New Statesman
October 27, 2003
A warrior who achieved nothing
Observations on Izetbegovic
by Neil Clark
The term 'Islamofascist' is much overworked by neo-con hacks to smear
any Islamic groups that oppose the US programme for global hegemony.
But the unpalatable truth that Barbara Amiel, Christopher Hitchens and
other cheerleaders of Pax Americana need to face is that when real
Islamo- fascists do turn up, they can expect to receive backing from
the country we are meant to believe is so set against them.
Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian leader who died on 19 October, is
a case in point. The Austrian politician Jorg Haider provoked ostracism
and EU sanctions for his pro-Nazi remarks. Izetbegovic, a man who had
not only served in an SS-sponsored organisation in the Second World War
but actually recruited for it, received rather different treatment.
For his wartime activities, Izetbegovic was jailed for three years by
the Yugoslav authorities. Unfortunately for the Balkan peoples, his
extremism surfaced again. In 1970, he published his 'Islamic
Declaration', in which he argued that 'the first and most important
conclusion' from the Koran was 'the impossibility of connection between
Islam and non-Islamic systems'. He denounced secularism and the
left-leaning Ba'athist Arab states.
The biggest myth about Izetbegovic is that his pan-Islamist,
anti-Yugoslav views held popular support among Muslims in Bosnia. As
late as 1989, a poll showed that 62.2 per cent of Muslims wanted
federal structures strengthened, while just 9.5 per cent wished further
autonomy for the republics. Even in elections for the Bosnian
presidency in December 1990, Izetbegovic received over a million fewer
votes than his pro-Yugoslav rival.
That Izetbegovic was able to come to power in Bosnia and take the
republic on its separatist course owes much to the enthusiastic support
he received from his sponsors in Washington, who saw the hard-core
Islamist as an ally in their strategic objective to break up
Yugoslavia. The 'Historic Agreement', signed in the summer of 1991
between the moderate Bosniak leader Adil Zulfikarpasic and the Bosnian
Serbs, which would have kept Bosnia in Yugoslavia, was, to Washington's
delight, rejected by Izetbegovic. So was the EU-sponsored Lisbon Accord
of 1992, which provided for the cantonisation of a unified, independent
Bosnia - a far poorer option for the republic than that offered a year
earlier - but this time only after intervention from the US ambassador,
Warren Zimmermann. 'If you don't like it, why sign it?' Zimmermann
asked Izetbegovic, thus lighting the touch paper for a three-year war
in which at least 50,000 people lost their lives. Three years later, at
Dayton, Izetbegovic finally signed a peace agreement, but one which, by
undermining his goal of a unitary Bosnian authority, offered him less
than he would have received at Lisbon.
For Bosnia, like the other breakaway Yugoslav republics but more so,
'independence' has proved a chimera. For all the novelties of
statehood, Bosnia is in effect little more than a World Bank/IMF/Nato
protectorate, with the imperial high representative, Lord (Paddy)
Ashdown, able to sack the people's elected representatives at will. Was
all this worth the death and suffering of so many people?
'I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but
for that peace I would not sacrifice sovereignty,' Izetbegovic declared
in 1991. In the end, he achieved neither.
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, October 23, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
The Real Izetbegovic
Laying to Rest a Mythical Autocrat
Sometime in the morning of October 19, Alija Izetbegovic passed away in
a Sarajevo hospital, marking the end of an era for Bosnia. The
treatment of his death spoke volumes about his actions in life. While
Muslims mourned the "father of the nation" and Western press and
leaders sang him praises, over half of Bosnia's population – Croats and
Serbs – either continued to ignore him, or rejoiced at the word of his
passing.
Such sentiments are understandable. Izetbegovic had a major impact on
all their lives and destinies, and the manner in which this was the
case dictates to a large extent the feeling about him. But beneath the
paeans and scoffs persists a myth of an Izetbegovic who never was – a
public relations construct for political consumption, markedly
different from the old man who shed his mortal coil Sunday morning.
Brave Savior?
Agence France-Presses described Izetbegovic as a "hero of Muslim
resistance…who led his country to independence," who "won worldwide
sympathy by running the government from sandbagged buildings during the
… siege of Sarajevo," and "walked to his office through the
bombardment… under constant threat from [Serb] artillery and sniper
attacks."
But Bosnia became only a ruined protectorate, and Izetbegovic's alleged
heroics were a media ploy. In reality, Izetbegovic ordered thousands of
Sarajevo residents to work and live under constant threat, allowing
only those with special government permits to leave the city, while his
family was sent to safety and he himself retreated into a bunker. If
the city was the Serbs' hostage, its residents were Izetbegovic's.
Man of Tolerance?
BBC's obituary makes Izetbegovic into a victim of Communist repression
(which he may have been) and an activist for religious freedom (which
he was not). His 1983 trial may have been a farce, but he was a member
of a Muslim youth organization that recruited for the Waffen SS during
World War Two, and he did write the "Islamic Declaration" in 1970, in
which he argued that:
"The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the unity of
religion and law, education and force, ideals and interests, spiritual
society and State…the Muslim does not exist at all as an independent
individual… […] It is not in fact possible for there to be any peace or
coexistence between 'the Islamic Religion' and non-Islamic social and
political institutions."
This is as explicit as Islamic fundamentalism gets. Oh, there is also
the matter of Muslim soldiers killed in the Bosnian War being called
shahaad, "martyr for the faith," indicating theirs was a Muslim holy
war (jihad), not a struggle for some fictitious multi-ethnic utopia.
Izetbegovic requested to be buried at the main shahaad cemetery in
Sarajevo, next to the holy warriors who died for his vision.
Yet most obituaries dismiss the charge of fundamentalism as something
maliciously concocted by Serbs and Croats, who were "sharpening their
knives, preparing to carve up Bosnia" (BBC) even as Izetbegovic "worked
desperately to preserve [Yugoslavia]" – another bit of contemporary
fiction.
Man of Peace?
The Reuters obituary paints Izetbegovic as a peacemaker: "Many
observers say Izetbegovic never wanted war as the price of Bosnia's
independence."
Yet here is Izetbegovic, on February 7, 1991: "I would sacrifice peace
for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina… but for that peace in
Bosnia-Herzegovina I would not sacrifice sovereignty." (quoted in
Richard Holbrooke, To End A War, Chapter 2, p. 32)
Holbrooke, a self-confessed and proven admirer of Izetbegovic and his
cause, offers several descriptions of Izetbegovic's prevarication that
frustrated peace efforts. He would know; he and his associates bent
over backwards negotiating on Izetbegovic's behalf at Dayton, while
"Grandpa" (as some of his people called him) constantly frustrated
their efforts by rejecting painfully crafted compromises and always
asking for more.
The British Independent went so far as to claim that Izetbegovic's
"moment of triumph" came at the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which
"confirmed the independence and the multi-ethnic character of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, populated by Muslims, Serbs and Croats." Dayton did
no such thing, and Izetbegovic is reported to have signed the agreement
in total silence. It was not a triumph, but a defeat.
The Man Who Never Was
More distortions of reality came from Imperial flunkies, like EU's
foreign policy czar Javier Solana, who called Izetbegovic "a very
courageous leader for his people" who "played an important role in
ending the war in his country." Solana's successor as NATO's
Secretary-General, the boorish George Robertson, claimed Izetbegovic
"worked hard to preserve the unity and independence of [Bosnia]."
France's President Jacques Chirac praised the "political courage he
demonstrated in contributing to national reconciliation." (AFP) And the
Iranian government praised Izetbegovic for "serious attempts to defend…
the unity among the residents and various ethnic races" of Bosnia.
Yet Izetbegovic never did any of these things – indeed, he did the
exact opposite.
Binder's Whitewash
But it is the maddening New York Times obituary where the "media
Izetbegovic" occludes the real man the most. Penned by David Binder, it
offers tantalizing glimpses of truth behind the veils of politically
correct drivel aimed to portray Izetbegovic as a tortured, honest,
peace-loving, spiritual man who fought for freedom by any means
necessary, betrayed by Western powers.
Izetbegovic was hardly honest. According to a famous statement of his,
he thought "one thing in the morning, and something else in the
afternoon." He had support of Western governments, if not always to the
extent he wanted. His relations with Islamic countries were voluntary
and eagerly pursued, not forced by circumstances. He fought for power,
not freedom; the "Islamic Declaration" makes it clear individual
freedom meant nothing to him. To him, peace meant not the absence of
violence, but primacy of his violence over that of others. And his
faith, admired by people who have abandoned their own, served to
justify in his mind everything he'd said and done.
The Real 'Grandpa'
Alija Izetbegovic was a complex man: intelligent, cunning, calculated
and driven, yet projecting the image of a simpleton which led both his
allies and his enemies to gravely underestimate him. Journalists and
diplomats genuinely believed his professed reverence for democracy,
human rights and multi-ethnic multi-culturalism, even as all evidence
indicated it was feigned.
He was a man of strong convictions, and an even stronger desire to
force them upon others. Both the "Islamic Declaration" and Islam
between the East and the West, his 1970 pamphlet and 1980 book, reveal
a philosophical view of Islam not as a relationship between individuals
and the divine, but as a system in which society, religion and state
become one. No equality, or peaceful coexistence, was possible for
non-believers in such a system, and he said as much. Izetbegovic's
vision of Bosnia was not a multi-ethnic democracy, but a multi-caste
hierarchy of the kind that existed under the Ottoman Empire, the
memories of which were still fresh at his birth in 1925.
Just as Islam dictated Izetbegovic's philosophy, so did his World War
Two experience shape his political relations with Bosnia's Christian
majority, the Serbs and Croats. Between 1941 and 1945, Bosnia was part
of the "Independent State of Croatia," in which Serbs were being
persecuted as fiercely as Jews in the Nazi Reich, among others by the
Muslim Waffen SS and irregulars, whom Izetbegovic supported.
Politically, Alija Izetbegovic was an autocrat. He muscled out the
actual founders of the SDA party before the 1990 election. After the
vote, he sidelined the most popular Muslim politician – Fikret Abdic –
to become the chairman of the executive Presidium, a function later
dubbed the "President of Bosnia." He used people with ease, purging
them when they became too ambitious or too independent. Those who ended
up disgraced, beaten or scarred were lucky. Several others were
assassinated or executed.
His power was absolute. Izetbegovic was the Bosnian state. Those who
served the state served him personally, not the phantom Constitution,
not the makeshift flag, not the sham institutions of a non-existent
government. This was hardly the example western obituaries had in mind,
but that is what he really was.
A Legacy and a Choice
Bosnia's history is one of conflicts between its various ethnic and
religious communities, of which the latest was not the worst. But
Izetbegovic's duplicitous ethnic politics – masquerading as democracy,
tolerance and civil society – may have poisoned the well of Bosnian
coexistence for generations. His jihad-waging, multi-ethnic democratic
autocracy is as plausible today as it was in 1992, when Serbs, Croats
and not a few Muslims rejected it as nonsense.
The Great Leader of the Bosnian Muslims may have just died, but his
ideas are very much alive. Thing is, truly free people do not need
Great Leaders, or father figures, or "grandfathers." Those 150,000
people expected at Izetbegovic's funeral Wednesday have not realized
that yet. But if they ever mean to free themselves from hatred and
fear, and live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors, they will have
to.
Izetbegovic has been laid to rest. His deadly legacy should be, too.
October 27, 2003
A warrior who achieved nothing
Observations on Izetbegovic
by Neil Clark
The term 'Islamofascist' is much overworked by neo-con hacks to smear
any Islamic groups that oppose the US programme for global hegemony.
But the unpalatable truth that Barbara Amiel, Christopher Hitchens and
other cheerleaders of Pax Americana need to face is that when real
Islamo- fascists do turn up, they can expect to receive backing from
the country we are meant to believe is so set against them.
Alija Izetbegovic, the former Bosnian leader who died on 19 October, is
a case in point. The Austrian politician Jorg Haider provoked ostracism
and EU sanctions for his pro-Nazi remarks. Izetbegovic, a man who had
not only served in an SS-sponsored organisation in the Second World War
but actually recruited for it, received rather different treatment.
For his wartime activities, Izetbegovic was jailed for three years by
the Yugoslav authorities. Unfortunately for the Balkan peoples, his
extremism surfaced again. In 1970, he published his 'Islamic
Declaration', in which he argued that 'the first and most important
conclusion' from the Koran was 'the impossibility of connection between
Islam and non-Islamic systems'. He denounced secularism and the
left-leaning Ba'athist Arab states.
The biggest myth about Izetbegovic is that his pan-Islamist,
anti-Yugoslav views held popular support among Muslims in Bosnia. As
late as 1989, a poll showed that 62.2 per cent of Muslims wanted
federal structures strengthened, while just 9.5 per cent wished further
autonomy for the republics. Even in elections for the Bosnian
presidency in December 1990, Izetbegovic received over a million fewer
votes than his pro-Yugoslav rival.
That Izetbegovic was able to come to power in Bosnia and take the
republic on its separatist course owes much to the enthusiastic support
he received from his sponsors in Washington, who saw the hard-core
Islamist as an ally in their strategic objective to break up
Yugoslavia. The 'Historic Agreement', signed in the summer of 1991
between the moderate Bosniak leader Adil Zulfikarpasic and the Bosnian
Serbs, which would have kept Bosnia in Yugoslavia, was, to Washington's
delight, rejected by Izetbegovic. So was the EU-sponsored Lisbon Accord
of 1992, which provided for the cantonisation of a unified, independent
Bosnia - a far poorer option for the republic than that offered a year
earlier - but this time only after intervention from the US ambassador,
Warren Zimmermann. 'If you don't like it, why sign it?' Zimmermann
asked Izetbegovic, thus lighting the touch paper for a three-year war
in which at least 50,000 people lost their lives. Three years later, at
Dayton, Izetbegovic finally signed a peace agreement, but one which, by
undermining his goal of a unitary Bosnian authority, offered him less
than he would have received at Lisbon.
For Bosnia, like the other breakaway Yugoslav republics but more so,
'independence' has proved a chimera. For all the novelties of
statehood, Bosnia is in effect little more than a World Bank/IMF/Nato
protectorate, with the imperial high representative, Lord (Paddy)
Ashdown, able to sack the people's elected representatives at will. Was
all this worth the death and suffering of so many people?
'I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but
for that peace I would not sacrifice sovereignty,' Izetbegovic declared
in 1991. In the end, he achieved neither.
---
http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m-col.html
ANTIWAR, Thursday, October 23, 2003
Balkan Express
by Nebojsa Malic
Antiwar.com
The Real Izetbegovic
Laying to Rest a Mythical Autocrat
Sometime in the morning of October 19, Alija Izetbegovic passed away in
a Sarajevo hospital, marking the end of an era for Bosnia. The
treatment of his death spoke volumes about his actions in life. While
Muslims mourned the "father of the nation" and Western press and
leaders sang him praises, over half of Bosnia's population – Croats and
Serbs – either continued to ignore him, or rejoiced at the word of his
passing.
Such sentiments are understandable. Izetbegovic had a major impact on
all their lives and destinies, and the manner in which this was the
case dictates to a large extent the feeling about him. But beneath the
paeans and scoffs persists a myth of an Izetbegovic who never was – a
public relations construct for political consumption, markedly
different from the old man who shed his mortal coil Sunday morning.
Brave Savior?
Agence France-Presses described Izetbegovic as a "hero of Muslim
resistance…who led his country to independence," who "won worldwide
sympathy by running the government from sandbagged buildings during the
… siege of Sarajevo," and "walked to his office through the
bombardment… under constant threat from [Serb] artillery and sniper
attacks."
But Bosnia became only a ruined protectorate, and Izetbegovic's alleged
heroics were a media ploy. In reality, Izetbegovic ordered thousands of
Sarajevo residents to work and live under constant threat, allowing
only those with special government permits to leave the city, while his
family was sent to safety and he himself retreated into a bunker. If
the city was the Serbs' hostage, its residents were Izetbegovic's.
Man of Tolerance?
BBC's obituary makes Izetbegovic into a victim of Communist repression
(which he may have been) and an activist for religious freedom (which
he was not). His 1983 trial may have been a farce, but he was a member
of a Muslim youth organization that recruited for the Waffen SS during
World War Two, and he did write the "Islamic Declaration" in 1970, in
which he argued that:
"The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the unity of
religion and law, education and force, ideals and interests, spiritual
society and State…the Muslim does not exist at all as an independent
individual… […] It is not in fact possible for there to be any peace or
coexistence between 'the Islamic Religion' and non-Islamic social and
political institutions."
This is as explicit as Islamic fundamentalism gets. Oh, there is also
the matter of Muslim soldiers killed in the Bosnian War being called
shahaad, "martyr for the faith," indicating theirs was a Muslim holy
war (jihad), not a struggle for some fictitious multi-ethnic utopia.
Izetbegovic requested to be buried at the main shahaad cemetery in
Sarajevo, next to the holy warriors who died for his vision.
Yet most obituaries dismiss the charge of fundamentalism as something
maliciously concocted by Serbs and Croats, who were "sharpening their
knives, preparing to carve up Bosnia" (BBC) even as Izetbegovic "worked
desperately to preserve [Yugoslavia]" – another bit of contemporary
fiction.
Man of Peace?
The Reuters obituary paints Izetbegovic as a peacemaker: "Many
observers say Izetbegovic never wanted war as the price of Bosnia's
independence."
Yet here is Izetbegovic, on February 7, 1991: "I would sacrifice peace
for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina… but for that peace in
Bosnia-Herzegovina I would not sacrifice sovereignty." (quoted in
Richard Holbrooke, To End A War, Chapter 2, p. 32)
Holbrooke, a self-confessed and proven admirer of Izetbegovic and his
cause, offers several descriptions of Izetbegovic's prevarication that
frustrated peace efforts. He would know; he and his associates bent
over backwards negotiating on Izetbegovic's behalf at Dayton, while
"Grandpa" (as some of his people called him) constantly frustrated
their efforts by rejecting painfully crafted compromises and always
asking for more.
The British Independent went so far as to claim that Izetbegovic's
"moment of triumph" came at the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which
"confirmed the independence and the multi-ethnic character of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, populated by Muslims, Serbs and Croats." Dayton did
no such thing, and Izetbegovic is reported to have signed the agreement
in total silence. It was not a triumph, but a defeat.
The Man Who Never Was
More distortions of reality came from Imperial flunkies, like EU's
foreign policy czar Javier Solana, who called Izetbegovic "a very
courageous leader for his people" who "played an important role in
ending the war in his country." Solana's successor as NATO's
Secretary-General, the boorish George Robertson, claimed Izetbegovic
"worked hard to preserve the unity and independence of [Bosnia]."
France's President Jacques Chirac praised the "political courage he
demonstrated in contributing to national reconciliation." (AFP) And the
Iranian government praised Izetbegovic for "serious attempts to defend…
the unity among the residents and various ethnic races" of Bosnia.
Yet Izetbegovic never did any of these things – indeed, he did the
exact opposite.
Binder's Whitewash
But it is the maddening New York Times obituary where the "media
Izetbegovic" occludes the real man the most. Penned by David Binder, it
offers tantalizing glimpses of truth behind the veils of politically
correct drivel aimed to portray Izetbegovic as a tortured, honest,
peace-loving, spiritual man who fought for freedom by any means
necessary, betrayed by Western powers.
Izetbegovic was hardly honest. According to a famous statement of his,
he thought "one thing in the morning, and something else in the
afternoon." He had support of Western governments, if not always to the
extent he wanted. His relations with Islamic countries were voluntary
and eagerly pursued, not forced by circumstances. He fought for power,
not freedom; the "Islamic Declaration" makes it clear individual
freedom meant nothing to him. To him, peace meant not the absence of
violence, but primacy of his violence over that of others. And his
faith, admired by people who have abandoned their own, served to
justify in his mind everything he'd said and done.
The Real 'Grandpa'
Alija Izetbegovic was a complex man: intelligent, cunning, calculated
and driven, yet projecting the image of a simpleton which led both his
allies and his enemies to gravely underestimate him. Journalists and
diplomats genuinely believed his professed reverence for democracy,
human rights and multi-ethnic multi-culturalism, even as all evidence
indicated it was feigned.
He was a man of strong convictions, and an even stronger desire to
force them upon others. Both the "Islamic Declaration" and Islam
between the East and the West, his 1970 pamphlet and 1980 book, reveal
a philosophical view of Islam not as a relationship between individuals
and the divine, but as a system in which society, religion and state
become one. No equality, or peaceful coexistence, was possible for
non-believers in such a system, and he said as much. Izetbegovic's
vision of Bosnia was not a multi-ethnic democracy, but a multi-caste
hierarchy of the kind that existed under the Ottoman Empire, the
memories of which were still fresh at his birth in 1925.
Just as Islam dictated Izetbegovic's philosophy, so did his World War
Two experience shape his political relations with Bosnia's Christian
majority, the Serbs and Croats. Between 1941 and 1945, Bosnia was part
of the "Independent State of Croatia," in which Serbs were being
persecuted as fiercely as Jews in the Nazi Reich, among others by the
Muslim Waffen SS and irregulars, whom Izetbegovic supported.
Politically, Alija Izetbegovic was an autocrat. He muscled out the
actual founders of the SDA party before the 1990 election. After the
vote, he sidelined the most popular Muslim politician – Fikret Abdic –
to become the chairman of the executive Presidium, a function later
dubbed the "President of Bosnia." He used people with ease, purging
them when they became too ambitious or too independent. Those who ended
up disgraced, beaten or scarred were lucky. Several others were
assassinated or executed.
His power was absolute. Izetbegovic was the Bosnian state. Those who
served the state served him personally, not the phantom Constitution,
not the makeshift flag, not the sham institutions of a non-existent
government. This was hardly the example western obituaries had in mind,
but that is what he really was.
A Legacy and a Choice
Bosnia's history is one of conflicts between its various ethnic and
religious communities, of which the latest was not the worst. But
Izetbegovic's duplicitous ethnic politics – masquerading as democracy,
tolerance and civil society – may have poisoned the well of Bosnian
coexistence for generations. His jihad-waging, multi-ethnic democratic
autocracy is as plausible today as it was in 1992, when Serbs, Croats
and not a few Muslims rejected it as nonsense.
The Great Leader of the Bosnian Muslims may have just died, but his
ideas are very much alive. Thing is, truly free people do not need
Great Leaders, or father figures, or "grandfathers." Those 150,000
people expected at Izetbegovic's funeral Wednesday have not realized
that yet. But if they ever mean to free themselves from hatred and
fear, and live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors, they will have
to.
Izetbegovic has been laid to rest. His deadly legacy should be, too.