Hatred Violence Islam Christians Serbs Croats Muslims Ottoman Empire
Behind Hatred there is always a history
Behind hatred and
violence there is always a story that expains some of it. But in multicultural
Sweden there is no room for all nationalities to inform of their history,
writes Lidija Praizović.
Islamic extremism is explained
by oppressive colonization, while Serb nationalism and Islamophobia is presented
as an incomprehensible evil.
Another thing that is never taught in Swedish schools
is that the Balkans were occupied and colonized by the Ottoman Empire from the
1400s until the 1900s.
There is a tendency among some cultural commentators
that the violence perpetrated by Muslim extremists is explained, and even
justified, while violence and hatred in other cases is never qualified this
way.
One who makes such a difference is the acclaimed and
award-winning author John Anyuru. Anyuru explains the Islamic extremism that is
now sweeping across our planet "as a conservativ and politicized form of
Islam born out of colonial oppression". He continues: "Islam became under
colonialism more than a religion. It turned into an effort to preserve an
identity. There were fatwas forbidding colonial habits, such as eating with a
knife and fork. It defined itself against the oppressor who tried to obliterate
one's culture. There was a reaction. Even today groups like IS are characterized
that way. Their only idea is to fight the Western world ".
Anyuru presents some good points, though one wonders
how, for example, attempts to force yezidiska women to become sex slaves is associated
with fighting Western powers.
It is interesting to
compare Anyurus analysis of IS with his poem "Ramadan 2015",
published in Aftonbladet. In the poem Srebrenica is mentioned several times,
but there is no explanations for the violence. Anyuru often claims to be an
expert at explaining what colonial domination does to people. So one wonders
why he makes not the slightest attempt to explain how the centuries under
Ottoman rule may have contributed to Orthodox Serb violence against bosnia muslims.
Probably due to
ignorance. I have passed the Swedish elementary school, highschool, and university,
without having had a single minute of teaching about the Osman empire and it's
violence. No mention of the fact that a hundred years ago there was a genocide
of 1.3 million Christian (Armenians, Assyrians / Syriacs, Chaldeans and Pontic
Greeks) women, men and children in the heart of the Ottoman Empire. This has
never been mentioned with a word. The Swedish government has not yet recognized
this as genocide, despite the fact that the Swedish parliament in 2010 voted
that it should be done.
Compare that with the
talks about the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, where 8,000 men and boys were
murdered. This bestial deeds were recognized immediately as genocide by the
Swedish government and has frequently been exposed and narrated by media,
educational and cultural. Parallels are drawn between the Holocaust of Jews and
genocide in Srebrenica. The multicultural librarian Amina with bosnia muslim
background, was not fooled by the viewpoints of her authoritarian teachers,
because her family had been subjected to the same thing from the vicious
nationalist Serbs. The Serbian extremist violence is made inexplicable and
incomprehensible. Serbs are thoroughbred racists.
The story of the tolerance
and suffering by muslims of Bosnia and the Orthodox Serb aggression and guilt is
an established story that has dominated most of the western media for 25 years.
Would not it be more radical and honest
to also nuance the matter slightly?
The author Erik Wijk
has in his books "Bundle up and kill them," "Heart of the
matter", "Bad blood" and "Peace Bomber over the Balkans"
written a more complex picture of the wars in former Yugoslavia. But he and his
peers did this at the cost of being portrayed as fascists (see, for example,
reactions to appeal against the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, as well as Ordfront
Feud 2003).
Another thing we never learned in Swedish schools is
that the Balkans were occupied and colonized by the Ottoman Empire from the
1400s until the 1900s. The cultural development and nation formation process that
started in the medieval states were halted when the Christian peoples of Balkan
lost their political independence. Although muslims allowed Christians to
practice their religion, cristians lived as second class citizens. They had to
pay high taxes. Thier sons were conscripted as janitsjars into the Ottoman
army. Periodically there was serious violence, especially during the fight for liberation
during the 1800s, in Bosnia and Kosovo/Macedonia.
Nor should we forget that 16-20 per cent of Serbs
(about 320,000 to 340,000) were killed by Croats and Bosnian Muslims by the
fascist German allies of Croatia (which included Bosnia) during World War II.
This is virtually unknown in Sweden.
How was this history of fear and repression reported
in 1992? When the Muslim leader Alija Izetbegović wanted to break away from the
Yugoslav Bosnia federation and create a state dominated by muslims, the Bosnian
Serbs (31 percent of the inhabitants) said no. "If they want to break away
from Yugoslavia, we want to break free from Bosnia" was their viewpoint.
It was the start of the bloody Bosnian war, when the Western powers led by the
USA stood up at the side of the muslims of Bosnia in the conflict.
In Farnaz Arbabis critically acclaimed play
"X" from last spring a primitive colonizer runs around with a large
cross dangling around his neck and shoots at everything that moves. But all
Christians are not Americans and westerners.
When will we ever see
a piece that is about Middle Eastern Christians - among the oldest Christian
nations in the world - and how they will soon be completely exterminated and
removed from their original areas?
Besides the poetic images of the Srebrenica massacre
painted by Anyuru he, also gives an analysis: "The same language is now
used again in Sweden as there and then."
This is simply wrong.
When Mladic's forces entered Srebrenica on July 11, 1995 to perform their
barbaric deeds he said: "Finally, after the revolt against Dahije
[Janisaries] our time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this area".
It does not make the attack less horrible. But it is a fact about the Serbian
Islamophobia that flared up when the Jugoslavian state fell apart, that makes
it easier to understand - oversimplified yes - but that is what happened. The
reasoning went: "We were subjugated by the Turks for 500 years and you
became Muslims ('Turks') to gain privileges, therefore we avenge." It's
something completely different from the Islamophobic and xenophobic rhetoric
that we see in Sweden today.
If militant Islamism can partly be seen as a
consequence of colonial history and the intervention of Western powers', the
same principle applies to Serbian nationalism. If we accept that Sweden now is
a multicultural country, we need to have the histories of all the different
communities included in the schools, media and cultural debate. It is untenable
to suppress or distort the stories that do not fit with routine explanations.
LIDIJA PRAIZOVIĆ
Lidija Praizović is a critic, author, and playwright.
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