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.)
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.
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.
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.
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Category Link: Articles by CzechRebel on 1389 Blog (Note: To page back through the archive of older articles in a category link, please scroll down and click the ← Previous Entrieslink at the bottom of the page.)
Australia’s new Labour PM, Kevin Rudd, faces his first international challenge
There has been (yet another) suicide-terrorist attack: this time in Kabul.
It took place at the five star Serena Hotel and left seven people dead. I think “murdered” is a more appropriate word and it is unfortunate that the appropriate vocabulary isn’t used.
One wonders how de-sensitised we have become, and how frequently we miss the “spin” that certain words convey. As it turns out the Australian Embassy is located at this hotel. None of the embassy staff were hurt, thankfully.
PM Rudd strongly condemned this act of terrorism as one would expect of any leader.
He is currently re-appraising the security concerns for the embassy staff and other personnel. The Australian Ambassador lives there also. Mr Rudd was recently in Afghanistan - about three weeks ago.
“We have well-established procedures to account for our people in operational areas, allowing us to confirm quite quickly after the explosion that all Australian personnel were safe,” Defence spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said in a statement.
“This is just an example of the Taliban’s ruthless and indiscriminate actions, which threaten innocent people.”
“Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson, who stayed in the hotel when he was defence minister, told Fairfax Radio Network there was still a lot of work to be done in Afghanistan.
“It just underlines the fact that we still have a long way to go in Afghanistan,” he said.
“Yes, we’ve made significant progress in the reconstruction of the country and fighting the Taliban, but these terrorists will stop at nothing to see that their evil dogma prevails.
“We have a responsibility for the next generation to make sure that we win and they don’t.”
This hotel seems to be the centre for most high-level events. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it makes an “excellent target” for terrorists.
Australia does not have many troops in Afghanistan. There are currently 970 and most of them are not in Kabul. There are about 500 in Iraq. We do not have a large military and this is why we need the alliance of the USA - a fact many people, mostly the left-wingers, unfortunately forget. (It should be remembered, however, that our national population is less than that of California).
Whilst PM Rudd has stated he is committed to the reconstruction of Afghanistan he has no intention to increase troops numbers. He has also said [no link available] that the whole situation will be reviewed further.
Should the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate - and hopefully it won’t - it will be interesting to see how Rudd, the former diplomat, reacts.
Right now he also has another international headache: Japanese whalers.
“Kambakhsh was accused of mocking Islam and the holy book, the Koran, and for distributing an article which said Prophet Mohammad had ignored the rights of women.”
Whatever Kambakhsh’s intent was, cases like this demonstrate the sort of resistance any potential Islamic reformers face. The simple act of acknowledging that Islamic texts, teachings, and the example of Muhammad himself are problematic with respect to women’s rights and human rights brings threats — and repercussions under shari’a law — such as those which Kambakhsh faces. And of course, U.S. and other coalition forces are putting their lives on the line in that same country. For this?
Sharia Alert. “Afghan journalists seek release of colleague,” from Reuters…
Every Afghan has the right to express his thought through speech, writing, or illustration or other means, by observing the provisions stated in this Constitution.
Every Afghan has the right to print or publish topics without prior submission to the state authorities in accordance with the law.
***
And what will Victory in Afghanistan look like? When there is a free, stable and independent Afghanistan? How long will Afghanistan remain “free” while Article 34 is spat upon because Article 3 will always trump it?***
Article Three Ch. 1, Art. 3
In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.
It is time to re-think what we are trying to accomplish, both in Afghanistan and in other battlegrounds of the counterjihad.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12.
Norwegian journalist, diplomatic staffer also victimized:
The Norwegian embassy was holding a meeting at the hotel. Jonas Gahr Stoere, Norway’s foreign minister, was there but wasn’t injured. However, a Norwegian journalist and diplomatic staffer were hurt in the explosion, said Stian Solum, a photographer with the Norwegian agency Scanpix.
Police kept journalists and onlookers far from the scene…
The 177-room, newly-built hotel is the finest in Afghanistan, Oliver said.
“It’s a beautiful building, a beautiful facility, so obviously it attracts a lot of diplomats and high-end business people who are coming to make deals involved in Afghanistan’s reconstruction.”
The hotel was built by the Aga Khan, leader of the Ismaili Muslims, and follows Muslim practices. For example, it doesn’t serve alcohol, Oliver said.
Since Westerners use the downtown hotel, which bills itself as “oasis of luxury in a war-ravaged city,” their presence would make it a target, Oliver said.
…Lately, however, thanks to a growing body of evidence and careful work by scholars aided by first-hand accounts from former North Vietnamese and Vietcong participants, a much more comprehensive picture has begun to emerge, one that challenges the conventional wisdom from start to finish.
Among the new generation of historians of the Vietnam war, important debates and differences still remain - for example, over the efficacy of American tactics of counterinsurgency and pacification. But they overwhelmingly agree on one point: the old account is a myth, and no longer stands up to scrutiny. It is worthwhile reviewing some of the main findings of the new scholarship before returning to the question of their relevance, if any, to our present struggle in Iraq and to the President’s warning on August 23.
The decline and fall of Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs. Sadly ironic, in a way…
Even so, his motives for launching these attacks on so many of us were clearly negative, self-serving, and harmful to the Counterjihad.
His ugly behavior and his constant lying could not have been motivated by any positive principles. Either he has allowed himself to become enslaved to his ego, or he tried to sell us out in return for some real or expected material advantage.
Serbs: A Politically-Correct Outlet for Pent-Up Racism
By CzechRebel
For the past decade and a half, or so, we have been witnessing one of the most flagrant examples of a racially-charged atmosphere against any ethnic people. Prior to the break up of Yugoslavia, hardly a soul seemed to know where Serbia was. We all knew that Serbia had something do to with the start of World War I, but the actual location of Serbia seemed to escape most people. Back in the early 1970s, I remember someone mistakenly saying that the Archduke was assassinated in Siberia. Although I knew the statement was wrong, I almost felt relieved. Finding Siberia within the USSR certainly would have been easier than finding Serbia within the Balkans.
Blog Comment Serves as a Catalyst
Since the early 1990s, Serbia has become much easier for many of us to find. Yugoslavia and its breakup have been in the news ever since. Commenting on a previous article, 1389 Blog reader Ed Mahmoud wrote us:
1389- OK, my understanding of the Yugoslavian civil war is mainly from MSM sources. And I know the fundamental, root cause, was the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, and I am fully aware the Serbs resisted the Nazis more forcefully than any other Southern Slav group (that many Croats and Muslims collaborated with the Germans).
Ed Mahmoud asks some worthwhile questions. We are answering them here, because the matter is important enough, and complex enough, to deserve its own blog post, rather than be submerged within the comment thread of another article.
The Media
Few people in the mainstream media have a clue concerning the Balkans. Few of them have ever been there. Those who have, generally show up for the filming of an event, and then take their helicopter out to spend the night in some nation further west where they feel more comfortable. Or they hole up in some hotel and rely on hearsay. But I have interviewed enough reporters and witnesses who are less in the mainstream, who have actually been there and spent several nights there. So, you are right in taking the mainstream media with a grain of salt.
However, the first thing that we need to look at is the religion. It is important to remember that nearly all Serbs who have any religion at all are Eastern Orthodox Christians.
The Ottoman Invasion
You are right about the Islamic invasion of the Balkans being the root cause. However, you must realize that it goes considerably deeper. To understand the significance of this Islamic invasion, you must also look at the goings on in the Christian world in that era and before. For centuries, the Early Church had been diverging into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, until the schism became official in the year 1054. If you don’t have a background in Orthodox Christianity, understanding the interface of Islam with the Balkans can be difficult.
Suffice it to say that that many of the issues between the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church resurfaced during the Reformation. So, from a Protestant viewpoint, one might say that the Catholic Church didn’t learn from the Great Schism, so they had to relive it in the Reformation. From a Roman Catholic perspective, one might say that one departs from the Pope’s leadership at one’s own peril.
But that was to come later. The world of the Orthodox Church was being seriously threatened from the rise of Islam. That threat provided a motive for the Orthodox Church to “return to the fold.” The Byzantine Empire was rapidly falling and Russia was still a fledgling land. Help from the Western world might have saved the Balkans from Islamic invasion.
Yet, the Orthodox Church world felt it had no alternative but to go it alone against Islamic rule rather than submit to Rome. Considering some of the misdeeds of the Crusaders toward the Orthodox, one cannot blame them. Even so, at one time, all but one of the major Orthodox bishops had agreed to accept the Pope’s leadership in order to get Western military aid. Unlike Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox structure is decentralized and requires a consensus from the bottom up. What Orthodox bishops decide in their councils must be ratified both by their priests and by the people they serve. The general feeling amongst Orthodox Christians was that they would rather be Godly slaves under Muslim tyranny, than heretical servants of the Pope.
Resisting the Nazis
To really understand the World War II resistance movements in the Balkans, we must again look to religion. Everyone knows that Hitler hated the Jews. However, he also hated other ethnic peoples and religions. Hitler hated most Slavic peoples and all Orthodox Christians. He also hated the Roma people, a/k/a Gypsies. Western history tells us of Hitler’s extermination of the Jews, and to a lesser extent, that of the Gypsies. We do hear a little bit of discussion of Hitler’s of mass killings of Russians and Poles. However, the Serbs were about number three on Hitler’s hit parade - and that is practically never mentioned.
So, while some other European ethnic groups may have had motives either to fight against the Nazis or to join them, the Serbs did not face a nice welcome mat with a Swastika in the center. This was because the Serbian people had vehemently refused to cooperate with the Nazis, so the feeling was mutual. After all, the Serbs had just freed themselves from centuries of domination from the both the Ottoman Turks and Austria-Hungarian Empire.
Was it a Snake or Slobodan Milosevic Who Tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden?
Well, yes, this is a ridiculous question, but after what the media has done to the story about the Balkan in 1990s, it almost seems logical. Our reader continues:
But I get the impression that Slobodan Milosevic led the Serbian people (and Serbs in other Yugoslav states) into violently surpressing the breakup of Yugoslavia, which may have had its roots, (besides the obvious ethnic and religious differences) in the perceived preferential treatment of Serbs in Tito’s Yugoslavia was also a factor.
Milosevic’s Trial
In The Hague’s dubious international court, Slobodan Milosevic presented one of the most skillfully self-defended cases in recent memory. In over a year’s time, the prosecution simply could not present any credible evidence of wrongdoing. The court faced a dilemma: either clear Milosevic, who had already been tried and convicted in world press, or convict him and incur the wrath and derision of every honest legal scholar for years, if not centuries, to come.
Instead, they looked to the precedent set in organized crime and quietly arranged for his death. While the court had no official power to impose a death penalty, they did have the power to deny him medical treatment. Russia offered to treat him and return him to The Hague when he recovered, but this kangaroo court could not risk the possibility Milosevic recovering.
If there had been any evidence that Milosevic was involved in any violent suppression, it would certainly have come up at his trial. It did not, so connect the dots.
Yugoslavian Civil Wars
Like it or not, wars are violent. The breakup of Yugoslavia was not inevitable. It might not have taken place at that time, but for the encouragement of Germany, the Vatican, and the US. If it did occur, the breakup of Yugoslavia need not have involved violence. Be that as it may, the formation of Yugoslavia was the outcome of poor judgment in the first place. (We are working on an article to this effect, which should be posted soon.)
Tito and the Serbs
On the issue of Tito, or reader is completely mistaken. Tito certainly did not give the Serbs any preferential treatment. In fact, they were expected to surrender their Serbian identity and become “Yugoslavs.” Tito was a lifelong enemy of the Serbian people. He believed that a strong Yugoslavia meant a weak Serbia, and that a strong Serbia meant a weak Yugoslavia.
While many remember Tito as leading Yugoslavia in peace, that peace came at a great price, to the Serbs most of all.
False Allegations of Genocide Are Criminal
Our reader continues:
But the Serbs did drive out Bosnians, especially Muslims, put some in camps, and killed a fair number. Where the pictures of starving prisoners in Serb camps fabricated? BTW, I have no respect for the UN, but I also clearly recall that Serbs kidnapped UN troops, and handcuffed some of them (I have seen the pictures) to light posts as hostages or human shields.
“Bosnians” Is a Misleading Term
There is no such ethnic group as “Bosnians.” Bosnia is a place. Anyone who lives there is a Bosnian, just as anyone residing in New York is called a “New Yorker.” If you and I moved to Bosnia, we would become Bosnians. Serbs, Croats and Muslims of Slavic descent all live there, and all can be called Bosnians.
Yes, Virginia, Those Were Fake Photos
Jared Israel debunked the myth of Serbian camps years ago. There is a film available that caught them in the act of faking those photos. To make a long story short, the camera crew, not the people being photographed, stood behind a fence. The people shown in the photo were outside the fence and were free to come and go. The man in the foreground who looks starved was suffering from a congenital disease; few people noticed that everyone else in the photo looks normal.
But once those photos came out, many unsubstantiated tales were embroidered around them and published in the media.
Where Are the Bodies?
We have heard so much about these alleged death camps. But no bodies, and no other evidence of such mass executions, have been found in the many years that the NATO powers have controlled the parts of Yugoslavia that were once at war. After World War II, there was massive evidence of Nazi death camps. In the 60-plus years since WWII, great strides have been made in forensic science.
I don’t remember seeing any pictures of Serbs holding UN troops hostage. However, not all pictures of Serbs doing nefarious acts actually involve Serbs. Unless you know the Serb in question, the first thing that you need to ask yourself is: Who is trying to make the Serbs look bad this time? There is ample evidence that Muslims have dressed up as Serbs in order to do bad things for the deception of news reporters and camera crews. This practice continues to this day in Kosovo.
Don’t Minimize - A Century Is Not a Decade
Our reader continues:
I am also aware that the Muslims in Kosovo have been on a jihad against Serbian civilians for almost a decade now.
Albanian Muslims have been playing the population bomb game in Kosovo for over 100 years. In 1900, there were very few Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. They have been moving in, legally or otherwise, and their religious leaders have been encourage them to multiply and overpopulate the province, ever since.
The Albanian Muslims sided with the Axis powers during World War II. Many of them served with Mussolini’s Fascist forces, where they took the opportunity to kill the Serbs, who, of course, were fighting for the Allies. Same jihad, different decades.
Ever Met an Actual Serb?
Our reader continues:
But unless I’m grossly misinformed (and I realize the MSM would spin towards Muslims against Christians), the Serbs were generally the aggressors in Bosnia and Croatia, and were responsible for radicalizing what were probably the most moderate Muslims (or apostates, as a Muslim who doesn’t want to dominate the kafir is not following the teaching of Muhammad) in the world, and drawing Arab jihadis to the region.
Yes, you were grossly misinformed. The Serbs were not the aggressors. People who are not acquainted with Serbs or Serbian-Americans are liable to fall for these allegations hook, line and sinker. People who know Serbs generally find it unbelievable that the Serbs would ever be the aggressor in any struggle. As a gentleman from Macedonia once told me, “The problem with the Serbs is that they are a bunch of Albanian lovers. They trust everybody and don’t understand why they are always getting attacked.”
Don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that there were no skirmishes where a Serb fired the first shot. Nor am I saying that the Serbs never went on the offensive. But the US government wanted to have the Serbs as enemies to satisfy some shortsighted political goals. Its propaganda arm, the mainstream media, provided stories to back them up. In the US, we consider all aggressors to be wrong. Therefore, if its propagandists can paint one side as the “aggressor,” we are halfway to going to war on the side of the supposed “underdog.”
Muslims, on the other hand, don’t need to be radicalized. They have a 1400-year history of springing into violent action. Sure, you can find “moderates” here and there, who claim that Islam is a religion of peace. But their claims are belied by history. Jihad has always been a crime of opportunity, not a retaliation against provocation.
Also See:
Category Link: Articles by CzechRebel on 1389 Blog (Note: To page back through the archive of older articles in a category link, please scroll down and click the ← Previous Entrieslink at the bottom of the page.)
Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, is substantially correct, but I would go much further and say that there was no justification for the anti-Serb policy even during the Milosevic era.
And to all those who dare to claim that Kosovo “independence” is inevitable, I have this to say:
NO WAY! The Albanians in Kosovo are mostly not native to the province, having infiltrated and/or invaded from Albania at various times during the past century - most notably by having participated in the Nazi occupation of Serbia.
To allow them to remain in Kosovo is to ratify and to reward the evil deeds of the Third Reich and of the Communist regime that followed.
Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn’t want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces.
If Khan was just an academic, that would be one thing. But he also straddles the policy world: Khan is a a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Pentagon consultant. According to an e-mail he sent to the University, he gave a workshop at the Pentagon yesterday afternoon.
Is the Department of Justice on your side?
You think so? Then why did the DOJ botch the first Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial so thoroughly? True, there’s going to be another trial, but why couldn’t they have gotten their ducks in a row to do it right the first time?
You think so? Then why did they censor the text used in the flag folding ceremony for veterans in national cemeteries, in response to an anonymous complaint that was clearly motivated by anti-Semitism?
CW31 (cbs13.com) in California reports that, the traditional flag-folding recitation has been banned at national cemeteries due to a complaint filed at the Riverside National Cemetery. The complaint was apparently specific to the 11th fold of the ceremony, which honors Hebrew soldiers, Kings David and Solomon, and gives tribute to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
You think so? Just because of their “falling prices”/”everyday low prices”? How do you expect to afford even those “low prices” when all of the jobs have been sucked out of the US and exported to places like China?
Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He’s president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers–half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins’s customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.
Here’s the comment I wrote for this article (I fixed a few typos and tweaked the formatting to make it work for this blog, because the comment form accompanying the article did not allow HTML):
I used to shop at Wal-Mart, back in their “Buy American” days. I stopped when I noticed that the good brands disappeared and the quality of everything in the store began getting worse and worse.
In essence, Wal-Mart is forcing their suppliers to outsource everything overseas, to destroy whatever reputation for quality they once had, and to become dependent on Wal-Mart. Then Wal-Mart makes the relationship unprofitable.
Here`s the solution:
Never buy anything at Wal-Mart [or, for that matter, Sam’s Club].
If you`re so broke that you can`t afford anything better, then go to a flea market or a second-hand store, or do without. How much clutter do you really need, anyway?
For the holidays, give your child one good toy, or a good book or game, from somewhere else, not five pieces of cheap, breakable, poorly-designed garbage from Wal-Mart.
If you`re a supplier, don`t start doing business with Wal-Mart. Find ways to survive and prosper without getting sucked into their system.
If you`re a journalist of any type, report more stories like this about what Wal-Mart is doing to America`s manufacturing base, communities, employment prospects, and reputation for quality.
Expose the abysmal quality of the outsourced rubbish that American firms are importing from places such as China, partly or wholly in response to pressure from Wal-Mart. The lead paint fiasco is only the beginning.
There are a lot more scandals if you want to look for them. Follow the money! Just for starters: Look at political contributions. Look at where their employees are getting their health care.
Finally, please stop comparing Wal-Mart to companies such as A&P that maintained a reputation for quality during the era when they were able to out-compete other companies.
Remember: If cost is your only consideration, everything turns into a race to the bottom. You will eventually end up spending all your money on a lot of junk, none of which would be worth the price even if it were free!
Sleep safe tonight. Your children might just be getting their education from a mentally ill Muslim who is on the FBI’s Terrorist Watch List… There are just so many things wrong with this, I don’t even know where to start!
FBI: Teacher who attacked base guards was suicidal, not terrorist
Ahmad’s mother said the first-year teacher at Miami Central High School is mentally ill and had recently been in a mental institution, where officials reported he tried killing himself.
Oh, and by the way: If you happen to live in Miami, you just might want to ask what (if any) background checks are being done on prospective teachers!
As reported in the Detroit Free Press (see: Detroit’s FBI chief: Violence extremism cuts across religions), two top FBI officials from that office “spoke to about 50 Muslims inside the Islamic Organization of North America, or Tanzeem-e-Islami.” The Free Press described the organization as merely “a Sunni mosque with a primarily Pakistani congregation” and tells us that the meeting was nothing more than “part of an effort by the FBI to reach out to Muslims and other communities.”
As everyone, especially the FBI, should know by now, the IANA is an Islamist pressure group.
If the FBI wants the support of the American people when it comes to fighting terror in the skies, it needs to treat them with respect. Annie Jacobsen has the harrowing tale of what happened when a Good Samaritan was transformed into a terror suspect. Required reading for Thanksgiving travelers.
In a nutshell, an innocent traveler saw someone exhibiting bizarre behavior on an airliner. He reported what he saw, but then, the FBI hauled him in as the suspect. The FBI eventually let him go and considers the matter “resolved.” Naturally, since he’s pro-American and not a jihadist, the ACLU is uninterested in helping him recover damages. Of course, there’s no word on what happened to the person who actually was behaving strangely on the plane.
Intelligence official: ‘FBI might as well put out a sign - Double agents wanted’ Posted: November 20, 2007 9:35 p.m. Eastern
Thanks to lax background checks, even after 9/11, the Hezbollah spy who managed to obtain sensitive jobs at the FBI and CIA is not the first terrorist supporter to infiltrate the U.S. government.
An alleged al-Qaida operative also infiltrated the Environmental Protection Agency, according to federal investigators and court documents obtained by WND.
The case, details of which are revealed here for the first time, involves Waheeda Tehseen, a Pakistani national who obtained a sensitive position with the EPA in Washington as a toxicologist even though she was not a U.S. citizen.
Like the Lebanese national suspected of passing secrets to Hezbollah, Tehseen lied about her citizenship on her government application, a falsehood that the government failed - in both cases - to catch in its security background investigation.
You probably won’t know the answer to this question:
Are Serbs, and Serbian-Americans, on your side?
You think not? Especially after everything that’s happened in the past sixty years?
Think again!
It may surprise you to know that, even now, Orthodox Christian Serbian-Americans pray every Sunday in church for America’s government and armed forces. Serbs, in Serbia and elsewhere, are waiting for Americans to come to their senses about jihadism in the Balkans and elsewhere, preferably before it’s too late to avoid widespread destruction to what’s left of the civilized world!
Download this book - FREE of charge - and read the other articles that follow.
Gen. Mihailovic’s only crime was resisting the twin evils of Hitler’s fascism and Stalin’s communism.
. . .
“Because the book is out of print and the publisher went out of business more than 50 years ago copies of it are hard to come by, so I scanned my copy, and through the magic of the Internet you can download your own copy of the book in PDF format by right clicking this link and selecting “Save Target As” (please note file is 137 MB).”
. . .
General Mihailovich fell seventeen months after the so-called “liberation” of Yugoslavia. Reports from Belgrade on March 24th, 1946, announced his capture under puzzling circumstances on March 13th, 1946. His trial before a Communist military court began on June 10th, 1946. He was “sentenced” to death on July 15th, 1946, and murdered on July 17th, 1946.
General Mihailovich is no more. He has departed this world convinced that he was abandoned by the Allies. The voices that were raised abroad in his defence were not allowed to reach him and he died without the satisfaction of knowing that in the opinion of many he died an innocent man and a great soldier.
General Mihailovich is no more, but the legends of his heroic deeds are becoming more and more popular and they live in the hearts of the people.
General Mihailovich is no more. He has departed this world. Those who have murdered him have not only perpetrated a crime, they have also committed a grave mistake, for democratic public opinion is well aware of General Mihailovich’s merits.
General Mihailovich is no more. The last words of this great patriot were concise and poignant. He said:
“I strove for much, I undertook much, but the gales of the world have carried away both me and my work.”
But wait, there’s more!
Kosovo, Serbia’s Cross to Bear: Serbia pays 100,000 US$ each day for Kosovo’s debt, even though it gets no revenue from the province.
Who restarted the Cold War? If there was ever a case of pot calling the kettle black! The article explains how Russia offered its friendship and the Clinton and Bush Administrations ruthlessly abused it. But it’s not too late to change the situation for the better.
New Information and Key Trends Regarding Islamic Extremist Groups in the Balkans: About the insanity of US foreign policy in the Balkans, in which the Clinton Administration fought against the Christian Serbs, on behalf of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims - including those who were, and still are, the local branches of al Qaeda in the Balkans. The Bush Administration has done nothing to reverse this failed policy, and Hillary Clinton would only worsen it.
