Academic Esad Duraković: Muslims need internal changes

SARAJevo, (Patria) - Muslims cannot expect prosperity until they start changing themselves, believes Professor at the University of Sarajevo, Academic Esad Duraković, commenting on the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, which Muslims around the world have been celebrating since Friday.

Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, Esad Duraković, believes that Muslims in the world are experiencing a cataclysm partly due to Western influence, but mostly, as he says, due to their own merits.

“Muslims must work on healing society, they must have much more respect and mercy for each other, but not in a way that they only verbalize it, but that they do it very effectively,” Duraković said in Dnevnik on TV1, reports the Patria agency.

On the other hand, speaking about Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens, Duraković said that he believes BiH has a weak perspective, but that this can change if citizens truly want change.

“Everyone complains about politicians in BiH – who are indeed bad – but if someone deceives us for 25 years, then we should ask ourselves what we are doing about it,” he pointed out.

He added that the parties that have brought Bosnia and Herzegovina to a catastrophic state are now losing credibility and that voters must at least try to give their trust to other forces.

When asked how much religious communities can influence politicians in the country to wake up and whether religious communities should get involved in politics at all, Duraković believes that all three religious communities in BiH should be less of a service to political parties, because, he said, such a relationship is a catastrophic mistake. He also believes that this mistake is particularly pronounced in the case of Bosniaks.

“Political parties are particular in themselves, they do not see things universally, and as such they fight for particular interests. Furthermore, political parties do not have a constant course, they adapt to given circumstances. On the other hand, religious communities should be constant, universal,” said Duraković. He added that when religious communities merge with the course of political parties, “they betray their universal values.”

“I appeal to citizens and religious communities and to politics that everyone mind their own business, because then we will all be better off,” said Duraković.

“Religions are not directed against each other, in essence, but politics directs them to do so,” he added.

Speaking about migrants who have been arriving in BiH in recent weeks, Duraković emphasized that such a phenomenon worries him, primarily, as he said, due to the complex religious structure within BiH, which is why wars were fought in these areas at the beginning of the nineties.

He believes that a relatively high influx of migrants into BiH could lead to the “contamination” of the domestic religious and ideological space, that these people could influence the ethnic structure in BiH, which could be used as an argument against the integrity of the country.

“I am sorry to have to say this, but we know that from Croatia we have a phenomenon where the highest leadership is eagerly awaiting an argument for so-called Bosniak radicalization, in order to have an argument for secession,” said Duraković.

“If we add to this phenomenon of migrant influx and the mass sale of land to people from Islamic countries, it means that it could be a project to change the ethnic composition of the population in BiH, in order to have an argument for the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into a 'Bosniakistan', for RS to go to Serbia and a part of BiH to belong to Croatia,” said Duraković, adding that the EU is willing to give BiH money just so that migrants stay in the country and do not go to the EU.

Speaking about the EU's relations with BiH, he said that the EU is hypocritical towards BiH, and that apart from Merkel, there are no visionaries in the EU.

“They say they will accept any internal agreement in BiH, even though they know that we cannot agree, because they created us that way,” said Duraković. He sees the solution in the EU and the US strongly influencing Serbia and Croatia so that these countries do not interfere in the internal affairs of BiH, after which, as he said, the destructive Čović and Dodik would be quickly defeated.

“Politicians in BiH benefit from this situation, because introducing order means they go to court, and probably to prison,” concluded Professor Esad Duraković.