Marko Attila Hoare: Bosnian Muslims have been part of Europe far longer than they have been Muslims. At a time when the right wing is gaining strength throughout Europe, and many politicians are trying to gain the sympathy of voters by pointing out that Christian values should be returned to Europe, the influential British historian Marko Attila Hoare says that tying religion to geographical areas does not make too much sense in today's world. By: Armin Aljović At least in Europe, most people do not identify primarily on a religious basis, says Hoare in an interview for Al Jazeera. Marko Attila Hoare is the author of several books on the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he also worked as a researcher and expert witness at the Hague Tribunal. You said that "we should never stop fighting for tolerance to be above hatred". Is Europe hostile to Muslims today, or is it just a vocal minority? The European Union and most governments in Europe today are not hostile to Muslims and do not see them as enemies. However, the populist right is extremely Islamophobic and has been so especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With far-right populism strong across Europe, leading politicians are under pressure to compete with it to win chauvinist votes. Therefore, many of them make concessions to chauvinism, as Emmanuel Macron did when he vetoed the further progress of Albania and North Macedonia in joining the EU and when he described BiH as a "ticking bomb" or Boris Johnson when he compared Muslim women to "mailboxes.". How realistic is it today, in the age of globalism, to advocate hard positions that Europe is exclusively Christian and, say, the Middle East exclusively Muslim? While it is true, historically speaking, that the strengthening of a sense of European identity was associated with Christianity, it was never true to claim that geographical Europe was exclusively Christian or that the Middle East was exclusively Muslim. Christianity originated as a Middle Eastern religion, of course, and the concept of Europe as a continent dates back to before the birth of Christianity. The tendency to connect the continent of Europe and Christianity originates from the late Middle Ages. But Christians and Jews have lived in the Middle East for thousands of years, and Muslims in Europe almost immediately after the birth of Islam. Associating certain religions with certain regions makes little sense in the post-Enlightenment era where, at least in Europe, secularization is dominant and most people do not identify primarily on a religious basis. The ethnic and religious diversification of Europe, especially due to migration and globalization, makes such ties redundant. You have been researching the history of Bosnian Muslims for a long time. Your book about the role of Bosnian Muslims during the Second World War attracted a lot of attention. How do you perceive Muslims' past and present in Bosnia and Herzegovina? How much are they part of Europe? Bosnian Muslims have been part of Europe far longer than they have been Muslims. They are descendants of Bosnians who converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia in the 15th century. It would be absurd to say that the conversion to Islam made the Bosnians less European—it would be the same as saying that the conversion to Christianity (a religion that also came from the Middle East) made the pagan Romans less European. The languages and religions of Europeans have evolved and changed over hundreds of years, and this process will continue. Bosnian Muslims—Bosniaks—are mostly secular-minded and, like other European nations, include deeply committed believers, moderately committed believers, and unbelievers. But the culture and society of Bosnian Muslims today are more like those of, for example, Germany or Italy than they are like those of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Only extremists point out that the difference between Christians and Muslims is far more important than any other similarities. At the end of the story, Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic religions that are more similar than different. In 1995, NATO reacted after the genocide against Muslims in Srebrenica. Today in Europe some voices talk about the danger coming from Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. French President Emmanuel Macron's statement about Bosnia as a ticking time bomb surprised many. How did that turn come about? One of the most prominent features of modern European politics is the strengthening of the populist extreme right, and we can connect this with the decline of liberalism and the loss of faith and trust in liberal democracy among many Europeans. This is due to the failure of this movement to provide or preserve prosperity for many Europeans and the failure of traditional social and cultural ties and values under the influence of radical liberalization and globalization, with the present uncertainty, which is further increased by the demographic decline. Islamophobia has seen a huge resurgence around the world since the September 9 attacks, and populist politicians like Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders are trying to capitalize on people's discontent and encourage Islamophobia and anti-immigrant racism as a means of winning support. Meanwhile, the liberal democratic establishment is in decline, as evidenced by the election victory of Donald Trump or the British vote for Brexit. In these circumstances, politicians like Macron may find it more politically expedient to abandon support for the grand project of Euro-Atlantic integration in favor of a far narrower nationalist policy that is close to Islamophobic populism and xenophobia. What can Bosnian Muslims learn from Jews in terms of preserving the memory of the genocide and preventing historical revisionism? Jews are very committed to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and the fight against Holocaust denial, and this is strengthened by the fact that the liberal-democratic order in Europe and the world was established by the victory over Nazism, from which it derives its legitimacy. However, Jews are divided among themselves on how to look at the Holocaust: whether to emphasize the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the Jewish experience or whether to emphasize the similarities with other victims of Nazism and other genocides (while never denying the Jewish specificity of the experience with genocide). Bosnian Muslims can learn from the Jewish experience how to balance respecting the uniqueness of their own experience with accepting the similarity of the experiences of other peoples—for example, the Albanians in Kosovo. Also, the Jews learned from their historical experience the importance of a strong state that will protect them from future genocides and serve as a refuge for refugees, where the memory of the genocide is also preserved, and they created such a state: Israel. Bosnian Muslims should also consider this. Very often, Russian influence stands out as a danger to the Western Balkans. What are the historical experiences regarding Russia and the Western Balkans? Is it wise for the European Union to give up this part of Europe? Russia, of course, has long viewed the Balkans as one of its spheres of interest and has tried to expand there, both territorially and by helping client states. This has had tragic consequences throughout history; in particular, the Russian race in the Balkans and the Middle East with Austria-Hungary and Germany should be highlighted, which led to the First World War, which was terrible for the Balkans and Europe. Today, the Russian regime continues the traditional Russian policy in the Balkans, but in a particularly vicious way: by promoting conflict to undermine NATO and the EU. The EU is therefore making a terrible mistake if it leaves the region and leaves it to Russian influence. Even Stalin admitted that the West (Great Britain) had a legitimate interest in the Western Balkans and therefore agreed to the sharing of influence there, and the liberation from Nazism in the western part of Yugoslavia, including Bosnia, was due to receiving military support from the Western allies but without the direct participation of the Soviet troop. The failure of Western leadership during the Bosnian genocide was terrible not only for the former Yugoslavia but also for relations within the West. Putin would not be satisfied with the West withdrawing from the Western Balkans, but he could use it as a springboard to further incite conflict in the rest of Europe. The EU should work on the inclusion of all Western Balkan states, and that would be the best guarantee against instability, conflict, and the Russian creation of disorder. See how it was at the promotion of the book "Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War" OSLOBOĐENJE PORTAL
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