How Panislamism Replaced Communism (Part 3)
Dani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, July 2 1999
by Dr. Xavier Bougarel (translated to Bosnian by Zijad Imamovic)Last year, Dani published the serial Bosnian Islam: political and/or religious revolution, which was received with a lot of interest by our readers. Dr. Xavier Bougarel, the author of that work, has continued his research so that Dani can now publish his latest results: Bosnian Islam since 1990: cultural identity or political ideology. How did Panislamists establish control over masses? How did they transform SDA and Islamize the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina? How did they establish a monopoly over some state institutions and a parallel administrative network with real power? Why is the re-Islamization in Bosnia-Hercegovina an authoritarian process which is likely to lead to the fragmentation of Islam and grave consequences for the Islamic community in Bosnia-Hercegovina? In the third and last installment of the serial, Dr. Bougarel explains how the project of re-Islamization of the Muslim national identity, nurtured by the members of the Panislamist faction, in the end totally backfired: the more the Muslim community adorned itself with symbolic and institutional attributes of a nation, the more Islam was reduced to a "commodity" from which some labels of identity were drawn without any real religious content, and the more the Islamic community lost its role of a back up national institution.
Leaders of SDA were not able to offer a coherent answer to many questions, nor to direct the consequences of the reshaping of identity they initiated. As far as Islam is concerned, the best illustrations of contradictions in which the leaders of SDA waded in is the formation of Islamic religious institutions targeting specifically Bosnian Muslim population, and the substitution of the national name "Muslim" by the name "Bosniak". Both events took place in 1993.
Coup Against Selimoski
In 1991, after SDA failed to unite "historically Muslim circles" [in the former Yugoslavia], the Islamic Community became the only institution which tied together different Muslim ethnic groups in the Yugoslav territory. After the initiative of reisul-ulema Jakub Selimoski, the Yugoslav Islamic Community even attempted to include the remaining Bosnian Muslim population in the Union of East European Islamic Communities. But, the members of the Panislamist faction severed these institutional links in April 1993 by organizing a "coup" against Jakub Selimoski and announcing the formation of the Islamic Community limited to Bosnia-Hercegovina and Sandzak, under the leadership of new reisul-ulema Mustafa Ceric.There are two main reasons for such an obviously paradoxical behavior of the Bosnian Panislamist faction. On one hand, Jakub Selimoski, who strongly opposed any type of politicization of Islam and was elected by the religious structures from different Yugoslav republics, was the main obstacle to a takeover of the Islamic Community by the Panislamist faction. On the other hand, the claim about a national character of Bosnian Muslims also implied the need for a formation of their own religious institutions: thus the striving of Panislamists to "re-Islamize" Muslim national identity in the end led to the "nationalization" of Islam.
Similarly, in September 1990, members of the Pansilamist faction successfully resisted those within SDA who advocated the replacement of the national name "Muslim" by the name "Bosniak". However, three years later, they accepted the resolution of the Bosniak Assembly "to return to our people its historical and popular name Bosniak and to thereby firmly connect ourselves to our land, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and its state and legal tradition, to our Bosnian language and total spiritual tradition of our history". The Panislamists even at times boasted that they were the true initiators of this change. However, in reality, the national name "Bosniak" was promoted by the former Communist intellectuals who participated in SDA organized gatherings and were active within cultural institutions controlled by SDA.
Members of the Panislamist faction only ratified this change, which had been hitherto supported by an overwhelming majority of the Bosnian Muslim elite, and which became necessary for the entry of the Muslim community into the European political order, based on the principle of a national state. Thus Dzemaludin Latic stated: "If in Europe a group does not have a national name, it cannot have a state.(...) My God, Bosniaks will, as a large, ugly copy become also culturally a European people, with European life style, European abandonment of God and moral indifference."
Muslims Between Name and Content
Members of the Panislamist faction then tried to compensate the abandonment of the national name "Muslim" by insisting on Islam as the central element of the new Bosniak identity. According to reisul-ulema Mustafa Ceric "the Islamic tradition is the basis of the Bosniak identity," because "without Islam, and Islamic civilization and culture - we are no one and nothing." In the seventies, Muslim intellectuals with connections to the League of Communists made huge efforts to prove that the national name "Muslim" actually had very little to do with Islam; twenty years later, members of the Panislamist faction tried to prove the opposite.But this sort of intellectual somersault failed to resolve their contradictions, because the insistence on the national dimension of Islam undermined its religious content. For example, general use of the word "sehid", as a label for those who died in the war, canceled its religious content [martyr fallen in the struggle for Islam], and is rarely followed by the respect for the burial ritual which should be tied with that. Similarly, the transformation of the pilgrimage to Ajvatovica to a patriotic gathering canceled its mystical dimension and promoted this Bosnian "mini hadj" into a replacement of the real hadj.
Thus, this project of re-Islamization of the Muslim national identity, nurtured by the members of the Panislamist faction, in the end totally backfired: the more the Muslim community adorned itself with symbolic and institutional attributes of a nation, the more Islam was reduced to a "commodity" from which some labels of identity were drawn without any real religious content, and the more the Islamic community lost its role of a back up national institution, which explains its renewal during the Communist period.
While the Panislamist faction strengthened its position within SDA and the state apparatus, its desire to unite people into Umma [Islamic community of all Muslims] gave way to narrow national issues, and its desire for the re-Islamization of the Bosnian Muslim national identity led to "nationalization" of Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Does that mean that Panislamism of the founders of SDA had no influence on the internal re-composition of the Muslim Community? Essentially, Panislamism never represented an identity project with wide support among the Bosnian Muslims. It is more likely that it slowly became a discriminating ideological criterion within that community. Adnan Jahic, the leading personality of the Panislamist faction in Tuzla, said exactly that when in 1993 he stated that the Muslim state he would like to see established in Bosnia-Hercegovina "would have a Muslim ideology, based on Islam, Islamic religious, legal, ethical and social principles, but also contents of Western European origin which are not contrary to the above mentioned principles". Also, "Full equality before the law will be guaranteed to all citizens, while the degree of social prosperity of individuals, besides their own industriousness, will depend on the degree of the fully conscious acceptance of the principles and spirit of the Muslim ideology".
Adnan Jahic's words were criticized as "immature" by Ljiljan, a weekly magazine close to SDA. In spite of that, loyalty to the ideological project of the founders of SDA is still an important factor for advancement within the party and state ranks, and political or military careers are unthinkable for anyone who openly opposes this project. As Alija Izetbegovic euphemistically said in 1994: "Of course, we will not ask a military officer if he fasts, goes to the mosque; we will ask from him to fight honestly, regardless of his beliefs. However, he must not abuse God. Be like your people. Our people never abuses God."
Panislamism as Official Ideology
In other words, it could be said that while the Muslim nationalism became a substitute for Panislamism as a cultural identity, Panislamism became a substitute for Communism as a political ideology. However, on that level there are also some significant differences with respect to the Communist period. Above all, loyalty to the Panislamist ideology is not the only criterion in the selection of the new elite: military prestige, financial power, or some rare professional qualities also play a role in this process. Secondly, Panislamist ideology remains a secret matter: it never clearly appears in the public documents and speeches from SDA, and is not intended for the plain folks.While Panislamism as a political ideology represents a sign of recognition limited to the elite circles, Islam as a marker of national identity is used for the control of the population. That is visible in the existence of the "advisors for moral and religious matters" on every level of military hierarchy, introduction of religious instruction and opening of religious schools in public educational institutions, and in various modes of pressure applied through the distribution of humanitarian assistance (covering and wearing of Islamic veils for women, attendance of main prayers and religious festivals for men, attendance of religious lectures and giving of Muslim names to children).
This relation between the ideological discourse reserved for the elite and a cultural discourse directed towards the masses contains clear advantages for the members of the Panislamist faction: in that manner they can hide their own ideological project behind religious generalities and represent every criticism of this project as an attack on Islam. The obvious strengthening of Islamic religious institutions and alleged re-Islamization of the Muslim population must be understood in this context.
After falling under the influence of the Panislamist faction in 1993, the Islamic Community began to accelerate the growth of its administrative and educational infrastructure. Seven regional muftis were appointed (Sarajevo, Mostar, Tuzla, Banja Luka, Travnik, Zenica and Novi Pazar) and seven new medresas [religious Islamic high schools] (in Tuzla, Mostar, Cazin, Travnik, Visoko, Zagreb, and Novi Pazar) were opened at that time. At the same time, its influence on the state apparatus significantly increased, as can be seen from the large number of imams who are on responsible posts in diplomacy, secret services, and ideological control and training of the Army. True, the Islamic Community has the control over several functions which cannot be conducted by the state nor the party because of their officially secular character. Because of that, the Islamic Community has become a key element in the institutional duality established by the Panislamist faction in order to secure its political domination.
Islamic Community: Influential on SDA's Part, but Unable to Help Itself
This institutional strengthening of the Islamic Community, however, did not correspond to the true extent of re-Islamization in Bosnia-Hercegovina. For example, the political influence of the Islamic Community was not sufficient to bring into question results of the authoritarian secularization achieved during the Communist period, which can be seen from its inability to recover wakfs confiscated after WWII, or its renewed conflicts about jurisdiction with the Ministry for Education and Culture regarding the organization of religious instruction in schools and maintenance of religious monuments. Similarly, the growth of its material infrastructure did not occur because of the renewed religious zeal in the Muslim population, but because of the inflow of financial assistance from the Muslim countries.Above all, attempts to implement the re-Islamization of the Muslim population using a top-down approach encountered serious resistance. The renewal of fetwah (religious decree) by reisul-ulema Mustafa Ceric and newly appointed muftis in 1994 in connection with the consumption of alcohol and pork, did not significantly change dietary habits of the Bosnian Muslims, but did cause strong protests. In spite of the political consensus achieved during the war, internal clashes in the Muslim community tend to appear exactly in connection with re-Islamization and individual behavior. During the war debates about mixed marriages and celebration of Santa Claus and (Catholic) New Year caused disturbances in the public sphere. To the population and "civic" parties, these debates provided an excuse to indirectly criticize ideological orientation of SDA. Conversely, for SDA, these debates provided an opportunity to test the cohesion of its sympathizers and loyalty of state officials. Hence, these attacks on authoritarian re-Islamization led by SDA and the Islamic Community provoked response reminiscent of the Communist period: the population was more inclined to allow the authorities to define its public identity, in order to concentrate on the defense of its personal life style.
As far as the new SDA "converts" are concerned, they were reminded of their former political beliefs: sometimes they are called watermelons (green on the outside and red inside), and they are a target of sarcastic remarks, as is illustrated by a well known Bosnian joke: "An imam enters a mosque to lead a prayer. He addresses the gathering with the following words: 'To those in the third row and further away I say salaam brothers; to those in the second row I say good morning; and to those in the first row, I say hello comrades!"
Insreased Visibility of Islam
Thus the mosque attendance is not considered by the population to be a sign of religious duty but a sign of political opportunism, while the institutional strengthening of the Islamic Community was not followed by an increase in prestige, but instead by a loss of credibility. Hence, all analyses describing re-Islamization in Bosnia-Hercegovina as an amorphous process or a "spontaneous" result of the war are definitely heading in the wrong direction. In Bosnia-Hercegovina, re-Islamization is an authoritarian process whose origin should be sought in the clearly recognizable projects and practice, and whose results are the transformation of the collective identity of the Muslim Community without corresponding modifications in the individual behavior of its members. In this context, obvious strengthening of the Islamic religious institutions and increased visibility of Islam have hidden other phenomena which work in the direction of the extension of the process of secularization started a century ago and which will sooner or later lead to a deep crisis of Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina.With that goal, the inflow of financial assistance from the Muslim world secures short term strengthening of Islamic religious institutions, but in the long term destroys their unity and authority. Rivalries between Islamic countries and religious practices have worsened internal conflicts within the Islamic Community. These rivalries also support the establishment of independent Islamic cultural centers and movements for re-Islamization, thereby endangering the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by the Islamic Community in the religious life of the Muslim Community. Thus, the authoritarian re-Islamization initiated by the Panislamist faction, led to the fragmentation of the Bosnian Islam.
Moreover, it turned out that the ideological use of Islam is in the long-term incompatible with its function of the common identity label. Truly, since Islam became a cultural basis of the Muslim community, different cultural factors within this community had the tendency to use Islam for their own political and cultural goals, to impose their interpretations and means of use of Islamic religion. Members of the Panislamist faction are thereby facing a dilemma without a solution. They will either accept an internal diversification of the Bosnian Islam and be forced to give up their use of Islam for their own ideological goals, or will try to secure a monopoly over the interpretation of Islam, but will thereby risk bringing the Muslim community to a new grave crisis of identity. In both cases, the whole political structure erected during the war is threatened with a collapse.
Translated on 8/5/1999
