Bosniaks Under the Control of Panislamists (Part 1)

Dani, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, June 18 1999

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 first installment of the serial, Bougarel writes about his interpretation of the way in which the Panislamic faction came to power in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

To analyze the role of Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina during the recent war is a delicate endeavor. There are two main reasons for that. The first one is that Islam, and religion in general, played a secondary role in the Yugoslav crisis: religious symbols were primarily used as a substitute for national symbols and religious institutions were to a large extent abused by the political elites, which bear the most blame for the crisis. Therefore, an analysis of Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina should not be interpreted as an analysis of the war itself. Another reason is closely related to Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina. During the war, two conflicting interpretations of Islam took root in Bosnia-Hercegovina: one presented Islam as a model of tolerance and modernity, while the other portrayed it as a bunch of fundamentalists and mojahedin. Some believed that the Islamic Declaration, written by Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic was nothing but a summary of the main principles of the Muslim religion, while others claimed that is was a Muslim version of Mein Kampf. Nevertheless, although at first glance conflicting, these two approaches have the same basis: they both treat Bosnian Islam as a stable and homogeneous whole, and Alija Izetbegovic as its only legitimate representative.

The goal of this study is to confront such a distorted and simplified interpretation. In Bosnia-Hercegovina as elsewhere, Islam is a heterogeneous and ever changing reality. It includes many approaches and is shaped by various factors with different goals and strategies. Similarly, it is probably not very useful to speculate whether the leaders of the Bosnian Muslims had as a goal the establishment of a "secular" or "Islamic" state, since the most recent events in Turkey and Iran are forcing us to reexamine the hitherto seemingly unquestionable categories. Furthermore, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Dzemaludin Latic, one of the main ideologists of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), when he writes the following about Alija Izetbegovic: "Striving for the Islamic state in Bosnia-Hercegovina truly was not and still is not his goal. Not because a state with Islamic order would be lacking in freedoms for Muslims and non-Muslims, but because the cruel European environment would destroy such a state, even with an atomic bomb, if necessary! (...) Every learned expert on Islam understands that even the Exalted God does not demand from us the establishment of an Islamic order here."

But, is Dzemaludin Latic telling us everything about the evolution of the Bosnian Islam and its place in the projects and strategies of SDA? Certainly not. In order to understand better the role and path of Islam during the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, it is necessary to visit the roots of SDA founders and their place in the political and religious variety of the Bosnian Islam. Moreover, we must analyze how this ideological faction managed to take over the leadership of the Muslim Community and keep it throughout the war. Then, it will be easier to determine to what extent this Islamic factor was able to influence the violent reshaping of the Yugoslav region or, in the narrower sense, a cultural and political transformation within the community of Bosnian Muslims.

Two Generations of Panislamists: SDA Core

This panislamist faction was only informally re-established in the 70s. At that time, general political liberalization and "national affirmation" of Bosnian Muslims enabled some of the former "Mladi Muslimani" members to take part in the renewal of Islamic religious institutions. Through a series of discussions led by young imam Hasan Cengic, they established contact with a group of students at the Sarajevo Medresa [Islamic religious school]. The new Panislamic faction thus encompassed two different generations. Its central personality was Alija Izetbegovic, "Mladi Muslimani" member and the author of the Islamic declaration which can be considered an unofficial manifesto of this reconstituted Panislamic faction. In 1983, their activities were interrupted when Alija Izetbegovic and 12 others were accused of "Islamic fundamentalism" and "Muslim nationalism" and sentenced to prison terms. At the same time, however, the persecution gave them an image of martyrs, which in return helped them to overcome their marginal role in the society.

And really, seven years later, members of this Panislamic faction had the central role in the founding of SDA: among its 40 founding members, eight of them were "Mladi Muslimani" and another dozen close to the Panislamist faction or the Zagreb mosque, then the main center of the Islamic spiritual resistance in Yugoslavia. The central influence of the Panislamist faction, however, does not mean that SDA was an Islamic party. At first, SDA intended to gather all Yugoslav Muslims (Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Turks etc.) and its founding platform contained some religious demands (for example the reintroduction of Islamic religious holidays as state holidays, return of wakf [in Islam a trust or endowment created by pious individuals to provide support for a mosque, caravan saray, poor etc.] property to Islamic religious institutions, free construction of mosques in cities and new settlements where they are missing, introduction of halal food to the barracks, hospitals and prisons). However, SDA also advocated parliamentary democracy based on the Western model and concentrated its activities on the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Sandzak.

In the field there was a huge contrast between very limited success of SDA among Albanians and Turks and its increasing influence among Bosnian Muslims. This rapid growth of SDA forced the Panislamist faction to integrate various factions of Muslim nationalism and numerous officials from the Communist Legue in the party. A good example for this is the situation in the Bihac region where SDA was launched by the local Panislamists (Mirsad Veladzic, Irfan Ljubijankic itd.) but it received massive support as a party only after the rallies organized by Fikret Avdic, a powerful local leader involved in the "Agrokomerc affair", a financial scandal which shook up Bosnian League of Communists in 1987.

Muslims Against Bosniaks

In 1990, the Panislamic faction probably did not have more than several hundred members. In controlled the Islamic weekly Preporod since the wave of dissatisfaction which had shaken up Islamic religious institutions a year before, but it was still in minority among the members of the executive bodies of the Islamic Community. Similarly, it almost had no influence among the secular Islamic intellectuals. Consequently, the members of the Panislamic factions were very careful not to push too hard their own interpretation of Islam, although they continued to use it as a rallying point for the Muslim population. They achieved that through the use of numerous Islamic symbols (green flags, religious salutes etc.) at SDA election rallies. This abuse of Islam allowed the Panislamist party leaders to include Ulema (religious leaders) in the election campaign, to secure loyalty of secular leaders and intellectuals searching for a new source of legitimacy and, finally, to turn the rising tide of Muslim nationalism to their advantage.

The fact that the first clash within SDA centered on different definitions of Muslim identity clearly indicates that this use of Islam had to do more with culture than with religion. In September 1990 Adil Zulfikarpasic, chief representative of the Muslim political emigrants, together with several secular intellectuals from Sarajevo and other Bosnian cities, proposed that the old national name Muslim be abandoned for the new name Bosniak. Naturally, members of the Panislamist faction rejected this attempt at "secularization" of the Muslim identity and managed to marginalize their opponents with support of Ulema and some of the best known intellectuals from the "national affirmation" movement from the 70s.

Banished from SDA, advocates of "neo-Bosniak" ideology formed their own party, Muslim Bosniak Organization (MBO), which won only 1.1 percent of votes in the general elections held in November 1990 when SDA received 30.4 percent of all votes (or more than two thirds of Muslim votes) and thereby became the largest political party in Bosnia-Hercegovina. In the presidential elections, Fikret Abdic received significantly more votes (1,040,307) than Alija Izetbegovic (874,213). However, Alija Izetbegovic was later elected for the president of the Bosnian Collective Presidency in spite of that. In that way, the decision of the highest party officials turned out to be more important than the voters' choice.

Building of Party Network

After the outbreak of the war, SDA shifted certain functions from the totally disorganized state apparatus to its own party controlled parallel network. "Civic" parties managed to obtain seats in the collective Presidency but, at the same time, SDA managed to circumvent and marginalize such state institutions in order to more efficiently establish a monopoly on power. One of its biggest successes on this front was the control of the young Bosnian armed forces. Within the Army, some leaders of some formations with connections to the Patriotic League had a role of counterweight to the officers newly arrived from the Yugoslav Peoples Army or Bosnian Territorial Defense. Abroad, SDA also took over control of the collection of money and smuggling of weapons, and thereby managed to establish the control of the political orientation of the Army.

In that context, foreign policy had a double role for the leaders of SDA: it was supposed to compensate for the weakness of the Bosnian state within the Yugoslav region and the weakness of SDA within Bosnian state institutions. That is the origin of persistent SDA attempts to take over key posts in the Bosnian diplomatic corps, starting with the post of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which was in turn held by Haris Silajdzic, Irfan Ljubijankic, and Muhamed Sacirbegovic. This is the origin of a clear split between some embassies in Western countries entrusted to the members of "civic" parties and other embassies in charge of the collection of donations from Bosnian emigrants and Muslim countries which was the exclusive domain of the members of the Panislamist faction (starting with Bosnian ambassador in Teheran Omer Behmen).

The reorganization of the Bosnian state apparatus which took place after the violent secession of Fikret Abdic in the Bihac region in September 1993 which was marked by the nomination of Haris Silajdzic for the new prime minister, only partially changed the manner in which SDA ruled over territories under its control. Arrests of some leaders of paramilitary organizations and some local bosses contributed to the establishment of the state authority. However, it was followed by the entry of the members of the Panislamist faction in the state apparatus, as can be seen from their appointments for regional ministers (Mirsad Veladzic in Bihac, Fuad Djidic in Zenica) or directors of state-controlled companies (Edhem Bicakcic in the Electrical Generation and Distribution Company of Bosnia-Hercegovina).

Between Vienna and Visoko

This type of rule in which official institutions are circumvented for the sake of parallel networks which have huge participation on government, led to the duality of the Bosnian state. Members of the collective Presidency, for example, were reduced to pure decorations, since Alija Izetbegovic and his team did not allow them to have any real influence. The Bosniak Assembly, made up exclusively from the political and cultural representatives of the Muslim community held sessions in parallel with the Bosnian parliament. In the Bosnian Army, "Muslim brigades", directly financed by SDA's parallel networks, appeared next to the regular units. In February 1995, members of the Collective Presidency with connections to "civic" political parties protested against the existence of such "Muslim brigades". In return they were attacked by Alija Izetbegovic and Ejup Ganic, together with the Army Chiefs of Staff, who were supposed to be subordinate to the Presidency rather than the party! Six months later, Haris Silajdzic, the main architect of the recovery of the Bosnian state, proposed on a session of the Parliament that the donations collected by SDA be returned to the state budget.

With that action, Haris Silajdzic sealed his split with the leadership of SDA. SDA's use of parallel networks to circumvent state processes and its contemporaneous steps towards the progressive monopolistic control of the state led to the reconstitution of the party-controlled state system in which the functions of the party and the state have a tendency to overlap. For example, Alija Izetbegovic was at the same time the president of the Collective Presidency and the president of SDA and very skillfully used this presidential omnipresence. The Muslim-Croat Federation, as a new coalition of the nationalist parties, went too far in similar tendencies, as indicated by the rise of Edhem Bicakcic, a co-president of the common SDA-HDZ commission, and his ability to overrule prime minister Haris Silajdzic.

SDA as the League of Communists

Therefore, there are obvious similarities between the political practice of SDA and the practice of the League of Communists; however, there are also significant differences. SDA considers itself to be the only legitimate representative of the Muslim nation and it has reduced the role of "civic" parties in the Collective Presidency to the means for obtaining legitimacy in dealings with foreign entities. However, SDA never brought into question principles of political pluralism. At the same time, SDA controlled state TV and radio while it allowed the existence of some independent papers and radio stations. Above all, the party did not attempt to obtain active support of the population, but only to ensure its passive acceptance. Hence, the manner in which SDA rules resembles less earlier Communist regimes than authoritarian regimes which appeared after 1990 in other former Yugoslav republics (Serbia, Croatia, etc.) or Soviet Union (Belarus etc.).