Virtuous Muslim State
by Adnan Jahic
Front Slobode, Tuzla, Bosnia-Hercegovina, August 23, 1996
Quite often in contacts with my acquaintances and friends people ask
whether I think that war will end soon. Since I am not a fortune-teller,
nor I have extra-sensory powers, I always respond that I don't know.
At first glance, it might seem that this is an ordinary daily political
question. Is that so? Let us ask ourselves why an average Tuzlak
[inhabitant of Tuzla, city in north-eastern Bosnia] asks this question.
Maybe because of his concern and sympathy for our victimized and hungry
brothers in Mostar, Maglaj, Srebrenica, Gorazde and Sarajevo, or because
of his worry that he will go hungry tomorrow, or that the price of
cigarettes will again jump to DM 15 per pack, or because of daily problems
with water and electricity and supplies. Of course the latter is behind
his question. Hence, I never fail to add a short appendix to this two
sentence verbal exchange: the essential question for a Tuzlak today is not when
the war will end, but how will we, Bosnian Muslims, act in the political
and moral sense after the war, when we are left alone in our own state.
Besides, compared with the inhabitants of Sarajevo, Mostar, Srebrenica
and Maglaj, Tuzlak doesn't even have the right to ask when the war will end;
we never had a war, in its classic destructive and murderous dimensions,
in this region. Therefore, if we are a nation and if we intend to
demonstrate satisfactory degree of national solidarity and concern, let us
come to our senses and recognize that it is extremely base and morbid,
while our brothers and compatriots in mud and on the hills are defending
our peace and well being, to think about ourselves, our material position,
to whine and point our finger at the fictive problems of internal nationalism,
fundamentalism, strengthening of "anti-alcoholic", "anti-debauchery" and other
anti tendencies, to lament about the alleged de-urbanization of the city etc.,
and all that as a substitute for our own passivity and national inactivity.
It is clear that in this war participation in history, the Truth and Justice
belong only to those who fight for the survival and long term goals of the
Muslim people; everything else, all supranational, quasi-liberal and pseudo-
civilized ephemeral phenomena, from the Bloch's point of view, are simply the
surrogates of the history, uncaring quasi-creatures, unavoidable observers of
the human reality and nothing else. However, from the political point of view,
the aforementioned "forces" have been significant since the beginning of the war
against Bosnia and its bosnianmuslim people only in their opposition to the total
and consistent nationalization of Muslims and the establishment of the
bosnianmuslim state territory based on the true Islamic ethical and civilizational
values. Ever since the possibility that Muslims could after the war obtain
their own nation state has begun to be mentioned in the public, the supporters
of those forces have had only one ghoulish thought in their heads: that in
that state someone could in the future force them into a mosque, forbid debauchery
and lewdness, ban alcohol, lock up pornography etc. In their consistent support
of this stomach-libidinous philosophy all secular minds are loudly proclaiming
that they do not want to live in dictatorship, together with "green-minded
fascist regime" (as if they themselves were not servile poltroons and the objects
deprived of any human dignity in the former "red-minded" regime), that they
want freedom, Europe, prosperity etc., etc. Putting aside the fact that their
liberal-pro-Europe propaganda, even a small child understands that, is only a
disguised substitute for their philosophy of unrestrained and unsatiable
satisfaction of their urges and appetites, only a make up with which they
hide their shame because they are Muslims, there is something much more
important and dangerous for us, highly aware Bosnian Muslims. They are trying
to convince us that there is a state without an ideology, which does not posses
a list of state-national and social priorities and values.
I will try to express the essence of this article through the following points:
- The territory controlled by the Bosnian Army after the war will be a
Muslim state
- This is a desire of the Muslim people and, after all, our leaders: secular
leader Alija Izetbegovic and religious leader Mustafa Ceric (the latter one in a
private conversation with me confirmed that the old dream of Alija Izetbegovic,
member of the organization Young Muslims, has been and remains the establishment
of the Muslim state in Bosnia-Hercegovina; finally, his dream is close to realization
and "he is not terribly upset because of that").
- The Muslim state will be the national state of Bosniaks,
or Muslims, while all other ethnic groups will have all civic rights which belong to
ethnic minorities according to international conventions.
- The Muslim state will have a Muslim ideology,
based on Islam, Islamic religious, legal, ethical and social principles, but
also on the contents of Western origin which do not contradict Islamic principles.
- The Muslim ideology will be the basis for the complete
state and legal system of the future Muslim state, from
the state and national symbols, over the ruling national policy, to educational
system, social and economic institutions, and of course, the Muslim family as
the unit on which the whole state is based.
- All citizens will be guaranteed equality before the law, while
the level of personal prosperity, besides personal initiative, will especially
depend on the degree to which the individual accepts and applies the principles
and spirit of the Muslim ideology
- Every state since the ancient times has supported and promoted those
individuals, structures and organizations which fully accepted
and applied ideas and values which that state officially promoted as its own.
No state has ever assisted its opposition, nor has it deliberately offered
the possibility for the promotion of the opposing ideas and political interests.
Muslims in Bosnia-Hercegovina had a chance to observe that during both Yugoslavias.
The future Muslim state must not be different in this respect.
People who prove to be true Muslims, aware nationalists and good believers,
will naturally have higher social privilege than those who persist in their
opposition and promotion of leftist policy. Good Muslims and nationalists
will be promoted to presidents and directors and be given preferential
access to education (scholarships etc. ).
- None of the principles of Muslim ideology will be imposed
on anyone, as Koran prescribes, but the spirit of the ideology will be systematically
promoted and infuse the society in all possible ways.
- Prime time programs on radio, TV, movie theaters and cultural manifestations
will have morally educational and nationally useful content; non-Muslim material
will be on the margins of production and broadcasting.
- Muslim ideology will aim to gradually abolish the duality
between sacred and secular, religious and political, which has been imposed on
us by the secularized Christian Europe against our will, via secular reforms
of Kemal Pasha Ataturk, Lenin's Bolshevik Russia and, finally, Socialist Federal
Yugoslavia.
- In its nature, Islam does not recognize the difference of religious and
social. After all, Islam is not a "religion" but a religious-political
ideology, an all encompassing approach to living. Islamic principles never
remain on the surface of individual consciousness and individual religious
experience. True Islam always aims to encompass the society in which it exists,
and with it its political and state structures.
- Formal result of the application of the Muslim ideology
will be based on the lessons of Plato's political trilogy: "State", "Statesmen",
and "Law". "Law" will be especially taken into consideration as the book which
promotes firm control of the society, law and order in a state, the book which affirms
human virtues, religion and morality, and also advocates certain overseeing and
political organizations in order to strengthen these values.
- Political supremacy of the wisest men, if possible philosophers-politicians
as advocated by Plato, will be ensured in the state; all advancement of morally
degraded, uneducated and unprofessional people will be banned by law. Basic
knowledge of philosophy, theology, civilisation and history will be required
from all holders of high offices.
- The state policy, during the first few decades, should take the middle
of the road course, and strictly insist on the implementation and respect of all enacted
laws, so that the state could as soon as possible get on its own feet and begin
to respect Muslim ideology. Wider decentralisation and democratisation of the state
could occur only after that.
P.S. The above listed observations are not only the opinion of this author.
I have heard similar
thoughts from a lot of individuals, and even some of men who are
influential in the social and political life of Bosnia-Hercegovina. The presented
version is only an attempt to finally face these complex, controversial, and for us
Muslims vitally important issues and to put them in a preliminary, discussion
ready frame.
Reprinted from Zmaj od Bosne [pro-SDA weekly paper published
in Tuzla], issue number 51, September 17, 1993. The author is the president
of SDA [Party of Democratic Action, ruling Bosnian-Muslim party] for Tuzla and the
newly elected member of the Union of Bosnia-Hercegovina parliament.
Translated on 9/23/96
