisfied with such a solution. They also participated in the liberation from the Turks, but with different ambitions. They wanted to create a “Greater Albania” that would include all territories where Albanians lived, either as a majority or a minority, it didn’t matter.
WWI poster – “Kossovo Day” June 28, 1916
Solidarity with our Serb allies
That was a great source of frustration for a great number of Albanians and their ideology. In the newly created state of Serbia, they were a considerable minority, even in Kosovo (according to the records, in the late 19th century, there were 415.000 residents of Serbia who were Christians, 236.420 who were Muslim, and only 106.270 Albanians). By the end of WWI they became an even smaller minority, but that didn’t stop them from harassing the Serbs of Kosovo, who were beaten up, humiliated and forced out from their homes. Many foreign authorities wrote about it, so that you can be pretty sure that Serbs didn’t imagine it.
Nazi Albania
The most important phase in Islamization of Kosovo and Metohia occurred during WWII. Because of specific relations between Albania and their own interests, Italian occupiers allowed mass persecution of Serbs from these parts, and at the same time allowed a large number of Albanians from Albania to move there. In this way, a significant artificial demographic upheaval was made, which went unpunished and uncorrected. This also was to have a deciding role in the growth of terrorism and separatist ambitions in the region.
In this period around 10.000 Serbs were killed, 70.000 were banished, and 30.000 houses and other structures were demolished and destroyed. At the same time, 300.000 Albanians came from Albania to the territories of Kosovo and western Macedonia.
In battle against Christian Serbs (and later I will return to this, because there are other Christians in these parts beside Serbs), the Albanian leaders mobilized all Albanians – Muslim and Christian. To Christian Albanians, the struggle against Serbs was portrayed as a fight against Serbian oppression, and for the creation of “Great Albania.” But within the inner circles, among the Muslims themselves, they spoke freely of their real goal of creating an Islamic country – a goal that is entirely consistent with Islam as a religion. As an expression of their ambition for creating such a country, along with other things, a Skenderbeg Division was created.
Skenderbeg Albanian Muslim Waffen SS Division
The Skenderbeg Division had in its assembly military imams who worked to promote ideology among the fighters. Of course, the pan-Islamic and jihadist basis for doing battle against unbelievers was constantly highlighted. Among the unbelievers were Partizans, a Slavic (Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bosnian and Slovenian) guerrilla anti-German military in Balkan parts. [In other articles on this blog, we have discussed the Chetniks, led by Draza Mihailovic, a Serbian Orthodox anti-German force loyal to the Kingdom. - 1389] The first action of the Skenderbeg Division, which confirmed their Nazi orientation, was the arrest and execution of 281 of Pristina’s Jews in May of 1944. Pristina is a city in Kosovo.
The pan-Islamic character of the Skenderbeg division was revealed in the fact that it consisted of, among others, almost 150 Tajiks and Turkmen. Probably under their influence, the division was remembered for countless crimes against the Serbian population, even against women and children.
Communist Yugoslavia ratifies Nazi-era theft of Serbs’ property
After WWII, in spite of expectations, life for Serbs of Kosovo and Metohia in the newly-formed, atheist country of Yugoslavia for began as hard and difficult a period as before. After the war came a law that prohibited Serbs who had been exiled from Kosovo and Metohia from returning there. The direct consequence of this law was that a large number of Albanians who had entered Kosovo and Metohia during the war were given legal status. This made it possible for them to stay on property that they had taken from the Serbs. Albanian terrorists got a clear hint that they could run amok. Instead of being punished for their actions and receiving the same status as all other defeated nations, the Albanians got a total legalization of the demographic imbalance that they had created, and the Serbs got the short end of the stick.
“Godless Communists” favored Muslims over Christians
Confirming that Albanians as Muslims were privileged, unlike the Christians, is the fact that polygamy was tolerated because it was in the Islamic tradition. While in other parts of the country, marriages between nationalities were promoted, in Kosovo and Metohia it was possible only in one direction – an Albanian male could take a Serbian female, but not the other way around, because of reasons given in the Kuran.
There are other examples of Islamization of Albanians and Kosovo and Metohia, and of their preparations for the terrorism that never completely stopped, but more or less escalated over the years. From Enver Hodza’s Albania (that also declared itself as atheist) came a number of sheik dervish privates, that were convicted in Prizren in 1956 for aiding a terrorist gang. President of Central Comity of Communist Alliance Muhmut Bakali, as a communist (and communists were officially declared to be atheists) had a mosque built in Pec and further led to breaking Serbs in those parts. Several of his anti-Serb slip-ups were recorded, where he showed his sympathy for Muslims and Albanians, as a supposed communist and atheist.
The West works hand in glove with al Qaeda
Now we come to the year 1999, a year that NATO dumped its surplus of bombs on Serbia, even cluster or “cassette” bombs that are outlawed by international war rules. At various round tables that were organized to resolve the Kosovo and Metohia problem, various pronouncements often denied or negated the Islamization of this region. Those conclusions often came from abroad, from circles that stood to gain political benefit from denying these facts. Only one counter-argument is needed to prove that this Islamization is real: What about the Catholic Albanians, the famous jewelers from Janjevo? Although they were Albanians, they would have had to be Muslims to live a safe and carefree life in Kosovo. As Catholics, they had to seek refuge in Croatia.
At various times, Al Qaeda has announced terrorist acts and declared fatwas against “infidels”: USA, UK, France, Israel, India, Russia and Serbia. Osama bin Laden himself, during 1995, spent some time in Albania where he met with Hashim Thaci and Ramush Haradinaj.
Osama bin Laden with Ayman al-Zawahiri
The unconcealed connection between Kosovo Albanian separatists and the Islamist factor was confirmed in 1996 in Skopje (capital of Macedonia), at the 118th annual celebration of the Prizren League. It was attended by representatives of Albanians from Kosovo and Metohia, where they again sworn to fight for the league’s expansionist ideals. This is significant, because in the documents of the league, they appear as Muslims and not as Albanians, clearly showing the desire to create an Islamic country.
In 1998, the American administration even found it necessary to put its ally, the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army, consisted of Muslim Albanians who fought against Serbs for, well you guessed, liberation of Kosovo) on a list of terrorist organizations, for the stated reason that they had found records of funds from Islamic countries that were involved in drug trafficking. At that time, they said that one of the financiers was Osama bin Laden. According to Interpol data, one of the elite KLA units was led by Muhammad al Zawahiri, the brother of al Qaeda ideologist Ayman al Zawahiri, who is considered second in command after Osama bin Laden.
Islamic organizations fund Kosovo terrorism
During 1998. the existence of the “Abu Bekir Sidik” unit was confirmed. This unit operated in the Drenica area, and was financed with funds from the “Balkan Islamic Center” and “Active Islamic Youth”. The unit consisted of around 40 foreign citizens, and its commander was Ekrem Avdia. When the unit was disbanded, almost all of its members were arrested, along with its leader Ekrem. But they all were released because of pressure from the “international community” during 2001. Soon after he was released, Ekrem was put in charge of the organization “Kosovo’s Islamic Biro,” which had a great number of outposts across Kosovo and Metohia. After that, Ekrem reactivated his old unit. They operate and contribute to the instability of this region to this day.
A great number of Islamic organizations even now operate on the territory of Kosovo and Metohia. Believe it or not, even under the cover of humanitarian organizations they smuggle weapons, they do other illegal trading, and they finance extremist and terrorist activities.
The bottom line is that there is nothing more frustrating when a small child is beating you up, and when you try to defend yourself, a bigger child slaps you down. Meanwhile, the other children just silently watch the whole thing and shout but won’t help you. It’s a messed-up world we live in.
More:
Balkans For Dummies—
Or for Those of Us Deceived by the US Media
Part I – Divorce, Yugoslavian Style
By CzechRebel
It is about religion, stupid!
During the 1999 Kosovo War the media—inspired by the Clinton Administration was trying to convince the public that an ethnic struggle in Kosovo was pitting Serbs against Albanians. For reasons that no sane man can imagine Clinton and company had picked the Albanians over the Serbs and called in the Luftwaffe and other NATO air forces to bomb the Serbs.
But the news that actually came out of Kosovo made little, if any, sense. Newspaper would always feature a town where the Serbs and Albanians got along very well. Sometimes the Serbs would be offering their Albanian neighbors weapons to defend against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a bin-Laden-sponsored terrorist organization allied with the Clinton Administration. (In those, days most people had not heard of bin Laden and almost no one had ever heard of al Qaeda, so the media cheerfully endorsed American efforts to aid and abet them in their jihad against the Serbs.)
So, why would some Serbs and Albanians get along as great neighbors while other Albanians would join the KLA and fight against the same Serbs? It defied all ethnic analysis. So who are these people in the Balkans anyhow?
Let not pretend the author is familiar with every different subgroup in the Balkans, or even in Kosovo. However, it would be a good start to examine the major religions or the area.
The Jews
According to the Bible, God started his revelation to mankind through the Jews and so we shall start with them too. World War II was pretty rough on the Jews, but Hitler did miss a few. Not all of the Balkans Jews made it to Israel either, so we have a few over there. To our knowledge they are not much different than Jews the world over. Just remember that they are there for later reference.
The Early Church
If you read Romans 1:16, you will see that Paul admonished Christians to take the Gospel message to the Jew first, but also to the Greek. Some Bibles don’t translate it literally and use the word “Gentile” instead of “Greek.” However, one of the first major conversion stories taking place outside of the Greek-speaking world or Roman Empire was the mission to the Slavic people of Saints Cyril and Methodius. To this day, the alphabets used in Russian, Serbian and several other Slavic languages is known as the “Cyrillic” alphabet in honor of St. Cyril.
Today, the Early Church is commonly known as “Eastern Orthodoxy” or “Orthodox Christianity,” but if you think of it as anything other than the Early Church, you will have a lot of trouble understanding the Balkans. (We can understand if you would rather stay confused, you will be in good company.)
The Orthodox Church was the only major religion in the Balkans for many years. 98 percent of Greeks are Orthodox. Since the New Testament was written in Greek, it is pretty hard to argue that anyone else has a better “interpretation” Scripture than the Greeks. Nearly all Serbs who have any religion are Orthodox as well. It is also popular in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia and other nations and provinces in the Balkans, including—believe it or not—Albania.
Now, nothing much has changed in Orthodox Church since the First Century. Yes, as of the Fourth Century they have a Bible in written form, and have been promoting lay reading of it every since. Yes, they have had several Church Counsels to clarify things, however, the core beliefs of the Orthodox Church are more or less the same as Roman Catholics and most Protestants. (It’s those details that split up Christianity much more so than core beliefs.)
The Roman Catholic Church
Until 1054, the Eastern Orthodox Church considered the Roman Church to be just another Orthodox Church. True there were a number of disagreements on minor issues, but nothing major. If fact, the only issue that made the Great Schism a necessity is an issue of Church leadership. Our Roman Catholic brothers in Christ recognize the Bishop of Rome, as Pope and the earthly head of the Church. Our Eastern Orthodox brothers in Christ recognize Jesus Christ alone as only head of the Church, earthly or otherwise.
If you draw a line where the Roman Empire was divided at the time of Constantine, you will divide the Balkans between an area that is mostly Roman Catholic and one that is mostly Eastern Orthodox. (It is not an exact border, but it is pretty close.)
The Habsburg Empire, or Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was a dominant force in the Balkans until World War I, was heavily Roman Catholic. Italy, which has a history with Albania also has brought Roman Catholic influence to the Balkans.
Islam
During the time when the Eastern Roman Empire (a/k/a Byzantine Empire) was still a strong force in the Balkans, Christianity was the major religion. However, as the Turks invaded, they brought Islam into the area.
Until the 1990s, when Yugoslavia began to break up, few of us in the West realized how many Muslims lived in Europe. Most of these Muslims are ethnically European and speak the same languages as others in their locale, so it is hard to tell them from their Christian neighbors.
Others
While you can find outpost of Protestants, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and the like most everywhere, we are not going to try to go into all the tiny minority faiths that exist in the Balkans.
Suffice it to say that there will not be many Protestants where there are few Roman Catholics. What so many people tend to forget—even those with fairly extensive religious training—is that there never was a Reformation in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The decentralized overall structure and organization of the Orthodox Church does not lend itself to the corruption that existed in the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation. Besides, it is a little hard to tell someone that he should read the Bible and try to find something wrong with a Church that has always encouraged Bible reading and repentance.
We are not saying that no one in the Balkans ever leaves the Orthodox Church and becomes a Protestant, but is rare. Likewise, it is a rare event when someone leaves Islam for a Protestant faith, but that decision can be deadly as Islam endorses the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for another faith.
Ethic Stripes Merge with Divisions of Faith
Who Are the Albanians?
No one is really sure. Some Albanians like to consider themselves descendants of an ancient people that were scorned in the ancient world. A group of illiterate, unruly and unkempt people known as the Illyrians lived in the Balkans during Greco-Roman times. We have no idea what happened to these people nor do we know much about them, as they left no written records. They could not; they had no written language.
We harbor no ill will for the Albanian people. We doubt that the Illyrians actually have any relationship to modern Albanians, and we believe that Albanians are insulting themselves when they look to the Illyrians as a source of heritage. (To any and all Albanian readers, no offense is intended!)
What we do know is that the Albanian language is unique. There is no similar language, which leaves scholars puzzled as to their origin.
The Communist regime in Albania was harsher than that of neighboring Communist Yugoslavia, and religion was ruthlessly suppressed. After so many years of Communist rule, it is difficult to say what percentage of Albanians have any religious faith. However, the majority of Albanians who are religious are Muslim. The next most common religion amongst the Albanians is Eastern Orthodoxy. The Albanian Orthodox Church is a fully autocephalous organization, which means that it is completely independent of (though in communion with) the other Orthodox Churches. The third most common is Roman Catholic. Before Communist domination, it was estimated that as many as 65 to 70 percent of Albanians many have been Muslim, as many as 20 to 25 percent Orthodox, and the remainder nearly all Roman Catholic.
Who are the Croats?
The Croats are Slavic people. Many of them sided with the Axis Powers during World War II, and Hitler helped establish the short-lived nation of Nazi Croatia. While it is a little-known fact that such a nation ever existed, we have met people who were born in Nazi Croatia. However, many Croatians bravely resisted Nazi occupation and who were some of the brave unsung heroes of World War II.
The Croats speak a Slavic language almost identical to Serbian. In fact, before the breakup of Yugoslavia, the two languages were considered one and called “Serbo-Croatian.” Religious Croats are almost all Roman Catholic.
Who are the Serbs?
The Serbs are also Slavic people with a long history of being different from the Croats. One theorist has even speculated that the Serbs and the Croats were two peoples from a different part the world who migrated to the Balkans in tandem, yet as distinct people. While the theory may be interesting, we have seen no evidence to show that they are any different than any other Slavic people who have descended from a common clan that once spoke a common language known as Slavonic.
The Serbs may speak almost exactly the same language as the Croats, but the Serbs use a Cyrillic alphabet much like that of the Russians, while the Croats use the same Latin alphabet as we do in English, with the addition of accent marks. (The Cyrillic alphabet may look a little cumbersome or intimidating at first glance, but if you ever study Slavic languages, you will quickly see that the Cyrillic alphabet works better for representing the sounds of Slavic languages.)
The Serbs are almost by definition Orthodox Christians. While Communism may have thinned the ranks of believers, Serbs who are religious tend to be zealously Eastern Orthodox.
Notice a pattern here? Some Serbs and Albanians get along very well and all Serbs are—as some Albanians are—Eastern Orthodox. Gee, the Western media never connected the dots, but could it be that the Orthodox Christians in the Balkans get along with one another while the Muslims and Orthodox Christians do not?
Who are the Slovenians?
The Slovenians were the first who sought to break off ties with Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They are also a Slavic people and have traditionally been Roman Catholic.
Who are the Bosnians?
Trick question! Anyone who lives in Bosnia can call himself a Bosnian. It does not matter whether he is a Serb, a Croat of a Muslim. However, the Western media has led us to believe that only the Muslims of the Balkans are “Bosnians.” That is very misleading, because it gives the false impression that no one else belongs there! Bosnia is a place that is not named for any specific people.
OK, So Who Are These Bosnian Muslims?
For the most part, Bosnian Muslims are descended from Serbs who converted to Islam when the Turks ruled most of the Balkans. They tend to have very Serbian surnames and many of their customs are close to those of the Serbs. Bosnian Muslims speak the same language as do the Serbs and the Croats in Bosnia. One woman from Belgrade told us that, from their point of view, Bosnians all have the same accent. She likened it to the “Hillbilly accent” of Appalachia.
We can expect that some Croats and other people in the area also converted to Islam during the rule of the Ottoman Turks, as life was far easier for Muslims under Turkish rule than it was for non-Muslims.
Roma People or “Gypsies”
Another important ethnic group in the Balkans are the Roma people. We have called them “Gypsies” for centuries, but the conventional wisdom considers that word a pejorative. So, the common trend is to call them “Roma.” But that term is confusing for some; the natural reaction is to think or Rome and Italian people, or perhaps Romania, when we hear that word. (More on the origins of the Roma here.)
The Roma people are scattered throughout the Balkans and other parts of Europe. They blend in particularly well in Serbia and seem to be part of the Serbian landscape. (For instance, Marija Serifovic, the winner of the Eurovision 2007 song contest, is Roma.) But this is not the case where radical KLA Albanian Muslims have taken control. To them, the Roma, the Serbs and the Jews, or for that matter, anyone other than Albanian Muslims, might as well be one people.
Marija Serifovic sings Molitva (Prayer)
(Lyrics here.)
What About the Other . . . ?
Yes, there is a whole litany of other ethnic groups in the Balkans. In Yugoslavia alone there are a number of different remnants of earlier populations. For example, there are still Turks and Germans living there, as well as small distinct tribes, especially in the hill country, We cannot list them all, much less discuss them.
Why Did Yugoslavia Break Up?
The real question should be: why was Yugoslavia put together in the first place? Yugoslavia was an artificial country put together after World War I. It was much like Czechoslovakia. Neither country existed before the 20th century began, and neither was to survive the 20th century intact.
Slavs and Slaves
Both Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia had another thing in common; the majority in both countries were Slavic people. Prior to World War I, the only two places in Europe where Slavic people had the opportunity to live without being under the rule of someone else’s major empire were Russia and Serbia. The rest were under foreign domination.
Slavic people did not enjoy a very good image in Western Europe and North America. To this day, we have Polish jokes as a remnant of days when all Slavic people where considered inferior.
How inferior where they? So inferior that the English word “slave” is based on the Slavic word “Slav.” It means glorious in most Slavic languages; however, in English and other western languages, it meant, “these people may have white skin, but they are only fit for use as human chattel.” (Very loose translation, but you get the drift.) The Serbs, for example where slaves to the Turks before Columbus sailed to America. Many remained in bondage to the Turks until the end of World War I. That is twice as long as any African people were enslaved in North America!
Serbia, being free for a number of years prior to World War I, was ready to have other Serbs who had been part of the Hapsburg and Ottoman Turkish empires to join them in their independent and self-governing nation. However, the victorious World War I Allies had considerable clout in the destiny of 20th Century European people. The Czechs, who longed for independence from the Hapsburg crown for centuries “decided” that they just love to share their newfound independence with their Slovak neighbors who had been in a similar situation. It made a lot of sense to their cultures and heritages were similar.
Serbs, Croats, Slavic peoples of Muslim faith, Slovenians and other Slavs living south of Hungary had less in common. However, they “decided” that a nice big Yugoslavia, a land of the southern Slavs, might be nicer than smaller independent Slavic nations, especially from the viewpoint of fending off foreign incursions. While past migrations and geography might have made it more difficult for those smaller nations to agree on their actual borders, the seeds of much future destruction were sown at that time.
Breaking Up Yugoslavia and Forming a New One
As soon as the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia during the Second World War, the glue that held the first Yugoslavia disappeared. Many Croats and nearly all of the Islamic people in Southern Europe sided with the Axis powers. Pro-Communist Partisans lead by Josip Broz Tito and anti-Communist Chetniks lead by Draza Mihailovich (please don’t confuse that name with the name Milosevic) made war against the Nazis, and sometimes each other, throughout the Balkans. In addition to their battlefield heroics, the Chetniks saved hundreds of downed Allied flyers including over 500 American airmen.
While the Partisans were Communists of every ethnic stripe, including many Serbs, the Chetniks were nearly 100% Serbian. To this day, Mihailovich’s status amongst Serbian Orthodox Christians, especially those living outside of Serbia, is nearly that of sainthood. Winston Churchill considers his worst mistake of the war was withdrawing his support from Mihailovich and giving it to Tito. After the war, Tito came to power, captured Mihailovic, tried him on some trumped-up charges, and had him executed. The West did nothing to support this hero who had saved so many American lives and who had also played a vital part in tying up the Nazi war machine.
But, after the war, Tito and company put together a new Yugoslavia. Tito felt that a strong Yugoslavia meant a weak Serbia and vice versa. So, Serbs were forced to hide their identity and call themselves “Yugoslavian.” Of course, under Communist rule, church involvement of any kind was discouraged. So, the Serbs were hit with a triple whammy. First, their beloved war hero was executed. Second, they were told not to call themselves “Serbs.” Finally, they were discouraged from participating in their Orthodox faith, which was part and parcel of their ethnic identity.
Many Croats needed to hide their former Nazi ties from the Tito government, but the U.S. spared any Nazi Croats in their custody, as they were consider necessary to help combat Communism. The other minorities were not as greatly affected after the war. So, the world got used to a mosaic Yugoslavia that made studying World War I history difficult, as hardly anyone knew where Serbia actually was.
The Tito Regime
While the hardcore Western position was “the only good Commie is a dead Commie,” there always seemed to be an exception for Yugoslavia. Maps of Europe divided nations into those aligned with the West and those aligned with the Communist bloc. There were two exceptions; Albania, considered to be aligned for a time with Communist China, and Yugoslavia, which was purported to be Communist but somehow neutral in the struggle between Washington and Moscow.
For decades, American folk propagandist Paul Harvey would sing the praises of Tito on a regular basis. Mr. Harvey claimed that Tito, and only Tito, had the wisdom to keep the ethnic peoples of living together in harmony. It is funny that Mr. Harvey did not have the same praises for Fidel Castro, who used some of the same brutal tactics that Tito employed. Perhaps Castro just wasn’t brutal enough of a dictator to make Mr. Harvey’s list of great leaders. Having interviewed a number of both Cuban expatriates (including former political prisoners of Castro) and immigrants from the Balkans who lived through the Tito era, Tito was far worse than Castro. Ever hear of Castro imprisoning someone for calling himself a “Cuban”? Well, if one of Tito’s people would have caught you describing yourself as “Serb,” a cell could very well have been waiting for you.
Death of Tito, Birth of Violence
It did not have to be that way, but too many outside forces wanted to take advantage of a post-Tito Yugoslavia. Seeds of discontent were sown everywhere in Yugoslavia. The Slovenians were the first to opt out of Yugoslavia. Located on extreme northeastern part of Yugoslavia, its geographic importance was minimal. However, it opened the door for a complete breakup of the entire Yugoslavian state.
In 1992, Bosnia became a hot spot. Unlike Slovenia, Bosnia was in the heart of Yugoslavia. While there was no clear majority, the Bosnian Muslims were a significant portion of the population. (Remember, these are descendants of members of other ethnic groups, primarily Serbs, who had long ago converted to Islam. So they look much like other European people.) The Serbs represented a significant portion of the population, as well. While the Croats were a smaller portion of the population, the were, however, much closer to the part of Yugoslavia that is now called “Croatia.” While their percentage of the population may have been the smallest, they lived closer to the “center of gravity” of their own ethnic group than did the Serbs. Unfortunately, too many Serbs living in Serbia tended to look down on all residents of Bosnia, including their Serbian cousins, in much the same was as too many Americans belittle Appalachian-Americans – as merely a bunch of “Hillbillies.”
Well-organized Muslim propaganda bombarded the West while Roman Catholics Croats, Eastern Orthodox Serbs and Muslims fought a three-way religious war against each other. American, being a land that has grown weak in faith, was quick to see it as an ethnic struggle. Since the Croats had some Roman Catholic support—including a fake appearance of the Virgin Mary—they were able to create some positive propaganda of their own. The Serbs, having few fellow Orthodox Christians in the West, very little money to invest in promoting their own image, and only moderate support from Serbia proper, got almost no sympathy in the West.
That Cyrillic alphabet did not help either. Too many of us remember seeing Cyrillic letters on Russian signs during the Cold War, and we still don’t get warm fuzzy feelings when we see any people using a similar alphabet now.
Ending the War in Bosnia
In 1995, the Dayton Accords were signed creating two new entities, a Republic for Bosnian Serbs and a new country for both Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats – not as independent states, but as parts of yet another artificial, foreign-imposed federation. Neither the Muslims, nor the Roman Catholic Croats were too happy about having the same country, but after three years of a three-way war, it was about the best they could hope for. Not everyone is too happy with the Bosnian Serbian Republic either, as it has been forbidden to join the rest of Serbia.
The man the West considered instrumental in shaping the Dayton Accords was Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic. Funny, how quickly the US turns on its friends. Not that we are equating the two, but remember what happened to Draza Mihailovich?
Wrapping Things Up
Hopefully, this will clear up some of the confusion about the Balkans. This is only Part I. We will continue. In future articles, we plan to address the Kosovo War, early Balkans History and other issues. We will read all feedback and may tailor future articles to what we read in that feedback.
That said, be advised that we do moderate comments and we do enforce our comment policy. So if your purpose in commenting is to hate on the Serbs, the Jews, the 1389 Blog team, or anybody else, your comments will not be put on public display – and don’t expect us to waste our time explaining why!
If this article seems a little one-sided and simplistic, GOOD! What you have heard about the Balkans in the American media has been extremely pro-Muslim and made to seem overly complicated. Had the truth been known, American foreign policy relating to the Balkans would have been considerably different for the past 60 or even 70 years. Learn the truth and spread it. It is never too late to change course.
More:
