Islamic Community Warns of Systematic Islamophobic Campaign Targeting Bosniaks and Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has warned the domestic and international public that, in recent days, a systematic Islamophobic campaign has clearly been launched, targeting Bosniaks and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In public statements by radical right-wing politicians from the country, the region, and the world, as well as through pseudo-academic texts, attempts are being made to construct an imaginary “Islamic threat,” simply because a significant portion of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina identify as Muslims. Islam in the political, public, and cultural life of Bosniaks—and consequently of Bosnia and Herzegovina—plays the role that Christianity, in its various denominations and with minor differences, plays for other peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in other regional and European secular states and societies, the Public Relations Office of the Riyasat of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina stated in its announcement.

It is further noted that it is shameful to accuse a nation that survived genocide of “demographic opportunism”—a nation that was subjected to systematic and organized crimes of extermination for more than four years, and whose biological substance was destroyed across large parts of the land where it had lived for centuries.

The Islamic Community finds it particularly concerning that individuals who openly display hatred toward Islam, Muslims, and everything that does not fit into their racist and supremacist worldview are being given space within state institutions, and that their views are being broadcast in state and public media without any official condemnation.

While the right to public political and social debate on all open issues is respected, this cannot serve as justification for promoting exclusionary ideologies that further polarize Bosnian society and undermine the already fragile trust and peace-building process among peoples. Sowing hatred and distrust, and blaming genocide victims for having survived, endured, and for wanting to build Bosnia and Herzegovina together with others as a democratic and open society that equally respects the rights of individuals and peoples, is not the path toward a better future for these lands, the statement emphasizes.

It is also stressed that anyone who objectively follows the situation can clearly see that Bosniaks, through their political representatives, do not seek anything for themselves in Bosnia and Herzegovina that they are not prepared to guarantee to all other peoples and citizens as well.

Those who believe they can mobilize the global public against Bosniaks and Bosnia and Herzegovina by fabricating fears of Islam, in order to secure unprincipled concessions to the detriment of Bosniaks and of a sovereign and integral Bosnia and Herzegovina, are warned that such actions will only further complicate relations and make the achievement of any long-term solution—including a political one—more difficult. The key to peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina lies in building trust and respecting all components of society, the statement notes.

The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina calls on all responsible domestic politicians, media, and the academic community, as well as friends of this country around the world, to oppose this malicious campaign and to recognize its danger to interpersonal relations and trust.

Such open attacks on the Islamic identity of Bosniaks will not discourage the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ttogether with its imams, professors, members, and adherents, it will remain committed to the promotion of interreligious dialogue, understanding, and an open-minded religiosity that fosters unity in diversity, the statement from the Riyasat’s Public Relations Office concludes.

(MINA)