Bosnia: Politics and Current Events

[Onur]

Like all oppressors the ottoman Turks were bastards that put their people (the muslims) first, and everyone else second. However the turks were not as bad as other empires. Look at what the spanish did in south america, all of the native people there speak spanish and are roman catholics. Or look at the english who forced people in northern ireland to become protestants and love the corrupt queen of england. Look at the russians who "slavicised" the surnames of peoples in khazakstan, Krgyzstan etc and forced them to use and learn cyrillic
I think out of all of the empires in history, the macedonian were "lucky" to be under the ottoman empire, it could have been more worse if we were under the french or english empires.

The only consequences macedonians got from being in the ottoman empire was loosing a few of our christian peoples to the islamic faith, oriental buildings and turkish coffee. Nothing as bad as other conqured peoples have faced.

I honestly think the ottoman empire and the austro-hungarian empire where the only decent "multi-ethnic" empires in history.

Anyway, many old macedonian people always used to say that if you compare the ottoman occupation of macedonia with say the albanian, serbian, grik and bulgarian slav occupation of macedonia, they would rather still be living under turkish rule as they were still allowed to live and be macedonians, and have some sort of freedom. Many old people in tetovo region also say they would rather be living under ottoman rule then living in a shiptar dominated and run city, which says a lot......

Yes BBS. Thats why i cannot understand the reason of this neverending hate toward Turks even if all the societies in the Balkans preserved their culture and identity over the 550+ years and %99 of them preserved their religion of orthodoxy as well under the Turkish regime but i know that western powers and Russians created these hateful thoughts to be able to destroy the Ottoman Empire and create several tiny states in the Balkans in the name of their own interests. Without this hate and internal confusion, it was impossible to realize that.

You understand the level of hate when Mladic declared that he killed the Turks in Srebrenica, no one else.



Also, don't forget that the Europeans not only converted the religion of the American Indians, they basically killed millions of them with methods like bringing the blankets of plague patients from Europe and giving them to poor Indians. That was for the southern Americans. After that, northern American Indians faced with same destiny in the hands of the British immigrants.

[Big Bad Sven]

There is no point in arguing who did what worse than the other. One crime is just as bad as the other, the simple fact that all sides committed crimes reveals that all sides are guilty, and those that stood by and didn't bother to reason with their own respective fanatic factions are just as guilty as those who committed the actual crimes.

If you are looking for people to blame, start with Izebegovic, Karadzic, and Tudjman, two of which previously served jail time for radical and violent national campaigns under Yugoslavia. These are the people who reduced the unity of Bosnia to a fucking religious dispute. People in Bosnia are 100% the same, if you strip them of their religion, they are all related, it's too bad radical factions on all sides managed to polarize the dispute and push it to the breaking point...

Those of you who are now arguing over whether the Muslims, the Catholics, or the Orthodox are more at fault or less at fault than anyone else should be ashamed, because it is exactly this mentality that lead to the conflict. And for something so massive that happened so near to our homes, none of you really seem to understand what really happened... This deeply troubles me because I see many of the same symptoms that arose in Bosnia very prevalent in Macedonia.

Yeah, those big bad man like Izebegovic, Karadzic,Tudjman and ESPICIALLY that bastard Metodija Andonov-Čento, all bastards that should have been shot on the spot because they thought for a free and indapendant croatia,bosnia, macedonia etc.

They all had rocks in their heads, they should have loved to live in a fake country and celebrate a artificial nationality and culture called yugoslavia

[Onur]

Yes those Turks were tyrants to us and I didn't said that's your burden today to feel obligated to explain them or trying to diminish or justificate their flaws with pointing out to the other's flaws.

There is plenty matherial to be studied from and I woudn't suggest you to temp me in providing it since it's not going to serve you good in any way.

You can call Turkish regime in any way you like, i don't mind on that but you cannot explain something like conversion and assimilation to me because statistical facts will always proves you wrong. Only %1 of total christian population under Turkish regime converted to Islam in 500+ years. I can say that it even looks like the Turks promoted Christianity instead of Islam by looking at the statistics. Assimilation? It`s just a laughable claim of Greek and Bulgar Orthodox church aka western powers and Russian propaganda.

I'm not discussing the scale (if I take on your word for it) of the religious conversions through the time but the reasons they occured.

The only and main reason our people converted to islam was your administrative regime and your religious despotism.

You question the existence of Turkish speaking muslim population in the Balkans here. Well, i cant help on that. You want me to apologize to you just because we were existed in the Balkans? If you look at the history, you can easily understand that none of the states in Balkans was capable of to stay independent between Turkish and German Hapsburg Empires. If it wouldn't be the Turks, then it would be Hapsburg regime or some other Catholic Empire and you would all be the Catholic vassals of Pope in Vatican right now or die as an anathematized members of heretic sect called Orthodoxy(according to the Vatican). You don't need to be an expert to grasp this historical reality.

[Big Bad Sven]

Srebrenica was a horrible thing that happened, perhaps its a stretch to call it genocide and perhaps its wrong that the serbs will always be reminded of this, but the fact is that the serbs committed a horrible crime and they need to live with that.

Both croats and bosniaks were just as bad as the serbs, and its hypocritical that western media does not highlight the attrocities that they did to serbs in bosnia, but that doesnt make srerenica right or less or crime.

As far as i see it, Bosnia wanted to stay in a serb dominant yugoslavia, along with macedonia, but when the serbs went marching into slovenia and croatia and started drawing maps of a greater serbia which included dalmatia, bosnia and macedonia - then it shows me that they were the instigators and perhaps should take most of the blame.

[Big Bad Sven]

TM,

violence generate more violence, it's not simple to explain every relation and the history is more complicated.

Let's not equate Bosnia and Macedonia, althought I agree with you about the 'unholy alliance' and the role of the Serbs against Macedonians.

But in order to be realistic, the Bosniaks are not so historically innocent either and the massakres they did during WW2 as part of 13th Nazi SS division - Handschar have put their inpact in the religious animosity among them and the Serbians and this cannot be ignored for the purpose of making 'eternal victims' of them.

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/bosnia_koritska_gorge.htm

Everyone with his own burden, everything should be clear.


SS wartime propaganda poster from the Ustasha regime in Croatia. It shows a German SS solider (left) and standing beside a Bosnian Muslim SS soldier on the flag of Communism.


The Mufti of Jerusalem salutes the Bosnian SS division

From the Encyclopedia of Holocaust, Edition 1990, Vol. 2, page 704. The caption under the photograph reads: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, inspecting troops in Bosnia (1943).


See more general info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Wa..._(1st_Croatian)

There were also serbs (nedic regime and followers) that were nazi lovers......

The chetniks also changed sides many times as well, working with the allies and then later the nazi's........

Not all croats and bosniaks were nazi's.... many were with the partisans since the begining.......

[Big Bad Sven]

Onur,

I'm surprised that you are surprised since it was the Ottoman regime that inforced such religious aversions among our people.

It was your people actually that started to divide our people only according their religion and that fact has a huge impact on everything which followed later.

The tirany made by the Turks produced such animosity toward muslim faith and to be honest it's very easy to revive the negative feelings attached to history but still present in the religion.
When your ancestors were forcing the Christian population to become muslims don't be surprised why there is still negative feeling about anything connected to you - in this case the islam.

That's how it is, without any personal remark to you.

Like all oppressors the ottoman Turks were bastards that put their people (the muslims) first, and everyone else second. However the turks were not as bad as other empires. Look at what the spanish did in south america, all of the native people there speak spanish and are roman catholics. Or look at the english who forced people in northern ireland to become protestants and love the corrupt queen of england. Look at the russians who "slavicised" the surnames of peoples in khazakstan, Krgyzstan etc and forced them to use and learn cyrillic
I think out of all of the empires in history, the macedonian were "lucky" to be under the ottoman empire, it could have been more worse if we were under the french or english empires.

The only consequences macedonians got from being in the ottoman empire was loosing a few of our christian peoples to the islamic faith, oriental buildings and turkish coffee. Nothing as bad as other conqured peoples have faced.

I honestly think the ottoman empire and the austro-hungarian empire where the only decent "multi-ethnic" empires in history.

Anyway, many old macedonian people always used to say that if you compare the ottoman occupation of macedonia with say the albanian, serbian, grik and bulgarian slav occupation of macedonia, they would rather still be living under turkish rule as they were still allowed to live and be macedonians, and have some sort of freedom. Many old people in tetovo region also say they would rather be living under ottoman rule then living in a shiptar dominated and run city, which says a lot......

[Bratot]

Ohh yes. We were so powerful tyrants that we kept the lands between China to Vienna in our hands for 500+ years but even if we wanted to convert your religion so badly(according to you) somehow we`ve only managed to do that with few 100.000 Bosniaks and few Torbeshi people of Macedonia!!! Even less that %1 of the total christian population under Turkish regime!!!

Yes those Turks were tyrants to us and I didn't said that's your burden today to feel obligated to explain them or trying to diminish or justificate their flaws with pointing out to the other's flaws.

There is plenty matherial to be studied from and I woudn't suggest you to temp me in providing it since it's not going to serve you good in any way.

Bratot, i appreciate your intelligent posts and enjoy reading most of them but i see that you delved into the anti-Turkish propaganda on this.

I am fully aware of the propaganda parts but you cannot hide behind that excuse in every example.

The appreciation is mutual and I enjoy reading the valuable informations you provide but don't underestimate my perception of what is historically supported.

Islam spread into western Europe and USA in the last 25 years like 100x faster than the 500+ years of Turkish regime. Who forces people to convert to Islam in the last 25 years? The big bad Turks again? Mate, you can be sure that if the Turks would have like to assimilate you and convert your religion, we could do that easily in 500+ years if we`d have wanted to and you would pray to Allah right now.

I'm not discussing the scale (if I take on your word for it) of the religious conversions through the time but the reasons they occured.

The only and main reason our people converted to islam was your administrative regime and your religious despotism.

Assimilation and religious conversion is something related with Christianity, not with the Turkish version of Islam. Otherwise, Muslim people in Balkans wouldn't be only the %1 of the total population. If you look at the history, you will see that between 12th to 14th century, Byzantine Empire managed to assimilate and convert double amount of Turkic speaking people to the Christianity than the Turks ever did the same upon Christians between 14th to 20th century.

Onur, there was an agreement of resettlement of all muslim population from the Balkans after the fall of Turkish empire, together with their mobile property.

Those who stayed were forbiden of many citizen rights, were forbiden to serve the army, were isolated from the rest of the Christian populated regions.

Under Turkush rule the Christian population in the CITIES was around 10% of the rest.
It's commonly known that in the early 18 century there was a serious danger to our language because the population in the cities in 90% Turkish speaking and those in the villages were usually uneducated.

You posted numerical census of the population in the Balkans and it's evidently contrary to what you suggest now.

However, this is not the subject of this thread, so better we not continue in here.

I'm not anti-Turkish oriented nor I feel personal reasons for that, to be honest I grew up together with my Turkish neighbor, celebrated both holidays and I'm morally indebted to support the good relations among us.

[Onur]

Onur,

I'm surprised that you are surprised since it was the Ottoman regime that inforced such religious aversions among our people.

It was your people actually that started to divide our people only according their religion and that fact has a huge impact on everything which followed later.

The tirany made by the Turks produced such animosity toward muslim faith and to be honest it's very easy to revive the negative feelings attached to history but still present in the religion.
When your ancestors were forcing the Christian population to become muslims don't be surprised why there is still negative feeling about anything connected to you - in this case the islam.

That's how it is, without any personal remark to you.

Ohh yes. We were so powerful tyrants that we kept the lands between China to Vienna in our hands for 500+ years but even if we wanted to convert your religion so badly(according to you) somehow we`ve only managed to do that with few 100.000 Bosniaks and few Torbeshi people of Macedonia!!! Even less that %1 of the total christian population under Turkish regime!!!



Bratot, i appreciate your intelligent posts and enjoy reading most of them but i see that you delved into the anti-Turkish propaganda on this.

Islam spread into western Europe and USA in the last 25 years like 100x faster than the 500+ years of Turkish regime. Who forces people to convert to Islam in the last 25 years? The big bad Turks again? Mate, you can be sure that if the Turks would have like to assimilate you and convert your religion, we could do that easily in 500+ years if we`d have wanted to and you would pray to Allah right now.

Assimilation and religious conversion is something related with Christianity, not with the Turkish version of Islam. Otherwise, Muslim people in Balkans wouldn't be only the %1 of the total population. If you look at the history, you will see that between 12th to 14th century, Byzantine Empire managed to assimilate and convert double amount of Turkic speaking people to the Christianity than the Turks ever did the same upon Christians between 14th to 20th century.

I am against crimes to humanity and I will always stand up against it no matter what religion people belong to. People are people. But when someone tries and sells me the western propaganda makes me a bit mad.

You didn't answer my question tho- do you think Kosovo should be independent? And do you think the 'poor' Albanians in Macedonia in 2001 who 'didn't' have any weapons were right in what they did?

I agree to you on the western propaganda. They wanted to divide Balkans with lots of little countries(except the great Hellas!) as small as one city in Turkey, so they can never manage to develop themselves and they were successful on that thanks to the people like Serbs.

I am also against the creation of one more tiny country like Kosovo but is there any other way if people keeps killing each other because of religious differences? It`s like the divided Cyprus and necessity of separate Turkish state. Pull back the Turkish soldiers from there today and i guarantee that in the next day, Greeks recreates EOKA terror units again.

If you ask me, I believe that the Balkans can only be strong with some kind of union, at least in the sense of commerce but i also believe that this is impossible with the current hostility of people towards each other. Ofc this neverending hostility is the what western powers wants.

[fyrOM]

Onur when you see someone beaten up you can look at their black eye and bloody nose and think how bad it is but you also have to think what did they do to get them. Sometimes its is nothing much but not always there is one victim. Once I meat a Bosnian who was involved in the war and maybe because I was Macedonian he let his guard down and spoke of his personal atrocities. Many times there is more to the story of an event.

[fyrOM]

You cannot equate Yugoslavia to any natural country and expect to understand it in the same contects. Yugoslavia was a shot gun wedding of neighbours with Tito holding the gun. Like neighbours can have their disputes sometimes even little things sometimes big past transgressions were not forgotten even if nothing was being done about it. So to Yugoslavia had its past baggage when they came to the wedding.

The bust up of Yugoslavia was like a messy divorce with many accusations of past and present transgressions with much emotion for revenge. It was definitely not all one sided. Just take one look at the distrubution of populations and the hotch potch mix up how could bosnia ever be removed from Yugoslavia ie Serbia or divided without many people loosing their land on all sides. The war was inevitable as a grab for land was made. All sides including the bosnians knew this and prepared for war. Srebrenica was not the only event in Bosnia yet from selective media reporting the whole Bosnian war has been boiled down to one event. Think Bosnia think Srebrenica. Think war on terror think 9 11. Just over 3000 people died in 9 11. Over 4000 usa troops already dead let alone nato numbers and hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan but no one thinks of them.

Look what happened with India and Pakistan. At the inevitable fall of the brithsh hold the muslims an hindus slaughtered each other for a land grab until they decided to have population exchanges and Pakistan was born. The fact of the matter is in such break-ups move or slaughter is the only solution and mix into this past transgressions and the sceen is set for an explosion of war unless an ordered exchange of people occurs. Logic and reason in the Balkans was unlikely when plotting scheaming and revenge is what they have known from the past. People with past transgressions and grudges can learn to be good neighbours but it is much harder to force them to be good wedding partners. Yugoslavia was a mistake from the beginning

[Jankovska]

There is no point in arguing who did what worse than the other. One crime is just as bad as the other, the simple fact that all sides committed crimes reveals that all sides are guilty, and those that stood by and didn't bother to reason with their own respective fanatic factions are just as guilty as those who committed the actual crimes.

If you are looking for people to blame, start with Izebegovic, Karadzic, and Tudjman, two of which previously served jail time for radical and violent national campaigns under Yugoslavia. These are the people who reduced the unity of Bosnia to a fucking religious dispute. People in Bosnia are 100% the same, if you strip them of their religion, they are all related, it's too bad radical factions on all sides managed to polarize the dispute and push it to the breaking point...

Those of you who are now arguing over whether the Muslims, the Catholics, or the Orthodox are more at fault or less at fault than anyone else should be ashamed, because it is exactly this mentality that lead to the conflict. And for something so massive that happened so near to our homes, none of you really seem to understand what really happened... This deeply troubles me because I see many of the same symptoms that arose in Bosnia very prevalent in Macedonia.

I totaly agree and those who lead the Muslim, the Catholics and the orthodox ro war should be punished for their crimes. In my opinion everyone should be punished, not just some.

[Buktop]

There is no point in arguing who did what worse than the other. One crime is just as bad as the other, the simple fact that all sides committed crimes reveals that all sides are guilty, and those that stood by and didn't bother to reason with their own respective fanatic factions are just as guilty as those who committed the actual crimes.

If you are looking for people to blame, start with Izebegovic, Karadzic, and Tudjman, two of which previously served jail time for radical and violent national campaigns under Yugoslavia. These are the people who reduced the unity of Bosnia to a fucking religious dispute. People in Bosnia are 100% the same, if you strip them of their religion, they are all related, it's too bad radical factions on all sides managed to polarize the dispute and push it to the breaking point...

Those of you who are now arguing over whether the Muslims, the Catholics, or the Orthodox are more at fault or less at fault than anyone else should be ashamed, because it is exactly this mentality that lead to the conflict. And for something so massive that happened so near to our homes, none of you really seem to understand what really happened... This deeply troubles me because I see many of the same symptoms that arose in Bosnia very prevalent in Macedonia.

[Bratot]

Jankovska why are you defending the Serbs? Do you realize that during this war with Bosnia they proposed to the grks the carving of Macedonia so that they could be neighbors?
Everything that was happening in Bosnia affected Macedonia more than we even realize. And besides that I notice that this "western propaganda" thing keeps popping up about the war in Bosnia. This term was extensively used in Athens and first used in Athens when NATO denounced the Serb warcimes. The proposition Athens and Belgrade had during the war in Bosnia was to form an 'Orthodox Union' to destroy the Muslims. The union would have included Serbia, modern "greece", Bulgaria, Russia, Romania, and the Ukraine. Notice someone missing in this equation? That's because the plans for Macedonia after the war in Bosnia were made.
The one thing the grk media constantly repeated to make the warcrimes for the Serbs look less evil was what you said a few times already Jankovska;

Is this supposed to wipe the slate clean? Or are we to say "Well this cancels everything out then".

TM,

violence generate more violence, it's not simple to explain every relation and the history is more complicated.

Let's not equate Bosnia and Macedonia, althought I agree with you about the 'unholy alliance' and the role of the Serbs against Macedonians.

But in order to be realistic, the Bosniaks are not so historically innocent either and the massakres they did during WW2 as part of 13th Nazi SS division - Handschar have put their inpact in the religious animosity among them and the Serbians and this cannot be ignored for the purpose of making 'eternal victims' of them.

http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/bosnia_koritska_gorge.htm

Everyone with his own burden, everything should be clear.


SS wartime propaganda poster from the Ustasha regime in Croatia. It shows a German SS solider (left) and standing beside a Bosnian Muslim SS soldier on the flag of Communism.


The Mufti of Jerusalem salutes the Bosnian SS division

From the Encyclopedia of Holocaust, Edition 1990, Vol. 2, page 704. The caption under the photograph reads: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, inspecting troops in Bosnia (1943).


See more general info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Wa..._(1st_Croatian)

[Jankovska]

Bosnians wanted and started the war??? I am sorry but you are in delusion again.

Jankovska, you are the one who separates people according to their religion. I am not touchy just because Bosniaks are Muslims. Hell, i am not even a Muslim myself, i don't believe any religion. I am touchy because of your denial about what happened in the war at Bosnia.

Well, maybe i can be extra sensitive about Bosnians because 100s of them was living in my elementary school`s sport center and we, the students was buying them foods with our pocket money instead of buying coca cola for ourselves. One family was also staying in my friend`s house as a guest. I still remember their faces today. The pain and suffering was clearly visible when you look at their sad faces.

Trust me, i would be as touchy as now if the Muslim Bosnians would do the same to the Serbs because i am against any horrible crimes against people, no matter what their ethnicity or religion. On the other hand, while you try to diminish the importance of the massacre in Srebrenica, you overemphasize the loss of the Serbs by saying that some mujaheddins imported from middle-east and killed the Christians.



P. S: Didnt you read my message at the first page of this thread? Read it if you wanna learn how 8500+ Bosnians handed over to the Serbian Jihadists by the Dutch soldiers, so they can realize the massacre.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?p=63709#post63709

You know, after killing them, Serbian army commander said that they just killed the Turks, so there is no need to worry about it. I have no idea whatever the fuck he meant cuz there is no relation whatsoever between the Turks and Bosnians in an ethnic sense. Maybe every muslim are Turks in his sick mind? dunno !?









This was the one and only reason of the war in Bosnia started by the Serbs. It`s clear as a day since Serbian aggressors declared this several times. Thanks for the message TM.

I am against crimes to humanity and I will always stand up against it no matter what religion people belong to. People are people. But when someone tries and sells me the western propaganda makes me a bit mad. What pisses me off is when someone is very quick to blame someone for what they have done where is they will never admit it if they have done the same. A lot of Serbs died too in Bosnia, killed by Croats Generals and mudzahedins but I guess those were not people.
I am not saying Srebrenica didn't happen, I just believe that Srebrenica was set up to happen, not bevcause Mladic wanted to just kill 8000 Muslims, but because the West wanted a reason to use against the Serbs. Ratko Mladic was just the dog.
Again in no way do I approve of any killings or war, EVER but if we are talking about fairness and if Srebrenica is going to be mentioned than maybe we should start thinking about the others who killed innocent people in the war and bring those to justice. Afterall you need two to tango, in this case three I guess.
You didn't answer my question tho- do you think Kosovo should be independent? And do you think the 'poor' Albanians in Macedonia in 2001 who 'didn't' have any weapons were right in what they did?

[Jankovska]

Jankovska why are you defending the Serbs? Do you realize that during this war with Bosnia they proposed to the grks the carving of Macedonia so that they could be neighbors?
Everything that was happening in Bosnia affected Macedonia more than we even realize. And besides that I notice that this "western propaganda" thing keeps popping up about the war in Bosnia. This term was extensively used in Athens and first used in Athens when NATO denounced the Serb warcimes. The proposition Athens and Belgrade had during the war in Bosnia was to form an 'Orthodox Union' to destroy the Muslims. The union would have included Serbia, modern "greece", Bulgaria, Russia, Romania, and the Ukraine. Notice someone missing in this equation? That's because the plans for Macedonia after the war in Bosnia were made.
The one thing the grk media constantly repeated to make the warcrimes for the Serbs look less evil was what you said a few times already Jankovska;



Is this supposed to wipe the slate clean? Or are we to say "Well this cancels everything out then".

I am in no way defending them, what they did was unhuman and they should pay for it. All I am saying is that the Muslims and Croats were just as bad but they have been let off. That's not fair.
I am in no way a Serb lover, actually I know everything thye have done to my country and people for centuries. And don't start me on the church.
But this Srebrenica thing is totaly blown out of proportion. It was a safe zone and yet Ratko Mladic manage to get in and kill 8000 Muslims. One can argue that the Serbs were very easy lead to it, coz you know if you want to make someone look bad in history FORVER you need to accuse them of genocide.
For what happened in the war all three sides should be paying heavy prices, that is my argument,