This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2044
June 26, 2006
MIM: Leading Bosnia cleric Mustafa Ceric makes so secret of his Islamo surpremacist plans for Europe and. His Declaration of European Muslims is a declaration of cultural Jihad- claiming that Muslim domination is now a fact and that Muslims are now confident enough to make their own laws and dictate to non Muslims what they expect from them. The Declaration is also a warning to infidels that they had better show dhimmitude now in order to curry favor with who see Europe as their rightful place and expect to dominate and implement shari'a in the near future: The Muslim sense of entitlement to Europe is spelled out in this except which spells out the "expectations" of Muslims vis a vis the European countries they plan to Islamise by taking making Islam dominant religiously, economically, educationally, and politically, and taking over demographically by demanding open immigration.
5) As they try to live a decent life in Europe, European Muslims have the following expectations: (a) an institutional [presence] of Islam in Europe; (b) the economic development of the Muslim community so that it may have a full spiritual and cultural freedom and independence; (c) the development of the Islamic schools capable of educating European-born Muslims for the new challenges in multicultural societies; (d) political freedom that will enable European Muslims to have legitimate representatives in the European state parliaments; (e) a reform of European immigration policy, which has tended to be very restrictive toward Muslims recently; (f) opening the way for Muslim law to be recognized in matters of personal status such as the Family Law; (g) the protection of European Muslims from Islamophobia, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and similar atrocities.
MIM:Ceric's expertise at dissembling has lead to him being touted as a moderate. Examples of his disingenuousness, can be seen these excerpts frm an interview where he responded to questions about Muslims and terrorism and blamed the West for creating problems for Muslims brazenly claiming that ;
"... If there is a crisis, he continued, it is because the Western world is not willing to share its values with others.
In that context, he argued that "there is probably no Muslim in the world who does not strive in principle for freedom." If the Taliban appear to represent different values, it is because they represent a tribal society, not because they are Muslims, he added.
MIM: The Wahhabist influence in Bosnia is widespread in the 1990'sthe Benevolence International Foundation directly linked to Bin Laden supplied the 'white Al Qaeda' with funding to bring about the Islamisation of the Balkans which Ceric continues to promote. (Bosnia is a favored source of recruits for Jihad and terrorism because they can pass for Europeans).
Bosnian President Alia Itzebekovic has close ties to the Al Qaeda funders and their terrorists recruiting efforts.
"...a man declared by the Clinton regime as a moderate - Alija Izetbegovic, is seen inspecting these terror troops and approving them, in much the same manner as Grand Mufti Husseini did the Nazi SS Hanjar terror Division 60 years previously, [in 1993 the Hanjar Division was resurrected in Sarajevo, this time as a "presidential guard" and composed primarily of Albanians with a core leadership of Iranian mujahadeen].
At the onset of the Balkan civil war, Bosnian strongman Izetbegovic sought out former associate Sudanese Islamist Dr. Elfatih Hassanein-omal-Fatih. Sudan has obvious ties to radical Islam and bin-Laden. Fatih also ran an NGO, the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA). Bin-Laden, Sheikh Abdul Rahman [the "Blind Sheikh, responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing] and many prominent Bosnian Muslims including Stranka Demokratske Akcije, the father of Bosnia's ruling Muslim party, the SDA, are all linked to it. As recently as October 1 the commander of Nato forces in Bosnia, General Louise Weber complained of the existence of "Islamic terrorist cells" that could be put into action at any time and local newspapers increasingly carry headlines such as - "Bosnia: A Decade After Dayton, Crisis Deepens."
While petty bureaucrats concern themselves with vindictive measures Bosnia remains an al-Qaeda haven, its borders transparent, allowing mujahadeen generals such as Abu el-Maali - whom a State Dept. official describes as a "junior bin-Laden" - recent political sanctuary.
"An Algerian terrorist commander once thought to head a transnational sleeper cell network that included would-be Al-Qaida Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressam has resurfaced in Bosnia-Herzegovina, vehemently denying allegations recently presented to the Bosnian Supreme Court in Sarajevo that his foreign mujahideen unit committed war crimes during the Bosnian civil conflict of the 1990s."August 29, 2005, Global Terror AlertIzetbegovic had written extensively about his dedication to the trans-national Islamist cause.
"...the implementation of Islam in all fields of individuals' personal lives, in family and in society, by renewal of the Islamic religious thought and creating a uniform Muslim community from Morocco to Indonesia. ...""...He (Ceric) noted that postwar Bosnia needs help and is in no position to turn down money from Saudi Arabia, which, in any event, remains an ally of the West..."
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/0e50fd04-ba36-426d-a4b6-ab7be47b6bad.html Islam: Bosnian Cleric Sees Unique Role For Europe's Muslims
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| Reisu-UI-ulema Mustafa Ceric (file photo) |
| (AFP) |
On March 14, RFE/RL South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service correspondent Dzenana Halimovic interviewed moderate Bosnian Muslim leader Reisu-UI-ulema Mustafa Ceric. On February 24, Ceric's organization issued a Declaration of European Muslims that called for increased tolerance for Muslims in Europe while also pledging Muslim devotion to such principles as tolerance, the rule of law, and human rights. In the interview, Ceric calls on European governments to take issues relating to Muslim relations seriously as a matter of urgent concern.
RFE/RL: You created a declaration of European Muslims. What did you want to achieve with this and how well has it been accepted in the European Muslim community?
Reis-Ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric: The idea of the declaration of European Muslims is a personal act of sending a message to the Western audience that we, Bosnian Muslims, did not agree with the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001, on March 11, 2004 in Madrid, on July 7, 2005, in London. This declaration has been written through many conferences that I have attended since September 11 [2001].
It is a personal -- it is probably too much to say "confession" -- but a personal appeal to the European audience not to make a mistake in generalizing all Muslims and not to spread Islamophobia, that was, I think, going on in Europe and in the West generally, especially after September 11. And the second message was to the Muslims who live in Europe to take seriously these three events that may have great consequences for their stay in Europe and their status in Europe. And the third message is to the Muslim world at large to ask them to help us in the West, and especially in Europe, to develop a kind of dialogue that is acceptable to us as Muslims, as well as to our European neighbors.
We are all losers if we don't understand that we live in an interdependent world, that the East cannot live without the West and the West cannot live without the East. And if we understand that, it will be easier for us to develop tolerance, which will be a sign of our strength. Because intolerance is a sign of our weakness.RFE/RL: Some media have labeled your journeys and the promotion of the declaration as a mission on behalf of European governments in which you are supposed to create a European Islam. Is there a political influence on you of that kind?
Ceric: I am challenging the European governments to take into serious consideration the Islamization or the institutionalization of Islam in Europe for two reasons. One, that Europe should know the real face of the representation of Islam in Europe and that Muslims stop playing the tribal-mentality role in European society, presenting Islam as a tribal culture, a tribal or national agenda of any sort rather than introducing Islam as a universal faith -- as it is -- together with Judaism and Christianity.
RFE/RL: What is the point of campaigning for the assimilation of Muslims in Europe?
Ceric: We have four groups of Muslims in Europe. There are Muslims who are Bosnians, Albanians, Turks, and others, who are born or created by the clay of the European land. Then we have the Muslims who migrated to Europe from the Middle East, who are the Arabs and Turks and Pakistanis, Indians, and others. Then we have the third generation of these immigrants who are born here, educated here, and they are Europeans by their mindset, with an Islamic identity. And we have the fourth group, who are the convert to Islam who are Europeans. As you know, in Germany you have a very big number of those who converted to Islam and they are Germans, by all means. Also, in Britain and France and other European countries.
These groups have different European experiences and so their expectations from Islam and their input into the Islamic culture is different. But they are somehow bound by one idea, which is the idea of Islam. I believe that there is no European Islam. There is no Indonesian Islam or Arab Islam. There is something that we can call "the European experience of Islam" or the European experience of the interpretation of certain aspects of Islam that are different from the interpretations of other parts of the world -- which is not strange to Islam.
Islam is very much, within itself, diverse. It is not a monolithic bloc like many people think -- that Muslims are a very monolithic bloc that is very closed, not open. That they don't accept influences from others, do not influence others. On the contrary, I think, we as European Muslims are very much influenced by European culture, by the way of European life.
And therefore we have the right, as Muslims, to interpret Islam within the context of our experience and our expectations both from Islam as an idea that gives us the purpose of life, gives us the purpose of who we are and what is going to happen after our worldly life. And also we have the right to interpret Islam based on our expectations in the European life, the European experience, the European cultural mindset. That gives us, probably, some room, more than other Muslims in the world, that we see things differently, and with this experience that we have we can be helpful to other Muslims in the world because there are advantages that we live in Europe. Because Europe is the land of human rights and democracy.
Instead of focusing on Islamophobia, which will be there anyway whether we do something or not, I think we should concentrate more on Islamophiles, who are exist in Europe and in the West, and help them to be stronger in their Islamophilic approach to the Muslim world.To reach this point that Europe has reached -- from slavery to freedom, from might to right, from mythology to science -- Europe paid a big price, a great price, for that. So Europeans are very sensitive when someone touches these values of human rights and democracy. We Muslims, I think, European Muslims, have the advantage of this achievement of European society, of the level of human rights and democracy. There are some advantages, of course, because we live in Europe as Muslims.
RFE/RL: So we can talk about fabricated fear?
Ceric: There are always going to people who are xenophobic -- not necessarily of Islam, but of anything that is strange, different. But I think that there are also Islamophiles in Europe -- people who are not afraid, who believe that Islam is an open religion that has a warmth in itself and has compassion in its teachings and so on. So, instead of focusing on Islamophobia, which will be there anyway whether we do something or not, I think we should concentrate more on Islamophiles, who are exist in Europe and in the West, and help them to be stronger in their Islamophilic approach to the Muslim world.
RFE/RL: What is the major issue for European Muslims today that needs to be resolved soon, in particular for Bosnian Muslims?
Ceric: I think that trust between the East and the West, and especially between the Muslim world and the West is now at the lowest point in recent history. The one who has the formula for regaining trust between the East and the West -- and don't forget that the major resources of energy that the world needs in the future in terms of oil is in the hands of the Muslims, meaning in the Middle East.... So I think it is in the interests of the West not to endanger this part of the world, including Mesopotamia and the Middle East, where the energy for our life -- in Europe -- lies. And don't forget that the sun is rising from the east, whether we like it or not in the West.
So I think there cannot be peace in the West if we don't have peace in the East. And don't forget that never in history has the West ruled the East. There were so many attempts from the West to capture the mystic of the East, but they have never succeeded. You should remember the Crusade campaigns. You should remember Napoleon, who captured Egypt but could not stay. And you should remember France, which tried to control Algeria and did not succeed. And you should remember even farther in the deeper past that Alexander the Great could not control the East when he came to Athens and when he lost his patience in untying the Gordian knot.
So, what we are saying here is there are no winners in the East or the West. We are all losers if we don't understand that we live in an interdependent world, that the East cannot live without the West and the West cannot live without the East. And if we understand that, it will be easier for us to develop tolerance, which will be a sign of our strength. Because intolerance is a sign of our weakness.
So, I predict that the next few decades are going to be the question of the relationship between the Muslim world and the West, particularly in Europe. Don't forget that Europe was always the scene of universal changes. Europe is the land of universal evils and universal goods. World War I started here. Remember that Sarajevo was the place where the last century started. And Sarajevo was the place where the next century started by the genocide on Bosnia and the aggression on Sarajevo. And the burning of the National Library in Sarajevo.
Bosnian Muslims praying in the town of Vrbanja (epa file photo)The question of the future world will be decided in Europe on the Muslim question. As much as Europe will show a willingness and capability to solve the Muslim question in Europe, I think the whole world will see either an acceptable peace or unacceptable war. Our declaration is a kind of reminder, before the events, that European governments must take Muslim issues in Europe seriously and now... immediately, without waiting to see what will happen. Because things are now different from what they used to be in terms of whose continent Europe is.
Europe does not belong to any particular culture, to any religion, to any nationality. It belongs to all of us. Don't forget that the Muslims and Jews have contributed to European development [as much] as Christians did. Europe has never been a Christian continent, a Muslim continent, a Jewish continent. It is a continent of all of these three main Abrahamic religions that came from the East. We are equal here in Europe, we have to have an equal share, and we have to have equal responsibility for our future. I, from my experience in Sarajevo, have the right to shape a new face of Europe. And we have the obligation here in Sarajevo to help European Muslims to find their place in Europe, the right place in Europe, and not to make mistakes. And we must tell them that they cannot take their freedom for granted. They have to earn their freedom and the earning of their freedom means taking responsibility as well.
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Islam: A Declaration Of European Muslims
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| Bosnian Muslim leader Mustafa Ceric (file photo) |
| (AFP) |
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http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/5c31a59e-79e6-435b-b3ab-b0daf924782f.html
A DECLARATION OF EUROPEAN MUSLIMS:
Expressing the sense of the European Muslims regarding the attack in New York in September 2001, the massacre in Madrid in March 2004, and the bomb explosion in London in July 2005.
Whereas on September 11, 2001, thousands of men and women who worked at the World Trade Center in New York were killed by a terrorist attack, and on March 11, 2004, hundreds of people who had traveled by a train in Madrid were massacred, and on July 7, 2005, many innocent passengers were victims of bomb explosions in London, and whereas all these acts of violence against humanity have been attributed to "Islamic terrorism";
Whereas following the New York attack, the Madrid massacre, and the London bombing European Muslims live under the heavy pressure of a collective guilt for "Islamic terrorism," which is constantly being propagated by some politicians and media;
Whereas European Muslims believe there is no collective guilt, but an individual responsibility;
Whereas European Muslims suffer from Islamophobia due to irresponsible coverage of Muslim issues in Europe by some media;
Whereas European Muslims love freedom for others as they love it for themselves and appreciate citizenship and human rights in multicultural societies;
Whereas European Muslims would like to raise their children in peace and security with other religious communities in Europe on the basis of "the ethics of sharing";
Muslims praying in central London (AFP file photo)Whereas Islam teaches Muslims that Jews and Christians are People of the Book and so all Jews, Christians, and Muslims should learn to share their common spiritual roots and their common future hopes without prejudice in order to avoid discrimination, low self-esteem, demoralization, religious and racial hatred, helplessness, lack of control, social avoidance, lack of opportunities, and political under-representation;
Whereas Europe is a shared continent of many faiths, nations, languages, cultures, and customs;
Whereas Europe is proud of its road from slavery to freedom, from mythology to science, from might to right and from the theory of state to the legitimacy of state, as well as Europe's commitment to the basic values of human rights and democracy;
Whereas European Muslims want to be part of a European life and prosperity as well as of the social, political, cultural and moral development of European societies: Now therefore be it
Declared,
Part I
To the European Union, it is the sense of European Muslims that
(1) Europe is the House of Peace and Security based on the principle of the Social Contract.
(2) Europe is the House of the Social Contract because it is possible to live in accordance with one's faith in the context of "the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association." (John Rawls).
(3) A Contract is a person's dictate of reason, whereas a Covenant is person's will of the heart/faith. Hence, the Muslim is a person with an allegiance to God as an act of the will of the heart/faith; and the citizen is a person with a duty to the state as an act of the dictate of reason. By the Covenant man gives his heart to God and receives Inner Security; by the Contract he gives his reason to the state and receives security as an inhabitant of a city or town. A citizen is entitled to the rights and privileges of a free person, a member of a state, a native or naturalized person who owes loyalty to a government and is entitled to protection from it of life, religion, freedom, property and dignity.
Kazakh Muslims (RFE/RL file photo) (4) European Muslims are fully and unequivocally committed to the following European common values: (a) the rule of law; (b) principles of tolerance; (c) values of democracy and human rights; (d) the belief that each and every human being has the right to five essential values: the value of life, the value of faith, the value of freedom, the value of property, and the value of dignity.
(5) As they try to live a decent life in Europe, European Muslims have the following expectations: (a) an institutional [presence] of Islam in Europe; (b) the economic development of the Muslim community so that it may have a full spiritual and cultural freedom and independence; (c) the development of the Islamic schools capable of educating European-born Muslims for the new challenges in multicultural societies; (d) political freedom that will enable European Muslims to have legitimate representatives in the European state parliaments; (e) a reform of European immigration policy, which has tended to be very restrictive toward Muslims recently; (f) opening the way for Muslim law to be recognized in matters of personal status such as the Family Law; (g) the protection of European Muslims from Islamophobia, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and similar atrocities.
(6) European Muslims are committed to a comprehensive joint program for religious dialogue that will: (a) build awareness of the complexities of the secular context in which religions exist today; (b) promote understanding, respect differences, and explore common ground; (c) affirm religious identities as important instruments to deal with insecurity and conflict, and to learn to respect and live with diversity in situations of conflict; (d) contribute to ongoing discourse on human rights; (e) create an understanding of the 'otherness' of the 'other' person; (f) show the complex relationship between religion, culture, politics, and economics, and highlight factors leading toward positive contributions by religions to common efforts for truth, justice and peace; (g) identify religious principles, moral and ethical values, and norms that are common and that can be affirmed for the sake of a life together; and those that are distinct to each faith; and to recognize possible differences, tensions and misunderstandings between particular moral and ethical values in different religions; (h) highlight the positive historical experiences and recall memories of good-neighborly relations and living together that are also part of Europe's history; (i) establish a common platform for religious coexistence in the spirit of a good will that can be found in both the Books of God and the hope for our common future.
Part II
To Muslims who live in Europe, it is the sense of the European Muslims that:
(1) Muslims who live in Europe should realize that freedom is not a gift given by anyone. Muslim freedom in Europe must be earned. And the Muslim presence must be recognized in spite of a xenophobic opposition.
(2) Muslims who live in Europe should be more concerned now about their responsibilities than about their freedoms because by assuming their responsibility in European economic, political, and cultural life, Muslims who live in Europe will earn their right to freedom. Hence, the freedom of European Muslims will not be at somebody's mercy, but a possessed value that can neither be denied nor taken away.
A mosque in Baku (AFP file photo) (3) Muslims who live in Europe should present Islam to the Western audience as a universal Weltanschauung, and not as a tribal, ethnic, or national culture. Muslims cannot expect other Europeans to appreciate the universal message of Islam if they are constantly faced with an ethnic or national expression of Islam. It is not only that European Muslims can impress the wider European public with the universalism of Islam, but Europe is also a good place for the Muslims themselves to discover the power and beauty of the universality of Islam.
(4) It is in the West that many Muslims discover Islam in a totally different way from how it exists in their homeland, because here they meet their fellow Muslims from other parts of the Muslim world and thus begin to appreciate the diversity of Islamic experience and culture. Muslims who live in Europe have the right -- no, the duty -- to develop their own European culture of Islam as a proof of the third interaction between the East and the West and as a need for a new renaissance that will lead the humanity to a better and safer world.
(5) The young generation of Muslims who live in Europe should be spiritually strong and intellectually bold enough to break the Muslims' own stereotypes about Islam before asking others to change their stereotypes. Muslim youth must take the lead in shaping their future, not waiting for the elders to do the job. Muslim youth should not be shy in taking the lead into a better future for Muslims who live in Europe.
(6) Muslims who live in Europe should commit themselves to the following imperatives of their faith:
Part III
To the Muslim World, it is the sense of the European Muslims that:
(1) The Muslim World is a Universal Community of Muslims who are brothers by their common faith in One God and in the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon him.
(2) The idea of global awareness should not be a strange thing to Muslims. In its essence, Islam is a universal faith and a global phenomenon. It would have been fully appropriate if the Muslims had come forward with an agenda for globalization in terms of a global freedom and security, because Muslims are scattered almost everywhere on the globe and so their freedom and security are of a global importance.
Women in the Iranian military (AFP file photo) (3) Not only have Muslims failed to come with a genuine idea of globalization, but they are, generally speaking, failing now to live in a global world. Muslims have no global strategy; they have no global mind and head; they have no global calendar to save them form the embarrassment of the confusion about the date of Eid. Unfortunately, they have the image of threatening the freedom and security of the world; they have a stigma of global terrorism.
(4) It is because of the stigma of Islamic terrorism from which Muslims are unjustly suffering today that a Declaration of the European Muslims to the Muslim World should be worked out in order to emphasize the importance of a change from a bad global image to a good global image of Muslims, especially in matters of their faith.
(5) The center of Islam should take the lead in providing global guidance in practical matters of our universal faith, in global issues of our time, and in global dialogue with our neighbors.
(6) Muslims, wherever they may be, should prove to the whole world that Islam is both a sincere faith and a righteous religion; that it is both attractive in its culture and peaceful in its politics; that it comprises both good people and rich lands; and that Islam includes both the wise man of the East and the rational man of the West.
(7) It is wrong to blame Islam for the lack of democracy in the Muslim world. It is sin to violate human rights in the name of Islam; it is crime against Islam to tolerate a high rate of illiteracy in the Muslim world and to witness a huge gap between enormously rich and extremely poor people in the Muslim world.
(8) European Muslims have the right and the duty to raise these and other issues that have an impact on the future of their children as they are trying to figure out who they are and what they are supposed to do as Muslims in a European environment.
(9) European Muslims call for a global Muslim Community to take the lead in promoting peace and security in the world.
(10) The Muslim World is a legitimate Ummah that should be capable of carrying out the duty of a morally good, rationally balanced, economically just and globally effective Community which is worthy of trust, partnership and friendship everywhere.
We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere!
Friends are God's way of caring for us!
(English translation provided by the Center for Islamic Pluralism)
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| Analysis: The Imam's New Clothes |
| Leader Of Bosnia's Islamic Community Speaks Out |
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MIM: The true face of the Bosnian Muslims and their allies:
Monday, 24 July, 2000, 11:48 GMT 12:48 UK
Bosnia evicts 'holy war' settlers
The Mujahideen, mostly foreign volunteers during the 1992-95 civil war, are being treated as squatters even though they fought alongside government forces.
The first two fighters are reported to have left the houses they had been occupying in the small village of Bocinja, near Maglaj in central Bosnia, before the properties were sealed by police.
 Mujahideen fought for the pro-Muslim Bosnian army |
Last week, people living around the village put up roadblocks when they heard incorrect reports that the evictions were about to begin.
When the barricades came down three days later, 19 people were arrested, including several described as foreigners or Mujahideen.
Local Mayor Mehmed Bradaric told the French news agency, AFP, on Monday that the evictions would continue at the rate of two a day.
Married
The Mujahideen came from Iran, Afghanistan and other Islamic countries to fight alongside the Muslim-dominated Bosnian Government army during the war.
They have settled in villages around the town of Maglaj, where they have been living illegally in Serb-owned houses.
Under the Dayton peace accord that ended the Bosnian war, all foreign fighters were supposed to leave the country by 1996. But many of them now have Bosnian citizenship and have married Bosnian Muslim women.
Until now, the local authorities and the international community had tended to turn a blind eye, but now the Serbs, who were forced to flee during the war, want to reclaim their old homes.
Instability
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, says Bocinja is a difficult area for refugee returns. The first people to be evicted will be displaced Serbs and Muslims; only then will the Mujahdeen be forced to leave.
The international crisis group which produces regular reports on Bosnia says the Mujahideen are a source of potential political and ethnic instability in central Bosnia.
Correspondents say that, by going ahead with the evictions, the government is putting the rights of property-owners ahead of the right to shelter, but it may prove to be the only way to deal with an otherwise insoluble problem.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2044