Duraković: Bosniaks' response to pressure should be cosmopolitanism and tolerance

BiH, (Patria) - A video that appeared online at the end of January shows children of various ages learning about Islam and doing various physical exercises at a resort on Jelen Lake near Tešanj.

The president of the "Asker" Association, Enver Hebibović, said that he was questioned by the Federal Police Administration (FUP) because of that video.

His association is registered as a non-governmental organization for the development of physical and positive moral qualities. He claims that through sports and education, it works on raising moral qualities in children.

Part of the media in the Republika Srpska entity and neighboring Serbia see the entire case differently. They report on training camps for young warriors.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is conducting an investigation into the entire case, but they are not yet willing to reveal more details.

The video appeared online just a few days after the media published photos of armed members of "Srbska čast" (Serbian Honor), which the BiH Minister of Security, Dragan Mektić, called a paramilitary formation. The young men were photographed with the president of the Republika Srpska entity, Milorad Dodik, as well as in the hall of the entity parliament in Banja Luka.

Media reports that the case from Tešanj is a training camp for future warriors are, according to academician Esad Duraković, a "continuation of the policy towards Bosniaks from the nineties."

"At that time, Milošević and Tuđman, or Karadžić and Boban, said that by fighting Muslims in BiH, they were defending Christian Europe. This is a continuation of that policy, today by other means," Duraković stated in a comment for N1.

"This is a campaign to thwart every possible political action by Bosniaks, who, as far as I can see, strive for the creation of a normal, democratic, and civic society, and to show that behind it lie some bad Islamist, fundamentalist, and terrorist intentions. Therefore, Bosniaks should not be trusted, they should be discredited, and every positive action should be declared potentially dangerous in advance. That is the goal," Duraković believes. He sees cosmopolitanism and tolerance as a response to such pressures.

"We are an indigenous European people. Europe must know and appreciate that. During the war, during the aggression in Sarajevo, we repaired a Orthodox church that had been damaged by Serbian shells. Our only defense is cosmopolitanism, tolerance, coexistence. I think Europe will realize this one day," believes academician Duraković.

A few days before the controversial video was published online, the president of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, stated in Zagreb that the organization of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civic state would in some way mean the creation of an Islamic state, which analysts also assessed as an attempt to spread fear of Bosniaks.

Islamologist and one of the founders of the Balkan Center for the Middle East in Belgrade, Ivan Ejub Kostić, told the Patria agency that "when you read that statement by Dragan Čović, the first thing you think is that it's a lack of common sense, however, as soon as you come to your senses after what you've read, you realize that it's actually the lowest form of politicking and an absence of the most elementary moral principles."