The Role of Religion in the Yugoslav War by Mohamed Elzarka
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The Role of Religion in the Yugoslav War by Mohamed Elzarka Introduction of religion in the region, we will identify how the In the early 1990s, the Southeastern corner of close association of religious identity with ethnic Europe exploded in a firestorm of war and violence identity divided and polarized different religious between the different republics of the Socialist groups against one another for several centuries. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Civil war broke out paper will then explore how the polarization of these as tensions flared between different religious and groups was compounded by economic and cultural ethnic groups, and the republics that comprised differences, which further exacerbated the tensions the nation declared their independence. Starting and how these tensions translated into historical with Slovenia’s initial declaration and succeeded conflict over the course of the 20th century. Finally, by similar decrees in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, and commentary on the historical pressures in the elsewhere, one nation was transformed into seven at Balkans will be unified with a discussion of some of the expense of nearly a decade of violence. According the rhetoric and political actions that immediately to the International Center for Transitional Justice preceded the war to determine how differences in (2009), the conflict included “widespread attacks religious and ethnic identity were used as motivators against civilians, population expulsions, systematic for war and how the political tensions between the rape and the use of concentration camps.” Most of different Yugoslav republics increased as a result. the massacres occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo and, by the war’s end, “over Historical Perspective on Religious and Ethnic 140,000 people were killed and almost 4 million Divides others displaced” across the region (International In order to comprehend the conflict in greater Center for Transitional Justice, 2009). detail, it is important first to understand more about In addition to the violence between the armies the region as a whole and the religious divides that of each republic, massive genocidal and ethnic define it. Perhaps the most important concept to cleansing campaigns were executed by makeshift grasp when examining the Yugoslav Civil War is soldiers who were normal citizens only a few years that religion in the former Yugoslavia is almost prior. In the case of the Srebrenica Massacre, for synonymous with ethnicity. In the Slavonic and example, “more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men East European Review nearly 30 years before the and boys were systematically massacred and buried war’s onset, David Dyker describes the religious in mass graves, thousands of women, children and and political realities between the Serbs, Bosniaks, elderly people were forcibly deported, [and] a large and Croats of the area. Dyker highlights that nearly number of women were raped” (Remembering all Serbs are Eastern Orthodox in their practice of Srebrenica, n.d.). This makes the atrocity the worst Christianity, that Croats are ubiquitously Catholic, in Europe since World War II and highlights the and that Bosniaks are almost completely Muslim severity of the conflict, as examples like Srebrenica (Dyker, 1972). In fact, the extent to which religion were not unique when it comes to the crimes that the defines ethnicity can be found in some of the earliest explosion of the “Balkan keg” brought about. censuses that Dyker showcases in his article. In an This paper will examine the importance that Austro-Hungarian census from 1879, Bosniaks were religion had in the development towards war and not even identified by their ethnic status, but by how religion and religious identity were used as their religious one. Using the term “ethnic Moslem” tools by political actors to breed mistrust and incite as a racial identifier, the language of the census violence. By examining the historical significance underscores the close affiliation that religion and Aisthesis 29 Volume 9, 2018 The Role of Religion in the Yugoslav War ethnicity have in the land of the South Slavs. This and molded into their contemporary existence. affiliation was so strong that changing one form of According to historian Florian Bieber, much of the identity might constitute changing the other. In the polarization between the groups may be attributed to Austrian History Yearbook of 1967, Michael Petrovich historical developments in the region. He highlights, details that “religion was not so much a matter of for example, a specific instance in the 14th century private conscience as of one’s public identity. In when the height of the medieval Serbian state was some cases, the identification between religion and reached. At this time, Serbian king Stefan Dusan nationality was so great that a religious conversion controlled a large portion of the Balkans. Soon, automatically entailed a change of nationality, in the however, his empire was destroyed and fragmented eyes of others if not in those of the convert himself” by the arrival of the Ottomans, who defeated the Serbs (Petrovich, 1967). In this way, religion and ethnicity in the Battle of Kosovo Polje (Bieber & Dastalovski, were one and the same in Yugoslavia for generations 2003). This battle, to nearly all Serb nationals, before the war began. signified the beginning of the unjust Ottoman This complete concordance between the two conquest of their lands. For these Serbs, the arrival identities is not only a unique and interesting of the Ottomans began a period of repression and distinction, but also serves an important role in maltreatment, something for which a longstanding addressing how the tensions between the different begrudging attitude would be held. Dimitrije groups grew to such elevated levels, and how the Djordjevich describes how the day on which the ethno-religious groups of the Balkans often perceived battle was fought has even taken on its own national themselves as having less in common with one symbolism as Vidovdan, or St. Vitus’s Day, and has another, despite a shared language and frequently a remained part of the Serbian national consciousness shared nationality. It is first important to note that since the day that the battle took place. He highlights despite strong ties between the constructs of religion how “generations of Serbs and historians divided the and ethnicity in the Balkans, the interrelation of these national past into two periods: before and after the two elements of identity and the extent to which their Kosovo Battle” (Djordjevich, 1999). The reverence relationship has been a catalyst for armed conflict with which this battle is remembered signifies the are nuanced and ever-changing over the course of prevalence of a strong anti-Ottoman sentiment that history. Indeed, people of distinct ethnicities and concentrated itself in Serbia for centuries. religions have coexisted rather peacefully in the This mindset against the Ottomans would also region for centuries despite the intermittent conflict be translated into a hatred of the Islamic religion that is to be discussed. According to Kanchan that the Ottomans brought with them. For many Chandra’s constructivist viewpoint of ethnicity— Serbs, “Turkish” and “Muslim” were synonymous. which is predicated on the belief that “ethnic This is made evident by the term “Turcin,” which identities are not singular, nor are they fixed”—the was formerly used to denote members of the Islamic kind of separation between the different religious and religious community despite the fact that there is no ethnic identities of Yugoslavs was not an eternal and significant evidence linking Yugoslavia’s Muslims undying phenomenon. Instead, Chandra argues that to ethnic Turkish ancestry (Dyker, 1972). Instead, identities like the aforementioned can change, and as Dyker describes, the term derives from the close underscores examples where they have—sometimes association that Serbs held between Ottomans and very drastically (Chandra, 2012). In all cases, she those ethnic Slavs who converted to Islam upon attributes these changes to complementary changes the arrival of the Ottomans. Many ethnic Bosniaks, in the environment, perception, or thoughts of the who at the time of Ottoman conquest were part people in question. In essence, racial and ethnic of an independent Bosnian Church, were already categories are created through experience and by perceived as heretics of both the Catholic and influences over the course of history. Orthodox churches for their differences in belief. With this point in mind, it is imperative to This group of Slavs did not identify with many of the examine how the seemingly inseparable racial and religious ideologies of either institution, and thus ethnic identities of Yugoslavia were actually shaped soon latched on to Islam when it was presented to Aisthesis 30 Volume 9, 2018 The Role of Religion in the Yugoslav War them as an alternative (Dyker, 1972). Many other was significantly more economically successful than adherents of Catholicism and Orthodoxy also Serbia (Bertsch, 1977). Michael Radu postulates that became Muslim due to the benefits of doing so “perhaps the primary source of political conflict in under Islamic law and with hopes of stepping up the Yugoslavia [in the time of war] results from regional Ottoman power pyramid. Those who converted paid and, hence, ethnic inequalities in the goods and a lesser tax and had more positions of advancement services produced and consumed by the different in the regional governments and martial hierarchy peoples” (Radu, 1998). In other words, not only was available to them, so conversion was widespread the eventual split of Croatia and Slovenia from the (Slack, 2001). rest of Yugoslavia politically damaging, but it also With past heretics and a mass of formerly Catholic endangered Serbian economic success. Thus, the and Orthodox adherents joining this new faith of the different economic and cultural environments set incoming conquerors, the Slavic churches were pitted up by the respective churches of these two regions against Islam.