Over the past twenty-five years, the militant Islamist movement in Bosnia & Herzegovina has developed a broad range of electronic and print propaganda vehicles designed to draw recruits and spread ethnic and religious intolerance.
These propaganda outlets include the openly pro-ISIS websites Put Hilafeta (“Way of the Caliphate”) and Vijesti Ummeta (“News of the Community”), to the pro-Al Nusra Put Vjernika (“Way of the Believer”), to a host of other websites and publications which are more narrowly Bosnian Islamofascist in orientation. Typical of the latter are websites such as dersovi.com and minber.com, which host sermons by prominent Islamist extremist clerics in the region.
The views these individuals publicly promote range from the absurd to the deranged to the psychopathic. One popular Islamic cleric in Bosnia, the Jordanian- and Saudi-educated Safet Kuduzović maintains that Muslim women should not be allowed to travel more the fifty miles alone, and are only allowed to go to the beach in January and February, and even then only with their eyes closed.[1]
Unfortunately, his other views are less laughable.
Concerning freedom of expression, Kuduzović argues: cursing and insulting the Prophet is a sin for which one is to be killed. He who curses the Prophet is killed. Whether he repents or does not, it does not matter. If he curses and insults the Prophet, he should be killed. Even if he repents before all the people, he has to be killed. He has to be punished because he is a criminal that has to be judged.[2]
Unfortunately, Kudozović is not alone is his extremism.
One of the most visible and active proponents of the militant Islamist movement on the Bosnian public scene is Fatmir Alispahić, a contributor to the Islamist extremist publication Saff and host of the weekly television program Defter Hefte, which airs on Sarajevo’s “Muslim TV Igman.” Saff was founded by indigenous members of the Al Qaeda unit in Alija Izetbegović’s army during the Bosnian jihad, the El Mudžahedin battalion, and is a frequent outlet for Islamist extremists such as Alispahić, Nezim Halilović-Muderis, the imam of the Saudi-funded King Fahd Mosque in Sarajevo, and Mustafa Cerić, the former grand mufti of Bosnia. Saff’s editorial position is essentially a form of Bosnian Islamofascism, with a steady stream of virulent hate-speech directed against Croats and Serbs, and articles overwhelmingly anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic in tone. A typical example of the type of article Saff publishes was a recent “expose” on “the Zionist conspiracy—how they have taken control of the banks, founded Israel, directed two world wars, and have begun to poison us with medicines.”[3]
A survey of Alispahić’s views over the past decade reveal the bizarre world of Bosnian Islamists, and the incredible intellectual and semantic acrobatics they perform to sustain their arguments. Alispahić, for instance, vehemently maintains that he is a democrat devoted to human rights, multiethnic and interconfessional tolerance, and a just world order. For most people his views reflect quite the opposite. Consider, for instance, the following:
On the United States and the 9/11 attacks:
“[T]here is incontrovertible evidence that America attacked America on 9/11 . . . only time separates us from the recognition that there is no difference between Hitler’s Germany and this America . . . America remains closer to Hitler and Brejvik than to the palaces of Bosnian multiculturalism and natural antifascism.”[4]
“On September 11th, a coup d’etat was carried out in the United States, with the goal of starting a ‘new world war,’ that is, robbing the American budget for the needs of the Zionist military-industrial mafia.”[5]
On the Holocaust:
“For years in the West, there have been attempts to provide a scholarly alternative to the product of Jewish suffering in the Second World War. Nevertheless, none of this research is reaching us. Understandably, since the political power that Jews possess does not allow for tampering with the ‘truth’ of the Holocaust. Scholars who have attempted to contradict the official version of facts have been brutally persecuted. Nevertheless, through this media fog, some theses have succeeded in breaking through to us which provide a completely different light on the textual products by which until today we have unreservedly believed that Hitler killed six million Jews. [These scholars] claim that the ‘gas chambers’ were built for tourists who visit Auschwitz . . . The crematoria are a particular discussion. The official history claims that the Nazis could cremate bodies in ten minutes, but science claims that two hours are needed for that process. It is claimed that no depository of ashes has been found anywhere, [whereas] ‘six million cremated Jews would have created at least one hill of dross.’ These scholars believe that the claim of six million killed Jews is an ordinary lie because on the territory under Nazi control there were four million Jews, of which two million fled to Russia. It is asserted that only 300,000 Jews died, and that as a result of typhus and exhaustion in concentration camps.”[6]
On Israel:
“Today there is no more humanistic ideal than hatred towards Israel.”[7]
“Mercenaries exist in the Muslim countries where, for the Zionist so-called Islamic State, false revolutionaries and terrorists can be bought . . . Zionist agents could have comfortably kidnapped and liquidated Croatian citizen Tomislav Salopek and carried out the whole operation under the codename of the so-called Islamic State. Those masked butchers of ISIS are with good reason hiding their Zionist identity . . . The so-called Islamic State has no connection with Islam and every Muslim is obligated to fight against this Zionist evil.”[8]
On the Charlie Hebdo attack:
“In France today, a critical mass knows that French intelligence agents killed the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists.”[9]
“It is logical to assume that Mossad terrorists were in a position to carry out the bloody theater of January 7th to strengthen the project of moving Jews.”[10]
On the 13 November terror attacks in Paris:
“Terrorist theater is a new type of theater . . . Now we are establishing terrorist theater as some form of performance, where people fall on the street, they spread ketchup on themselves, some terrorists show up. Some strange things are happening. That’s why we are saying that that which happened a month ago in Paris, the 13th of November, still has not been explained. It is the 13th of December, and some important questions are hanging over these events. For instance, people are asking, what happened to the victims? They say that in that concert hall, a lot of people were killed. Where are the names of the victims? Where is the mass funeral for those victims? Where are the pictures? Where are the names? Where are the coffins?”[11]
On the future of France:
“[the Eiffel Tower] will become a minaret in accordance with democracy and human rights, given the fact that within forty years there will be more Muslims in France [than other peoples].”[12]
On the death of Lady Diana:
“Lady Diana was killed [by the British government] because she was going to become the mother of a Muslim”[13]
On homosexuals:
“Fascism = Pederasty.”[14]
“Pederasty = Terrorism”[15]
“Pederasts are the Fathers of Pedophiles.”[16]
“Pederasts are the new Al Qaeda.”[17]
“For Americans, pederasts are important, not Muslims, because no one is allowed to beat pederasts, but America itself beats Muslims . . . the Nazis, the Zionists, and the pederasts are genuine masters at making themselves out to be victims [even when] no one is bothering them. That is how Hitler burned the Reichstag and blamed the Jews. That is how the Jews prepared 9/11 and blamed the Muslims. That is how pederasts often beat themselves and then blame others. Let us not forget that pederasty is a totalitarian ideology, ready to engage in manipulations, corruption, lies, and violence, and thus prepared to engage in terrorism as a form of struggle to impose its view on the world.”[18]
On the gay rights movement and the Zionists:
“are we talking about a conspiracy to reduce the population of the planet or a Zionist project which aims for the global destruction of the culture of the family, so that Jewish families would survive as the foundation for new world rulers?”[19]
Unfortunately, such views find a ready-made audience in certain sections of the public. A Bosnian-émigré organization named Alispahić their “Person of the Year,” and Saff is rapidly gaining in popularity. One indicator of this rise is the fact that the number of “likes” Saff had in the period between November 2014—April 2016 increased by almost eighty percent (from 14,757 to 26,351). By way of comparison, in proportion to the sizes of the relative populations, Saff has more Facebook likes in Bosnia than the New York Times has in the United States.
The growing popularity of Islamist extremist media in Bosnia has both external and internal implications. Externally, given the plethora of such propaganda outlets in the country, it is no surprise that Bosnia is widely considered to have produced more ISIS and al Nusra front volunteers per capita than any other country in Europe. Internally, meanwhile, the popularity of individuals such as Alispahić and the views he maintains goes a long way towards explaining the failure of multiethnic democracy in Bosnia.
Footnotes:
[1] See, respectively, Kuduzović’s sermons “Da li je ženi dozvoljeno da sama putuje autom do Zenice?” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcO_TD_XgcU, accessed on 28 April 2016 at 9:40 pm EST; and “Koji je vaš stav o odlascima na more?” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUZNTIlXwPc, accessed on 28 April 2016 at 11:16 am EST.
[2] Kuduzović’s sermon, entitled “Ubija se ko uvrijedi Poslanika sallallahu alejhi ve sellem,” (“He is killed who insults the Prophet, may Allah’s mercy and peace be upon him”) is available at http://www.dersovi.com/?ders=568525, accessed on 4 May 2016 at 6:58 pm EST.
[3] See “Pogledajte ispovijest bivšeg cioniste Benjamin H Freedman o zlu cionizma,” Saff (Zenica), 15 April 2016, at http://saff.ba/pogledajte-ispovijest-bivseg-cioniste-benjamina-h-freedmana-o-zlu-cionizma-video/#.Vxal7DH8tuI, accessed on 19 April 2016 at 5:52 pm EST.
[4] See Alispahić, “Amerika pred građanskim ratom,” Saff (Zenica), 20 February 2015, at http://saff.ba/amerika-pred-gradanskim-ratom/#.VfG8AX38tuJ, accessed on 29 September 2015 at 10:56 am EST.
[5] See Alipahić, “Republika Srpska je glavno uporište ISIL-a,” Saff (Zenica), 20 August 2015, at http://saff.ba/republika-srpska-je-glavno-uporiste-isil-a/#.VgqLKW78tuJ, accessed on 29 September 2015 at 9:24 am EST.
[6] See Fatmir Alispahić, “Marketing Tragedije,” in his collected volume, 40 izabranih kolumni iz Saffa 2003-2013 (Tuzla: Batva, 2013), 25-26.
[7] Alispahić, “Cionistički teror nad Francuskom,” Saff (Zenica), 6 March 2015, at http://saff.ba/cionisticki-teror-nad-francuskom/?s=Charlie+Hebdo+Fatmir+Alispahic#.VfIhZ338tuK, accessed on 10 September 2015 at 8:36 pm EST.
[8] Alispahić, “Republika Srpska je glavno uporište ISIL-a,” op. cit.
[9] Alispahić, “Pederi su očevi pedofila,”40 izabranih kolumni iz Saffa 2003-2013, op. cit., 85-89.
[10] Alispahić, “Cionistički teror nad Francuskom,” Saff (Zenica), 6 March 2015, at http://saff.ba/cionisticki-teror-nad-francuskom/#.VfHE3H38tuI, accessed on 10 September 2015 at 1:53 pm EST.
[11] See Alispahić’s comments on Defter Hefte (episode 110), Muslimanska Televizija (Sarajevo), 13 December 2014, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLJFdTyZ7I, accessed on 9 January 2015 at 1:34 pm EST.
[12] See Alispahić’s comments, made on his weekly program Defter Hefte which aired on 10 March 2015, available at http://saff.ba/crnacki-miting-za-fahrudina-radoncica/#.VQMCBo78uSo.
[13] Defter Hefte, 70th episode, aired on 8 March 2015 on MTV Igman, Sarajevo.
[14] See Fatmir Alispahić, “The Spectre of Pederasty . . . “ Saff (Zenica), 16 June 2012, at http://www.Saff.ba/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2365:bauk-pederluka-krui&catid=49:kolumna&Itemid=82, accessed on 26 June 2012 at 10:42 am EST.
[15] Fatmir Alispahić, “Sarajevski Pederistan,” Saff (Zenica), 15 February 2014, at http://saff.ba/sarajevski-pederistan/#.VEkPNVeOqSo, accessed on 24 October 2014 at 10:24 am EST.
[16] Fatmir Alispahić, “Pederi su očevi pedofila,” in his collected volume, 40 izabranih kolumni iz Saffa 2003-2013 (Tuzla: Batva, 2013), 85-89.
[17] Fatmir Alispahić, “Pederisti su nova Al-Kaida,” Saff (Zenica), 9 December 2013, at http://saff.ba/pederisti-su-nova-al-kaida/#.VfG6Gn38tuI, accessed on 10 September 2015 at 1:15 am EST.
[18] Alispahić, “Sarajevski Pederistan,” op. cit.
[19] See Alispahić’s essay entitled “Pederizam: Rat protiv Boga i Čovjeka,” 30 July 2011, at http://www.bosnjaci.net/prilog.php?pid=42958, accessed on 21 March 2016 at 4:18 pm EST.
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* Dr. Gordon N. Bardos is president of SEERECON, a strategic advisory and political risk analysis firm specializing on southeastern Europe. This article is exclusive to ACD.