From: pavlovic-milan@CS.YALE.EDU (Milan Pavlovic)
Subject: Conflict could lay foundations for Islamic state in Europe.
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 20:49:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug16.150527.17795@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
>Milan Stojanovic (stojanov@husc8.harvard.edu) writes:
>>So it is up to fundamentalists in Izetbegovic
>>government.
>
>What fundamentalists? Who is a fundamentalist? Is the B-H govern-
>ment fundamentalist because they don't accept Serbian terms? Is 

From "The Daily Telegraph" of May 11, 1992. 
Without permission, for academic purposes only.
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	Conflict could lay foundations for Islamic state in Europe

		    commentary by John Zametica

  The future of Bosnia-Hercegovina is of interest and concern to both the
European Community and the Islamic world, not only because of the raging
civil war, but more significantly because of the very real possibility of
an Islamic state being founded in Europe.

  There are no Bosnians or Hercegovinians in the former Yugoslav republic.  The
population is made up of Croats (17 percent), Serbs (33 percent) and Muslim 
Slavs (44 percent).  Uniquely, the religious identity of the Muslim Slavs was,
in Yugoslavia, recognised as constituting nationhood.

  But these Slavs are no different from other Slavs: they are racially either
Serb or Croat, and they speak Serbo-Croat.  What sets them apart is their 
adherence to Islam, embraced by their ancestors when the Turks invaded the
Balkan peninsula.  And since religion is their sole defence for nationhood, it
is that much more important to them.

  When the media report that the "Bosnians" are defending and dying for the
independence of Bosnia-Hercegovina, this should read "Muslims".  They are
doing so for the creation of the first Islamic state on the soil of Europe.
The continent already has, in Albania, a country with a majority Muslim 
population.  But the Albanians are nationalists first and Muslims second.
In Bosnia-Hercegovina, Muslims do not identify with anything other than
religion.

  Naturally, the Islamic world has paid great attention.  Since coming to 
power in 1990, Bosnian Muslim politicians have been touring the Middle 
East seeking support.  Turkey is regularly making noises about its duty to
"protect" the Muslims in Yugoslavia, and there are indications that Saudi
Arabia might pay for a United Nations force in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

  Bosnian Muslims widely sympathised with Iraq during the Gulf war.  
According to a recent report, they used a Libyan credit last year to buy arms 
on the black market.  Their brothers, in other words, are fellow Muslims, not
the Serbs and Croats from whom they are racially and liguistically 
indistinguishable.

  The Bosnian Muslims also have the highest birth rate.  It is only a question
of time before they command the absolute majority.  Then what?  The scenario 
of a militant Muslim state in Europe is not a likely one.  Theirs is not a
mullah-ridden society. Except in rural areas, the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina
are better educated and generally more westernised than their co-religionists
anywhere in the Islamic world.  Equally, however, it is difficult to accept
that they are genuinely oriented towards Europe.  For example, the Bosnia 
Muslim intelligentsia tends to acquire its higher education in Middle
Eastern universities.

  Politically, the evidence of any pro-Islamic, anti-western attitudes of the
Muslim Bosnian leadership is difficult to verify.  The Muslims are turning
to European institutions such as the EC and the CSCE for help against the
Serbs, and have been rewarded with international recogntion. The West, in turn,
has come to regard Mr. Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim president of Bosnia-
Hercegovina, as a skilful, moderate politician.

  Mr. Izetbegovic, by all accounts a deeply religious man, wrote in 1970 a
pamphlet entitled Islamic Declaration.  He has never renounced this work,
despite being imprisoned by the communists for it.

  It may be helpful to examine it in some detail as an indication of what
he stands for.  This is clear from the first page: "The creation of united
Islamic community from Morocco to Indonesia".  The tone of the pamphlet is
imbued with praise for Islam.  A British reader would be itnerested to note
that "only a few thousand genuinely Islamic fighters forced England in the
1950s to withdraw from Suez".

  Turkey receives special contempt: "Turkey as an Islamic country used to
rule the world.  Turkey as an imitation of Europe represents a third-rate
country."

  He goes on: "There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith
and non-Islamic social and political institutions".  A few more passages
are worth quoting: "The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon
as it is morally and numerically strong enough not only to destroy the
existing non-Islamic power, but also to build up a new Islamic one."  He
stresses that "the Islamic order is the unity between faith and the social and
political system."

  It would be premature to sound alarm bells, but the Muslim leadership in
Bosnia-Hercegovina has yet to prove it accepts western standards of democracy.

o John Zametica is a Research Fellow in European Security at the Polytechnic
  of Central London.
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Regards,
Milan Pavlovic