Posted on 08/28/2006 6:16:58 PM PDT by Bokababe
I am not a Serb. I am a garden variety American with ancestors from a variety of European nations – but no ancestors from Balkan nations. My interest in the issues involved in the break-up of Yugoslovia has been one of journalistic curiosity. Why do we never HEAR the Serbian side of any issue in the media? Where are the Serb spokesmen and historians?
For ten years I’ve searched for the answers. I have asked Serbs questions about issues and have primarily gotten puzzled responses from them. Many have questioned me back: “Why are you telling the truth about Serbs? Are you really a Serb who has changed your name? Are you married to a Serb?"
Somehow Serbs have maintained their traditional Orthodox Christian beliefs in spite of a 1000 year conflict with Catholic and Muslim neighbors. They also have been confronted with about 100 years of conflict with neighbors in a secular and atheistic 20th Century Europe. When I’ve asked Serb readers how come they maintained their faith in Jesus Christ, I’ve gotten puzzled and very short responses like: “It’s part of the Serbian culture!”
Yet, to me, a curious outsider, there seems to be some sort of deep-seated cultural memory among the Serbs that they themselves either can’t or won’t explain to the outside world. I finally concluded they had managed to survive hundreds of years of effort to force them to abandon their faith and adopt the conqueerer's faith by teaching it within the walls of their homes and church to their children, and not talking much to "outsiders." ...
(Excerpt) Read more at bannerofliberty.com ...
Ping. Mary hits the nail on the head!
However, you do realize that under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats were killed?
In your search for the truth, this might be of interest.
National Geographic had an article years ago concerning the expulsion of the Serbs from Croatia. That is the first instance I remember of the use of the phrase ... ethnic cleansing.
It was a civil war, people die. There were many thousands of Virginians killed in America's "War of Northern Domination" Shi'ite happens.
In her book Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide published in 2002, Bat Ye'or made the following comments about the historical antecedents to the dispute between Muslims and Christians in the Balkans:
“To anyone with some knowledge of the centuries-old history of Serbian resistance to Ottoman domination, it was obvious that the return of a form of Islamic power in Bosnia- Herzegovina would be rejected by Orthodox Serbs. The five centuries of "harmonious and peaceful coexistence” under Islamic rule, cited by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic belong to the theological dogma of the perfection of the shari'a and the dhimmi For the Orthodox Serbs, however, this same period is considered one of massacre, pillage, slavery, deportation, and the exile of Christian populations. In their eyes it was a regime which found its justification in the usurpation of their land and denial of their rights; hence it represented the exact opposite of a peaceful, multicultural coexistence based on a system of social and political justice. Thus, two conceptions of history clashed, having never before been confronted. On the one hand, there is the version the dhimmi victims; on the other, that of the conquerors, through jihad.
In their wars of emancipation-and, later, of liberation-the Orthodox Serbs found that their bitterest adversaries were their Muslim compatriots attached to their religious privileges and their domination over the humiliated Christians. During World War II Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia and sponsored the creation of a Nazi Croat state (Ustashi) with which many Bosnian Muslims cooperated. At the prompting of the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, they formed military corps, including the 13th (Hanjar) Waffen SS Division, some of which were trained in France. Early in the war, these Muslim Slavs actively participated in the policies of the Ustashi Croats and Nazis in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and gypsies. Even their German allies were shocked by the bestial atrocities committed then in Yugoslavia.
The Nazis encouraged secessionist claims by Muslims, some of whose leaders cited the traditional peaceful coexistence under Islam to denounce later these atrocities which they imputed to the Croats-although Muslim participation in the massacres was notorious. In fact, these allegations aimed at exploiting the inter-Christian conflicts between Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs which had facilitated Islam's expansion for a millennium.
Under the authoritarian Communist rule of Tito-a Croat-the Muslim religion benefited from being recognized as Muslim nationality. It was the only group defined by religious criteria, whereas others were characterized by their ethnic differences. The deliberate policy of allowing the Islamization of the Orthodox Serbian homeland (Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina) to continue also earned Tito the economic and political support of the Islamic world and perpetuated inter-Christian schisms. The communist dogma of human brotherhood once again froze the conflicts without resolving them. In 1991, before the conflict erupted, the English edition of Alija Izetbegovic's Islamic Declaration (1970) was published in Sarajevo. It specifically stated: "There can be neither peace nor coexistence between Arabia, the cradle of Islam and non-Islamic social and political institutions." And his conclusion affirmed:
'The Islamic movement must, and can, take over power as soon as it is morally and numerically so strong that it can not only destroy the existing non- Islamic power, but also build up a new Islamic one’.
Underneath the camouflage of "the multicultural Islamic state" and the "five hundred years of peaceful coexistence," Bosnian Serbs recognized the shari'a system which had decimated them. Hence, the cruelty of the fighting in Bosnia reflected the historical confrontation which, instead of being settled by dialogue, erupted in hatred. Its barbarity expresses the revenge of repressed history, a parody of the distorted myth of idyllic coexistence. Izetbegovic described the Canadian UN commander, Major-General Lewis W. MacKenzie, as "an ignorant man" for his statement in New York that:
‘both sides’ in the war were filled with hatred. According to Izetbegovic, this could only have been said by someone who knew nothing of Sarajevo's Muslims and their ‘500-year tradition of tolerance’.
Izetbegovic's reference to an "Ottoman paradise" scandalized Serbs, Greeks, and Armenians. Innocent individuals regardless of religion have become victims of a past which, because it was buried in silence, vengefully returns, accompanied by appalling acts of violence. Those responsible are the politicians who, to safeguard their own interests, tried to impose the myth of tolerance on their victims”.
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~grjan/kosovohistory.html
The understandings of the United States and its NATO allies about the history of the Balkans unfortunately does not appear to include events prior to Tito's death in 1980, and Milosevec's ascendancy to the Presidency of Serbia in 1987. These events have been described above. However, as Bat Ye'or wrote, also described above, to the Serbs, the five preceeding centuries consisted of massacres, pillage, slavery and exile of Christians on the part of Muslims during the Islamic assault into Europe. When Aliya Izetbegovic, the leader of the Muslim faction in Bosnia stated in 1970: There can be neither peace nor coexistence between Arabia, the cradle of Islam and non-Islamic social and political institutions." and "The Islamic movement must, and can, take over power as soon as it is morally and numerically so strong that it can not only destroy the existing non- Islamic power, but also build up a new Islamic one", it should have set off alarm bells in the Capitals of Europe.
But it didn't. In the Bosnian wars of 1992-5 Muslim, Croat (Catholic) and Serb (Orthodox) factions fought for control of Bosnia. The United States intervened in the conflict decisively with air power on the side of the Muslims. The result was the Dayton Peace Accords, negotiated in Dayton, Ohio ansd signed in Paris September 14, 1995. These accords were signed by the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The accords set up a Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina consisting of two entities: a Croation-Muslim Federation and a Republica Srpska.
This arrangement has failed the test of time. In October 2002 an article in the International Herald Tribune realistically suggested that it is time to admit defeat. There is no Nation-State of Bosnia-Herzegovina, instead there are, in fact, three separate entities, since a Croat-Muslim Federation is as much a delusion as a country of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This in spite of billions of dollars of international aid, Western involvement in governance and Western troops. More than half the pre-war population was displaced during the 1992-1995 war and as of 1998 fewer than 15% had returned, in spite of the fact that return of refugees was a priority of the Dayton Accords.
This site may be helpful...
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/list-s.htm
Under the "Hindsight is 20/20" heading.....
We will all learn soon that we backed the wrong horse in that race.
The Serbs dont have a trillion dollars like the US for
a huge military, prisons, great walls to keep out the Turk,etc.
They did not commit genocide at Srebenica, it was self-defense. They are getting picked off here and there
and are going to lose demographically. That was just the last gasp. Thats why there is such a huge migration into the US that no one speaks of. Phoenix now has a large number of ex-Serbs who decided they cant fight the US and the Muslims at once.
A Turkish catastral tax census in 1455 showed: about 80% of present-day Kosovo had 480 villages, 13,693 adult males, 12,985 dwellings, 14,087 household.. By ethnicity the population was listed: 1. 12,985 Serbian dwellings present in all 480 villages and towns 2. 75 Vlach dwellings in 34 villages 3. 46 Albanian dwellings in 23 villages 4. 17 Bulgarian dwellings in 10 villages 5. 5 Greek dwellings in Lauša, Vucitrn 6. 1 Jewish dwelling in Vucitrn 7. 1 Croat dwelling
Bump
Do you recall that there was a war?
The Hague couldn't afford to allow Milosevic to defend himself could they?
tgambill, #7 may interest you.
However, you do realize that under the leadership of Alija Izetbegovic tens of thousands of Serbian Orthodox and Catholic Croats were killed?
However, you also do realize that under the leadership of Franjo Tuðman tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Serbian Orthodox were killed?
I realize that under the leadership of Tudjman, Izetbegovic and Milosevic, tens of thousands of Croats, Muslims and Serbs were killed that shouldn't have been. There were no clean hands in this fight and many bloody ones. I am not a fan of Milosevic, but he was not soley responisble for what happened over there. Two fascists (Tudjman & Izetbegovic) and a socialist (Milosevic), with one of the fascists being an Islamo-fascist -- which one would you nominate for "sainthood", because my answer would be none of the above!
Having said that, if I were a Serb from Croatia or Bosnia, I would have fought just as hard as they did knowing what I know (which KDD explained so eloquently).
However, Kosovo is Serbia, period. And the West will gain nothing positive from creating a new rogue Muslim state from a Christian one, and dismembering a sovereign state just because its demographics have been artificially altered.
Not when History itself may well vindicate him.
Hague court will be listed together with the Reichstag Fire tribunal and Moscow show trials of 1930s.
A nation divided will fall to islam.
This arrangement has failed the test of time. |
Worse. Above mentioned were respected and obeyed out of fear for one's life from Hitler's and Stalin's oppressive apparatus.
The scandalous circus in The Hague is respected by Liberal scum out out their free will. Why some conservatives respect it is beyond me.
The position one takes towards ICTY is the line that differentiates a free man from a slave.
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