Sacred Heart Cathedral in Sarajevo. Demotix/Emir Dzanan. All rights reserved.The streets are swarming with tourists speaking in English, German, French, Turkish, and Arabic. New hotels and apartment buildings are springing up. Two major global media outlets opened their offices in the country. A major economic forum held this month brought together leading politicians and businessmen from the region. Another day in UK or Belgium? No, this is happening in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital that endured a three-and-a-half year siege two decades ago.
Edward P. Joseph's article “The Balkans, Interrupted” in Foreign Affairs stirred anxiety in Bosnia and the region with its bleak analysis and alarmist tone. This dovetails with the notion of the Balkans as chronically unstable part of Europe which is how the region was conceived of in academic and popular imagination for a long time. While Joseph is right to point to the importance of the region and Washington's and Brussels' relative neglect due to other pressing crises, the author's argument is found wanting for both factual and interpretational reasons. To begin with, the article is built around a string of rather superfluous assumptions based on spurious conclusions and tenuous linking of rather unrelated events and actors. We will limit our response to the case of Bosnia.
The attack on the police station in the eastern Bosnian town of Zvornik is still being investigated. The reports that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” were countered by later reports that he cursed. The investigation should determine what exactly transpired. Whatever the case, statement whereby “Allahu Akbar” is, as Joseph puts it, a “jihadist war cry” could be considered both inaccurate and disturbing, if not outright offensive. For the vast majority of Muslims in the world, affirming the greatness of God is an article of faith as in other Abrahamic religions. The muezzins in different parts of the world are not uttering a “jihadist war cry” but rather calling the faithful for prayers five times a day. However, this is not to deny that the pronouncement is being used by radical extremists. But conflating the misuse of a religious pronouncement with the nature of the pronouncement itself would be a case of linguistic imprecision at best. Furthermore, the Islamic Community of Bosnia unequivocally condemned the attack leaving no doubt as to its firm stance against extremism.
