Strangers in Their Own Land

Though it may have appeared that way, Friday's post was not actually a response to Asma Ishak. I just used her invective as an illustration of projection, prejudice and name-calling that passes for internet debate these days. I've learned long since not to get into arguments with trolls; unlike them, I have better things to do with my time.

One of the commenters, however, was curious about the intermarriage of "Serbs and Bosnians" (sic - she meant Muslims, obviously) that Ishak had mentioned. There is this myth that Bosnia was a harmonious, perfectly integrated multi-cultural paradise that evil Serb nationalists brutally destroyed, forcing the Muslims to rediscover their identity. Those who believe this have it precisely backwards, as the subtitle of Alija Izetbegovic's "Islamic Declaration" (PDF) was "A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims." What better way to become the undisputed leader of Bosnia's Muslims and implement an Islamic agenda than to claim they were all in danger of perishing from "Serb aggressors" and their alleged "genocide"?

It is true enough that there were many mixed marriages in Bosnia. Previously, intermarriage required one of the spouses to convert to the other's faith, so they could be married in a church or a mosque. After 1945, however, the couple simply had to take two witnesses to a court clerk. With Communists actively discouraging religious practice (though not banning it outright, except for Party members), the faith of the children was a non-issue.

Few people in the countryside intermarried, though; it remained a characteristic of urban centers. The collapse of Communism and the rise of ethnic parties put mixed-marriage families under a lot of pressure. People found themselves sidelined because they had the "wrong" spouse. Children were pressured to "choose a side." Some did. Others packed up and left. Many found refuge in Serbia, where people were comparatively less obsessed with ethnic purity than in either Bosnia or Croatia. In fact, Serbia remains the most ethnically heterogeneous Balkans state even now - while in other republics, from Slovenia to Macedonia, the trend has been homogenization.

Official Truth has it that the Serbs engaged in "ethnic cleansing" while the Muslims were multi-ethnic and tolerant (Croats are somehow not mentioned at all). While the "Bosnian Army" did start out with a number of non-Muslims in its ranks (Serbs, Croats and those of mixed heritage who believed Izetbegovic's propaganda), that number dwindled down to nearly none by late 1993. From the army to the state, everything was becoming Islamized. When the reis-ul-ulema (head of the Islamic religious community) Mustafa Ceric called the children of mixed parentage "genetic garbage," there was no longer room for doubt.

Even though Annex VII of the Dayton peace treaty contained the "right of return" of refugees to their homes, and in 2000 a set of quotas was imposed to ensure representation of Muslims and Croats in the Serb Republic (RS) and Serbs in the Muslim-Croat Federation, both entities remain overwhelmingly ethnically homogeneous. People would return, reclaim their property, then sell it or exchange it and move back to areas where their own were the majority. While the RS has meticulously observed the quota system, the Federation never bothered, and somehow the "international community" never cared, either.

After the war, there were several immigration programs (notably in the U.S. and Canada) favoring mixed-marriage families. Not surprisingly, most people seized the opportunity. There is still some intermarriage in Bosnia. By and large, however, for those who found a mate in a different community it was much more bearable to become Americans, Canadians, or Australians than to be strangers in their own land.

The Dying Nations

Asia Times' columnist Spengler argues that championing the cause of Ukraine and Georgia is futile, for in less than 50 years Georgians and Ukrainians will be functionally extinct.

How now? Well, like many post-Communist societies, they aren't having babies. Spengler illustrates his point with UN statistics, showing a 40% or more population decrease projected for Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.

Russia is facing a demographic challenge as well, but, Spengler notes, "[w]hether Russia survives or not, it still will be a power in 2050 when the Ukraine and Georgia will exist only as obscure PhD topics in linguistics."

He concludes:

I hope that Russia will become a liberal democracy resembling the United States and that it will dispense with men like Vladimir Putin in the future. For it to become a liberal democracy, however, first it must survive, and most Russians today believe that they must be led by hard men to survive. This is not only unpleasant, but tragic.

To influence Russia for the better would take subtlety, skill, as well as good faith; sadly, America has displayed none of these.

Subtlety? Skill? Good faith? An Empire needs not such things, right?

Supporting Their Own

Just as I was watching the ending of the Croatia-Turkey matchup at Euro 2008 (I won't give it away, but let's just say few saw that coming), this photo arrived in my inbox:



I don't know the source. I don't know where it was shot (though I presume somewhere in Germany, judging by the license plates) or when exactly. The caption was, "In Germany, support for their own."

As a commentary on immigration, integration and multi-culturalism in Europe, this picture is certainly worth a thousand words.

Bosnian Catholics Discover the Obvious

Catholic Croats in Bosnia are feeling "written out of the script," according to IWPR's Marcus Tanner, writing in today's Independent. Says Tanner, "no one can dispute that the Catholic church faces extinction in much of the country, outside a triangle of land in the barren hills of Herzegovina on the Croatian border, where Bosnian Croats rule the roost."

The Catholic hierarchy waxes nostalgic about the Austro-Hungarian occupation (1878-1918), when Catholics were on top in Bosnia. Almost 25% of the population then, they are clinging on to 10% now. The predictable culprit is quickly identified: the Serbs. "The Serbs won’t let returnees go home," says Fr. Mato Zovkic, vicar of the Sarajevo archdiocese.

Hogwash. No one can really block refugee returns in today's Bosnia, where Viceroy Ashdown is lording it over the Serbs in particular with an iron fist. What Zovkic and Tanner do not mention is that Croats now control and inhabit areas in the west of Bosnia and in the Krajina region of Croatia, that were until recently almost entirely Serb, and have been thoroughly ethnically cleansed. If Croats aren't returning to their homes in Serb-controlled territory, it's because they've been given Serb properties in Croat-controlled territory.

In their misguided obsession with the Serbs, neither Tanner nor Zovkic, nor the Cardinal VInko Puljic in Sarajevo, so much as touch the main problem of Croats in Bosnia. Even Fra Marko Orsolic, the dissenting Franciscan who criticizes the Jesuit-dominated hierarchy for "a history of too-close ties to the forces of Croatian nationalism and their main party, the Croat Democratic Union [HDZ]," misses the point, even if by an inch.

The Bosnian Croats' main problem have never been the Serbs, but the Muslims. More specifically, the ideology of majoritarian rule over a centralized Bosnian state, adopted throughout the Muslim political spectrum. This ideology was championed by the late Alija Izetbegovic, who enjoyed the support of HDZ - but more importantly, the vast majority of Croats, regardless of party affiliation - for an illegal and unilateral declaration of independence that touched off the Bosnian War.

In 1992, the HDZ leadership in Zagreb (of which the Bosnian branch was a mere satellite) considered as their main enemy the Serbs (both those native to Croatia and in general) and supported Izetbegovic as the enemy of their enemy. But while regional ethnic autonomy or secession were taboo in Croatia, in Bosnia these ideas were in the Croats' best interest. Once the principle of ethnic democracy was established, only some form of ethnic federalization could prevent the tyranny of the central, Muslim-dominated government. This was the idea behind the Serb cantonization proposals, which the Croats initially backed. But between the historical grudges (Croats blamed Serbs for ending the Austro-Hungarian bonanza, Serbs blamed Croats for a brutal WW2 genocide, when Bosnia was part of the "independent" fascist Croatia) and the ongoing war in Croatia proper, the Croats of Bosnia sacrificed political prudence and joined forces with Izetbegovic's SDA.

Once they figured out they had been used - by early 1993 - they clashed with the Muslims. They were losing, slowly but steadily, when the United States bailed them out from the frying pan - and into the fire - with the 1994 Washington Agreement. This pact created a Muslim-Croat alliance against the Serbs, and established today's "Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina" (which, rumors still abound, used to be called "Federation of Bosniaks [Muslims] and Croats [Hrvata]," hence the same initials: FBiH). The 1995 Dayton Accords established the Federation as one of the Bosnian "entities." But subsequent erostion of the Dayton Constitution - always benefiting the Muslim centralizers - eliminated what few provisions the Croats had protecting their ethnic rights vis-a-vis the Muslim hypermajority.

Yes, hypermajority - when seen in the framework of the Federation, anyway. In 1991, Muslims had been 43% of the total population of Bosnia, a plurality with which Izetbegovic was unable to impose his centralist program even if he had the support of all of them. And he didn't - only the war allowed him to homogenize Muslim public opinion and establish near-total political control; one is tempted to say he knew this and pushed for war deliberately, but that is another topic for another time. The point is, Izetbegovic could not have pursued his belligerent majoritarian agenda without Croat support. Between the SDA and the HDZ members of parliament, Izetbegovic had a 60-percent supermajority that allowed him to claim legitimacy when he illegally pushed through an independence referendum.

Though the mujahedin who cut a bloody swath through Bosnia fighting for Izetbegovic would disagree, the religious aspect of the Bosnian conflict was perhaps the least important. The fundamental issue in Bosnia has been a clash of two political principles: centralism (exemplified by Izetbegovic's concept of "unified," Muslim-dominated Bosnia) and self-government, which was the basis of both Serb and Croat policies.

It is a tremendous irony that by seeking to harm the Serbs the Croats actually harmed themselves, by helping the centralizers at the expense of self-government. Now they complain about the fruits of their struggle, without realizing what exactly they had planted and when. And they still have the knee-jerk response to lash out at Serbs (though the Serbophobic Tanner may have something to do with it). I fully sympathize with their plight, but they should stop the gripe-fest and wake up to their own responsibility in the matter. Maybe then they can do something about it, instead of complaining to hacks employed by the Empire, which - let's remember - very much helped them get into the present mess.