RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE CHANGING WORLD

Transcription

Internet as a Tool in Religious Education and the Process of Reconciliation in the former
Yugoslavia: Networking and E-learning
The Participants’ Blogs
Danijela Đurišić, Beograd
RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE
CHANGING WORLD
U toku kursa smo se uglavnom bavili registrovanim VZ, medjutim postoji dosta religijskih
pokreta koji ne mogu ili ne žele da budu registrovani. Mislim da se u Srbiji (ne znam
kako je u drugim zemljama ovog dela Balkana) njima ne posvećuje dovoljno pažnje,
terminologija koja se koristi je zastarela i neadekvatna (ili ona adekvatna nije dovoljno
poznata i prihvaćena), stavovi ljudi koji o ovoj temi pišu su često suviše subjektivni i
tendenciozni, kao da su spremni da nekog osude i bez želje da donesu koliko toliko
objektivnu sliku o njemu. Mislim da bi bilo korisno (naravno ako je to moguće a najveći
problem su verovatno finansije) da se organizuje kurs poput ovog koji bi se bavio novom
religioznošću, novim religijskim fenomenima i pokretima. Jer bilo da se to nekome
dopada ili ne, registrovane VZ nisu jedine u našem društvu. Ne znam da li se neko u
okviru CiRela bavi ovom problematikom, ali čini mi se da je ova tema aktuelna isto koliko
i teme u okviru kursa koji polako privodimo kraju i da i tu ima mnogo pitanja za diskusiju
(terminologija, metodolija, problemi prilikom field research- a i sl.).
23:58 - December 28, 2006 - comments {0} - post comment
Religijom (zapravo različitim oblicima verovanja) se bavim već skoro deset godina ali na
jedan drugačiji način od načina na koji smo to radili u okviru Škole tolerancije (iako sam
u svom poslednjem radu morala da se pozabavim i nekim od pitanja koja smo mi ovde
dotakli). Za mene ne postoji pitanje da li je neka religija ispravna ili ne ili da li neka
religija “bolja” od neke druge. Lično mogu da kažem da neko poznaje doktrinu svoje
religije bolje od nekog drugog (i tada će to biti samo konstatovanje) ali kao antropolog
nikada neću reći ovaj je bolji vernik od nekog drugog. Nije na meni da sudim niti je to od
nekog značaja za moj rad. Ako postoje razlike zanima me kako se one mogu objasniti,
zašto neko ko se deklariše recimo kao pravoslavan u odredjenom trenutku prihvati i
objašnjenje koje je čak i kontradiktorno njegovoj religiji i kako ovaj “konflikt” u
stavovima rešava (ako ga uopšte rešava).Bavim se time zašto mi ljudi uopšte verujemo
u entitete čije postojanje praktično ne možemo da dokažemo, kako je moguće tu veru
objasniti, šta vera (ili njeni različiti aspekti) znači samim vernicima.
Ovde smo se diskutovali o mnogo praktičnijim i realnijim problemima koji su uglavnom
posledica dešavanja na ovim prostorima tokom haotičnih devedesetih. Dešavalo mi se
nekad da se teže snalazim u svim tim aktuelnim pitanjima. Delimično i zbog toga što sam
dosta dug period života provela van ovog prostora. Redovno som dolazila, čitala novine
preko interneta da bih bila u toku, bila u kontaktu sa ljudima, medjutim ništa ne može da
se ravna sa direktnim iskustvom. Već neko vreme boravim ovde i dešava se da sam
prinudjena da korigujem neki svoj stav jer sada jednostavno vidim stvari “izbliza” (kao
što nam je u nekim drugim situacijama potrebno odstojanje).
Negde tu su i razlozi mog prijavljivanja na ovaj kurs. Videla sam to kao jedno korisno
iskustvo gde ću biti u kontaktu sa ljudima sa kojima imam neko zajedničko interesovanje
a ujedno ću moći bar delimično da popunim “prazna” mesta i proširim svoje znanje o
aktuelnim problemima vezanim za VZ na Balkanu. Mislim da sam bar delimično u tome
uspela.
Jako mi žao što nisam ovome blogu od početka mogla da posvetim onoliko vremena
koliko sam mislila da ću posvetiti. Nekad se život sa nama poigra na ne baš lep način i
stvari koje nam se čine u jednom trenutku užasno važne, postanu manje važne a neke
premestimo u pregradu “time ću se baviti kad se situacija smiri”. U takvim trenucima pre
može da pomogne vera i molitva dok teoretisanje (ma koliko omiljeno) o religiji kao
takvoj mora da sačeka bolji trenutak.
U svakom slučaju, pokušaću da iskoristim ovaj prostor i preostalo vreme da iznesem
neka svoja razmišljanja. Bilo je ovde mnogo inspirativnih debata iako se, moram priznati,
nisam uvek slagala sa stavovima svojih “kolega”. Ali tome verovatno škola tolerancije i
služi – da učimo da prihvatimo i stavove koji su dijametralno suprotni od naših i da
saslušamo svog sagovornika čak i onda kada nam se ono što govori ne dopada u
potpunosti. Ipak je samo dijalog ono što nas može pomeriti dalje..
VZ i Romi
Insipirisao me je Aleksandrin blog da napišem nešto o svojim iskustvima iz „terena“. Pre
nekoliko godina, u okviru projekta koji se bavio religioznošću Roma provela sam neko
vreme u jednom romskom naselju na severoistoku Slovačke.
Romi iz ovog naselja su se svi deklarisali kao katolici. Ulogu u tome su imale i dve časne
sestre koje su još u vreme komunizma dolazile medju njih, radile sa decom a starije
„okretale“ hrišćanstvu. Katolička crkva ovde nastavila sa aktivnostima i nakon pada
komunizma a rezultat toga je bio da su Romi, na inicijativu sveštenika iz obližnjeg grada
sagradili crkvu na ulazu u naselje.
Takodje imaju svoje obdanište gde se romska deca spremaju za polayak u školu. Ovo je
veoma važno jer jedan razloga nesnalaženja malih Roma u školi je nedostatak nekog
osnovnog znanja koja druga deca imaju (poznavanje boja i sl.). Ako učitelj u školi nema
strpljenja ili volje da radi sa njima, oni počnu da zaostaju odmah na početku školovanja i
njihovi problemi se dalje produbljuju. Iako je trebalo da se bavim religioznošću, razgovori
koje sam vodila su se ticali mnogih drugih tema.
Pre odlaska tamo sam imala prilično iskustvo u terenskim istraživanjima ali je ovaj rad
bio jako specifičan. Bila sam žena, relativno mlada, došla sam sama u romsko naselje I
želela da razgovaram sa Romima o njihovoj veri. U samom startu je bilo nekoliko stvari
koje su bile „neobične“. Sve žene mojih godina su bile udate i imale su decu. Retko su
napuštale selo. Osim sveštenika i ljudi koji su dolazili sa njime, vaspitačica i s vremena
na vreme socialnih radnika, skoro da ih niko nije posećivao a šta više želeo da razgovara
sa njima.
Istraživanje je bilo organizovano tako da sam svakog dana ujutro dolazila autobusom u
naselje. Od sveštenika sam „dobila“ vodiča- mladju Romkinju, pobožnu, koja je samnom
obilazila naselje, (u početku stalno, kasnije sam išla i sama). Sećam se koliko svoje,
toliko njihove zbunjenosti. Nisam mogla da prodjem neprimećeno, jer kao što rekoh, nije
često neko nepoznati dolazio medju njih a uz to su, pošto je bilo lepo vreme, veliki deo
dana provodili su ispred svojih kuća. Naravno, prve kontakte sam uspostavila sa ženama.
Muškarci (ili mladići) su uvek bili tu negde u blizini, posmatrali me, nekad slušali razgore
ali nisu pokušavali da stupe u kontakt samnom. Iako je bilo pomalo rizično, odlučila sam
da napravim prvi korak. Prišla sam grupi mladića i počela da razgovaram sa njima. U
momentu se oko mene stvorila veća grupa, smejali su se, kada bih postavilila pitanje,
prvo su razgovarali medju sobom na romskom a onda prešli na slovački. Ipak, uspela
sam da prelomim barijeru. Intentivan doživljaj je bio kada me je zaustavilo dete i
„saopštilo“ mi da njegova majkaa hoće da razgovara sa mnom kod njih u kući. Iako malo
sa strepnjom, otišla sam. U kući je sedela žena i nekoliko članova njene porodice (muž
joj je umro). Razgovor se ticao nekih njihovih ličnih problema ali i odnosa sa sveštenikom
(koji se po njihovom mišljenju ne ponaša jednako prema svima) i sl.
Sve u svemu jedna veoma bogato iskustvo koje mi je, osim ostalog, omogućilo da
sagledam neke stvari iz potpuno drugog ugla.
Predstavnici katoličke crkve su bili skoro jedini koji su se trudili da pomognu Romima.
Medjutim, to koliko je bilo pozitivno, toliko je stvaralo tenziju. Jer kao jedine „bele“ koji
su sa njima bili u stalnom kontaktu, oni su od njih imali često neispunjive zahteve.
Uostalom to sam i sama „osetila“. Retko napuštaju svoje naselje i to se ogleda i u
njihovoj predstavi o svetu. Tražili su da kontaktiram ovog ili onog političara (ili odem kod
predsednika države – živimo u istom gradu, nemoguće je da ne mogu da dodjem do
njega) kako bi im napravili bolji put, da zovem u popravni dom i raspitam se šta je
jednim detetom koje je tamo završilo (što sam uspela da uradim) itd.
Mogućnosti svešenika i ljudi koji su mu pomagali su bile ograničene, medjutim Romi su
često njegovu nemogućnost da im pomogne shvatili kao odbijanje ili nedostatak želje
(ma koliko do tada uradio za njih). To je neke od njih udaljavalo od crkve (što je opet
značilo neku vrstu izolacije). Konflikti su nastajali i zbog toga što su opet drugi smatrali
da sveštenik protežira neke od porodica. Ovo je moglo biti subjektivno vidjenje jer je deo
i sam odlazio kod njega dok su ostali očekivali da on dodje. Nema ovde mesta da iznosim
sve probleme sa kojima sam se tamo susrela, medjutim ovo je bio slučaj gde se jedna
VZ zaista se trudila da uradi mnogo ali nije mogla da uradi sve a to je stvaralo problem.
Znam da SPC pomaže izbeglicama, medjutim ne znam da li VZ u Srbiji rade sa Romima.
Bilo bi zanimljivo znati kakvo je njihovo iskustvo. Kao što rekoh, u ovom slučaju jedna
VZ bila veoma aktivna ali samo njena aktivnost nije bila dovoljna ili je bila pogrešno
tumačena. Da se to ne bi dogadjalo, potrebna je saradnja VZ sa državnim organima ili
NVO, jer mi se, i na osnovu ovog iskustva čini, da samo njihov uzajamni rad može biti
zaista uspešan.
destruktivni kultovi
Ne tako davno glumica Bojana Maljević je na svom blogu postavila temu “destruktivni
kultovi”. Zapravo, reagovala je na emisiju Nataše Miljković “Ključ”, koja se bavila upravo
ovom temom. Emisiju nisam gledala, čitala sam (samo) komentare na pomenutom blogu.
Nažalost, tema više nije bila aktuelna u trenutku kada sam je primetila.
Ne bih se sada bavila samom temom, više načinom na koji je o njoj diskutovano na
pomenutom blogu. Pošto sam već na svom blogu pomenula da bi mogao da se
organizuje slični kurs koji će se baviti novim religijskim pokretima i fenomenima (ili kako
se to popularno kaže “sektama”) neko će možda pomisliti da ih branim, zato bih odmah
da kažem da to nije slučaj. Samo mislim da ako neko želi da njegova diskusija bude
izbiljna, onda ona treba da bude zasnovna na činjenicama i argumentima a ne na
emocijama. Jer svi veoma dobro znamo da emocije retko da su nešto rešile. U
suprotnom, ta diskusija je neozbiljna ili možemo da mislimo da autor i nije imao želju da
diskutuje već je samo tražio mesto da izbaci svoje bes, očajanje, strah ili nešto treće. I u
Srbiju je “stigla” sloboda govora i svako (ili skoro svako) iole pismen ( a možda ne mora
da bude ni to) može da se izjasni na temu na koju želi.
Blog je vrsta dnevnika gde autor iznosi svoja razmišljanja. Medjutim, mislim da bi
ponekad bilo bolje razmisliti, da li, ako me je nešto naljutilo ili razačaralo, nije bolje da sa
pričom sačekam dok se strasti stišaju i posle o tome razgovaram (naravno ako uopšte
želim da razgovaram). Jer u ovom slučaju utisak je bio da želje nema. Mogu da razumem
strah nekog ko je roditelj i boji se za svoje dete (ili za decu generalno) ali ni to nije
opravdanje da onima koji se ne slažu sa mnom govorim da im na mom blogu nije mesto,
da me njihovo mišljenje ne zanima i sl.
Maljevićeva nabraja šta sve Miljkovićeva nije uradila kako treba jer javnost. Jer - MORA
da sazna koliko su sekte opasne, kako se iza raznih verskih grupa često krije kriminalna
delatnost, kako sačuvati decu...Medjutim, ona čak nije ni stanovila čime se tačno bavi.
Čas koristi termin “sekta” čas “destruktini kult”. Nekoliko puta su posetioci bloga tražili
da navede konkretna imena kultova o kojima govori, ali, koliko sam ja primetila
pomenula je samo “sataniste”.
Druga stvar je što članovi tih tkz. sekti su u manjem broju maloletnici. Istarživanja
radjena medju neopaganima u Polsjkoj su npr. pokazala da članovi uglavnom imaju
izmedju 20 i 30 godina, mnogi dolaze iz tkz. „dobrih porodica“, studiraju ili su fakultetski
obrazovani. Jednostavno, da bi se došlo do nekih relevantnih odgovora i zaključaka,
moraju se uraditi dugotrajnija istraživanja i to ne samo medju BIVŠIM članovima ili
onima sa negativnim iskustvom (naravno, ovde bi mogli da razgovaramo o problemima
takvih istraživanja, posebno ako se tiču marginalnih grupa). I isto tako ne može se o
ovim stvarima razgovarati tek nakon nekog ekstremnog dogadja (najčešće ubistva ili
samoubistva).
Ne poričem da postoje grupe koje mogu negativno ili čak destruktivno uticati na
pojedince. Ali se se i tu radi o kombinaciji više faktora a samo jedan od njih je psihičko
stanje osobe na koju neko pokušava da vrši uticaj.
Čini mi se da se ovde često temama koje se tiču religije ili religioznosti bave osobe koje
baš i nisu kompetentne. Njihovi stavovi su subjektivni, argumenti slabi, reaguju suviše
emitivno. Zato je jako važno da se organizuju okrugli stolovi, otvoreni za javnost gde bi
se o “problematičnim” temama diskutovalo ozbiljno i iz raznih uglova.
suicide terrorism
U okviru škole smo razgovarali i o islamu a često smo pominjali islamski terorizam (u
raznim kontekstima). Još jedan od antropologa čiji rad jako cenim i inspiriše me, Scott
Atran (autor knjige In Gods We trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion ), se već
neko vreme bavi i problematikom samoubilačkih napada. Razgovor sa njime na ovu temu
(ali i druge) mi se čini zanimljiv ( a nije tendenciozan kao mnogi drugi) pa ga ovde
prenosim. (Izvor je Discover Magazine 24/2003, autor: Jose Glauszius).
Scott Atran fell in love with anthropology in 1970 when he went to work with Margaret
Mead at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and found himself
surrounded by a collection of thousands of skulls. He has spent the intervening years
studying human cultures all over the world, dwelling among the secretive Druze sect in
Israel, documenting conservation customs among the Maya of Guatemala, and analyzing
the evolution of religion everywhere, a topic he explores in his book In Gods We Trust
(Oxford University Press, 2002). He is based both at the National Center for Scientific
Research in Paris and at the University of Michigan. His recent work has focused on
suicide terrorism. He has marshaled evidence that indicates suicide bombers are not poor
and crazed as depicted in the press but well-educated and often economically stable
individuals with no significant psychological pathology.
You recently chose to write about the genesis of suicide terrorism in the journal
Science. Why should suicide terrorism be the object of a scientific investigation?
A: Within a few days of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I started listening to
the stuff that was in the media and from the administration--for example, President
Bush's speech on September 11th and the next he gave on September 20th before
Congress. I thought, "What utter nonsense"--this idea that these people were crazed or
they're doing it out of despair or hopelessness. The whole history of these kinds of acts
goes against this. I decided to write an article and get it into the scientific press, because
governments, I believe, would take up what their scientists tell them, since there is a
huge respect for science.
Why do you regard the popular stereotype of the suicide terrorist as nonsense?
A: The CIA released a report in 2001 on the psychology and sociology of terrorism, and
they basically said these people are perfectly sane. If you look at the history of these
kinds of extreme acts, they're pretty much directed by middle-class or higher-middleclass intellectuals. They always have been. Never have they been directed by wacky,
crazed, homicidal nuts. The Japanese kamikaze of World War II were, by the way,
extremely intelligent guys. If you read their diaries, they were German romantics,
reading Goethe and Schiller, and quite conscious of the efforts of the state to manipulate
them.
What sort of scientific research indicates that suicide bombers are sane?
A: Some of the earlier research was by Ariel Merari, who is a psychologist at Tel Aviv
University and also a terrorism expert. He interviewed suicide bombers--survivors who
were wounded and didn't die or whose bombs didn't go off--as well as their families or
recruiters. Like most psychologists in the 1980s, he thought that this was individual
pathology, like the idea that racists come from fatherless families or have a history of
family trouble. He made a 180-degree turn and found out that no, the bombers span the
normal distribution and were slightly above it in terms of education and in income.
Nasra Hassan, who is a Pakistani relief worker working in Gaza for a number of years,
interviewed about 250 family members, recruiters, and survivors, completely
independently. She was not aware of Merari's work, and she found exactly the same
thing. Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University, has done long-term studies
with Hezbollah and Hamas. His research shows that not only are suicide terrorists
significantly more educated than their peers, they are also significantly better off.
According to Krueger, although one-third of Palestinians live in poverty, only 13 percent
of Palestinian suicide bombers do; 57 percent of bombers have education beyond high
school versus 15 percent of the population of comparable age.
The Defense Intelligence Agency also gave me profiles of all these people they were
interrogating at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. They divide them into Yemenis and Saudis.
The Yemenis are sort of the foot soldiers. And they found that the Saudis, their leaders
especially, are from high-status families. A surprising number have graduate degrees.
And they are willing to give up everything. They give up well-paying jobs, they give up
their families, whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because they really
believe that it's the only way they're going to change the world.
So what's the root cause of suicide terrorism?
A: As a tactical weapon, it emerges when an ideologically devoted people find that they
cannot possibly obtain their ends in a sort of fair fight, and when they know they're in a
very weak position, and they have to use these kinds of extreme methods.
What's the typical profile of a suicide terrorist?
A: Generally, it's not someone who is off the wall. They can't be effective killers. Usually
it is someone who is smart, who shows a willingness to give up something, who is
patient, who is quiet. Competent people who don't draw attention to themselves, and
who are perfectly willing and able to meld into society.
How on earth does anyone sane work up the gumption to blow himself up,
together with what is often hundreds of bystanders?
A: Exactly the same way that you get soldiers on the front line of an army to sacrifice
themselves for their buddies. What these cells do is very similar to what our military, or
any modern military, does. They form small groups of intimately involved "brothers" who
literally sacrifice themselves for one another, the way a mother would do for her child.
They do it by manipulating universal heartfelt human sentiments that I think are
probably innate and part of biological evolution. In fact, I think most culture is a
manipulation of innate desires. It's the same way that our fast-food industry manipulates
our desires for sugars and fats, or the way the pornography industry manipulates people
to get all hot about pixels on a screen or on wood pulp.
Wood pulp?
A: Yeah, paper in a pornography journal. I mean, it has no adaptive value. In the case of
something like Al Qaeda, you've got these people in groups of three to eight people, for
18 months, isolated from their family, getting this intense and deep ego-stroking
propaganda. You do that to anyone, and you'll get him to do what you want. There are
all these studies that psychologists have done of torturers on all sides of the political
divide. A very famous one is on ordinary Greeks who became torturers during the
military junta of 1967 to 1974. They found they were perfectly ordinary--in fact, aboveaverage intelligence. They'd get them to be torturers by indoctrinating them, by showing
them how necessary they were for their societies, and getting these people to believe it.
You seem to be suggesting that natural selection may be playing a role in
generating the feelings that enable people to become suicide terrorists, but
blowing yourself up is hardly a good strategy for propelling your genes into the
next generation.
A: Natural selection gives us all sorts of dispositions and desires that were adaptive in
ancestral environments. Now, our cultural milieu picks certain of these adaptations or
their by-products and is able to trigger them to produce behaviors that have nothing to
do with what they originally evolved for. Kin altruism (the theory that individuals are
willing to sacrifice their lives to save closely related kin) evolved through natural
selection. If you listen to most political and religious discourse in societies, it's always
done for a brotherhood--brothers and sisters. So you create a fictive family. How else are
you going to get people to die for one another when they're non-kin-related? You've got
to trick them into believing they are kin-related somehow.
Why does it matter whether we understand the making of a suicide terrorist?
A: Huge amounts of money were being offered, at least on the horizon, for sciencerelated defense research, most of it going to things like bioterrorism prevention. There
were all these harebrained schemes--they're still around--to have a Radio Free Arabia.
They're going to bombard these people with information about how good our society is,
our goals, and that's supposed to win the war on terrorism. If you look at the February
2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, you'll see they plan to introduce
programs against poverty and illiteracy. These ideas seem to me just completely wrong.
First, the people who carry out terrorist acts are already educated. Second, they're not
poor, so reducing poverty isn't going to do a thing.
So what's your strategy for combating suicide terrorism?
A: I think it has to be a multilayered strategy. You've got to be able to--and this I'm all
for--go after the guys who operate the cells. Take them out. Get rid of them. Jail them or
kill them, because they are not willing to compromise. What do you do with somebody
who says, "All Americans and Jews have got to die"? The point of talking to such people
has passed. Whatever the grievances were that caused such people to have such ideas, if
they show that they're willing to implement them, then you've just got to make a
decision whether you want to see this guy survive or you and your people survive.
What else?
A: Another thing is, yes, protect some of the vulnerable targets, but I think that actually
is less important than trying to stop this phenomenon from becoming adopted, like a sort
of virus, by these populations. How do you prevent the ideology of suicide terrorism from
attaching itself to the populations that support it? How do you get the people themselves
to stop harboring the suicide terrorists? You've got to talk with them. You've got to
address their grievances. Not the grievances of Al Qaeda, but the grievances of these
people. Then there's got to be support for moderate groups. Alan Krueger in his last
study looked at poverty and civil liberties as two factors in suicide terrorism. He found
that poverty is not an appreciable selection factor but that the lack of civil liberties is a
predictor of where you'll find suicide terrorism. When you don't give these people any
political space to express themselves, they become radicalized.
Have you ever met a potential or surviving suicide terrorist?
A: Yes. It's someone whose father was humiliated in front of him when he was sixteen.
He was kicked and spit on by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. In an Arab family, the
father is a figure of respect and even awe. That was a big factor in this guy's decision.
And a cousin was killed. He also had a number of brothers and sisters, so he knew that
by going he wouldn't cause the family any great sacrifice. So he decided to be a suicide
bomber.
And did he?
A: No. In the end he didn't, because he was sent on a mission to Syria, a political
mission, and decided to devote himself to political activity. But I'm sure he would have if
he had been asked to. Smart guy. Not many friends, but a few friends. Got along well
with his family as far as I could see. I knew him for a number of years.
In your book In Gods We Trust, you call religion an evolutionary riddle. Why?
A: Think about it. All religions require costly sacrifices that have no material rewards.
Look at the Egyptian pyramids. Millions of man-hours. For what? To house dead bones?
Or the Cambodian pyramids. Or the Mayan pyramids. Or cathedrals. Or just going to
church every Sunday and gesticulating. Or saying a Latin or Hebrew prayer, mumbling
what are to many people incoherent words. Stopping whatever you're doing to bow and
scrape. Then think about the cognitive aspects of it. For example, to take alive for dead
and weak for strong. I mean, what creature could possibly survive if it did these kinds of
things systematically?
Look at the things that religion is said to do. It is said to relieve people's anxieties, but
it's also said to increase their anxieties so that elites can use them for political purposes.
It's supposed to be liberating. It's supposed to encourage creativity. It's supposed to stop
creativity. It's supposed to explain events that can't be explained. It's supposed to
prevent people from explaining them. You can find functional explanations, and their
contraries, and they're all true.
Why then has religion survived in so many cultures?
A: Because humans are faced with problems they can't solve. Think about death.
Because we have these cognitive abilities to travel in time and to track memory, we are
automatically aware of death everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is
something that our organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term
solution. And there is none. Lucretius and Epicurus thought they could solve this through
reason. They said, "Look, what does it matter? We weren't alive for infinite generations
before we were born. It doesn't bother us. Why should we be worried about the infinite
generations that will be after us when we're gone?" Well, nobody bought that. The
reason that line of reasoning didn't work is because once you're alive, you've got
something that you're going to lose.
Another problem is deception. Look at society. If you've got rocks and stones and pieces
of glass and metal before you, and you say, "Oh, that doesn't exist," or "That's not really
a piece of metal," or "That's not really a tree," someone will come along and say, "Look,
you're crazy; I can touch it; there's a piece of metal there; I can show you it's a piece of
metal." For commonsense physical events, we have ways of verifying what's real or
not.For moral judgments, we have nothing. If someone says, "Oh, he should be a beggar
and he should be a king," what is there in the world that's going to convince me this is
true? There is nothing. If there is nothing, how are people ever going to get on with one
another? Especially non-kin. How are they ever going to build societies, and how are they
ever going to trust one another so they won't defect? One way that humans seem to
have come up with is to invent this minimally counterintuitive world developed by these
deities, who are like big brothers who watch over and make sure that there will be no
defectors.
Do you think science will ever replace religion?
A: Never. Because it doesn't solve any of the problems that religion solves, like death or
deception. There is no society that survives more than a generation or two that isn't
religiously based--even the Soviet Union, where half the people were religious. Thomas
Jefferson's unitarian God fell by the wayside. The French Revolution's neutral deity also
fell by the wayside. People want a personal God, for obvious reasons, to solve personal
problems.
What have you learned about conservation from studying the Maya people of
the Petén?
A: We took three groups that live in the same place--native lowland Maya, the Itza';
highland Maya, the Q'eqchi' that are forced down into the lowlands; and ladino
immigrants that come up from all over Guatemala. We found that the group that actually
preserves the forest, the Itza', is the one that has no institutions to speak of. The people
don't monitor anything. They fight with one another constantly. They're extremely
individualistic. And yet they protect the forest. The people with the strongest communal
institutions, the Q'eqchi', who monitor one another in the forest and punish violators,
they're destroying it at five times the rate of the others. They see the forest as a
commodity, and they think it's open-ended. They don't think it needs protection. They
don't see it as a threatened system. For them, it's relatively open jungle.
What do the Itza' do differently?
A: They don't treat the forest as a commodity. They treat it as a relational item, like a
friend or an enemy. There is no objective utility metric, like money value, that can be
attached to it. We also found that the men who go out into the forest have this notion of
what the spirits are doing, and they are scared to death of violating the spirit preference.
They're real believers. Then we found that what the spirits prefer--not what the people
think is important but what they think the spirits think is important--actually predicts
species distributions.
What do you mean?
A: Those trees most valued by the spirits--the Brosimum alicastrum, or "breadnut," and
the chicazapote, the tree that yields the resin that is the natural base for chewing gum-are actually those trees with the widest distribution, which produce fruit all year round
and which have the largest number of ecological relations with other animals. We're able
to predict, just on the basis of the Itza' spirit preferences, all sorts of ecological things
happening on the ground. What I think is going on is that these spirits represent human
preferences built up over generations.
What lessons can we take away from this?
A: Don't treat everything in the world like an item in a shopping mall—which is what we
do.
kognitivna teorija religije
Ovde donosim tekst Justina Barretta, kognitivnog psihologa, čiji radovi predstavljaju
veliku inspiraciju za moj rad. Barrett je takodje autor knjige “Why would anyone believe
in God”. Kognitivne teorije religije su u mnogome predstavljale reakciju na one teorije
religije (postmoderne) koje su religijske sisteme tretirale kao sisteme simbola. Njihove
interpretacije se tako zasnivaju na pronalaženje značenja ovih simbola u sklopu dane
kulture. S druge strane, kognitivne nauke pokušavaju da pronadju odnos izmedju kulture
i njenih faktora i ljudskog uma o čemu govori i Barrettov tekst.
Justin Barrett: Exploring the natural foundations of religion. (In: Trends in
Cognitive Sciences 4(2000.)
A new cognitive approach to religion is bringing fresh insights to our understanding of
how religious concepts are maintained, acquired and used to motivate and direct actions.
This approach suggests that seemingly extraordinary thoughts and behaviours can be
supported by quite ordinary cognition and may thus be termed ‘natural’. Simultaneously,
this research is expanding the domain of concepts and causal reasoning in general. This
review examines recent research into religious rituals, communication and transmission
of religious knowledge, the development of god-concepts in children, and the origins and
character of religious concepts in adults. Together, these studies consistently emphasize
and support the notion that the cultural phenomena typically labeled as ‘religion’ may be
understood as the product of aggregated ordinary cognition. The new cognitive science of
religion should eventually provide a fuller account of the distinctive and apparently
extraordinary properties of religion.
Are god-concepts much different from gorilla-concepts? Is performing a religious ritual
profoundly different action from sending a greeting card to a friend? Perhaps not. When
considering the kind of cognitive resources required for representing and acquiring these
concepts and actions, the sacred and the profane may be less discriminable than is
commonly assumed.
The scientific study of religion has historically focused on what might distinguish religion
from ordinary life: special ecstatic experiences, peculiar brain states, uncommon
emotional commitments, and beliefs in supernatural agents. What has been largely
ignored until recently are the natural foundations of religion. Regardless of metaphysical
claims, what we observe as religion is still a constellation of human phenomena
communicated and regulated by natural human perception and cognition.
The new cognitive science of religion was motivated by a dissatisfaction with the
vagueness of previous theories of religion, and thus their inability to be empirically
tested, as well as by a desire to extend the psychological scholarship concerning
concepts and causation. It differs from previous
approaches to the study of religion by insisting that much of what is typically called
‘religion’ may be understood as the natural product of aggregated ordinary cognitive
processes. This perspective may be called the ‘naturalness-of-religion thesis’. Much as
language is naturally acquired as a result
of cognitive preparedness plus exposure to a typical sociolinguistic environment, ordinary
cognition plus exposure to an ordinary environment goes a long way towards explaining
religion. Of course, this observation does not imply that any particular religion is
independent of cultural considerations any more than particular languages are
independent of culturally variable inputs.
Anticipated by Sperber1, this subfield is only about ten years old and still consists of a
small number of religionists, anthropologists, philosophers and psychologists.
Neuroscientists,
linguists and computer scientists are yet to contribute to the
discussion. In this review, the emerging story about the natural origins of religion is
summarized, and theoretical and empirical gaps that exist in this young enterprise are
noted. The naturalness-of-religion thesis is currently focused on three main issues:
(1) how people represent concepts of supernatural agents;
(2) how people acquire these concepts; and
(3) how they respond to these concepts through religious action such as ritual.
The review concludes by suggesting areas that might be fruitful for future research. For
the purpose of discussion here, ‘religion’ designates a shared system of beliefs and
actions concerning superhuman agency. This review does not concern the more
sensational faces of religion, such as bizarre experiences, visions, or altered states of
consciousness. Consequently, neurological studies that address religious topics such as
possible connections between epilepsy and mystical experiences(2), and the suggestion
that religious visions reflect the activity of temporal lobe structures(3), are not discussed.
The study of religion from the perspective of personality and social psychology is also
outside the scope of the present review.
Representing supernatural concepts
Religious concepts may be more ‘natural’ than they seem. Though theologies around the
world include enormously complex concepts, these are not the concepts that typically
occupy the working minds of religious people. Much as folk science differs from true
science, religious concepts often
differ from theological ones in their relative conceptual simplicity(4,5). For example, even
in a theological system that posits a non-temporal god, believers will represent the god
as experiencing time much like any human does, when they are engaging in real-time
problem solving or casual reasoning (4).
This tendency to entertain religious concepts that are simpler than their theological
counterparts is not merely an issue of expertise. The complexity of the concept used
appears to vary based largely on the cognitive demands of the context in which it is
used(4). For example, theologians might fully appreciate that the god Shiva knows their
every thought before conceived, but will still intuitively feel it necessary to make Shiva
aware of their thoughts through prayer. The simplification of concepts from the
theological to the religious level appears to consist of a systematic distortion of features
such that they more closely resemble intuitive ontological assumptions, and is not simply
a matter of shedding superfluous features.
Over the past 20 years, researchers in the area of concepts, categorization, and cognitive
development have amassed considerable evidence supporting the idea that people have
a large number of often tacit, intuitive assumptions about the sorts of properties different
things possess, based on ontological category membership(6). For example, when
encountering a completely novel animal, even six-year-old children make a host of
assumptions about unobserved characteristics; for
example, because it is a bounded physical object, it cannot pass directly through other
solid objects and cannot occupy more than one location at a time. By virtue of being a
living thing, it is automatically assumed to have nutritional needs and is composed of
natural materials with parts designed for particular functions. As an animal it can move
itself in purposeful ways to satisfy its desires(7). These intuitive assumptions appear to
be largely invariant across cultures, and allow rapid categorization of novel things, as
well as generation of predictions and explanations(8–11).
If this characterization of conceptual structures is accurate, much as they constrain
creativity(12,13), these categorical intuitions also limit the sorts of religious concepts
that may be successfully used to generate inferences during on-line processing. As an
illustration of this constraint, Barrett and Keil found that when adults in India and the
United States reflected on their theological ideas about supreme beings, they generated
abstract, theologically correct, descriptions of gods that have no physical or spatial
properties, are able to know and attend to everything at once, and have no need to rely
on sensory inputs to acquire information. However, when comprehending narratives
about the same deities, the same adults mistakenly remembered the god of the
narratives as having a single location in space, as being unable to attend to multiple
events at once, and as needing to see and hear in order to complete otherwise fallible
knowledge. In other words, the gods of theological reflection contained many violations
of intuitive assumptions for intentional agents, but the god-concepts used in the
narrative comprehension task appeared to be very similar to an ordinary intentional
agent – a person(14–16). Tacit assumptions about the ontological category of intentional
agents constrained the way gods were represented in both cultural groups tested.
One consequence of this cognitive constraint is that people might only represent religious
concepts that have a limited number of features that violate intuitive assumptions. That
is, despite sophisticated theology, religious concepts might only be minimally
counterintuitive(17–19).
Acquiring supernatural concepts
The idea that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive in the sense of violating
few intuitive assumptions for their ontological categories, underlies a second sense in
which religion might be deemed natural. People seem to be naturally receptive to
religious concepts, and concepts for which people are more receptive are more likely to
become widespread and part of shared cultural concepts(9). Thus, as Boyer argues, the
finding that people are receptive to religious concepts can help to explain why these
concepts are so prevalent(20–22). The following sections explore the evidence for the
contention that people are naturally receptive to religious concepts.
Religious concepts in childhood
Researchers in child development frequently note that children easily adopt ideas about
gods, ghosts, Santa Claus and other agents possessing supernatural properties, and use
ordinary conceptual resources for reasoning with these concepts(23). Furthermore, many
of the properties that set religious entities apart from natural agents might actually be
easily accommodated by children’s less developed conceptual systems. Recent
developmental work using false-belief and perspective-taking tasks suggests that fourand five-year-olds can understand that, unlike people, God does not have false
beliefs(24). Regarding God’s creative power, preschoolers appear to be capable of
understanding that God creates natural things but not artifacts, whereas humans create
artifacts but not natural things(25). Although available data is still limited, it appears that
many concepts central to major religious traditions are not as opaque to young children
as often thought.
Memorability and transmission of cultural concepts
Natural receptivity to religious concepts is not limited to children. Adults appear to find
minimally counterintuitive concepts, of which religious concepts are a subset, both easily
represented (as discussed above) and highly memorable.
Adults from various cultures have been tested for the recall of concepts, and the sorts of
concepts that are more likely to be remembered and transmitted successfully to others
have been noted(26). The results showed that concepts that violate one of a number of
category-level assumptions (e.g. a dog that passes through solid objects) are better
remembered and transmitted than concepts that either satisfy assumptions (e.g. a brown
dog) or that violate basic-level assumptions (e.g. a dog weighing five tons). That is,
concepts with a counter-intuitive feature are more memorable than either mundane or
bizarre concepts that do not challenge categorical assumptions. Together with the finding
that concepts that have too many counterintuitive features will be reduced to more
intuitive forms in on-line processing(14,15), it appears that minimally counterintuitive
concepts have a transmission advantage. Minimally counterintuitive concepts attain a
‘conceptual optimum’ such that they are understood and represented without allocating
too many cognitive resources, but are also challenging enough to require extra attention
to assimilate into conceptual schemes(27). As a class of minimally counter-intuitive
concepts, religious concepts are likely to enjoy this
advantage as well(21,22). However, counterintuitive concepts such as invisible sofas
rarely occupy important (if any) roles in religious systems.
Counterintuitive beings or objects of commitment in religious belief systems are most
often intentional agents. They may be people with unusual physical or biological
properties (such as an invisible person), or non-humans with human like abilities (such
as a statue that can listen)(26). Perhaps counterintuitive agent concepts are more
common because they enjoy additional selective advantages by being remembered and
transmitted. But why might agent concepts have such advantages?
Hyperactive agent-detection device (HADD)
On the basis of ethnographic data and psychological research, Guthrie argues that people
have a bias towards detecting human-like agency in their environment that might not
actually exist(28–30). Thus, people are particularly sensitive to the presence of
intentional agency and seem biased to over-attribute intentional action as the cause of a
given state of affairs when data is ambiguous or sketchy(31,32). These observations
suggest that whatever cognitive mechanism people have for detecting agency might be
extremely sensitive; in other words, people can be said to possess hyperactive agentdetection devices (HADD). According to Guthrie, such a biased perceptual device would
have been quite adaptive in our evolutionary past, for the consequences of failing to
detect an agent are potentially much graver than mistakenly detecting an agent that is
not there.
The implication for religion is that the HADD might lead people to posit agents, perhaps
of a counterintuitive sort, that are then well-transmitted because of their easy fit within
intuitive conceptual systems. Similarly, counterintuitive-agent concepts would be more
likely to receive attention and be transmitted than non-agent concepts, because agent
concepts are more likely to resonate with agents posited by the HADD. For example,
someone might be told that an invisible person lives in the forest and trips intruders. This
story could become salient because it reminds the person of having tripped in the forest
and wondering, ‘Who did that?’ (because of the HADD). Alternatively, a story about an
invisible rock is less likely be spread because the hypothesis, ‘Did I trip over an invisible
rock?’ is unlikely to be expressed, albeit a more testable hypothesis. Because of the
human tendency to seek intentional explanations for a given state of affairs, counterintuitive agents provide ready explanations in ways that non-agents do not. In this way,
selective pressure of the HADD might contribute to the prevalence of religious-agent
concepts over other counterintuitive concepts. Furthermore, when individuals talk about
these agents they may cite empirical evidence consistent with the agents’ existence.
Acting on supernatural concepts
Religions are not merely collections of shared concepts, but also include action in
response to those concepts. Indeed, religious practice often more than religious belief
strikes outside observers as peculiar and in need of explanation. Furthermore, people
spread religious concepts in the context of shared religious actions. Religious actions
such as rituals seem quite unnatural in many respects. Nevertheless, cognitive scientists
of religion argue that, here too, ordinary cognition both structures religious practices and
underlies the representation (and thus the execution) of religious actions in participants’
and observers’ minds.
Cognitive contributions to religious events
Whitehouse has argued that many aspects of a given religious event might be, in part, a
consequence of mnemonic and other cognitive dynamics(33–36). These include the
frequency of performance, the degree of sensory and emotional intensity (or ‘sensory
pageantry’ hereafter), the potential for producing group solidarity, the potential for
encouraging spontaneous exegetical reflection, and the potential for transmitting
theology. For an event to become part of a religious system, its procedures must be
repeatedly performed in such a way that various instances are identifiable as the same
event. Procedures without mnemonic aids that are infrequently performed are unlikely to
be remembered. In oral traditions, a primary mnemonic aid is sensory pageantry. Use of
elaborate sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings set an event apart from mundane
life as something special and worthy of memory resources. Additionally, intensely
arousing events, such as initiation rites that serve to ‘terrorize’ initiates through physical
and emotional torment, may elicit ‘flashbulb’ memories for the participants(37). Such
dramatic and traumatic events are unlikely to be easily forgotten(38). However, as
flashbulb memory research has indicated, only certain components of such an event are
likely to be remembered well(37). Participants in highly dramatic events tend to form
strong imagistic and episodic memories regarding the sequence of events (thus enabling
repeat performances after long delays), who was a co-participant (increasing likelihood of
group cohesion), and salient visual features of the event (providing symbolic materials
for later reflection)(39). However, long theological (i.e. conceptually complex) treatises
are unlikely to be remembered accurately. Consequently, events with a high degree of
sensory pageantry typically include little sophisticated theological communication to
justify or explain the event, and so participants are left to speculate why the event, in all
its drama, was performed. In contrast, frequently repeated events need not require such
resource-intensive, high sensory pageantry, and may include more complicated
theological communication including an explicit rationale for the event.
The case of religious rituals
In contrast to Whitehouse’s analysis, which applies to religious events generally, the
most developed cognitive theory of religious rituals in particular is that put forward by
Lawson and McCauley(30,40). Rituals may be regarded as a subclass within religious
events, and are distinguished by being represented as an agent acting upon someone or
something (a ‘patient’) to bring about some state of affairs, by virtue of invoking
supernatural causation. For example, for most Catholics, baptism is a religious ritual
because an agent (the priest) acts (sprinkles water) upon a patient (an infant) for God to
accept the child as part of the Church. In contrast, while possibly including rituals,
Protestant worship services are religious events but not rituals.
Rather than cultural inputs wholly determining knowledge about rituals, their structures,
and their potential effectiveness, Lawson and McCauley observe that the representation
of religious ritual actions depends upon cognitive mechanisms for the representation of
actions generally. In their view, religious rituals are distinguished from ordinary actions
by the presence of supernatural agency represented in the action structure. A baptism is
only a man wetting an infant except that the man is understood to be acting in the place
of a superhuman agent. Because ordinary cognitive resources are drawn upon to make
sense of religious rituals, little cultural knowledge is necessary for groups of people to
have converging ideas about what are the important features of a ritual structure, or
what makes a ritual ‘well-formed’ and likely to be successful.
Indeed, as predicted by this account, Barrett and Lawson demonstrated that ritually
naive adults have converging intuitions that the most important components for a
religious ritual to be successful in bringing about the intended consequences are, first,
that superhuman agency is represented in the action structure; and second, that an
appropriate agent, capable of the right intentions, initiates the action(41). Unlike popular
conceptions of magic, having the right agent is more important than performing precisely
the correct action. Note that the priority of agent over action is not characteristic of
natural mechanistic causation (e.g. it does not matter who strikes a window with a
hammer, the action will have the same result). It is, however, characteristic of social
causation: being the right person with the right intentions might make more difference in
the consequence of an action than the particular action. For example, a woman who
receives flowers to which she is allergic is likely to respond very differently if they were
sent by a bitter ex-lover who knows of her allergies than by an innocent and adoring new
suitor. What these findings suggest is that the ordinary cognitive structures that religious
rituals draw upon may be those of social causal cognition.
Future directions
Cognitive scientists of religion are making large strides in demonstrating that much of
religious cognition, including the representation of god-concepts, successful transmission
of religious concepts, and the development of practices based on religious concepts, is
largely reliant on ordinary cognition. No special domain for religious thought need be
postulated.
Religion is, in some ways, quite natural. However, the current story is not complete in
either its coverage of issues or in its empirical support.
Cross-cultural investigations of many of the claims discussed above are still needed. For
example,while it is plausible, the claim that people sometimes spontaneously account for
events by reference to unseen agents needs systematic examination, as do many of the
claims regarding ritual intuitions made by Lawson and McCauley. While receiving some
ethnographic support, Whitehouse’s claims about how sensory pageantry and memory
dynamics interact to produce different sorts of religious events have not been examined
in a controlled fashion.
Outstanding questions
• How do truth-claims interact with the representation and transmission of religious
concepts and practices? Are minimally counterintuitive concepts easier or harder to
believe than other concepts? How is the success of rituals evaluated and how does this
evaluation feed into whether or not
the ritual is repeated?
• If religious concepts are so naturally accommodated by cognitive structures, why do
they sometimes seem difficult to entertain? (For some preliminary thoughts on this issue,
see Ref. 5.)
• How does cognition constrain and inform other classes of religious phenomena, such as
petitionary prayer, worship and conversion?
• If children easily represent properties of superhuman agents, why do adults seem to
have great difficulty in many contexts?
• From a cognitive perspective, does religious ritual differ (cognitively) from superstitious
observances or from magic?
• Could recent advances in understanding social kinds bear upon how religious roles and
special religious people such as priests, prophets and shamans are represented?
Conclusion
The new cognitive approach to religion has begun to demonstrate that religion is not a
wholly different, intractable domain of human experience but one that may be
productively explored using the tools of the cognitive sciences. Rather than being seen as
extraordinary, the area of religious phenomena may be seen as grounded in quite
ordinary forms of cognition. Although the youth of this field of research precludes a full
account at present of the cognitive processes underlying religious belief, it is hoped that
further experimental and ethnographic work will provide rigorous empirical data to
support the claims of this new science of religion. Research in this area is also extending
what is known about conceptual systems in general to include non-natural concepts and
intentional explanations of natural events.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Pascal Boyer, Tom Lawson, Brian Malley, Bob McCauley,
Keith Vander Linden and Harvey Whitehouse for comments and
suggestions.
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Religion in Europe
Religion in Europe: An Interview with Brent Nelson
IGE (Institute for Global Engagement) Research Assistant Norbert Gasaj recently
interviewed Dr. Brent F. Nelsen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political
Science at Furman University, about religion and public life in contemporary Europe.
What follows is an edited transcript of this interview. Professor Nelsen is author and coauthor of many studies on religion and attitudes toward the European Union, including
“Does Religion Matter? Christianity and Public Support for the European Union” with
James L. Guth and Cleveland R. Fraser, European Union Politics, 2(2)(Spring 2001): 191217.
Religion in Europe: An Interview with Brent Nelson
IGE (Institute for Global Engagement) Research Assistant Norbert Gasaj recently
interviewed Dr. Brent F. Nelsen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Political
Science at Furman University, about religion and public life in contemporary Europe.
What follows is an edited transcript of this interview. Professor Nelsen is author and coauthor of many studies on religion and attitudes toward the European Union, including
“Does Religion Matter? Christianity and Public Support for the European Union” with
James L. Guth and Cleveland R. Fraser, European Union Politics, 2(2)(Spring 2001): 191217.
Europe was once the heart of Christendom. What has happened to its religious
makeup? What are the basic patterns of religious demography of today's
Europe?
You may or may not be familiar with a book by Andrew Greeley called Religion in Europe
at the End of the Second Millennium. It is the best book on the religious demography of
Europe. To briefly summarize, there seems to be rather strong belief in God, although
not as strong in Europe as in America. On the belief issues, people still say they believe
in God but on the practice of religion, it seems to have deteriorated dramatically. And I
would also add that the actual theology of Europeans seems to be much, much less
orthodox than it might have been even prior to 1970.
So people still remain for the most part very religious in the sense that they believe in
God. Of course there are some exceptions. For instance, in the former East Germany,
only 25 percent say they believe in God. But if you look at the figures overall, basic belief
in God remains rather strong. Even in places like Latvia, 71 percent believe in God, and
Slovakia it is 72 percent. You don't get below 50 percent until you get to the Czech
Republic and East Germany.
However, while people will say they're not atheists and that they do believe in some of
these things, when you ask about the practice of religion — like prayer, going to church
— then you see a dramatic drop-off. Only about a third of most Europeans say they pray.
There are cases where it is higher, such as 84 percent in Ireland, but you find dramatic
drop-offs elsewhere — for example only 18 percent of Russians say they pray. Only 35
percent of Latvians say they pray, even though 71 percent say they believe in God.
You've got this odd shift where people say they believe in God, but they don't practice
religion in any traditional sense. Sociologists have been looking at this, and some would
say that this shows a dramatic secularization. Others would say that religion is simply
evolving, and that practice has become more individualistic rather than corporate. Those
are two different views. My view is more of the former, that this is a secularization of
society, not just a change in religion. I don't deny the evidence of the people that say
that there is religiosity in Europe. But I don't think that makes as much of a sociopolitical
impact as corporate practice of religion.
It used to be said that America was unusual for being such a religious society.
Now it is increasingly common to hear people say that it is Europe that is
unusual for being so secular. Do you agree that Europe is secular, and if yes,
how did this happen?
I would say yes, that Europe is secular. I don't think that people who believe in God but
don't ever do anything about it can be said to be very religious. I don't think that religion
is very important in their life if they don't do anything to indicate that it's important in
their life. Words have to be backed up by actions, and we don't see much of that in
Europe, at least not in the poll data.
I do think that there has been a systematic extraction of religion from public life in
Europe. Religion has become very privatized, and therefore out of public view. How and
why this happened is a much deeper and broader question, and it is hard to answer in a
good two minute response. But I think it has something to do with the breakup of
Christendom in the Reformation. I am a Protestant, but I still think that Protestants had
an effect on the mentality of Europe. It allowed for a questioning of authority and an
undermining of the church's authority, and it started or continued the process of the
exalting of the individual. Certainly intellectually, and eventually politically, it freed
people from authority structures.
I would say that the wars at the early part of the last century had an impact as well,
even though we saw some religious revival after WWII. The ultimate effect of world wars
seems to have undermined religious credibility as well.
But the big turning point or the watershed was about 1970. Prior to 1970, you still had
church leaders speaking with some authority. After 1970 church leaders were simply not
listened to as much as they used to be. The big exception there is Pope John Paul II, but
his impact was primarily in the East. He was a moral voice in the West, but not an
authoritative one in the West. He was respected, but not considered a commanding
figure, with the emphasis on "command." He could not command people to do things in
the West that they really didn't want to do.
Europe's secularization has something to do with the role of the state and the church,
and the fact that established churches remained established in Europe, even after people
began to question their beliefs in the church. I think it has made the church look almost
foolish in some ways, that it still gets taxpayer money but nobody goes to it or takes it
seriously. I think that has also undermined credibility.
Now I'd like to ask you some questions about the role of religion in European
public life. First, where do established state churches still exist? Are these
church establishments merely formalities or do they meaningfully affect public
affairs?
It depends on where you are. I think the church still affects public affairs in Ireland,
although that's declining. The same goes for Poland. There are other places that have
established churches, say in Germany with its two established churches or Norway with
its established Lutheran church, where it doesn't really matter; the church speaks, but it
is only one among many, many voices. The Lutheran church in Sweden has been
disestablished — I haven't noticed any difference.
There is variance among countries, but the trend among all European countries with an
established church is clearly toward a decline of church influence.
Does religion and religious diversity affect political attitudes and voting in the
domestic politics of European countries any more? If yes, what are some of the
most significant examples?
This is one of the great paradoxes of the study of religion and politics: even though
religiosity is declining, religious affiliation still matters to voting behavior. As the political
scientist Russell Dalton has shown, church attendance is a powerful factor in determining
vote choice. I think this still holds — or at least it certainly has held until very recently.
My own research is on religion and attitudes toward the European Union. My co-authors
and I are finding that there has been a decline in the impact of religion on attitudes. This
decline has been showing up especially since the late 1990s, where it doesn't matter
quite as much whether you are religious or not as to whether you support the EU.
It used to be that if you were a very strong Catholic, you were very much in favor of the
EU. But we are seeing a decline, and I think this is relevant to what's going on in the EU
now. We have found that the most "Euro-skeptical" people in Europe are the secular
people, those who claim no tradition. And the secular population is growing, so this
doesn't bode well for affective support for the EU.
More than one year ago, in May 2004, 10 Eastern European countries joined the
European Union (EU). We would expect that after 40 years under an atheist
Soviet system these former communist societies would lose their sense of
religion. Have they? Are they in transition?
I would say that no, they haven't lost all of their sense of religion — but are they in
transition? Yes, I would say they are. I was in Poland this last summer, and people are
much more religious in Poland than in Germany, but the impact of the church has
declined. Certainly church attendance has declined dramatically. So I think that they are
in transition, as the people who were members of the church for more political reasons
are leaving. This means that the impact of religion will decline.
An important point that comes out of the transition from communism to a market-based
democracy is that communism could not kill religion entirely. It survived, albeit evenly
across Eastern Europe; it couldn't be squeezed out everywhere. And even in East
Germany you had a powerful influence of the church in the transition to democracy. Even
though today's East German church is not very powerful, it had an important role to play
in the transition. The situation of the Polish church is somewhat similar.
How, if at all, does religion affect attitudes about EU unification in 'new'
(eastern) countries? In 'old' (western) countries?
The early data that we use, from the early '90s, shows that on the surface, there is very
little impact of religion on attitudes toward the EU. But if you dig deeper there is still a
strong influence of Catholic thinking on positive attitudes towards the EU. So it is a kind
of deep, cultural commitment that pushed religious people in favor of the EU.
Now we do have 2002 survey data that have religious questions in them. Our analysis of
that data is that we can't find any effect now, and I think that that may be the direction
Western Europe is going as well.
Although the official position is that the EU is a pluralistic society that is open to
those of all faiths, the idea that the EU should reflect Europe's Christian
heritage is also present at the popular level. How does this affect European
politics?
The short answer is that I don't know; we don't have good data that asks clear enough
questions. I'm trying to get the Euro-barometer survey to ask better religion questions
that may help us answer this issue. For instance, I would like to know, at a popular level,
whether there is a difference among religious or nonreligious people or Catholics versus
Protestants on their attitudes toward Turkish accession to the EU. We have some polling
data from individual countries, but not for the whole of Europe.
I do think there might be a kind of cultural reaction to the EU actively discouraging any
influence of Christian faith on the development of the EU. At least in some Catholic
countries like Ireland, Poland and Austria there is some popular-level desire to insert
some words in the constitution’s preamble about Europe's debt to its Christian history
when it comes to human rights. There was some support for that, but not enough across
Europe to make it a reality.
Opposition to Turkey joining the EU is said to have been a significant factor in
the recent "no" referenda votes in France and the Netherlands, rejecting a
proposed EU constitution. Is religion a factor here?
Is religion a factor? I don't know for sure, but I think it has more to do with the culture
that religion left behind — that is, Western European culture as influenced historically by
the Christian religion — than religion per se. I think there is this deep sense within
people that they can't articulate, a sense that they simply don't want Turkey in. They
don't want Muslim culture in, but they can't really say overtly "I don't want Muslims in"
so they say things like "Turkey does not have a European culture." I think they're
reflecting old Christian culture, even though they have somewhat left this culture behind.
What is your opinion about the ability of the EU to handle, culturally and
politically, religious diversity and freedom going forward? In particular, do you
think religiously-motivated terrorism a threat to religious freedom in Europe?
My opinion is that toleration is going to decline. I think it's already clear from the Dutch
case, where there has been a crackdown in the wake of the horrific murder of filmmaker
Theo van Gogh. I think it's also clear in the UK that there is a tightening of religious
toleration, especially following the London subway bombings. I can't really criticize,
because the fact is that some groups have abused that tolerance. I think that is a great
shame, because I don't want to lose the tolerance. But at the same time, I don't want
people blowing themselves up in the Tube station either. That is a problem, but I
definitely think that toleration is going to decline, that there will be boundaries placed on
tolerance.
Regarding religiously motivated terrorism and its effect on religious freedom, I think that
it depends on what you define as religious freedom. If you define religious freedom as
the right to say anything, even violent things, and call it religion, than yes, there will be a
decline in religious freedom. But if you continue to define religion as a collection of beliefs
about God and about society, then there will be plenty of religious freedom in Europe.
The question is about where the boundaries are, and this is what concerns me about,
say, the blasphemy law that they are now discussing in Britain. The boundary between
acceptable and unacceptable is in this case determined by the state, and I want the state
to allow enough freedom so that people can discuss religion in a calm and peaceful
manner, and to even attempt to convert someone to another religion. But the boundary
between that kind of activity and violent activity is vague. I'm afraid that the state will be
overly zealous and will eliminate a lot of religious speech that is not violent.
I would like to think that genuine religious speech will continue to be tolerated in Europe,
but I have some questions about some of the things I see in Britain and the Netherlands.
I also know that in Norway they have expelled a cleric for talking about violent Islam. I
don't sense that there is a major crackdown on all religion, but I do think that any time
you expel somebody for saying religious things, people begin to think before they speak,
is this illegal or not illegal? Most people tend to be cautious, so they may not speak their
minds about religion as much, which could be a bad thing.
The outgoing president of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker of
Luxemburg, concluded his presidency by saying that, "The EU is not in crisis, it
is in deep crisis!" Do you agree?
I think that's funny, because after the referendum in France and the Netherlands,
Juncker was the one saying, "We don't really have any problems, we will just continue
with the referendum process," and then by the end he is saying that the EU is in deep
crisis. I would say that, yes, Europe is in crisis, but I don't see this major unraveling of
the EU that some people see. There are major challenges ahead, and I definitely think
the EU has to change. It has to alter its strategy for reaching people. But there are too
many interests that the EU meets for European countries to turn their back entirely on
the project.
This crisis is probably equal to the "empty chair" crisis of 1965, when Charles de Gaulle
withdrew the French delegation from the European Council of Ministers over funding of
the cap. The EU was probably more fragile at that time, and it was missing one of its
major partners, but it still survived. It survived because the interests, economic and
political, that the European Community met for the members states outweighed the
problem.
I still believe that integration solves more problems than it creates for Europe. I have
thought for some time, however, that integration was going in the wrong direction, so
the recent turn of events is, in my opinion, a needed corrective. It could reach a deep
crisis in the future, and I could see a number of scenarios occurring where there could be
an unraveling of the agreement. But I am hoping that perhaps with some leadership
change in Germany and France that there may be a better, more realistic basis for
cooperation.
In my view, a federal Europe was never a realistic possibility. I don't care what Joschka
Fischer said or any of the radical federalists, I never thought it was realistic. I also never
thought that ratifying the constitution was realistic. Indeed, I never thought that all 25
members of the EU would agree on anything, much less a constitution. The EU
overstepped its boundaries, and what they need is to rethink what cooperation is useful
for.
I actually think that Tony Blair's effort at changing the nature of the conversation has
been a step in the right direction. I don't know if he has all the right answers, but he is
asking the right questions, and maybe in the next two years or so, the EU can come to
some kind of settlement.
So Juncker is not right; the whole thing is not on the verge of falling apart. But
somebody has got to think these things through clearly and set a new direction for
Europe.
15:44 - November 30, 2006 - comments {0} - post comment
Drugost Balkana
Kritika balkanističkog diskursa
Prilog fenomenologiji "drugosti" Balkana
by: Bogoljub Šijaković
(izvor: Projekat Rastko : www. rastko. org. yu, izabrani delovi).
Postavljam nekoliko delova iz navedenog teksta, pre svega kao predlog za
komentarisanje.
Stigmatizacija Balkana i stereotipi
Balkanistički diskurs ocrnjivanja razmahnuo se naročito kad i sukob oko nasljeđa
Otomanskog carstva. Već do kraja 18. vijeka stereotipi o evropskom (jugo)istoku bili su
uglavnom formirani, a njihova specifična dorada, svakad situirana u kontekst
geopolitičkog trenutka zainteresovanih zemalja, trajala je do kraja Prvog svjetskog rata.
Obnova stereotipa išla je c obnovom interesovanja za dominaciju na Balkanu, u Drugom
svjetskom i posebno u potonjem jugoslovenskom građanskom ratu. Pri tom je opšti
smisao stigmatizovanja, koji se sastoji prevashodno u proizvodnji straha, stvaranju
stereotipa i uspostavljanju socijalne kontrole, neizostavno bio sadržaj antibalkanske
fenomenologije drugosti. Uobličavanje (ili: izobličavanje) identiteta Balkana kao
"drugosti" sa stanovišta moći pripisivanjem nepoželjnih svojstava i vladavina opštim
kontekstom koji ovu "drugost" prinuđuje na ponašanje kojim potvrđuje sopstvenu
diskvalifikaciju jesu način da se poželjna percepcija drugosti pretvori u realnost drugosti:
Balkanci se ponašaju "prema očekivanju" tj. shodno ulogama koje propisuje balkanistički
diskurs moći. Tako se diskursom kao nasiljem, iza kog stoji realna moć sa vrlo stvarnim
interesima, propisuje identitet onih nad kojima se kao nad svojim vlasništvom
uspostavlja socijalna (a po mogućnosti i politička i vojna) kontrola. Funkcija stereotipa,
koji se uobičajeno proizvode tehnikom loše generalizacije i zlonamjernim
redukcionističkim objašnjenjima, jeste da djeluju kao semantičko zarobljeništvo unutar
kog se može dobiti uslovno priznanje tek kad se prizna preče pravo vlasnicima i čuvarima
zatvora. Balkanci bi onda trebalo da pristanu da o njihovom identitetu kao o "drugosti"
odlučuju drugi, koji ga koriste kao platno za projekciju sopstvenih trenutnih interesa i
istorijskih frustracija. Takav status Balkana pregnantno opisuje Marija Todorova (u
zaključku svoje sadržajne i poučne knjige o Balkanu):
"Pošto je geografski neodvojiv deo Evrope, ali je kulturno konstruisan kao 'unutrašnja
drugost', Balkan je zgodno poslužio da apsorbuje mnoštvo eksternalizovanih političkih,
ideoloških i kulturnih frustracija koje potiču iz tenzija i protivrečnosti svojstvenih
regionima i društvima izvan Balkana. Balkanizam je vremenom postao zgodna zamena za
emocionalno pražnjenje koje je ranije pružao orijentalizam, pošto je oslobodio Zapad
optužbi za rasizam, kolonijalizam, evrocentrizam i hrišćansku netrpeljivost prema islamu.
Uostalom, Balkan se nalazi u Evropi, Balkanci su belci, uglavnom su hrišćani, pa se zato
projektovanjem sopstvenih frustracija na njih mogu zaobići uobičajene rasno ili verski
obojene insinuacije."
Ovaj tačan opis (koji se doduše Kpeće uglavnom u kulturološkoj i socijalno-psihološkoj
ravni, pa stoga potrebuje jednu dopunu u grubom istorijskom fakticitetu ovladavanja
Balkanom) tek nagovještava pravu prirodu i snagu važenja stereotipa o Balkanu.
Stereotipi u javnom diskursu čine suvišnim svako dokazivanje i rasuđivanje, a kad iza
njih stanu naučne institucije onda takvi stereotipi sa pseudonaučnom ovjerom imaju
obavezujući karakter, uprkos tome što stereotipi o čitavom jednom narodu ili
stanovništvu jedne regije dakako predstavljaju neosnovano supstancijalizovanje kojim se
poriče postojanje razlika i uopšte konkretnih pojedinačnih ljudskih bića, što je i neistinito
i nepravedno. (I ovdje treba da postavimo pitanje nauke o nauci o Balkanu: u kojim
institucijama?, na koji način? i u koje svrhe? se proizvodi znanje o Balkanu.)
Antibalkanski stereotipi sadrže kao konstantu moralno i civilizacijsko omalovažavanje
Balkanaca naspram moralnog prava i civilizatorske obaveze izvan balkanskih
pretendenata na Balkan, što je još jedna vještina preuzeta iz drevne rimske imperijalne
politike. Naravno, da bi stereotipi imali snagu važenja treba da budu saobraženi
vladajućim vrijednostima i podržani od strane vladajućih struktura i medija. Interes
medijskih proizvođača javne (i dnevne) istine o Balkanu uslovljen je interesom vladajuće
politike, i to je samo primjer zavisnosti javnog diskursa od spoljne politike. Ovaj fenomen
podudarnosti sa spoljnopolitičkim stavovima o Balkanu odavno je prisutan u književnosti,
naročito putopisnoj, koja se katkad do te mjere oslanjala na zvaničnu diplomatiju i čak
bila njen dio da je od nje odudarala samo kad se trudila da prednjači.
Identitet i heterofilija
Antibalkanski stereotipi – koji dakako služe za uspostavljanje "poželjnog" identiteta
Balkana, legitimizovanje sopstvenih postupaka prema Balkanu i prikrivanje stvarnih
interesa na Balkanu – diskvalifikuju Balkan kao "evropsko bure baruta" (pri čemu se
prećutkuje najzanimljivije: ko to bure puni barutom, ko proizvodi fitilj, u čijoj ruci je
upaljač), kao mračnu oblast agresivnih i nezajažljivih etnonacionalizama, polje duboko
ukorijenjene međuetničke i međuvjerske mržnje, primitivnih i iracionalnih strasti i
predpolitičkih osjećanja, kao tamni vilajet i vjetrometinu međusobnih hegemonističkih
pretenzija i teritorijalnih sporova podstaknutih istorijskim mitovima i željom da se
prednost ostvari na tuđ račun; ovi stereotipi optužuju Balkance za tradicionalizam i
patrijarhalnost, nedostatak demokratske svijesti i odsustvo tolerancije, kolektivistički i
podanički mentalitet pogodan za manipulaciju od strane elita koje se bezdušno bore za
dobit i predstavljaju balkanski tj. "vizantijsko-slovenski" karakter kao primitivan i
podmukao, drzak i surov, silovit i razdražljiv, sklon nasilju i destrukciji, prevari i pljački,
neradu i privilegijama, – jednom riječju (tj. jednim esencijalizmom kao metafizičkim
pokrićem) rečeno: homo baicanicus; sve što je y nama loše pripada ustvari "drugom" i
nalazi se na "drugom" mjestu, na Balkanu kao deponiji zla i crnoj rupi civilizovane
Evrope. ("Balkan – to su drugi!", kaže Slavoj Žižek.) Jedan od ciljanih efekata
stigmatizovanja je da se izazove kriza identiteta tako što se kod žigosanog proizvode
strah i sumnja u sebe, nezadovoljstvo sobom, osjećanje unesrećenosti i nedostojnosti.
Stigmatizovanjem se proizvodi i odabranom "drugom" nameće krivica kao sredstvo
ovladavanja, i to s ciljem da žigosani prihvati i interiorizuje krivicu za koju je zadužen:
tada je dužan da iskaže spasonosnu formulu pokajničkog priznanja sopstvene krivice (tea
culpa, mea maxima culpa!). "Izlaz" iz ovog nepodnošljivog stanja traži se u bjekstvu od
identiteta, u želji i čak žudnji da se bude drugi, i to takav drugi saobražen projekciji onog
ko ima moć da vlada semantičkim poljem javnog žigosanja – i bojnim poljem. Strah od
pogleda drugog prevladava se tako što se sopstveni izgled prilagođava želji drugog. Ova
psihološka, socijalna i politička mimikrija je neophodna priprema za novu ulogu. Kad je
identitet negiran i ispražnjen, kad je topos njegovog prebivališta napušten, onda ovaj
prazan prostor popunjava drugi, onda se događa da kako čovjek tako i grupa ljudi svoj
identitet oblikuje po želji drugog, što se uzima kao definitivno priznanje da su žigosanje i
krivica dodijeljeni pravom objektu. Tada "stari" (negirani i napušteni) identitet kao
"pravi" identitet postaje ako ne jedina a ono glavna smetnja "novom". Otuda jedno čudno
stanje stalne potrebe da se bude drugi, da se gubi autohtonost a stiče heterohtonost, da
se na nepodnošljivu stigmu reaguje tako što će ce karakteristike tuđeg identiteta koristiti
kao serum za imunološki odgovor na krizu sopstvenog identiteta: stanje slabosti koje
bismo mogli nazvati heterofilija (heterophilia). (Nešto sasvim različito je prirodno
čovjekovo svojstvo da svoj dinamički identitet konstituiše i realizuje u slobodnoj
komunikaciji s drugim.) Ali: poznato je da Balkanci imaju .duboku i kondenzovanu
istorijsku samosvijest i da je za njih još uvijek suštinski važan njihov bogati istorijski
identitet.
U ime Balkana
Etiketiranje stereotipima ocrnjivanja je oblik verbalnog terorizma kojim se drugome
ustvari oduzima pravo da govori. Primjer stereotipske antibalkanske stigmatizacije:
žigosanje Balkana kao zone "vjekovne mržnje" kojoj su inherentni etnički sukobi i koja
ima monopol na varvarstvo – ne samo da falsifikuje istorijsku istinu i prikriva
odgovornost nego predstavlja verbalno prinuđivanje Balkana na ćutanje. Kad se
odabranom objektu prilijepi vrijednosno negativna i semantički jaka etiketa, onda ona
kognitivno djeluje tako da se u doživljaju tog objekta ignoriše stvarnost. Tada jezik
djeluje kao sredstvo nasilja, etiketa kao verbalna omča: "neka visi Balkan!". Prinuditi
Balkance da ćute – to je potrebno da bi drugi mogli da govore ne samo o njima nego i u
njihovo ime. Upravo je zbog toga važna analiza balkanističkog diskursa i onog znanja o
Balkanu (="balkanologija") koje se proizvodi sa stanovišta moći da bi se legitimisalo
ovladavanje Balkanom, važna je fenomenologija "drugosti" kojom se Balkan konstruiše
kao "tuđi" i "strani" bezlični objekt znanja, naime važno je to zbog toga da bi Balkan
povratio pravo da govori u svoje ime, i uopšte da govori: Balkanu predstoji borba za
priznanje, borba za pravo da odlučuje o svom identitetu, pa čak i o svom imenu.
Nepodnošljivi pritisak stigme i projektovane krivice podstiče samorazumijevanje iz želje
drugog, odricanje od identiteta, odricanje od pripadnosti Balkanu (bilo zbog interesa moći
ili zbog stida nemoći) i spremnost na promjenu imena. Onaj ko ne može da izdrži
boravak sa okuženima u leprosorium Balcanicum doživljava tuđi provisorium mundi kao
svoju potrebu i olakšanje. Nacističko istiskivanje ontološkog imena Balkan formalnim
geografskim nazivom 'Jugoistočna Evropa', jednim relacionim određenjem kojim se
preduzima klasifikovanje prostora prema njegovoj funkciji za centralnu moć, danas je
ponovo u modi. Uzimanje imena je depersonalizacija, a davanje imena nije neutralna
označiteljska praksa. Zamjena imena Balkan odrednicom funkcionalnog prostora je
promjena identiteta, koja kao svjedočanstvo smjene uticaja i uspostavljanja novog
vlasništva govori o političkoj pozadini imenovanja. Brisanje imena Balkan je brisanje
jedne neizbrisive stvarnosne referencije, i brisanje tragova moći; poništenje imena
Balkan je poništenje objekta ovladavanja u njegovoj osobenosti, da bi tako totalitet bio
dominantan a dominacija totalna; "debalkanizacija" Balkana je bjekstvo od Balkana i
bjekstvo od odgovora na važno pitanje: Koje "balkanizovao" Balkan?
EvroBalkan
Balkan je staro i pouzdano ogledalo svjetskog poretka moći. Da bi neostvareno načelo
"Balkan balkanskim narodima" moglo da se nametne za ostvarivanje nije dovoljno (a
izgleda ni mogućno) umilostiviti ogledalo da odrazi neki drugi lik, već je neophodno da se
balkanski narodi posvete Balkanu, naime da se na samom Balkanu njeguje potreba
balkanskog zajedništva i savezništva, osjećanje sudbinske istorijske povezanosti
balkanskih naroda, da bi se potisnula njihova nedozrela i koristoljubiva samodovoljnost,
koja onemogućava Balkan da se konsoliduje i integriše imanentno, da ne bi bio objekt
formalne integracije prethodno izolovanih djelova prostora, predmet jednog vanbalkanski
funkcionalnog uređenja prostora, oblast hortikulture i multikulture svjetske moći.
Balkanci treba da svoj kompleksni nacionalni, balkanski, mediteranski i evropski identitet
nalaze najprije u prebogatoj kulturi Balkana koju od antike naovamo stvaraju ne samo
mnogi personalno poznati pojedinci nego i balkanski "narodni genije". Zaista, kao što se
jugo/južno-slovenski relevantan pisac Slobodan Šnajder odgovorno usudio da u
nevrijeme to formuliše, "Balkan je mitska teritorija. ... Baš kao što se za Mediteran može
reći da je kolijevka ljudske istorije, to isto važi za Balkan. Želio bih da naglasim da on
nije samo zlosrećan region, već isto tako i prostor na kom osciliraju snažne tradicije koje
su oblikovale evropsku kulturu." – Balkanu nije potreban civilizator (koji je, uostalom,
svoju civilizaciju napajao "sa balkanskih istočnika"). Balkan je Evropi dao utemeljujuću i
mjerodavnu, obavezujuću i nenadmašnu helensku kulturu. Balkan je neposredno crpio i
Evropi prenosio istočno mediteranske izvore hrišćanstva, koji su, nakon veličanstvenog
milenijuma Vizantije, prema kojoj se Zapadna Evropa toliko puta krstaški ogriješila,
postajali duhovno i prostorno sve dalji što je otomansko višestoljetno računanje vremena
na Balkanu sve moćnije udaljavalo balkanski hronotop od ostale Evrope. Kada je nakon
pada Konstantinopolja 1453. grčka izbjeglička intelektualna elita podstakla i oblikovala
humanistički duh italijanske renesanse dogodilo se to da je Zapad i tada bio prijemčiv
samo za neprolazne tvorevine helenske paganske antike a ne i za "strani" i "tuđi" duh
pravoslavnog hrišćanstva. Evropa će biti ono što treba da bude tek kada postane
hrišćanska, mislio je jedan veliki češki Evropljanin, Jan Patočka ^1907-1977). Onda
međutim duh istočnog hrišćanstva na Balkanu ne bi mogao da bude ostavljen zatvoren u
lampi zaturenoj negdje "daleko u unutrašnjosti Turske", prema bezbrižnoj prostornoj
orijentaciji građanina Geteovog Frankfurta. Onda bi Zapadna Evropa mogla da prihvati i
Slovene koji su pravoslavni (Slavia orthodoxa pored Slavia catholica) a da im to ne uzima
kao otežavajuću okolnost.
Evropa kao struktura političke moći proizvodi "Balkan" kao objekt kojim se raspolaže, a
prateći balkanistički diskurs govori o Balkanu prinuđujući ga da ćuti, dok balkanske
studije zavisne od političke moći uzimaju Balkan kao pasivni predmet saznavanja koji se
"naučno" konstruiše u balkanologiji jednako kao i politički u geografiji. Otuda Balkan ne
govori samo o sebi već i o stanju stvari u Evropi. Balkan može da bude prilika za Evropu
da upozna sopstveno nasilje i destrukciju, svoje brižljivo skrivano a opet dovoljno
poznato lice; Balkan je prilika za samosaznanje Evrope.
Evropa kao skup vrijednosnih ideala podrazumijeva još od helenske antike kao dio svog
identiteta etički reflektovan odnos prema drugom, naime priznanje drugog i odgovornost
za drugog. U takvoj fenomenologiji drugosti onaj drugi je ustvari neki drugi ja, i to onaj
drugi ja y susretu sa kojim dobrovoljno razvijam, konstituišem i saznajem sopstveni
identitet. Evropa kao ideal je pozvana na susret s Balkanom, da preko epifanije lica
Balkana sazna sebe. Tada je Balkan neophodan dio identiteta Evrope, kao što je identitet
Balkana neosporno evropski. Evropa je odgovorna za Balkan i dužna da proizvede
evropski kontekst Balkana. Odgovornost Balkana za Evropu je prevashodno dužnost
Balkanaca da se rukovode idealima koje su oblikovali i za koje su se zalagali najbolji
Balkanci, balkanski mudraci i sveci, i da tako uvećavaju razloge za ponos a umanjuju
razloge za stid koji se vezuju za Balkan i Balkance.
Modifications in the Religious Field of Central and Eastern Europe
Detlef Pollack
Although church and religion do not represent central topics in current social research,
there is a multitude of political, sociological and historical studies on the religious change
in the Central and East European countries after the collapse of the Soviet empire. These
studies focus on two issues: first of all on the question of how the relationship between
church and state has developed, the legal position of the churches within the state, the
relationship between church and democracy, the role of the churches in the political
conflicts, and so on (cf. Michel 1992; 1994; Mojzes 1992; Martin 1993; Anderson 1994;
Swatos 1994; Bourdeaux 1995; Bingen 1996; Luxmoore 1996; 1997; White/McAllister
1997; Ramet 1998), secondly they focus on the relationship between religion and
nationalism (cf. Ramet 1991; 1997; Lilienfeld 1993; Crego 1994; Guroian 1994; Sergeev
1994; Byrnes 1997). The existing works in the social sciences therefore demonstrate a
strong concentration on problems concerning the political significance of church and
religion. In comparison, less attention is given to the social acceptance of church and
religion, the spreading of religious convictions and church practices, and rituals.
Furthermore, a perusal of the existing studies on the role of church and religion in
Central and Eastern Europe brings to attention the fact that there are more country
studies than comparative analyses (cf. individual contributions in Borowik/Babinski 1997,
and in Pollack/Borowik/Jagodzinski 1998, and Andorka 1993; Jasinska-Kania 1993, et
al.). Although two representative comparative surveys were already carried through as
early as 1991 - the European Value Survey (cf. Zulehner/Denz 1993) and the
International Social Survey Programme (ISSP 1991) -, they were hardly used for
systematic analysis at all, and were mostly only drawn upon in an ad hoc fashion to
substantiate individual statements (cf., however, Schühly/Müller 1997). Studies in the
social sciences on the religious change in Central and Eastern Europe have another
characteristic that is related to the lack of comparative studies: their almost completely
descriptive orientation (cf., however, Tomka 1995; 1996c; Gaultier 1997; Pickel 1998;
Jagodzinksi 1998; 1999; Bruce 1999). Of course, in view of the lack of reliable data,
especially relating to the time before 1990, it is exceedingly difficult to make general
statements. Nevertheless, this virtually complete relinquishment of raising theoretical
questions and of aligning the interpretation of the empirical material to these questions is
astonishing. It seems as if West European sociology of religion had not yet seriously
applied itself to the topic of religion in Central and Eastern Europe. Perhaps this is now
starting to change, since the new ISSP study of 1998, and the research project Aufbruch
(departure), whose first results have recently been published (Tomka/Zulehner 1999),
have meant that two studies have been tackled that will, in future, make it possible to
draw comparisons over a certain period of time, and to interpret the recognisable
development trends according to a generalising perspective. This paper has set itself the
task of reacting to the lack of theoretically oriented comparative studies, and, with the
support of currently accessible empirical data, to uncover a few trends in the religious
change in Central and Eastern Europe.
Thus, the obvious question presents itself whether, after the collapse of state socialism,
the transformation processes of church and religion in the previously communist
countries are following lines of development comparable to those in Western Europe, or
whether entirely new patterns of development will emerge in these countries (cf. Pickel
1998). In the West European countries, this pattern is characterised by a strong
tendency towards alienation from the church, while, at the same time, there is a
pluralisation of offers on the market of church and religion as well as a corresponding
individualisation of religious attitudes and behaviour (Luckmann 1991). Do the Central
and East European countries follow this path of development according to the extent of
their modernisation, or do they pursue quite different courses in their religious
development? This question is to be the central focus of this article. In order to find an
answer, it is, naturally, first of all necessary to create a general picture of the critical
effects of state socialism on the internal and external position of religious communities
and churches in the East and Central European countries (1). Only then can the effects of
the political, social and economic turning point of 1989/90 on the religious field be
discerned (2). It would, however, be going beyond the given scope of this paper to deal
with all the East and Central European countries equally. Therefore attention will be given
especially to those states on which data material is available. In addition, this article will
make use of the method of exemplary illustration. Thus, in the case of having to
demonstrate general tendencies of development, it will mostly content itself with
selective evidence.
1.
Church and Religion towards the End of Communist Rule
In all the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, communist rule caused a weakening of
church ties in the population and a decline in the social significance of church and
religion. However, it affected the stability and vitality of religion and church in divergent
ways. Table 1 demonstrates to what different degrees the individual countries and
denominations were affected by the process of alienation from the church.
For an interpretation of this table it is first of all necessary to point out the fact that the
percentages of membership differ substantially in their meaningfulness. In Orthodox
countries, such as Bulgaria or Romania, but also in Hungary, which is largely Catholic,
denominational membership merely reflects a subjective feeling of belonging, not a
formalised church membership. Consequently, church membership in these countries has
quite a different meaning to, say, that in Germany, where it is formalised and tied up
with rights and obligations.
Table 1: Modifications in the percentage of people belonging to a denomination during
the time of communist rule (in %)
Country
(time Denomination
of
data
compilation)
Denominational proportion
Before and after
Communist rule
Decline
of
denominational
proportion during
the
time
of
communism
East Germany
(1946 – 1990)
Catholic
Protestant
No religion
12.2
81.5
5.9
4.6
26.0
68.0
63.3
68.1
Czech Republic
(1951 – 1991)
Catholic
Protestant
No religion
76.7
16.4
8.8
39.2
3.6
39.7
48.9
78.0
Slovakia
(1951 – 1991)
Catholic
Protestant
No religion
82.7
16.4
0.9
63.7
7.8
9.7
23.0
52.5
Hungary
(1949 – 1992)
Catholic
Protestant
Others/No religion
70.5
27.1
2.4
67.8
25.1
7.1
3.8
7.4
Slovenia
(1953 – 1991)
Catholic
Protestant
No religion
82.9
1.5
15.3
71.4
1.0
23.5
13.9
33.3
Estonia
(1935 – 1995)
Catholic
Protestant
Orthodox
No religion
0.2
79.1
18.9
0.6
0.2
12.7
2.0
83.3
0
83.9
89.4
Latvia
(1935 – 1992)
Catholic
Protestant
Orthodox
No religion
24.4
56.0
8.9
0.2
22.7
30.7
7.6
38.0
7.0
45.2
14.6
Romania
(1930 – 1992)
Catholic
Protestant
Orthodox
Greek-Catholic
No religion
6.8
6.4
72.6
7.9
5.1
5.5
86.8
1.0
0.2
25.0
14.1
19.6 (+)
87.3
Bulgaria
(1934 – 1992)
Catholic
Protestant
Orthodox
Muslim
No religion
0.8
0.1
83.9
13.5
0.6
0.3
85.7
13.1
0.1
25.0
200.0 (+)
2.1 (+)
3.0
Sources: Pollack 1994: 374; Kaplan 1993: 225; Prokůpek 1995: 94ff.; Tomka 1996a:
235; Enciklopedija Slovenije 1996: 165; Ederberg 1935: 114; Lehtsaar 1998; Rozītis
1993: 93; Roth 1998; Glaube in der 2. Welt 19, 1991, No. 5, 27; Bogomilova 1998
A glance at Table 1 reveals significant differences in the degree of alienation from the
church between the individual countries, and between the denominations, within these
countries. In order to explain these differences specific to region and denomination, four
influential factors have to be mentioned:
1. The most important reason for the decline of religiousness and church ties as well as
for the development of regional differences in this process of decline was, without doubt,
the political repression, which members of a religion and religious communities were
exposed to during the communist era. In countries with a high degree of repression (East
Germany, Czechoslovakia, former Soviet Union) the decline of church membership
numbers was especially drastic (cf. Czech Republic, East Germany, Estonia in Table 1). In
the countries with a lesser degree of political repression, such as Hungary, Poland and
Yugoslavia, where deviant behaviour was met more with a policy of co-operation than
with a policy of exclusion, the religious communities and churches were much better able
to retain their members (cf. Hungary, Slovenia in Table 1). The influence of the degree of
repression over the degree of religiousness and church adherence becomes especially
clear when we, as an example, take a look at the religious situation in the Ukraine. In the
West Ukraine, which was under Polish rule before World War II, the proportion of those
describing themselves as religious today is 3-3,5 times higher than in the East Ukraine,
which was always a part of the Soviet Union, and had to endure a much harder regime
(Jelensky/Perebensjuk 1998).
2. Another important reason for the process of alienation from the church in the Central
East European countries, but also for the limitation of this process, is based on
modernisation, which took place in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to
different degrees after the Second World War. During the decades of communist rule,
many of the mainly agrarian countries went through processes of industrialisation,
mobilisation, urbanisation and rationalisation, brought about forcibly by the state. The
level of prosperity rose as much as the level of education and the quota of women
gainfully employed. These processes of modernisation unmistakably influenced the field
of church and religion. Due to the increase of female employment, the influence of the
family in passing on the Christian faith to the children went back significantly. In
Hungary, for instance, this change in the distribution of work has weakened the capacity
of families to hand down religion by about one third (cf. Tomka 1998). The increase in
the level of education contributed to people dissociating themselves from religious
beliefs. On average, the more highly educated do not believe so frequently in God as the
less highly educated. This has been proven for Hungary, Bulgaria, the GDR and other
countries (cf. Bogomilova 1998, ISSP 1991: Variable 99). Regional mobility had
especially far-reaching effects. In countries such as Bulgaria or Hungary, where migration
from the countryside was especially drastic, the destruction of the traditional village
milieu meant that the churches had lost an important means of social demographic
support. In contrast, Poland, where the collectivising of agriculture did not succeed,
preserved the traditional village environment, and the church was able to support itself
on that. The stability of the churches was also, not insignificantly, connected to the
degree to which traditions were abolished in society. Also, the rise in the level of culture
and prosperity strongly affected the attraction of churches and religious communities.
Due to this rise, offers from the realm of art, literature, theatre, films and television
increasingly competed as forms of leisure with religious and church events, and growing
prosperity meant that the population could also increasingly afford to make use of this
non-ecclesiastical cultural selection.
The combination of political repression and processes of modernisation – the rise in
prosperity, mobilisation, the abolishment of traditions, and rationalisation – helps very
much to explain why church and religion forfeited so much social significance throughout
the time of state socialism. Even though the majority of the population rejected the
political compulsion that was necessarily connected with the social processes of
transformation, the modernisation, industrialisation and the increase in the level of
wealth that were a result of the socialist restructuring of society were largely approved
of. The politically and ideologically pursued process of alienating people from the church
managed, amongst other things, to be so successful because it was connected with a rise
in the standard of living, with a highly scientific view of the world, with industrialisation
and urbanisation, i.e. with processes of modernisation.
3. A further factor that has strongly influenced the degree of alienation from the church
is the denomination. By and large one can state that the Roman Catholic Church, of all
the denominations, has succeeded the most in preserving its numbers, whereas the
Lutheran churches have been the least successful (cf. the denominational differences in
the decline of membership in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia,
Table 1). Orthodox Church had to endure large losses, too, especially in Russia, in
Belorussia and the Ukraine.
If one wants to explain the denominational differences, it is first of all necessary to point
out the religious institutions’ different degrees of strength. The more hierarchically and
dogmatically the religious community was structured, and the sharper the difference was
between the interior and the exterior, the more it was able to assert itself against attacks
coming from the political system. The resilience of the Roman Catholic Church stemmed,
apart from anything else, from its institutional character, its hierarchical order and
centralisation. It also, however, profited from the fact that it was true-to-life, vivid and
concrete, due to the devoutness it inspired. Furthermore, the Catholic Church was
fortified by being embedded in a denominationally shaped culture with its own
associations, publishing firms, magazines, care system for the old and the sick and an
intensive system of inner communication in quite a few countries. It enjoyed special
protection through its dependence on the Vatican in Rome, and thus its link with a
supranational power that was independent of the national politics of any given state. By
referring to Rome, the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church were much better
able to justify their policies than the regional Protestant church, which was at the
disposal of the communist rulers. Finally, the Catholic Church, as opposed to the
Lutheran churches, pursued the strategy of having as little contact with socialist society
as possible (Pilvousek 1993). Even though this strategy, in the GDR, for instance, and in
some other countries, meant a certain exclusion from society in general, it did have the
advantage of enabling the church to more successfully evade the attempts of state and
party to influence it.
4. The churches were also conspicuously strengthened wherever they were in close
proximity to national ideas. Especially in those areas where the church represented the
identity of nations that were not central, but were situated beyond the political centres of
power, the national idea could contribute to the fortification of the churches (cf. Spohn
1998). Thus the losses of the Orthodox Church in Russia were much more drastic than
those of the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine or Belorussia, or even in Romania or Serbia.
In countries such as Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria or Poland, the church, partly for
centuries, has served as a representative and preserver of the national identity against
the dominance of foreign powers. The example of the Ukraine, of course, demonstrates
the error in assuming that the connection of nationalism and church in a peripheral area
automatically brings about a strengthening of the church, since in this case we have
observed that the church has been weakened despite these conditions, and that it was
better able to preserve its numbers where there was less political pressure. The Czech
Republic, on the other hand, confirms this assumed pattern. In the course of the fortyyear rule of communism, the Catholic Church in this country had to put up with
comparatively high losses, even though the majority of the population was Catholic at
the beginning of the fifties. In the Czech Republic, Catholicism was looked upon by large
parts of the population as a religion prescribed from above rather than as the religion of
the people. Prague was much more closely linked to the centre of power in Vienna than,
for instance, the Slovakian regions, where the church was thus better able to become the
advocate of national interests. As opposed to that, the close link between nationalism
and Catholicism in Poland meant a strengthening of the church.
In countries such as Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, there was a
development of national consciousness, a process which was not, however, able to bring
about the emergence of an independent national state. Consequently, in lieu of a
politically constituted state, cultural factors emerged strongly in these countries, such as
language, literature, art, music or even religion. The development of a national identity
took place via these cultural factors. Church and religion were directly involved in this
process of national emergence, and often represented the most important institution
when it came to making a distinction between their own culture and other cultures and
nations, and thus managed to preserve the awareness of a separate nationality.
Such a close connection between nationality and church also developed in Slovenia and
Croatia. In these two countries, however, the Catholic Church was discredited because of
its collaboration with the National Socialist regime during the Second World War, so that
its position was extremely weakened in the face of the emerging communist system after
1945. The Catholic Church in Slovakia also had to accept such a weakening of its
position, since it also had worked together with the German occupying force. In Poland,
however, the church was partly involved in the resistance against National Socialism, and
was able to gain a strengthened political position from this after 1945. Poland also
represents a special case in so far as Catholicism in this country was able to function for
centuries as a national feature that distinguished itself from Protestant Prussia and
Orthodox Russia. Not so in Slovenia. There, Catholicism did not represent a
distinguishing feature, since the surrounding area was also Catholic. All in all, one can
say that the church was especially stable in those areas where it managed to create a
close link to the interests of the people, be they social, political or national interests, i.e.
where the church was not on the side of the rulers, but on the side of the people
(Höllinger 1996).
Apart from the degree of political repression, of modernisation, the issue of belonging to
a certain denomination as well as the social embodiment of the church in the people, its
historic role in the process of national formation and its political position during the
Second World War, it is, of course, possible to find further reasons for the resilience of
the churches during the socialist era, dependent, for instance, on the degree of contact
to foreign countries, the degree of co-operation with the socialist state, whether they
formed a small or a large religious community, or whether a religious community was in
a religiously pluralistic situation or had a religious world-view monopoly. Undoubtedly,
however, the listed factors represent significant reasons that are able to contribute to
explaining the regional as well as temporal differences in the degree of alienation from
the church and of secularisation in the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern
Europe.
2. Changes in the Religious Landscape after the Social Upheaval of 1989/90
2.1.
The Different Dimensions of Religion
In almost all of the previously communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, the
collapse of socialism was directly followed by a considerable upswing of religiousness and
church adherence. Poland was the exception, where the degree of religiousness and
church adherence was already exceptionally high before 1989, and where, directly after
1989, there was a slight decrease in reference numbers, as well as East Germany, where
the church had played a conspicuous role in the process of social upheaval and therefore,
directly afterwards, largely had the benefit of the peoples confidence, only to gradually
lose it again within a short period of time (cf. Pollack 1998b).
Even though there is much evidence for the religious growth in many Central and East
European countries for the years directly after 1989, it is not clear how the development
continued after that. Were there patterns of development similar to those that have
manifested themselves in Western Europe, or have completely different lines of
development emerged in these countries? This question, already raised at the beginning
of this paper, will now be looked into. In relation to this, it makes sense to separate
different religious dimensions, and to ask how these dimensions are interconnected. For
the analysis of the Western religious developments it is common to separate church
adherence from religiousness. Whereas the former is normally gauged by the frequency
of church attendance, the indicator for the latter is mostly either the belief in God or
one’s self-assessment as to whether one is religious or not. In the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe, however, two further religious dimensions can be discerned that
influence the modifications in the religious field: firstly a form of non-individual church
adherence, that manifests itself in a high level of trust in the church, while,
simultaneously, there is a personal dissociation from church and religion – a phenomenon
that is seldom to be found in the West, although it is not completely unknown. Secondly,
a large spread of belief in magic and occultism can be observed in the Central and East
European countries. There is, of course, also evidence of these phenomena in Western
Europe, but in the east of Europe they seem to have more quantitative significance than
in the West.
The four religious dimensions distinguished here thus are the following:
1.
Personal religiousness, mainly expressed here by the two indicators ‘belief in
God’ and ‘self-assessment as being religious’
2.
Personal church adherence, covered here by the indicator ‘church attendance’
3.
Impersonal church adherence, covered here by the indicators ‘trust in the
church’ whilst taking little part in church life, e.g. in the church service
4.
Occultism, expressed here through the indicators ‘lucky charm’, ‘faith-healer’,
‘prediction of the future’, ‘astrology’.
The central question at this point is how the different religious dimensions will develop in
the future, how they will correspond to one another, and whether the connection
between them is more likely to become stronger or to become weaker in the future. Of
course, social change may take some time to work through into changes in religious
behaviour and orientations. In certain respects it is too early to be sure of tendencies,
but some tentative statements about the religious development after 1989/90 can be
made.
1. Personal religiousness: taking Slovenia as an example for the development of personal
religiousness, one detects a rise in religious self-assessment between 1988 and 1992.
This becomes especially clear when looking at the group of those that define themselves
as not being religious (cf. Table 2). The proportion of this group went back from 30,7%
in 1988 to 23,2% in 1992. In the whole of Yugoslavia, 21% defined themselves as being
religious in 1985, whereas by 1990 this figure had risen to 43% (Pantić 1990).
Table 2: Self-assessment as being religious in Slovenia 1988-1992 (in %)
Xenophobia, Fantasy and the Nation:
The Logic of Ethnic Violence in Former Yugoslavia
( in Anthropology of Europe: Identity and Boundaries in Conflict .
ed. Victoria Goddard, Josep Llobera and Chris Shore.
London: Berg. 1994. pp. 143-171)
The violent ethnic nationalisms which replaced Yugoslavia's communalist ethos of
bratstvo i jedinstvo ('brotherhood and unity') when, in 1991, the Socialist Federated
Republic of Yugoslavia fragmented into its constitutive republics took observers by
surprise, and the bloody ethnic warfare that has continued to rage in the territories of
Former Yugoslavia since that time has substituted trepidation for the enthusiasm with
which most Europeans greeted the collapse of communist hegemony in Eastern Europe.
The character of the nationalisms of Former Yugoslavia furthermore challenges the
optimism with which theorists of nationalism such as Eric Hobsbawm heralded the demise
of a phenomenon they believed - in the light of the developing global economy - could
only be seen as atavistic. Hobsbawm's elegiac Nations and Nationalism since 1780 closes
with an assertion which, after Vukovar and Mostar, resonates with modernism's tragic
hubris :
"[T]he world history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries...will see
'nation states' and 'nations' or ethnic/linguistic groups primarily as retreating before,
resisting, adapting to, being absorbed or dislocated by, the new supranational
restructuring of the globe....[T]he very fact that historians are at least beginning to make
some progress in the study and analysis of nations and nationalism suggests that, as so
often, the phenomenon is past its peak. The owl of Minerva which brings wisdom, said
Hegel, flies out at dusk. It is a good sign that it is now circling round nations and
nationalism" (Hobsbawm 1990: 182-183).
Contemporary nationalisms and the ethnic identities they mobilise may seem, when
considered from a global perspective, to be irrational in so far as from that point of view
the national states they strive to realise seem inappropriate to the economic structure of
today's world. I will argue, however, that such a viewpoint is incapable of comprehending
the powerful appeal ethno-nationalist rhetorics can have for people caught up in the day
to day struggle to sustain, and improve, the ways in which they live. In the local domains
in which people live and emote, exclusivist identities and strategies seem to be as
powerful and goal-oriented as they were in earlier periods - if not more so. In this paper
I will analyze the logic of ethnic antagonism as it is manifested in the new nations which
have sprung up on the territories of what was Yugoslavia in order to suggest that ethnic
nationalism cannot be understood in the terms of the modernist rationalism of its
analysts. Instead, I will argue, it is often constituted within political discourses which link
passion and rationality in a manner which modernism - with its image of humankind as
intellectively rational - is incapable of explaining or undermining. Former Yugoslavia may
be a harbinger of a long period of ethnic wars engulfing not only the territories which
were, until very recently, stabilized by communist rule but also other regions which had
been politically fixed by the global antagonism between communism and capitalism. An
understanding of the processes which led to the bloody collapse of Yugoslav federation
may thus enable social scientists to devise new models for the analysis of identity which
may allow comprehension of the 'irrational' resurgence of impassioned exclusivist
communalisms and the inter-communal wars they promote.
The collapse of the communist federal system's legitimacy, which began in 1988-1989
when the Serbian nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic abrogated the autonomy of
Kosova and the Vojvodina and deposed the government of Montenegro, inaugurated
throughout the republics of what was then Yugoslavia a search for new ways of
legitimating power structures which, in all instances, were already in place (the state
apparatuses of the respective republics remained operative during the transition from
republican to national statuses). The discourse in which this new mode of legitimation
took place was, without exception, democratic; Yugoslavs, caught up in the pro-Western
ecstasy that swept through Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, accepted the
western panacea of democratic elections as the cure for all ills that had afflicted them
under communism. Elections took place in the republics of Slovenia and Croatia in April
1990, and in Macedonia, Bosnia-Herçegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia in December. The
results of these elections differed considerably: Slovenia and Croatia voted in centre-right
anti-communist coalitions; the Macedonian elections produced a hung parliament, and a
coalition government encompassing old Communist Party nomenclatura as well as
reformist communists and nationalists was subsequently negotiated; Bosnia-Herçegovina
set up a coalition of Croats, Muslims and Serbs which excluded the communists; and
Montenegro and Serbia reinstalled their communist leaderships.
The politicians who took power in these elections did so in contests in which they claimed
that the programmes they wished to enact were the programmes 'the people' really
desired. In a situation in which the people had previously had little if any say in what was
enacted by the state, there were no elaborated 'popular platforms' which could be
appropriated by political candidates (Gaber 1993); the prevalent sense among the
populations of the various republics was simply that the previous system had not worked
and had, particularly through the previous decade of unequal economic development and
massive foreign debt, led to a substantial decline in their standards of living. Thus the
only popular will to evoke was one of gross dissatisfaction, and the most convincing
programmes to develop out of that were ones which promised to find, and abolish, the
reasons that the system had failed. The sudden collapse of socialist hegemony in
Yugoslavia and throughout Eastern Europe, which was for the most part brought about
by economic bankruptcy and not by organised internal resistance, gave rise to popular
fantasies of transformation which were virtually millenarian; people felt that if they took
the magical draught of democracy proffered them by the West they would instantly move
into a new, and far better, world. Political platforms were thus not organised around
plans for serious and rigorous structural changes in the political and economic domains
but around talismanic pronouncements that if the parties running were elected they
would transform the state into something that expressed the real will of the real people
and would expunge from the nation all those agents and agencies which had in the past
perverted that will. What the elections all had in common then was the assumption that
legitimacy devolved from 'the people' rather than from the self-ordained mission of the
previous communist leadership which was that of realising the 'people's state' communist
ideology saw as the inherent goal of the historical process. The central question then,
which was foregrounded in all the elections, was 'who are the (real) people?'.
The answer provided by those politicians who won the elections - which was evidently the
answer the majority of the voters wished to hear - was that the real people were the
members of the dominant ethnic groupings of the respective republics. In Slovenia, for
example, the victorious centre-right DEMOS coalition argued on a nationalist ticket that
Slovenians were inherently industrious and productive and that if they could destroy the
influence of the communists and the other ('Southern') non-Slovene national groupings
which interfered with their work Slovenes would become as wealthy as the capitalists of
neighbouring Austria who they emulated. The ticket was effectively 'Slovenia for
Slovenians' and this 'programme' was far more attractive to the electorate than the
platform of the left reformist coalition which demanded full civil rights for all persons
resident in Slovenia as well as radical, and arduous, changes in social and economic
organisation. At the other end of the political spectrum the winning argument in the
Serbian elections, in which Milosevic's national socialist party was returned to power, was
that Serbs were true communists who would, were they not impeded by anti-Serbian
foreign conspirators (people like the 'Croat' Tito who Milosevic claimed had orchestrated
a 'Vatican-Comintern' conspiracy against Serbia), re-establish a 'Greater Serbia' as
wealthy and as powerful as the (imagined) one which had ruled over vast areas of
Balkans in the period before the Ottoman conquest. The only 'Yugoslav' ticket present in
all the republican elections was that of the League of Reform Forces led by Ante
Markovic, who, as federal prime minister, had instituted radical economic reforms
throughout Yugoslavia in 1989 and 1990. Markovic's platform called for "an undivided
Yugoslavia with a market economy, political pluralism, democratic rights and freedoms
for all citizens" (quoted in Thompson 1992: 104). He was soundly thrashed in all the
elections, carrying only Tusla, an industrial town in Bosnia-Herçegovina.
Two specific elements operated within the political discourses of the victorious parties,
whether anti-communist or communist. The first was an evocation of the essential
character and desire of the 'people' being appealed to; the second was a scapegoating of
'the other' who denied the people their true realization and the rewards it would bring
about. Each of these elements appealed to a nationalist definition of identity elaborated
in ethnic terms. The Yugoslav elections were won by parties which called upon people in
terms of their ethnic identities and attributed the problems which afflicted them to
persons and groups which had in the past been their neighbours (neighbours not only in
the sense of the residents of contiguous republics but also, in most cases, in the sense of
literal neighbours in ethnically mixed communities). The appeal of these platforms served
to drive wedges between peoples who had previously lived together or in close proximity
(see the Disappearing World documentary, "We Are All Neighbours" directed by Debbie
Christie and based on the work of Tone Bringa). Thus 'ethnic cleansing' was already set
out as a political agenda in the 1990 republican elections in so far as what the victorious
political programmes sketched out in theory would subsequently be given body on the
ground in Croatia, Bosnia-Herçegovina, and areas within Serbia such as the Sanjak and
Kosova. It is important, however, to stress that this project was choreographed by the
political leadership. Generating ethnic antagonisms provided a facile means for people in
power to hold on to it and persons seeking power to achieve it at a time when previously
effective means of grasping and holding power were being undermined and overturned.
It is not, however, sufficient to say simply that this was 'done' to the people by an
opportunist and unethical political leadership. We must investigate the enthusiasm with
which elements of the Yugoslav populace responded to being 'hailed' (Althusser 1971:
162-163) as ethnic nationalists who had to destroy their neighbours in order to affirm
their selves. The brutalities which have characterised ethnic interaction in the succeeding
three years could not, I contend, have been foreseen by an observer of the patterns of
coexistence which had characterised the post-war years; after the eruption of nationalist
fervour, intermarriage, co-residence and economic cooperation were replaced by
mutilations such as the gouging out of eyes and hacking off of genitals as well as by the
rape of women and children, the wholesale massacre of ethnic groups within towns and
villages, the desecration and destruction of the properties and houses of those viewed by
the perpetrators as ethnic 'others', and the collection of men, women and children in
concentration camps where torture, murder, and genocidal deprivations of food and
water are commonplace. Such activities have been carried out by Serbs, Croats and
Bosnians and, although Slovenia has not seen ethnic warfare because of the relative
homogeneity of its population, I have observed brutal harassment by Slovene police of
persons who were ethnically non-Slovene whose only 'crime' was being within the
borders of Slovenia. The ethnic hatred which has erupted throughout the territories of
Former Yugoslavia may have been instigated from above, but the popular response to
that fomentation has been enthusiastic. Tomaz Mastnak, a Slovene social philosopher,
points out that the volunteer militias, which have carried out the larger part of the
atrocities, are not anti-social anomalies but are expressions of precisely the sort of
society which has developed in ex-Yugoslavia: "The militias are exactly the people in
arms - civil society at its most uncivil" (Mastnak 1992: 7). Analysis of the current
situation must not only ascertain why ethnic divisiveness has served as a successful
means of grasping power but also determine why the call to arms against former
neighbours has been responded to with such passion.
When new states separate themselves off from an old state in which their peoples had
been consolidated, the problem of how to determine which people belong to which new
nation is problematic. In the case of the new states which have sprung up on the
territory which was Yugoslavia, the clear-cut boundaries of 'inside' and 'outside' are
poorly defined territorially. The modernization processes which affected Yugoslavia and
its peoples in the twentieth century further mixed ethnic populations already intermingled
by earlier experiences of living under the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires
(see Hammel 1993). Bosnia-Herçegovina, which was forty percent Muslim, thirty-three
percent Serbian, eighteen percent Croatian, and nine percent 'others' (a census category
which designates other national and ethnic groups as well as persons who refuse to
define themselves in national or ethnic terms) is not a demographic anomaly: Croatia is
seventy-five percent Croat, twelve percent Serbian, and thirteen percent 'others'; Serbia,
not counting its allegedly autonomous regions of Kosova (ten percent Serbian and ninety
percent Albanian) and the Vojvodina (fifty six percent Serbian, twenty one percent
Hungarian, and twenty three percent 'others'), is sixty-five percent Serbian, twenty
percent Albanian, two percent Croat and thirteen percent 'others'; and even Slovenia,
which considers itself ethnically homogeneous, is ninety percent Slovene, three percent
Croat, two percent Serbian and five percent 'others' (van den Heuvel and Siccama 1992:
frontispiece). When substantial populations of persons who do not share the ethnicity of
the hegemonising group reside on the territory of the state that group is attempting to
create, the process of legitimating statehood in ethnic terms foregrounds the question of
what to do with inhabitants who have no ethnic rights to membership in that political
collectivity. When the boundaries between 'us' and 'them' do not run along defensible
territorial borders but through the middle of towns and villages and, all too often,
through the middle of families, the desired 'national entity' can be discursively presented
as penetrated and occupied by 'enemies' who must - at least - be disarmed by
disenfranchisement (Dimitrijevic 1993) and - at best - be neutralized by exile or
extermination.
This discursive project of transforming neighbours into enemies opposes the dominant
state discourse of the previous forty seven years of 'Yugoslav nationality' which
naturalised cooperation and consanguinity. The traditions which had constituted identities
since the Second World War were designed to efface inter-communal antagonisms and to
establish Yugoslav bratstvo i jedinstvo as the only viable means of ensuring the survival
and well being of individuals. Yugoslav federation had been posited on the drawing of
different borders between the 'inside' and the 'outside'. The partisan war against the Nazi
occupation had forged solidarity between individuals from all of Yugoslavia's ethnic
groups in defense of the 'homeland' and had simultaneously brought Tito and the
Communist Party to power. It had been followed by a brutal purging of the 'enemy
within' which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Yugoslav 'collaborators' and
the driving into exile of many more. Subsequently the Ustase , Croats who - with Nazi
encouragement - had waged ethnic war against non-Croats during the period of war-time
occupation, were defined in state rhetoric as 'Nazis' (i.e. quislings of a foreign power)
rather than as Croats.
"Communist rule entailed ideological control over the representation of the past, [and]
those horrible events that would disrupt the new inter-ethnic cooperation were not to be
mentioned, except in the collective categories 'victims of fascism', on the one side, and
'foreign occupiers and domestic traitors', on the other side" (Denich 1991: 2).
A later boost to Yugoslav solidarity was provided by Tito's break with the Soviet Union in
1948 when "the greater part of the nation rallied behind Tito in the face of the Soviet
threat" (Auty 1966: 247). Subsequent developments in state policies kept Yugoslavia
'balanced' between 'East' and 'West', and the interests of the nation - and of the various
peoples who constituted it - could thus always be drawn up in opposition to the
conspiracies of a labile set of enemies threatening Yugoslavia from beyond its territorial,
and ideological, borders.
Thus discourses of ethnic antagonism could not easily call upon hegemonic tradition to
justify the division of communities in so far as the hegemonic tradition of the communist
state argued to the contrary that the survival of the Yugoslav peoples depended on
defensive cooperation. Agencies wishing to establish exclusively ethnic identities had,
therefore, to 'invent' traditions (Hobsbawm 1983) of ineluctable antagonisms which could
validate radical redefinitions of the field of sociality and cooperation. Such invention did
not, however, involve the conjuring up of grounds for antagonism ex nihilo ; the
successive Yugoslav constitutions (there were four, with the latest written in 1974) had
kept markers of national identity alive within the federation, and many incidents and
episodes in recent and not so recent Yugoslav history could be re-remembered and
interpreted to provide the basis for arguments that putative neighbours were in fact,
because of their different ethnic identities, blood enemies in disguise. It was not so
much, therefore, that traditions of inter-communal antagonism were 'invented' but that a
discursive shift was effected which allowed peripheralised and muted 'memories' to
become the central points of new definitions of identities.
Demographically Yugoslavia is made up of six major national groupings (Slovenes,
Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Moslems) and twelve minority
nationalities (Albanians, Hungarians, Turks, Slovaks, Gypsies, Bulgarians, Rumanians,
Ruthenians, Czechs, Italians, Vlachs, and Ukrainians) scattered throughout an area
characterised by diverse regional histories and considerable variations of wealth. Under
Tito six republics were recognized, five corresponding to the dominance of national
groups within them and one (Bosnia-Herçegovina) peopled by three major national
communities (Croatian, Serbian and Moslem). Two autonomous regions (Kosova and
Vojvodina) were furthermore created in acknowledgement of the majority population of
Albanians in Kosova and the large proportion of Hungarians in the Vojvodina. The major
nationalities can - for the most part - be differentiated in terms of religion and/or
language: thus Slovenes are Catholic and speak Slovenian, Croats are Catholics who
speak Serbo-Croatian (the 'Croatian' language is mainly distinguishable from the
'Serbian' by the fact that the former is written in Latin script and the latter in Cyrillic),
Serbs speak Serbo-Croatian and are members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Not only,
however, do persons of one 'national' identity live within the territorial bounds of another
'nation's' republic, but there are also categorical anomalies such as Serbs who are
Catholic. Furthermore, some of the other nationalities appear to be products of
communist state policy rather than of 'natural' cultural distinctions. Thus, for instance,
Montenegrins are recognised as a national community but speak Serbo-Croatian and
share Orthodox affiliation with neighbouring Serbs. Macedonians, who have a distinct
language, only took on a religion nominally distinct from that of the Serbs and
Montenegrins in 1967 through the machinations of the Yugoslav state (see Pavlowitch
1988: 105-106). The Muslims, a Serbo-Croatian speaking 'nationality' without a
territorial base, were only given national status in 1968 in order "to remove them from
the competition to demonstrate their 'real' identity as either Serbs or Croats ... [so as to]
neutralize the territorial aspirations of either with respect to Bosnia" (Allcock 1992: 283).
As is demonstrated by the anomalous Muslim 'nation' - a national group without a
national territory - the granting of national status was a discursive ploy which functioned
in certain instances (as when Serbs and Croats wished to lay ethnic claim to BosniaHerçegovina through asserting that Muslims were Serbs or Croats who had converted to
Islam during Ottoman rule or when Serbs wished to assert that Macedonian or
Montenegro was 'really' Serbian) to disenfranchise ethnic claims and in others to provide
a strategic sop to ethnic groups being consolidated within a multi-ethnic state. In the
latter instance the communist state provided a rhetoric within which people wishing to
assert identities which were not fully assimilated within and dominated by the communist
state were able to declare ethno-nationalities. State patronage of such supplementary
identities, which served as a means of dispersing potential federation-wide anti-statist
solidarities, encouraged the subsumption of national identities within the encompassing
identity provided by the Yugoslavian state. In so doing it maintained those identities as
what Edwin Ardener has referred to as "blank banners" (Ardener 1971: xliv) - signs of
identities which are not linked to specific programmes but which can, when appropriate
situations arise, be mobilized as icons and given contents appropriate to those situations.
Thus national identities served during the period of state hegemony as means of
expressing regional conflicts (mostly economic) which could not be expressed in the
rhetoric of a unified communist federation (Allcock 1992: 281-287). When, however,
statist ideology lost both its legitimacy and its power to control regional disputes in the
late nineteen eighties and issues of unequal economic development among the republics
became grounds for the expression of opposition to the old order, these national
identities provided discursive foundations on which to base political activity.
Dissatisfaction with the central government, provoked by perceived injustices effecting all
the inhabitants of a region, regardless of their ethnic affiliation, could thus most easily be
articulated in 'national' terms and this ensured that it would be the nationalist road,
rather than any other, which would be seen as leading beyond the impasse of communist
politics. With the effective self-destruction of communism, the source of the disasters of
the past and the deprivations of the present had to be sought in terms of national or
ethnic antagonism.
The process of redefining official discourses on identity and developing the political
implications of those transformations began in the early eighties when Milo_evi_ fuelled
his ascent to power in Serbia by stirring up popular animosity towards Kosovan Albanians
by promulgating the belief that 'Muslims' were, as they had in the fourteenth century,
threatening to drive Serbs from their historical homeland of Kosova. The official Serbian
press began to run stories telling of instances in Kosova of Albanian 'Muslims' raping
Serbian women and desecrating Orthodox monasteries as well as recounting the
allegedly frequent expulsions - authorised by Albanian officials empowered by Kosova's
autonomous status - of Serbian families from their houses and lands so that those
properties could be taken over either by illegal immigrants from neighbouring Albania or
by the children of the profligately breeding Kosovans (Ramet 1992: 200). There was,
simultaneously, an official blessing and promotion of old traditions (frowned upon as
'folkloric' during Tito's regime) recounting the heroic struggle of the Serbian nation
against the invading Ottoman armies. Vidovdan , the annual celebration of the defeat of
the armies of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic by the Ottoman armies on the 'Field of
Blackbirds' on 15 June 1389, became an official ceremony in the period leading up to the
abrogation of Kosovan autonomy. Prominent members of the Serbian government,
including Milosevic, would listen to village minstrels lament the melancholy fate of the
Christian heroes who died six hundred years earlier defending Serbia against foreign
invasion before presenting rousing speeches on the theme of 'never again'. On Vidovdan
1989, with Kosovan autonomy crushed and a state of siege in effect in the towns and
villages of Kosova, the bones of Prince Lazar, which had rested in Serbia since his defeat
six centuries before, were ceremonially paraded through the towns and monasteries of
Serbia before being 'returned' with great fanfare to the Orthodox monastery of Gra_anica
at the heart of Kosova.
The articulation of a Serbian discourse, which was grounded on antagonism to Albanians,
served to reconstitute 'Serbia' as a locus of identity and 'Serbian interests' as a focus of
concern. At the same time as this was occurring in Serbia, Croatia too was moving into a
nationalist phase in which the definition of the community and its appropriate concerns
were central issues and devices. Partly in response to the perceived threat of Serbian
nationalism and partly as a means of gaining power, nationalist politicians called for the
separation of Croatia from the Yugoslav federation on the grounds that, under
communism, the Croatian people as a whole had been punished for the activities of the
Usta_e (Duki_ 1993: 251) and had, consequently, had their rights a Croats and
Yugoslavs suppressed by the 'Serb-dominated' state. Croat nationalists invoked
memories of the Titoist government's crushing of the 1971 'Croatian Spring' movement
(a large scale political agitation which had demanded a degree of political
decentralization and greater financial autonomy for the repulblic of Croatia) in order to
illustrate this thesis, and argued that, as long as the central government was in control,
the Serbs would continue to deny Croats their historic rights as a people. In 1989 Franjo
Tudjman - once a communist partisan, at that time president of the newly established
'Croatian Democratic Union' (HDZ), and now president of Croatia - cleansed the Croat
national image (sullied by years of an equation being drawn between Usta_e fascism and
Croatian nationalism) by announcing at Jasenovac (site of the most notorious Usta_e
extermination camp) that the Usta_e depredations were nowhere near as extensive as
state propaganda had claimed and, furthermore, that they were no different than any of
the other brutalities which had been effected in that period (Tudjman 1990).
Subsequently, the press in both Croatian and Slovenia provided apparent validation of
the latter point by publishing pictures of the bodies of thousands of victims (those of
Slovene and Croat collaborators as well as of Serbian anti-partisan _etnici [Chetniks] and members of their respective families - who had fled from Yugoslavia in front of the
victorious partisan forces only to be handed over to the partisans by British troops) of
massacres carried out by the partisans after the close of the war. Photographs of caves
full of stacked bones flooded the newspapers of both republics giving rise to campaign
rhetorics in which these persons, previously referred to in non-national terms as 'Nazis'
or 'quislings', became 'Croatian victims' or 'Slovene victims' of communist brutality.
The Slovene nationalist ticket was, at base, simply an anti-communist ticket, and the
positivity of a Slovene identity had to be invented. In the period leading up to the vote
for independence a number of icons of Slovene identity were mustered, including - most
successfully - the kozolec, a device for drying hay particular to certain regions of
Slovenia, and a day before independence was announced heated discussions were still
going on in parliament about what the new-born country would use for a flag (nearly
every suggested pattern was refused by the parliament because members could discern
traces of the old Yugoslavia flag in them). It is the absence in the Slovene instance of a
mobilisable history of specific ethnic antagonism towards a neighbouring group which
enabled Slovenia to escape the inter-communal warfare that has desolated the rest of
Former Yugoslavia. This lack contributed to the downfall of the nationalist right in the
period following independence. A central programme of the elected DEMOS coalition was
opposition to abortion on the grounds that 'Slovenia is a small country surrounded by
large enemies, and women should not have the right to abort future defenders of the
nation'. A substantial number of women felt, however, less threatened by an external
antagonist than they did by this attempt to abrogate their powers over their bodies, and
this new antagonism engendered numerous pro-abortion groups which joined with other
oppositional parties in a coalition which overturned DEMOS's parliamentary majority and
returned a liberal coalition in large part concerned with local issues (Salecl 1993). Thus
while in Slovenia the drive for independence was fuelled by antipathy towards
communism and the federation which imposed it on Slovenia, once the old order had
disintegrated Slovenians were left without the convenient distraction of external enemies
and with the difficult task of envisaging and creating a viable national identity for
themselves.
In Croatia, to the contrary, the 'blank banners' which the anti-Yugoslav parties raised in
opposition to the Yugoslav state soon became inscribed with the emblems of earlier
collective struggles. Despite Tudjman's partisan past and his attempts to exorcise the
ghosts of the Usta_e from Croatian nationalism, he adopted many of the programmes
and symbols of the Usta_e Independent State of Croatia as soon as he was called upon
to articulate a programme for the HDZ. Campaigning for the presidency in the election
campaigns of spring 1990, Tudjman and the HDZ called for an independent Croatia which
would expand to Croatia's 'historical borders' (thus encompassing most of Bosnia
Herçegovina), would fly a national flag on which the red star of the Yugoslav state would
be replaced by the 'chessboard' pattern (_ahovnica ) which had graced the national flag
of the 'Independent State of Croatia', and would purify the Croatian language of all
'Serbian' words. He also, according to Denich, announced that the "World War II
Independent State of Croatia was not...a 'quisling' formation, but an 'expression of the
historical aspirations of the Croatian people (nation) for its own independent state"
(Denich 1991: 6). 'Positivity' was achieved for Croatian identity through the taking on of
a previous anti-Yugoslav Croatian identity, and this assumption of the trappings of the
'real' Croatia not surprisingly terrified the Serbs who lived within the borders of Croatia.
They saw before them - realized once again - the same nightmare order under which
they, or their relatives, had suffered between nineteen forty one and nineteen forty five.
Bones once again played a substantive role in the constitution of identity (Salecl 1993:
81 and Bloch 1982 and 1989: 170) as Serbs of the Krjina region of Croatia invited local
and Serbian journalists and photographers into caves where the skeletons of Krjina Serbs
massacred by Usta_e had been cached. Not only did these monuments to the fate of
Croatian Serbs under the Usta_e serve locally to legitimate Croatian Serb resistance to
the new Croatian order (a resistance which led to the Krjina establishing itself, by force
of arms and ethnic cleansing, as an independent - albeit internationally unrecognised Serbian state), but they also provided a focal point for the articulation of ethnic hatred
towards the Croats in Serbia proper. Denich points out that while
"the rebellions of Serbia communities in Croatia were motivated by their own memories
of the Ustasha regime, now eerily reincarnated in the declarations and symbols of the
new nationalist government...the inhabitants of Serbia itself had not experienced the
Ustasha terror, and their wartime suffering had come at the hands of the Germans and
other foreign occupiers, rather than Croats. Accordingly, there was little history of overt
anti-Croat feeling throughout Serbia" (Denich 1991: 11).
Nonetheless, the Milo_evi_ regime ensured that Serbs in Serbia would recognise their
own potential fate at the hands of 'Croats' in that of the Croatian Serbs who had died
forty five years earlier. The state-controlled Serbian media repeatedly presented
television and newspaper images of the bodies and, as I witnessed when I was in
Belgrade during the opening days of the war, the official publishing houses filled the
bookshops with multiple volumed, profusely illustrated texts recounting the until-then
suppressed history of the 'Croatian' attempt to exterminate the 'Serbs'. Serbs in Serbia
proper, who had already been convinced by the regime-orchestrated hate campaign
against the Kosovans that they - as Serbs - stood to lose their ancestral homeland (not,
note, their own homes, but the home of the Serbian people), were now being told that
they - as Serbs - stood to lose their lives (see the Ministry of Information pamphlets by
M. Bulajic 1991 and S. Kljakic 1991). With the successful promulgation of Milo_evi_'s
brand of national socialism, which involved the putting into circulation of previously
discredited traditions and previously silenced atrocity stories, the Serbs gained the
promise of a 'Greater Serbia' - invoked by the threat of its theft - and the brotherhood of
a 'Serbian people' - conjured up by images of its extermination. Like those who followed
the pan pipes of ethnic nationalism in other regions of Former Yugoslavia, the Serbian
people were promised a utopic future in exchange for a commitment to the protracted
struggle to destroy the enemies of that future.
What Milo_evi_, Tudjman and other nationalist politicians have gained by playing the
ethnic card in their quest for power seems clear. By transforming the discursive field of
the social from one based on cohabitation and cooperation ('unity and brotherhood') to
one based on exclusivity and ethnic warfare ('blood and land'), they have been able, first
of all, to displace people's self interest onto a plane where self-interest is defined in
essentialist terms as the interest of oneself as a 'Serb', a 'Croat', a 'Slovene', or
whatever. When a person is induced to imagine his or her self primarily as a
representative of an ethnic collectivity, a threat to that collectivity - like a threat to its
power or to the life or property of any of its members who are presented as such - is
simultaneously a threat to that person. He or she not only sees the threatened conational as 'the same as' his or her self but also imagines that co-national's enemy as
simultaneously an enemy to all those (including his or her self) who share identity with
the threatened one (cf. Bowman 1993: 446-448). The enemy does not attack people as
such; it attacks 'Serbs', 'Croats', or 'Slovenes'.
The second advantage gained by playing the ethnic card is that, while the social
problems which had generated the initial dissatisfaction with the communist regime have
remained in place and - in most cases - actually worsened, the conjuring up of an enemy
(or a multitude of enemies) enables the politicians to fix the blame for those problems on
that visible antagonist. It has not proven necessary, therefore, to take on the difficult
task of restructuring society in either Croatia or Serbia; all that needed to be done to
convince the majority of people that positive steps were being taken was to wage war
against the enemy or enemies. One might argue that it is, in fact, the war which keeps
the nationalist regimes in power. If the war were to stop, it would be more and more
difficult to attribute the radical and increasing impoverishment of the people of Croatia
and Serbia to the actions of their enemies, and the corruption and inefficiency of the
ruling cliques would become apparent.
The final advantage gained by the nationalist leadership through the evocation of a world
structured around an absolute, well nigh "ontological" (Kapferer 1988), antagonism
between a 'them' and an 'us' follows from this Manichaeism. In Former Yugoslavia,
nationalist leaders lay claim to the need to abrogate the rights of the people they lead on
the grounds that absolute power is necessary to destroy the absolute enemy of the
people. If the enemy is the source of all evil, and the 'we' that would exist were that evil
to be eradicated is inherently good, then the leadership which, in these sullied days,
directs the struggle to destroy the evil is itself the personification of the principle of good.
The elevation of the nationalist leadership, and particularly of the 'Leader' per se , to the
status of 'agency of redemption' is evident in the impassioned waving of posters of
Milo_evi_ in Serbian nationalist demonstrations and, even more saliently, in the placing
of statues of Tudjman alongside those of the Virgin Mary in souvenir booths at the
Croatian pilgrimage centre, Medjugorje (see Bax 1991 and Bax forthcoming on the
development of the shrine). The leader stands in as the charismatic representation of the
'will of the nation' and, as long as it is believed that he represents that will, any activity
that he initiates will be seen as 'necessary' for the redemption of the whole. Such
legitimation of power can be undermined in two ways. One occurs when people lose faith
in the existence of the evil which serves to justify the state's violence and repression, as
happened in Slovenia. Another occurs when people lose faith in the leader as charismatic
representative of the principle of the nation, and the challenge offered Milo_evi_ by
Vojislav Seselj of the extreme right wing Serbian Radical Party in the 19 December
parliamentary elections in Serbia is grounded on such a reassessment. Here the leader
can be exposed as a 'false messiah' and his place can be usurped by another whose even
greater violence and extremism seems better to manifest the violence the nation needs
to destroy the violence that would destroy the nation.
The nationalist leaderships' discourses on the enemy, which are widely and powerfully
promulgated by the media of communication they control, create, in effect, a world
divided between two camps in which there is no neutral place to stand. Thus anyone who
does not support the national leadership is necessarily a supporter of the enemy (this
logic has justified the extreme repression of anti-nationalists in Serbia and Croatia as well
as the brutal murders by Bosnian Serbs and Croats of co-nationals who refuse to take up
arms in support of the national cause) and all elements of the social field have to be
interpreted in terms of the side on which they stand. A widely circulated story in Bosnia
tells of an exchange of graffiti on the contested border between Serbian and Bosnian
sectors of Sarajevo. Someone wrote on a wall of the Central Post Office, which stands on
that boundary line, "THIS IS SERBIA" and someone else soon after painted that message
out and replaced it with "THIS IS BOSNIA". A third interlocutor crossed out the second
message and wrote in its place "THIS IS A POST OFFICE!". Less humorous are other
attempts to lay claim to places and cleanse them of the sullying marks of other
presences; I refer here not only to ethnic cleansing per se but also to its landscaping
correlate in which volunteer squads from Serbia come into areas of Bosnia which have
been taken and purged of Muslims by the Serb militias in order not only to tear down
mosques but also to turf the ground on which they stood, plant trees, and install
playground equipment. A pragmatic interpretation of this activity - based on the
perpetrators' subsequent denials to visitors that a mosque had ever stood in the place of
the park - would be that the landscapers are attempting to mask the ethnic cleansing
that occurred there. I suspect, however, that in so far as the visitors are known to know
that Muslims had lived there, the remaking of the landscape serves to create, for the
Serbs themselves, an image of a new world bearing no signs of the history out of which it
was violently born. This elision of the historic process is a necessary element of a
discursive legitimation of the violence involved in creating those 'cleansed' communities;
the institution of the 'real' Serbia is a 'return' to an state of ontological purity and such a
state must be devoid of markers of the polluted and 'unreal' condition 'Serbia' was in
before its redemption. The violence on which this new and pure order is founded is not
part of the order itself; what is real is the world to come in which evil will have no place
and all that is in place will be good. This fantasy structure is evident in a story told me by
a UN worker who recounted an exchange in which, after he berated a Serbian militiaman
for having taken part in the destruction of the 'beautiful and ancient Old City' of one of
the Bosnian towns, the man replied 'but we will build a new and more beautiful ancient
Old City in its place'.
In the preceding pages I have proffered an interpretation of the genealogy of this logic.
Fantasies of the well-being to be experienced once the old destructive order is overcome
are put into circulation by nationalist demagogues. However, once the communist regime
is replaced by the new nationalist orders, the promised wealth and fulfilment fail to
materialise and already-designated scapegoats - members of other national groups seen
both to obstruct the national interests from outside and to sabotage their realization from
inside - are shown not only to carry the blame for the inequities of the old system but
also to bear responsibility for the failures of the new one. As the new nationalist
leaderships attempt to gain firmer grips on state apparatuses, they demonise the
nations' others by providing 'proofs' that these antagonists are not only opposed to the
well-being of the people but are also dedicated to their absolute destruction. Newspapers
and radio stations, controlled by the national governments, circulate fear-inducing stories
of murders and mutilations carried out against members of the national community by
persons of other nationalities. By promoting widespread fear and distrust, the new
leadership validates its call for the mobilization of the nation to wage war against internal
and external enemies thereby securing its hold on repressive state apparatuses. Milos
Vasi_, writing of the militarization of the Bosnian Serbs, demonstrates that "first,
warmongering chauvinist propaganda is spread by the Serbian-controlled media. Fear
takes hold and the idea that 'we can't live with them any more' becomes dominant"
(Vasi_ 1993: 8). Popular acceptance of such stories of persecution itself engenders
murders and mutilations directed against the 'other' which defensively returns like for
like thus giving rise to new rumours and stories of atrocities committed by the
antagonist. As Christie and Bringa's "We Are All Neighbours" shows, a spiral of reciprocal
distrust and reciprocated violence is initiated by acceptance of these rumours and this
destroys patterns of sociality and replaces them with antagonisms based on fear and
manifested in violent moves to destroy the enemy before it can destroy oneself (cf.
Riches 1986 and Loizos 1988). Moves to destroy that enemy follow the logic of what
Riches calls 'tactical pre-emption' (Riches 1986: 6-7); murdering children, women and
the elderly in order to prevent them from becoming, procreating, or aiding those who will
murder you makes good sense once the enemy is recognised as such.
That recognition, however, cannot be explained solely in empirical terms, especially
when, as in the village portrayed in the documentary, the evidence of antagonism runs
counter to the testimony of daily life. Although it is undoubtedly true that political forces
play a significant role in giving shape to and disseminating rumours which generate fear
and give rise to inter-communal violence, it is not clear why such rumours should be
accepted as true and - perhaps more saliently - why they should be seen as pertinent to
situations in which no signs of inter-communal antagonism have previously been evinced.
The amount of violence now raging between the communities of Former Yugoslavia was
not manifest before nationalist mobilization; as Cornelia Sorabji demonstrates in the
Bosnian instance "for the most part tolerance, good will, and a conscious desire for
cooperative and civil relationships filled the joints between the three populations"
(Sorabji 1993: 33-34, see also Bringa 1995). If we explain the extreme levels of brutality
evident in Former Yugoslavia today as something endemic to 'the Balkans' we not only
deny such ethnographic evidence and ignore the recent history of modernization in
Yugoslavia but also effectively cast Yugoslavs out beyond the pale of what we term
'human society' (to act in that manner 'they' must be essentially different from 'us'). If,
on the other hand, we accept that the political discourses of the contending leaderships
of the former republics have somehow transformed Yugoslavs into something different
than they were before, we are still left with the question of 'where has this penchant for
extreme violence come from?'. Peter Loizos, faced with analogous instances of genocidal
violence in the Cypriot context (Loizos 1988: 651), argued that ethnic violence is focused
on a specific set of subjects by antagonistic political rhetorics. He left in abeyance,
however, the question of what in the people such rhetorics were addressed to called
them to answer to its call and adopt an image of the other as enemy with such passion
that the will to efface the presence of that other from the earth overcame the moral
scruples which had regulated social interaction before the other came to be recognised as
such.
While the 'Balkan mentality' argument manifests intellectual sloth in so far as it mobilizes
commonsensical and racialist stereotypes in order to ignore the challenge of
understanding other cultures, the political rhetoric argument in turn ignores the
challenge offered to modernist conceptions of human nature by situations in which
communities which have lived together in peace and cooperation suddenly fragment into
warring factions. If, as enlightenment theories of human nature contend, human beings
will act rationally and cooperatively when given the choice, then there is no reason why when the options proffered are between a proven model of cohabitation and a radical
paradigm of violent confrontation - the choice should be made for inter-communal
antagonism and war. Although I have demonstrated in the preceding pages that the
latter option was offered up to the peoples of Yugoslavia by opportunistic political
factions, I have not been able to demonstrate any 'rational' reason why the people
accepted the logic of inter-communal hatred as more verisimilitudinous than their own
experiences of cohabitation and cooperation. If, as Mastnak argues, the current situation
is an expression of the will of the people, then it is important to try to discern what in
people resonates to a call to rise up with a seemingly primal rage to destroy an enemy
before that enemy is able to destroy them. I suggest - and in so doing follow the lead of
Jacques Lacan - that we must look beyond the rhetoric of social discourses to those
primal fantasies mobilised by those rhetorics. These fantasies, generated by the first
encounter of the human infant with the symbolic order, resonate with and impel the
subject to answer to the call to inflict absolute violence against an absolute enemy.
The infant's entry into the symbolic order, initiated when the child learns that it must call
to another for what it desires, is simultaneously an expulsion from a world in which it
subsequently 'remembers' it had had everything it wanted. Freud, in the opening section
of Civilization and its Discontents , posits that "the infant at the breast does not as yet
distinguish his ego from the external world as the source of the sensations flowing in
upon him" and that this experience may give rise to inchoate memories of "an oceanic
feeling" like a "limitless narcissism" (Freud 1963: 3-4, 9). In this pre-linguistic state the
child has no conceptual apparatus with which to distinguish 'inside' from 'outside', and
thus perceives itself as both locus and source of sensation and what gives rise to
sensation. The child's entry into language expunges that sense of narcissistic
omnipotence by reordering the world in terms of a dualism; in separating from the
mother the child goes from sensing that the world and itself are coterminous to knowing
not only that it is only part of a world but furthermore that it is a small and helpless part
which must call upon others who have the power to give it - and deprive it of - what it
wants. After the moment in which the world is taken up by language, primal 'enjoyment'
(which Lacan terms jouissance ) remains only as the trace of an absence (Lacan writes
"we must insist that jouissance is forbidden to him who speaks as such" [Lacan 1977:
319]). That absence or lack serves as a screen onto which we project fantasies of
fulfilment - of full enjoyment - in the form of objects or scenarios of desire. These 'part
objects', which fetishistically stand in for the jouissance which has been irrecuperably
lost, seem to promise access to the fulfilment from which language has banished us. As
such they cover the abyss of that primal lack and enable us to fantasize that 'if we had
this thing we would have our happiness (jouissance) '. Thus, although that lack can never
be anything more this side of language than the wound of an amputation, it nonetheless
remains the field on which we inscribe the desires which drive our self-motivated
activities. The idea of amputation - of something brutal that has been done to sever us
from that part of ourselves which gave us our pleasure - brings up, of course, the
question 'who has done this thing to us?'. In Lacanian terms this violator is that being
which makes us know the foundations of language by introducing us as infants to
presence and absence (self and not self) through its demand that the mother leave the
child and come to it. Although Freud calls this figure 'the Father', it need neither be
personified nor gendered - it is something/someone outside the union of infant's body
with that which feeds, comforts and sustains it which the infant, in its initial incursion
into signification, recognises as breaking that union through the assertion of its presence
- its 'voice'.
However, once the child comes to recognise the necessity of operating within the
symbolic order, it channels its desires into certain patterns of behaviour through learning
that certain activities will provide fulfilment (and others punishment). Through its
experience of parental reward and deprivation it comes to constitute for itself an image
('the ego ideal') of what it must be to earn the love of those it desires and the things with
which those others can provide it. This image of the 'good self' serves, through an
internalization of what the child perceives the parents desire it to be, to establish the
child's identity within normative patterns of motivation and expectation. This apparently
rational process of enculteration functions, nonetheless, through a process of temporary
displacement whereby the child imagines that it will still be able to fulfil all of its desires
despite having to modify its tactics to accommodate the demands of its parents. The
narcissistic will to power still underlies the child's relationship with the symbolic order. It
is only through negotiating the Oedipus Complex that the child learns that there are
limits to its desire which cannot be evaded. The Oedipus Complex is resolved when the
child, which until that time continues to demand the body of the mother (the first fetish
substitute for jouissance ) as the object of its desire, is 'convinced' that it must - in its
own self-interest - abandon that demand. This occurs, in ways that differ according to
the gender of the child, when the child is brought to realise that, if it continues to
demand that which neither society nor the parental voice which 'speaks' for society will
allow it, it will be deprived of the possibility of any future pleasure through what Freud
asserts the child recognises as 'castration' (Mitchell 1974: 74-100). The threat of
castration is consequently internalized in the 'super-ego' which effectively serves to
remind the child, and the adult it becomes, that if it is to have pleasure at all certain
objects of desire must be abandoned and substituted for by objects society acknowledges
as appropriate. The properly socialized person is, in other words, one who recognises
that full satiation - the return to jouissance that the Oedipal fantasy evokes before the
threat of castration drives it back into the unconscious - is rendered impossible by
'reality'.
Nonetheless, traces of this difficult construction of individual identity remain inscribed in
the unconscious. People will always encounter - dispersed through the wide field of their
activities - frustrations of their strategies of fulfilment, and such moments frequently
evoke the pre-linguistic scenario wherein a generalized antagonist is set in opposition to
a fantasy of pleasure and fulfilment. In such instances failure to achieve fulfilment are
experienced as a consequence of the activities of the 'demonic' antagonist the infant first
encountered when its primal omnipotence was shattered by the 'voice of the Father'.
When frustration of desire evokes the fantasy presence of this antagonist - perceived in
infantile terms as a being which exists only to steal all it has from the child in order to
pleasure itself - persons are likely to respond by directing primal rage and violence
against what they perceive as the source of that frustration. In most instances, however,
such eruptions of unconscious materials into conscious life are subsequently interpreted
(by both the actor and the recipient of his or her violence) as irrational behaviour (i.e., a
'temper tantrum') and are forced back into quiescence by the individual's super ego.
However, certain individuals who have failed to internalise the requirements of 'reality'
dictated by the super-ego impose the logic of a psychic structure polarised between
desire and antagonism onto the full field of their relations with society. They thus
interpret the world in terms of a dualism dividing all the elements of the social field into
friend and foe (self and Other). In most instances such persons are perceived as paranoic
and, if their violence proves endemically disruptive, are institutionalised. Certain
discursive structures, however, draw upon the psychic opposition of antagonist and ego
by establishing as real and normative a world polarized between obdurate enemies and a
community threatened by them (Adorno and Horkheimer 1972: 187). The forms of
nationalism which have been mobilised in Serbia and Croatia (and which were stripped of
verisimilitude in Slovenia because of difficulties in convincingly arguing for the presence
of a demonic antagonist) draw upon this unconscious structure and mobilise the passions
caught up in it by setting up the 'real' nation as the part object which covers lack. In
these nationalist rhetorics all real fulfilment follows from the realization of the Nation,
and the 'other' (whether Jew, Croat, Muslim, Serb, Albanian or whatever) is inscribed in
that rhetoric as precisely that which has as its only reason for being the desire to deny,
steal and destroy the national identity that gives one what one wants and makes one
what one really is; it steals land, rapes women, desecrates holy objects an
Sefik Sehu, Struga
Shefik's Corner
Bring forward your thoughts!
Home | My Profile | Archives
A Book Review
Posted at 01:18 on November 21, 2006
Islam And Global Dialogue: Religious Pluralism And The Pursuit Of Peace
Edited by roger boase Foreword by hrh prince hassan bin talal [Ashgate Publishing,
330pp., 2005]
“Never, in the history of the human race, has there beensimultaneously such a capacity
for mutual unders-tanding and such acapacity for global destruction, such a wealth of
information, and yetsuch a dearth of wisdom ...” (Dr. Roger Boase)
Events like “9/11”, the Madrid train bombings, and more recently,the “7/7” attacks on
London, have placed Islam in even sharper relief,and have raised the stakes somewhat
for the debate on pluralism intoday’s increasingly globalised world. Many of the same
questions arebeing raised, both academically and theologically, but circumstancesnow
demand more urgent answers over how human beings can seek to livetogether more
harmoniously.
In one of the opening chapters to this newly-released book, Islamand Global Dialogue,
Diana Eck argues that pluralism is the mostchallenging “ism” for the world today, more
so than secularism, thesuccess of which is now being progressively questioned. And
JohnBowden’s chapter presents how significantly inter-religious dialogue isnow being
perceived, by quoting German Professor Hans Küng’sprescription for world peace: “No
peace among the nations without peaceamong the religions. No peace among the
religions without dialoguebetween the religions. No dialogue between the religions
withoutinvestigation of the foundation of the religions.”
The discourse on pluralism is particularly pertinent now with regardto Islam and Muslims,
and it was the widespread misunderstandings aboutthe Muslim world, especially post9/11, that had prompted Dr Boase tocompile this book, in his endeavour to promote an
“ecumenical jihad”.As Robert Crane notes in his chapter, “From Clashing Civilisations to
aCommon Vision”, “The 9/11 terrorist attack on the symbols of U.S.economic and
military power at the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury was a hell-sent gift to
professional Islamophobes”. Dr Boasebelieves that it is through discourse that these
misconceptions can beeradicated: “It is only by ‘the stockpiling of trust’ throughinterreligious dialogue that we can lay the foundations of a morepeaceful world”.
The underlying assumption is that religions have been involved, ifonly indirectly, in many
of the conflicts between peoples of the pastand present and that therefore by greater cooperation and mutualrespect between faith communities the potential for future
conflictswill be greatly reduced. Tony Bayfield asserts, in his series of“indictments”, that
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are siblingreligions acting out “the worst features of
sibling rivalry that eventhe most dysfunctional family could possibly muster.” Pluralism,
then,is the solution (but perhaps not to the whole problem).
The main obstacle, however, is how do we define “pluralism”, andwould all religious
personalities necessarily agree on the samedefinition? Even in this collection of essays,
we see many differentapproaches and perspectives. For example, Diana Eck believes
thatsimply tolerating “plurality” is not good enough; that “pluralism”implies a committed
effort to understand and co-exist with otherfaiths, races, cultures, and so on. Fred
Halliday suggests thatpeaceful co-existence can be achieved through dialogue based
onuniversal principles; whereas Dr Jonathan Sacks disagrees with theuniversalist
approach, suggesting that it would lead to a loss ofidentity among the individual religions
and that there is a “dignity ofdifference” that should be respected; that the miracle of the
createdworld is “not the Platonic form of the leaf, it’s the 250,000 differentkinds of leaf
there are”.
Some of the contributors promote pluralism as an acceptance of allreligions as equal
partners, or “fellow pilgrims” as Marcus Baybrookeputs it, whereas others like
Muhammad Legenhausen qualify terms morespecifically suggesting that Muslims would
accept a “non-reductive”religious pluralism but are unlikely to accept other forms. While
someof the other Muslim authors have argued that Islam has always had apluralistic
tradition that is more equitable. But the one definitionmost would probably accept,
forgetting the minutiae, is the“non-definition” of Frank Gelli, where he writes that
pluralisminvites: “Conversation, yes. Conversion, no.”
So even a brief scan of this book would suggest that discussions on“pluralism” perhaps
raise more questions than they answer. Is theremore than one path to salvation? Does
“our God” listen to the prayersof those from other faiths? Who is “more right”, and whose
“right” topractice their religion supercedes that of others? Therefore, how do welegislate
for religious pluralism? And, as Muhammad Legenhausen asks,is there a way for us to
“measure relative amounts of truth”?
Like it or not, with 45% of the world’s Muslim population living asminorities in nonMuslim countries, these are questions that willbecome increasingly important, and that
both Muslim and non-Muslimalike are going to have to deal with. Many of us now face a
“plurality”of races, cultures, languages, as well as religions, in our everydaylives, and
increasingly within our own families, not to mention thedifferent perspectives found
within those religions and traditions. Howwe seek to define our relation-ships with each
other will have afundamental impact on the shaping of our future societies. And so weask
more questions: Is simple co-existence enough? Will some form ofmutual
accommodation grow up organically if, to quote Frank Gelli, wesimply accept the “brute
fact” of the existence of other faiths? Or, dowe need to start making more of a concerted
effort to understand eachother and to nurture reciprocal respect, particularly in view of
recentevents? And how do we go about achieving that without sacrificing theintegrity of
our respective traditions?
Unfortunately, Islam and Global Dialogue does not give us an A-Z ofsolutions that we can
all agree with. As Norman Solomon points out inhis essay, it is easy to identify shared
values with other faiths andto make some sort of “theological space” for them—allowing
them “apositive role in the divine plan”—but it is far harder to move fromthat towards
creating “a dialogue of equals”.
However, this is perhaps where Richard Dawkins has done us all afavour by placing all
religions, collectively, in the .ring line. Nowit seems almost inevitable that religious
communities will have to worktogether at some level to tackle shared concerns, such as
the growingtrends in society and academia that are actively anti-religious, orthose
“arising from the confrontation with modernity” (Norman Solomon).Solomon identifies
this in his suggested approaches to dialogue, bynoting, “When the problems are seen as
shared, we can explore themtogether, drawing critically on the resources of all our
traditions”.Perhaps, therefore, identifying the problems or shared concerns is astarting
point, and provides an arena for religions to come together ina way that need not be
defined by conflict.
Although this collection of essays on religious pluralism may notprovide all the answers,
it does consider all of the questions. Ithelps to define, through a “star-studded cast”, a
framework for thedebate, and provides various models and ideas over how solutions can
beachieved. In fact, the simple act of bringing together scholars andcommentators from
such different perspectives and traditions was abrave task and an accomplishment in
itself.
While, interestingly, the individual authors do not alwaysthemselves display the requisite
qualities of pluralism—or perhaps theysimply differ on its definition—they nevertheless
succeed as a group intaking us through a pluralistic consideration of various
pertinentissues, including Samuel Huntington’s much-quoted “clash ofcivilisations”; the
apparent rise of religious fundamentalisms;terrorism and 9/11come up again and again,
largely as the focal pointfor the discussions; identity and divisions within faith
communities,with an obvious focus on the Muslim world; and widely misunderstoodterms
such as “jihad” and “hiraba” are also clarified.
So, the writers of Islam and Global Dialogue reflect upon thecauses, manifestations and
consequences of conflicts involvingreligious personalities or groups, they make an
attempt to investigatethe potential obstacles to pluralism and its validity, but
alsoconsider how individual religions can approach inter-religious dialoguein order to
avoid such conflicts in the future, and to stopHuntington’s theory from becoming a selffulfilling prophecy.
The limitations of the book are perhaps in the fact that, for themost part, only the three
main monotheistic traditions were included,and it would be interesting to see whether
any alternative problems—orindeed solutions—may have arisen by widening the scope of
thediscussions to, for example, those of a polytheistic tradition. That noclear
prescriptions are given, too, is disappointing, but probably alsoinevitable. It is also
interesting to see the different approaches andlack of clarity of position shown by authors
coming from the samereligious background, for example in considering certain
Quranicinjunctions that may appear to be anti-pluralistic in nature (e.g.“Anyone who
seeks a faith other than Islam, it will not be acceptedfrom him” Qur’an 3:85).
But the Qur’an also says, “Wherever you turn, there is the face ofGod.” (2:115). And,
given that, as HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal wrote inhis preface, “our greatest certainty
now is that we face unpredictabletimes”, it seems that we increasingly need to start
recognising theface of God within each other, at least at some level. Even if we donot
accept that it is religions that cause conflicts, they remain atleast a potential cause,
particularly in some of their modern moreradical manifestations. Regardless of whether
we believe our own pathsto be “more right” or “more true”, that need not necessarily
inhibitprogress at a practical level of achieving common goals.
However, even if we can overcome this failure to view each other onan equal footing, the
questions remain over how and at what levelinter-religious dialogue can have an effect.
But, perhaps what Islamand Global Dialogue illustrates best to us is that there is now
awillingness among religious personalities to come together and to trythe route of
dialogue, rather than the more tried and tested route ofconflict, and to see where it takes
us.
Isla Rosser-Owen
School of Oriental & African Studies, London
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Muslim + Terrorist = Muslim Terrorist
Muslim + Terrorist = Muslim Terrorist
By Azhar Usman
OXYMORONIC – a column by Azhar Usman for ISLAMICA MAGAZINE
f you listen carefully to the rhetoric that circulates among Muslimcommunities, you may
be treated to some remarkably idiotic comments.Over my next few columns, it is my
intent to describe and analyze someof these comments in the hope that dissecting them
may expose theiridiocy.
First up: “There is no such thing as a Muslimterrorist, because a ‘Muslim’ is someone who
is ‘at peace,’ so how cansuch a person be a terrorist?” This is a classic example of the
type ofself-appeasing commentary that many Muslims love to bandy about. As agenerally
isolationist community in the West, Muslims often speak onlyto themselves, with no
reference for or intention to speak to theoutside world. (Another example of such utter
cultural unawareness isthe constant use of abbreviations such as SWT and PBUH in
Muslimliterature in English, as if all readers should just magically know what they mean!)
Acting as if they’ve achieved a decisive victory, these Muslims then assume that the case
is closed. Thereyou have it, folks, there is no such thing as a “Muslim terrorist”because
such a thing is evidently a linguistic impossibility. As forthat guy called “Abdullah” who
was just on TV quoting the Qur’an andcalling for chopping people’s heads off … uh … well
… he’s just aninvention of the Zionist-controlled media … yeah, that’s it!
Tobe fair, Muslims are understandably disturbed by the coupling of theword Muslim with
the dirtiest word in the English language today:terrorist. However, this disturbance does
not alter the objectivereality one iota. The “Muslim terrorist” is as fair and accurate a
termas any to describe those individuals who commit acts of vigilanteviolence against
civilians in the name of Islam. They are Muslims —perhaps not in a linguistic sense,
because they certainly do not appearto be people who are in a state of peace and
submission — but certainlyin a technical sense from the standpoint of the theology and
law of thereligion of Islam. At worst, one might argue that Muslims, who
advocatevigilante violence against civilians (read: terrorism) and claim thatit is justified
by the teachings and scriptures of Islam, have embraceda dangerous heresy. Even so,
they would simply be heretical Muslims,yet Muslims nonetheless. They enjoy the rights
accorded any otherMuslim under Islamic law, yet they stand condemned in the eyes of
Godfor their sin (just like any other sinful human being).
Anotherobvious reason why the notion that “there can be no such thing as aMuslim
terrorist” fails logically is that this argument is tantamountto saying that there can be no
such thing as a “Muslim murderer,” or a“Muslim rapist,” or a “Muslim thief.” Again,
objective reality andhistory bear out the fact that such individuals can and do exist.
Yetsuch ridiculous notions are born out of the essentializing views ofideologues who
prefer the delusion that being a Muslim somehow makesone a perfect member of a
chosen people rather than accept the realitythat Muslims are human beings like everyone
else, facing the same humanchallenges, and often suffering from the same human
weaknesses. By theidiot’s logic, once the Caliphate is wondrously re-established,
therewill be no need for prisons and a criminal justice system in the newIslamic Republic,
since Muslims are not sinful, much less criminal —remember, they are “at peace,” so why
would they commit a crime!? Thegreat irony here, of course, is the fact that if a Caliph
existedtoday, he would probably round up all the Muslim terrorists and havethem publicly
executed as a deterrent to wannabe vigilante “freedomfighters.”
A related complaint often heard in Muslim quartersis: “Why doesn’t the media ever use
the terms ‘Jewish terror’ or‘Christian terrorists’? It only speaks of ‘Islamic terror’ and
‘Muslimterrorists.’ The media is biased!” This sentiment was extremelypopular, for
example, when the infamous BTK serial killer was arrestedlast year in the United States
and it was revealed that he was a churchleader. “Why wasn’t he described as a ‘Christian
terrorist’?!” Muslimsincredulously whined.
Again, Muslims would love to innocentlywonder where this alleged bias comes from
instead of taking anobjective look at reality. So I shall spell it out for you: Thedifference
between acts of vigilante violence against civilians (inrecent memory) that have been
carried out by individuals who areMuslims versus those from other religions is the way in
which theindividuals claim to be inspired, influenced, and shaped by theirrespective
religions. The terrorist who is a Muslim is not just aterrorist who happens to be a Muslim.
On the contrary, he gets up infront of a camera and releases a grainy Internet video in
which hedresses himself up in the language and garb of the Islamic religion. Hequotes
from Muslim scriptures and observes all forms of outwardreligiosity. He claims that his
violent operations against Americans,Zionists, infidels, are not sanctioned by Islamic law,
but rather are required byit, and that he is carrying out the will of Allah and serving the
honorof Islam’s holy prophet, etc. Compare your standard terrorist from anyother
religious group; he is a terrorist who happens to be Christian,or Jewish, or Buddhist, or
whatever, but he doesn’t claim to beinspired, influenced, and shaped by his religion,
much less that he isserving his religion’s aims by committing acts of violence. In
recentmemory, it is virtually impossible to find the moral or religious equivalent ofa
Muslim terrorist from any other faith group. BTK, while a churchleader, would probably
be the first to admit that his sadistic acts ofterror on innocent people were in utter
contravention of Christianteachings. That’s the difference.
None of this is to say thatthe media is blameless. Certainly, the mainstream commercial
media hasplayed a huge role in creating and reinforcing the stereotype of the“Muslim
terrorist.” Sadly, it seems some young Muslims around the world(including, now, even in
the UK) are all too willing to succumb to suchstereotypes by modeling themselves after
them, thereby raising the veryvalid question: Which came first, the stereotype or the
reality?
Nextup: “I believe in the fundamentals of Islam; therefore, I am afundamentalist.”
Somebody please give this person a dictionary.
SWT stands for the Arabic words “Subhanahu Wa Taàla,”which mean, roughly, “Glorified
and Exalted is He!” and is appendedafter each mention of the divine name, Allah. PBUH
stands for “Peace BeUpon Him,” which is an honorific phrase included after each mention
ofthe Prophet Muhammad’s name.
Admittedly, a good case could be made that the Ku Klux Klan, as well asHitler’s Nazi
philosophy were heavily inspired by Biblical teachings,and of course there are the
historical realities of the Inquisition andthe Crusades. As for acts of state terrorism
carried out, for example,by the Israeli military, these are done for obvious and
explicitpolitical objectives and are not claimed by Israel to be in furtheranceof religious
aims of Judaism (in spite of the nexus claimed by someZionists between Jewish teachings
and the state of Israel). Similarly,the BJP in India, which is closely associated with the
Hindutvamovement, could be blamed for ideological and identity politics-basedacts of
terror. However, we are principally concerned here with ourcontemporary context,
particularly the post-9/11 era, during which timethe term “Muslim terrorist” has gained
undeniable currency and lacksany meaningful counterpart in other faiths. And besides,
even if themedia began using the terms “Christian terrorist,” “Jewish terrorist,”and
“Hindu terrorist,” would that make Muslim terrorists any lessterrorist?
Taken from: http://www.islamicamagazine.com/issue-17/muslim-terrorist-muslimterrorist.html
Po-Mo
The article below brings a Post-Modern (Po-Mo) approach to the the Balkan's puzzle.
Sorry for posting such lengthy articles :).
No Man’s Land: The Intersection of Balkan Space and Identity
Ana-Marija Petrunic
Introduction
Individuals do not live as independent units devoid of cultural and religious ties that
shape
their identities. In a postmodern world, identities are shaped by shifting boundaries
between
cultures, religions, and other places of belonging. Rodriguez (2000) argues that “there is
no
guarantee that one’s experiences will lead to a common core of values or beliefs that link
one to
other members of one’s ‘cultural group’” (155). Similarly, shifting identities negate a
space of
freedom because that space is dependent on an individual’s singularity. If identity is to
be seen
as a dynamic and flexible construct, one in which multiple identities or acts of
identification are
allowed and expected, Bhabha (1994) would argue that identities are brought about from
an
awareness of subjectivities. Postmodern identities can be changed and manipulated as
often as
the subject determines it is needed. Identities are layered upon differences that overlap
each
other as opposed to the search for similarities and homogeneity.
But what if acts of identification are politically manipulated to alter the intellectual,
cultural, and personal identity of individuals? An attempt to understand the embedded
narratives of intersecting languages and ideologies would create a space in which
collective
identities would emerge. Countering the notion of a space for collective identity, Hannah
Arendt (1951) advocates the creation of a common space in which the narrative of the
individual is emphasized. A common space, for Arendt, that favors the narrative of the
individual would be a space in which the inherent difficulties of attempting to reconcile a
common denominator in heterogeneity are acknowledged. In other words, a tension
exists in
the interpretation of postmodern identities.
Whether or not a postmodern identity can be interpreted and understood as part of a
collective identity based on interconnected traits, or whether the same identity can only
be
understood as an embodied narrative, is a theoretical argument I have difficulty
reconciling.
Equally complex, however, are the difficulties that arise when one tries to negotiate
multiple
identities. The negotiation of differences and the reconciliation of the past with the
present are
History of Intellectual Culture, 2005
2
complexities that are encountered when analyzing the processes of identity formation in
geopolitical post-conflict spaces.
The issues surrounding the development of identity formation initially emerged from
my work as an English as a Second Language instructor. I was intrigued by the idea of
identity
formation of immigrant youth and their ability to negotiate the differences between the
dominant culture and the culture of their heritage. Having immigrant parents myself
helped me
to articulate the lived experiences of one who is suspended in identity — neither here nor
there.
By birth, I am a Canadian citizen but my Croatian heritage and cultural influences layer
my
identity and therefore being a Canadian is multidimensional in nature.
The notion of hybridity, as proposed by Homi Bhabha, has lead me into a theoretical and
philosophical web of nodality by which I mean the interstitial spaces whereby processes
of
identity formation are interweaved. For Bhabha (1994), “it is in the emergence of the
interstices . . . that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness,
community
interest or cultural value are negotiated.” Yet, it must be acknowledged that antagonism
and
difficulties may be found in the emergence of interstices even though the experiences of
nationness, community interest, and cultural value may all have shared a discriminatory
or
oppressive past. Bhabha further explains that the social articulation of difference is a
continuous
process that “seeks to authorize cultural hybridities” (2). Although the negotiation of
differences creates a cultural hybridity in which a community is evolving, a postmodern
perspective of hybridity is seen as a fluid experience that cannot be fixed in its identity
formation.
In an attempt to further explore the tension between individual and collective identities,
I have chosen to examine a third space of identity — a liminal space that may function to
bridge
the tension of postmodern identities. To illustrate how this liminal space is portrayed, an
analysis of examples of Balkan film and literary art will be examined. A textual analysis
of the
film No Man’s Land and the novel The Bridge on the Drina will provide rich examples of
the
means by which a third space of identity exists in a geopolitical zone of conflicting acts of
identification. The theory of cultural hybridity as an alternative framework to
understanding
postmodern identity suggests that postmodern identities are multicultural and thus may
offer a
space for resistance, protest, tolerance, and pluralism.
Balkan Identity as a Form of Hybridity
Although the term Balkan has gained negative connotations in Western Europe and North
America since the ethnic conflicts in the 1990s, the term Balkan and its derivatives will
continue
to be used here instead of the newly-accepted geographic Southeast Europe.
Goldsworthy (2002)
suggests that the Balkan identity and the location of culture of the peoples of the former
republics of Yugoslavia are formed in the space of in-betweenness or in a third liminal
space.
The Balkans are more than a clash of civilizations (to use Samuel Huntington’s metaphor)
of
ancient hatreds destined to be in eternal conflict. Balkan scholars metaphorically describe
the
geopolitical areas of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia in particular as living between two
(Antić, 2003),
a transitory character (Kiossev, 2002), and being neither here nor there (Bjelić, 2002). It
can be
3
inferred that the reason for such ambiguous language is to express the ambivalence of
determining the essence of a Balkan identity.
Some Balkan scholars would question the usage of the term identity arguing, as
Alexander Kiossev does in his article “The Dark Intimacy” that a distinction exists
between the
notion of identity and act of identification. Building on the work of Lacanian theory,
Kiossev (2002)
differentiates between “acts of individual mirror identification and acts of spontaneous
cultural
identification” (168). Confusion underlies the assumption that while cultures and societies
allow
space for multiple acts of identification, they simultaneously want individuals to adhere to
a
certain identity. Michael Ignatieff (1993, 1998) has observed that acts of identification in
the
former republics of Yugoslavia are contingent on what one is not in relation to the other.
While
interviewing Serbian soldiers in their barracks during the Serbian-Bosnian conflict in
1998,
Ignatieff observed that a dichotomy existed between the lived experiences of the soldiers
and
their participation in the ethnic conflict. Ignatieff (1998) concluded that Balkan identity
was a
relational term based on differences and that relational differences equal an “empty
tautology.”
If a geographic metonym cannot presume the existence of a non-geographical entity
(Kiossev,
2002), it cannot be concluded that the Balkans would directly produce a Balkan identity.
Were postmodern identities to call upon the notions of plurality, difference, and
heterogeneity, a web of interconnectedness between the Balkan peoples would be
expected
whereby peace and harmony would reign instead of war and disunity. Due to the lack of
progress in developing a politically-stable multicultural society and due to a history of
imperial
oppression in the Balkans, Antić (2003) suggests that the ambiguity of determining a
Balkan
identity is in fact the essence of a hybrid identity. Hybridity is not only an effect of the
cyclical
oppression of groups of people in the Balkans but also a cause of the present crisis in
identity.
Feelings of belonging and acts of identification shape Balkan identity. Yet, if through
feelings of
belonging, one is identified as a Croatian Catholic, Serbian Orthodox, or Bosnian Muslim,
how
can a multiplicity of subjectivities be negotiated in a pluralist context such as in Bosnia
where
the desire of the other republics for a collective cultural identity produced some of the
greatest
atrocities of the latter half of the twentieth century?
Balkan Hybridity as Art
Balkanism, the study of the effect of space on identity in the Balkans, can be studied in
either an
archival or textual format, substantive knowledge without examining presuppositions in
the
former and examining suppositions epistemologically in the latter (Bjelić, 2002). Bjelić
continues
to emphasize that neither textual nor archival studies should separate the notions of
Balkan and
Balkanism from the history of the place, and any effort to do so by changing a place in
discourse-geography would be a blatant attempt to subvert identities. Antić (2003)
teaches us
that learning the essence of truth about the life and political orientation of a country can
be
undertaken effectively through an examination of the arts in a country. This subsequently
creates an opportunity for history to reveal its narrative qualities. In an effort to examine
the
narrative truth of Balkan identity and Balkanism as a hybrid identity, the implications of
the
bridge in Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina and the cinematic space between the
Bosnian and
4
Serbian trenches in Boris Tanović’s No Man’s Land as metaphorical and geopolitical
symbols
will be taken up.
No Man’s Land is a cinematic journey of the irony and absurdity of war and its inherent
origins, circumstances, and historical interpretations. It was introduced in theatres in
North
America with the following trailer: “No one knows who they are. No one knows which side
they’re on. And no one wants to get involved. Two enemies are becoming the victims in a
war
between the newsmakers and the peacekeepers. What started as a minor problem is
about to
become a major incident” (Trailer, No Man’s Land, 2001). A middle trench — no man’s
land —
located between the Bosnian and Serbian front lines, is a particular place where two
wounded
soldiers — Čiki, an armed Bosnian Muslim, and Nino, a Serb soldier — must work
together to
keep Čiki’s compatriot, Cera, immobilized. If Cera moves, the “bouncing mine”
strategically
placed under his body will kill them all. The other major players in the film are the United
Nations Protective Forces (UNPROFOR) and the global television networks, both of which
are
concerned about advancing their respective agendas — agendas that do not include the
plights
of the soldiers in the middle trench.
The area between the two trenches — no man’s land — functions as a place of dwelling
where the dwellers — Nino and Čiki — negotiate the spaces of their individual and
collective
identities in a hermeneutic circle of being. The irony of minor differences between the
protagonists is woven throughout the film. Ignatieff (1993) uses Freud’s analysis of
narcissism
to coin the term the narcissism of minor difference to explain how feelings of ethnic
nationalism are
exploited by exaggerating the minor linguistic and cultural differences of the Balkan
peoples.
Language, more than land and history, is considered the essential form of belonging and
as
such must be differentiated from that of the other. As the director states that “the
language
spoken in the film by the protagonists is in fact the same language. Today, the Serbs call
it
Serbian, the Bosnians call it Bosnian, and the Croats call it Croatian. The fact is that
when we
speak, we understand each other perfectly” (Portuges, 2002, p. 676).
Understanding each other perfectly would imply a shared collective identity, yet the
protagonists are in a constant state of tension wavering between moments of anger and
frustration which are muted by moments of recognition and belonging. While waiting for
the
German mine expert and the UNPROFOR forces to return, Nino and Čiki realize that they
have
a mutual acquaintance in common:
Čiki: You’re from Banja Luka.
Nino: How do you know? Yeah, right.
Čiki: I had a chick in Banja Luka. Sanja.
Nino: I know a Sanja . . .
Čiki: What’s become of her?
Nino: She’s gone abroad.
Čiki: I don’t blame her.
The sense of camaraderie is fleeting as Nino reveals that their mutual acquaintance has
emigrated from Bosnia. The ensuing silence is heavy with the realization that the
protagonists
5
have been left behind in a politically contested space (Bosnia) and in a particular place of
being
(trench) where their survival depends on the vilification of the other.
Actively identifying with other individuals in their collective identities (Bosnian Muslim
or Serbian Orthodox) to fight an ethnic conflict becomes increasingly difficult when Nino
and
Čiki, as individual identities, engage in moments of recognition realizing that very little
differentiates one man from the other. Heidegger (1971) explains that a fundamental
characteristic of dwelling is to spare and preserve. In a no man’s land, the physical
boundaries
of the trench create a third space in which a sense of neutrality subsists. Although Čiki
and
Nino utter death threats and maim one another, neither man takes the life of the other
even
when the opportunity presents itself. The trench as a particular location engages their
beings in
a hermeneutic play. By sparing the life of the other man, peace is observed — a peace
that
erupts into war outside of the boundaries of the trench. Just as the Balkans suffered
centuries of
cyclical oppression from imperial forces such as the Ottoman Empire and from the
AustroHungarian Empire and Western-European influences, Čiki and Nino suffer the
consequences of
the subversive involvement of the UNPROFOR and the global television networks. Shortly
after
being taken outside of the middle trench, Čiki and Nino revert to their allegiances of
collective
identities and kill each other.
An elemental aspect in understanding Balkan identity is to understand the structures of
domination in the Balkans. Within the small geographic area that comprised the country
of
Yugoslavia and all its republics, each republic and its people alternated the roles of
colonial
rulers and colonial subjects. Bjelić (2002) refers to these structures of domination as
vertical and
horizontal lines of domination. The latter refers to oppression of neighboring republics
and
areas through historical ethnic conflict compared to the former that refers to the
subjugation of
the Balkan people by first the Ottoman Empire and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire
(Brown,
2001). A third, more recent structure of domination emerges from the globalizing effects
of the
American superpower. In No Man’s Land, the Colonel of the UN High Command responds
to
Captain DuBois’ request for assistance in dealing with the situation in the middle trench:
You can’t expect me to risk the lives of our soldiers in order to save theirs,
can you? I hope that I don’t have to remind you Captain of the precise
purpose of our mission here in Bosnia . . . but you perfectly know that
there’s nothing that I can do without the approval of the General
Assembly of the UN. I don’t think that the General Assembly of the UN
is going to convene itself specifically in order to deal with the problems
of two unknown individuals trapped in no man’s land . . . tell them as
usual that neither side can agree.
The Colonel’s terse response mirrors a common opinion of many Westerners: that the
people in
the Balkans are not only the same but not worth our help and resources. This cultural
essentialism is detrimental to understanding the development of individual and collective
identity formation. In place of a Balkan identity, Balkan differences melt into sameness
and
essentialized identities pervade. Whether orientalizing the other (Said, 1979) or
politicizing the
mode of representation (Bjelić, 2002), cultural essentialism negates the idea that space
becomes a
6
place with meaning thereby creating a location in which identities are shaped and to
which acts
of identification are formed. This is to say that particular places create narratives to
which entire
communities and individuals are tied.
In Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina, the bridge is used as both a narrative device and
a metaphor of location. Interweaving over three hundred years of colonial and imperial
history
through his short stories, Andrić metaphorically represents the bridge as historical
evidence of
the Balkan character. While in No Man’s Land the middle trench is the location of being
and
dwelling for the protagonists, in The Bridge on the Drina, the bridge provides a site or a
location
on each side of its banks where dwelling can take place. The bridge itself creates an
inbetweenness
not because it spans the river separating the Bosnian Muslim village from the
Serbian Orthodox village but because it reveals a hybrid space. Unable to name the
process by
which Andrić develops his description of the Balkan identity, Edwards (1959) notes that
the
peculiar position of Bosnia as “a storm center for centuries on the border of the Eastern
and
Western worlds, saves them from the curse of detailed provincialism and gives them an
interest
that extends far beyond its narrow borders” (7). What Edwards implies is that the bridge
is
Balkan reality — it is a bridge between East and West, between civilizations, between
“us” and
“them” (Antić, 2003). As long as the bridge stands, the villagers on either side of its
banks exist
in a state of being that has meaning only in relation to the other.
To explain how building and dwelling interact, Heidegger used the metaphor of a
bridge in his seminal article, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” A bridge, as an example of a
building, is not dwelling but in the domain of dwelling which is to say that building
provides a
place for dwelling to occur. It could be argued, however, that dwelling could take place
on the
bridge itself if being exists in a state of impermanence, for dwelling is transient. On the
kapia, a
gathering area in the center of the bridge, Andrić (1977) illustrates the following scene:
On the kapia by day sat the Moslems of the town, morose and
disconsolate, about a dozen elderly men grouped around a younger one
who read to them from the newspapers, interpreting foreign expressions
and unusual names and explaining the geography . . . Hiding their
emotion, they bent over the map which showed the future partition of
the Balkan Peninsula. They looked at the paper and saw nothing in those
curving lines, but they knew and understood everything for their
geography was in their blood and they felt biologically their picture of
the world. (229)
Andrić is describing an example of the ways in which a hybrid space shapes both
identities and
acts of identification. The Balkan identity has been shaped through centuries of
imperialism and
as a result identities become a form of in-dwelling. I use the term in-dwelling to try to
explain
how Heidegger’s notion of dwelling can be internalized so that it is experienced from
within
rather than from without. To bear “geography in their blood” and to feel “biologically”
implies
a metaphorical space within a particular location representing a liminal space of being.
The location of culture for the Moslems in the example above is one of a shared
collective identity inferred by their fear of yet another unnamed colonial force. Andrić
himself
7
was a supporter of the Bosnian movement for independence and believed that the ethnic
clashes in Bosnia were not as much intrinsic to the Bosnian character as they were
consequential
of the presence of colonial empires (Antić, 2003). Symbolically then, the location of the
kapia
offers a place on the bridge where two worlds could lead to a “clash of civilizations” or to
a
united front against external structures of domination.
The development of identity based on geography (the Balkans) and geopolitical poles
must by nature be a space of transition. Although the bridge remains ageless, ahistorical,
and
permanent, the dwelling that occurs within the locations of its banks suggests a state of
impermanence. The bridge is described as “the same as it had always been, with the
eternal
youth of a perfect conception, one of the great and good works of man, which do not
know
what it means to change and grow old and which, or so it seemed, do not share the fate
of the
transient things of this world” (Andrić, 1977, p. 214). The transient being referred to is
that of
dwelling — that of (wo)man dwelling in a particular place. The bridge is a reflection of the
condition of the Balkan people; their entrapment in a space surrounded by colonial
powers
naturally creates a third liminal space in which meaning and being transform into
dwelling.
The bridge intimates to the reader an understanding that indeed it is a Balkan space
creating a Balkan identity, for the bridge’s existence affects the psychology of the
townspeople
on either side of it. Consequently, the myths and stories unfolding over the three
hundred years
of Andrić’s narratives (1977) serve to offer the reader a glimpse into the identity
formation of
the Balkan people: “So, on the kapia, between the skies, the river and the hills,
generation after
generation learnt not to mourn overmuch what the troubled waters had borne away.
They
entered there into the unconscious philosophy of the town; that life was an
incomprehensible
marvel, since it was incessantly wasted and spent, yet none the less [sic] it lasted and
endured
‘like the bridge on the Drina’” (81).
When considering the condition of the Balkan people, enduring through time is a
significant element, for to endure through waves of vertical and horizontal structures of
domination is to exude a collective strength. The bridge’s permanence in the space of the
identity of the Balkan people reflects the impermanence of their being and dwelling. The
bridge
representatively hints toward the beyond and as such suggests that boundaries are
ephemeral.
Heidegger (1971) equates boundaries with horizons and suggests that “the boundary is
that
from which something begins its presencing” (152). Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle
implies that
dwelling for an individual takes place within a socially-constructed spatialization.
Boundaries
do not physically limit the existence of one’s being and the extent of one’s dwelling but
exist
only within the sphere of one’s identity and acts of identification. Thus, ethnic, religious,
cultural, racial, and other affiliations are present for individuals so long as other
individuals
share similar affiliations expanding or delimiting the boundary of presence.
Bridging Identity
Cultural hybridity presupposes that identity formation reflects the postmodern tenets of
being
fluid, fragmented, and strategic in that individuals may negotiate multiple identities.
Identitybuilding,
as it pertains to real or imaginary geopolitical areas, nevertheless is often based on the
idea of the other. Again applying Lacanian theory to the social construct of identity
formation,
8
Ditchev (2002) states that acts of identification run on two parallels: “On the level of the
imaginary, you identify with a specific object you want to be, whereas on the level of the
symbolic, you also identify with the gaze . . . creating the field in which identification
takes
place” (236).
The disintegration of Yugoslavia indicates that the people within its borders yearned to
be, in the existential sense, the products of the imaginary. In an anecdotal remark,
Yugoslav
diplomat Miroslav Krleža was reported as lamenting, “God save me from Serb heroism
and
Croatian culture” (Brown, 2001, p. 20). By making a figurative reference to the
imaginary in the
minds of the Croatians and Serbians, Krleža demonstrated that imaginary acts of
identification
can fuel the nation-building of a people. Space, as a requisite of nation-building,
functions in the
realm of the imaginary as well. As Reisenleitner (2001) explains “places may thus no
longer be
the clear, unique support for identity, and are certainly no longer tied to the political
borderlines of nations, yet they still resonate throughout the imaginations of
communities” (9).
The community as place for identity formation is embedded with oral histories, personal
narratives and cultural discourses in which the imaginary of the identity is shaped,
revisited,
and called upon. A disadvantage when analyzing the conflicts in the present and distant
history
of Yugoslavia is the dismissal of the effect of the imaginary on the identities and acts of
identification of the people.
The second level of interpretation of identity-building put forth by Ditchev is
epitomized by the realm of symbolism. The gaze “or the subject of the gaze” and “the
rule this
gaze imposes” (236) implies opposition. The other is not just in an oppositional stance
but in a
stance of naming the objects within its gaze. In an effort to comprehend the processes
by which
neighbors become enemies, Ignatieff (1998) negates the claim that the nationalist wars
of the
1990s in Yugoslavia stem from tribal hatreds and past hostilities. Instead, Ignatieff
purports that
the various ethnic groups (e.g., Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian) are engaged in a
“minor
narcissism of difference” meaning that characteristics that once seemed less important to
discern identities become the minor differences or divisive factors of warring ethnic
factions. He
states that “ethnicity is described as if it were skin, a fate that cannot be changed” and
that
“what is essential about ethnicity is its plasticity” (56). A fluid, or plastic, ethnicity is a
symbolic
identity in that the gaze of the other is ever-shifting. Fissures cracking through society
slowly
break apart into ethnicities and competing claims of identity.
Another Balkan scholar, Vesna Goldsworthy, takes issue with the terminology used
when discussing Balkan identity. In “Invention and In(ter)vention”, Goldsworthy (2002)
holds
that the gaze of the other reflects the symbolism of the Balkans to the outside world.
Although in
this discussion, Balkan has been identified to mean the peoples of the former Yugoslavia,
others
have not made any distinction between Yugoslavia and its neighboring countries. For
Goldsworthy, the notion of Balkanization has been exported through the process of
globalization and corrupted only to be used in pejorative contexts that refer to
communist and
Soviet-style ideas. The result is a fragmented identity “where particular Balkan identities
might
once have been defined against each other, they now incorporate a sense of difference
from
Americans, Western Europeans or Asians” (32). The gaze of the other not only serves to
play
name games but to attribute preconceived characteristics onto a people. Thus, whether
living
constrained by physical boundaries or living in imagined communities of borderless
peoples,
9
the Balkan peoples are continually negotiating spaces and developing identities within
those
spaces.
Concluding Thoughts
Whether living constrained by physical boundaries or living in a borderless world in which
movement between communities, cities, and nations is relatively unimpeded, we are
continually negotiating spaces and developing identities within those spaces. Negotiating
spaces, or dwelling, to use Heidegger’s concept, refers to the state of being within a
sociallyconstructed
spatialization. Heidegger (1971) points out that dwelling and being are not
synonymous with each other; for dwelling to occur, space must contain a place that
provides a
location for being to exist. In other words, space can be constructed through the use of
architectural designs or interpreted through the metaphysicality of one’s being and one’s
fundamental acts of identification with a social spatialization. Acts of identification and
identities are the embodiment and embeddedness of narratives and as such are situated
in
particular places (Reisenleitner, 2001). Assuming that social spatialization is understood
as the
relationship between the built environment of the landscape and the social imaginary or
collective presuppositions of its dwellers (Shields, 1997), the key to understanding the
relationship between social spatialization and dwelling — the location of culture — can
perhaps
be found in a liminal space of being — a hybrid space.
The interpretation of Homi Bhabha’s (1994) notion of cultural hybridity as it pertains to
the Balkan context offers a glimpse into the omnipresent forces shaping the Balkan
identity.
Whether identity is examined as a distinct individual identity or a fused collective identity
raises several questions as to what the lived experiences of those identities would be.
Hybridity,
as an alternate notion of postmodern identity, provides a narrative space in which the
local and
global forces of domination are examined. Bjelić (2002) advocates the study of
Balkanism by
both Balkan and Western scholars in order to produce the opportunity to reflect on the
proliferation of power relations. By taking up Balkanism in a study of a particular ancient
place
wrought with history and conflict, I have tried to explore the interconnectedness of
hybridity
theory and its relation to Heidegger’s notion of dwelling. Dwelling, as a state of relating
to a
location, not only gives meaning to the process of identity formation but alludes to a
theory of
understanding pluralism in a globalized context.
References
Andrić, I. (1977). The bridge on the Drina (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., Trans.).
Chicago, IL: The
University of Chicago Press.
Antić, M. (2003). Living in the shadow of the bridge: Ivo Andrić s The Bridge on the
Drina and western
imaginings of Bosnia. Spaces of Identity, 3(3), 1-17.
Arendt, H. (1951). Origins of totalinarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The location of culture. London: Routledge.
Bjelić, D. I. (2002). Introduction: Blowing up the bridge. In D.I. Bjelić & O. Savić
(Eds.), Balkan as
Metaphor: Between globalization and fragmentation (pp. 1-22). Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.
10
Brown, J.F. (2001). The grooves of change: Eastern Europe at the turn of the
millennium. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Ditchev, I. (2002). The eros of identity. In D.I. Bjelic & O. Savic (Eds.), Balkan as
Metaphor: Between
globalization and fragmentation (pp. 235-250). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Edwards, L.F. (1959). Translator s foreword (George Allen and Unwin Ltd., Trans.). In
The bridge on the
Drina (pp. 7-9). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Goldsworthy, V. (2002). Invention and in(ter)vention: The rhetoric of balkanization. In
D.I. Bjelic & O.
Savic (Eds.), Balkan as Metaphor: Between globalization and fragmentation (pp. 25-38).
Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press.
Heidegger, M. (1971). Poetry, language, thought (A. Hofstadter, Trans.). New York:
HarperCollins
Publishers.
Huntington, S.P. (1997). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New
York: Simon &
Schuster.
Ignatieff, M. (1993). Blood & belonging: Journeys into the new nationalism. Toronto, ON:
Viking.
Ignatieff, M. (1998). The warrior s honour. Toronto, ON: Viking.
Kiossev, A. (2002). The dark intimacy: Maps, identities, acts of identification. In D.I.
Bjelić & O. Savić
(Eds.), Balkan as Metaphor: Between globalization and fragmentation (pp. 165-190).
Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Portuges, C. (2002). No man s land. American Historical Review, 107(2), 675-677.
Reisenleitner, M. (2001). Tradition, cultural boundaries and the constructions of spaces of
identity. Spaces
of Identity, 1, 1-13.
Rodriguez, A.P. (2000). Adjusting the multicultural lens. Race, Gender & Class, 7(3),
150-177.
Said, E.W. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Shields, R. (1997). Spatial stress and resistance: Social meanings of spatialization. In G.
Benko & U.
Strohmayer (Eds.), Space & Social Theory: Interpreting modernity and postmodernity
(pp. 186-202).
Oxford: Blackwell.
Tanović, D. (Writer) (2001). No man s land [Film]. In F. Dumas-Zajdela, M. Baschet, &
C. Kolar (Producer).
Slovenia: MGM/United Artists.
An article on the quest for common grounds
Religion as a common denominator
By: Faiz Khan
Hershey, Pennsylvania — The West and the Muslim world aremulti—faceted, multi—
cultural, and multi—religious realms despite thenarrow way they are often viewed and
defined. There are millions ofMuslims in the West, and there are millions of individuals of
otherfaith traditions in the “Muslim world”; there are underlyingrelationships between
these supposed separate worlds that exist in thebasic foundations of their cultures; and
the continual resurgence ofreligiosity is at the heart of both of our cultures and is
seenthroughout our histories.
The goal of religiosity is piety, and a temporal consequence ofpiety is the insistent
turning of the individual and collectivitytoward those values and ethics that are
universally cherished by allhuman beings. Given this relationship between piety and
time—honouredethics and values, anyone of goodwill, Western or not, should
feelencouraged by that facet of Islamic doctrine that supports thecultivation of piety
through religious practice, which elicits from itspractitioner an inter—human ethic also
shared by the Judeo—Christian,Hindu, Parsi and Buddhist traditions.
Therefore, similarities between cultures can be found in thereligious and theocentric
realm. Even seemingly clashing cultures canfind common ground here. American heritage
has a strong theocentricbasis. I recall, as a school—child, reciting daily “one nation,
underGod indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”, as taught by theAmerican Pledge of
Allegiance. This idea is precisely Qur’anic.Moreover, the sense that executive, legislative
and judiciaryinstitutions must be parochially neutral while at the same
timeacknowledging divinity and cultivating piety and sanctity, no matterwhat the outward
form (be it Christian or Buddhist or Islamic, etc), isin keeping with the operational
understanding of governance as derivedfrom Qur’anic principles. These principles were
elaborated on and livedby Muhammad and his apostles.
Though similarities can be drawn, the East has kept theocentricprincipals closer to the
surface of its cultures, while the Westcontinually supports a more secular culture. There
is very little the“Muslim World” needs to learn ideologically from the modern West.
Themaking of ideologically—sound governance and society lies in theapplication of it’s
the East’s own shari‘a, a code of law defined bythe Qur’an that embraces pluralism.
Whether this element of the shari‘ais represented, fostered and supported by the
dominant domestic ortransnational geopolitical power—brokers is an entirely different
issue.
The brand of Western—based secular humanism which views publicexpressions of faith or
mention of God as a malignant imposition ofreligion is repugnant to the Islamic
paradigm. Regardless, a Muslim inthe West is still expected to abide by the mores and
legal precedentsof their locale. Taking a hyperbolic example, if, through due process,it is
decided that religion or mention of God is to be a purely privatematter, the Muslim, by
the mandate of the ethic dictated by shari‘a,needs to comply, or find somewhere else to
live.
In the Muslim world, like in the rest of the third world, thereexists an imposition of
Western, corporate client regimes andaristocracy through the use of covert and overt war
operations. Withself—determination undermined, the ensuing harmful socio—political
andeconomic consequences cause many segments of the population tonaturally feel
deeply violated. When these “Muslim world” populationsexpress themselves intellectually
and verbally against very realinjustices, they do so in the phraseology and intellectual
paradigm ofa shari‘a—ethic that promises them their rights to life, liberty,property,
security and fair distribution of wealth and opportunity. Theshari‘a has its basis in
religion, hence, religious revivalism in thiscontext is analogous to an American
demanding their “ConstitutionalRights” in the face of socio—political and financial
victimisation. Thevarious reactionary movements have their basis in this dynamic.
Therelationships between the actual operations and crimes attributed tothese various
movements on the one hand, and the transnationalcorporate or Western agendas on the
other, needs further scrutiny.
Religion, when practiced authentically, by definition builds bridgesamongst its
practitioners, no matter what the brand of their respectivereligions. The Qur’an explicitly
addresses this phenomenon in manyinstances. One of the most dangerously flawed
theses (which even wellmeaning religionists fall prey to) is the thesis that there
issomething within authentic religion (no matter what form) that iscentral in causing
conflict along religiously parochial lines. This islike claiming that there is something
inherent in the existence of aplurality of races/ethnicities that causes sectarian conflict in
thatarena.
Religious bigotry, racial bigotry, ethnic bigotry or any otherbigotry is by definition a
psychological perversion. Although religion,race and ethnicity are semantically linked to
their respectivebigotries in an existential manner, they are not causative. A piousJew,
Christian or Muslim will ideologically behave in the same mannerwhen it comes to inter—
personal ethics. The modalities of worship maydiffer – but the treatment by a pious
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu,Parsi or Buddhist person toward their fellow man will be
the same.
All humans – be they theocentric or theophobic — desire to spendtheir time on this earth
with their rights secured, free to enjoy theirpursuits within a peaceful and ordered
society. This is the commonbridge between religionists and non—religionists. There is
anunderlying commonality that exists in the humanity of the peoples, thecultures and the
religions of this world. A massive public campaignmust be waged which supports tearing
down the barriers between our “twoworlds”. Honest journalism must be encouraged and
cultural educationand understanding must be promoted. It’s time that we stop looking
fordifferences and start paying attention to the similarities.
Faiz Khan is a Muslim scholar and educator as well as an M.D. with adual specialty in
emergency and internal medicine. He is also aco—founder of MUJCA—NET, the Muslim—
Jewish—Christian Alliance for 9/11Truth.
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 17 October 2006,
www.commongroundnews.org
An Interesting Article
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at
http://www.meforum.org/article/166
The Arab Betrayal of Balkan Islam
by Stephen Schwartz
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2002
In the wake of the atrocities of September 11, many American andother Western
commentators have asked a perplexing question. They pointout that the aim of the last
three wars fought by the United States andits allies was to rescue Muslim or Muslimmajority peoples fromaggression. Thus, the Kuwait war of 1991 saved Kuwait from
Iraqiinvasion. The 1995 intervention in Bosnia-Hercegovina halted Serbianattacks in
which some 200,000 people, the majority of them Muslims,were killed, and thousands of
more people were raped, tortured, anddriven from their homes. And the 1999 bombing
of Serbia prevented theexpulsion from Kosovo of two million ethnic Albanians, of whom
at least80 percent were Muslims.
Why then, the commentators ask, should so many Arab Muslims hateAmerica? Have they
forgotten these acts? A disregard among certainArabs for U.S. protection of the Kuwaiti
rulers, and by extension theSaudi monarchy, is perhaps understandable. Even pious
Muslims among theArabs have been known to admire Saddam Husayn, or to think that
hisinvasion of Kuwait paled in comparison with Saudi corruption. But don’tArab Muslims
care that the United States saved the Balkan Muslims andAlbanians from extermination
or exile? Weren’t the Balkans a clear-cutcase of massive U.S. military and humanitarian
intervention on behalfof Muslims in distress?
Yet it is a fact that no credit was given where credit was due. Fouad Ajami confirmed the
point in an interview with the Washington Post:
Ajamiasked why … no Arab or Muslim leader has given the United States thanksor credit
for taking military risks on behalf of two Muslim populationsin Europe: the Bosnians and
Kosovars. "I have heard no one acknowledgeany gratitude for that … It’s a mystery."1
Themystery seems to deepen when one hears or reads what many Arabs do sayabout the
U.S. intervention. These Arab assessments tend to beoverwhelmingly negative—so much
so that Usama bin Ladin himselfdenigrated of the U.S. intervention in the Balkans part of
his standardrepertoire. In a 1996 interview, the terrorist chief denounced Americafor
"withholding of arms from the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina" duringthe 1992-95 war
there.2 Many of his Arab listeners wouldhave known the truth: that it was Europe and the
United Nations, notthe United States, which erected and maintained the embargo on
arms tothe Bosnian Muslims. The U.S. intelligence community cooperated withother
countries, including Iran, to arm the Bosnian Muslims in secret.
Bin Ladin, under U.S. attack in Afghanistan in November 2001, thoughtit useful to return
to this theme, in a manifesto broadcast onAl-Jazira television. There he referred to
awar of genocide in Bosnia in sight and hearing of the entire world inthe heart of Europe.
For several years our brothers have been killed,our women have been raped, and our
children have been massacred in thesafe havens of the United Nations.3
It was aclaim whose efficacy relied on Arab ignorance. For it was a plain factthat there
had been no mass rapes or massacres in the country sinceU.S. intervention in 1995 and
the imposition of the Dayton agreement;that the United Nations International Criminal
Tribunal for FormerYugoslavia in The Hague had indicted the Yugoslav leadership
forgenocide; and that even as bin Ladin spoke, Milosevic himself sat inprison in The
Hague awaiting trial.
The willful self-deception about U.S. actions in the Balkans expressedby bin Ladin had a
surprisingly wide echo among Arab Muslims, andespecially among certain of bin Ladin’s
fellow Saudis. An "Open Letterto President Bush" penned by the Saudi Islamic cleric
Safar ibn ‘Abdar-Rahman al-Hawali, a leader of the country’s extremist
opposition,taunted the Americans: "One of your smart missiles infuriated theYellow Giant
[China] by destroying its embassy in Belgrade."Incredibly, al-Hawali failed to mention the
obvious: that theaccidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy to Yugoslavia had taken
placeduring the Kosovo intervention, and that China had sided with Milosevicin the U.N.
in order to block action to save the Albanians.4
This myopia has been peculiar to the Arabs. Turks, for example, knowbetter. The Turkish
journalist (and former diplomat) Gündüz Aktanprovided a typical Turkish assessment of
the U.S. role in the Balkanwars, in the midst of the Afghan bombing:
TheUnited States, [after] it could not convince our European friends,stopped the Serbian
aggressions with a military intervention inBosnia-Hercegovina … the forces of the United
States constituted 90percent of the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces
whichbrought Yugoslavia to heel, after it (repressed) the Kosovar Albaniansand (sought
to expel them); and it is observed that the United Statesalso played an important role in
the recognition of extensive rightsfor the Albanians in Macedonia.5
Even moretelling was the pro-American position taken by many Balkan Muslims asthe
"war on terror" unfolded. The Albanian government, which had beenextremely active in
helping the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency breakup a pro–bin Ladin cell composed of
Egyptians, put bin Ladin in thesame category as Milosevic:
Enemies of civilization likeMilosevic or bin Ladin should end up in the defendant’s dock …
binLadin will soon be held accountable alongside the "Butcher of theBalkans."6
The Islamic leaders inAlbanian-speaking territories, including Kosovo and western
Macedonia,were even more outspoken in support of the United States. The day afterthe
September 11 attacks, Haxhi Dede Reshat Bardhim, world leader ofthe Bektashi sect,
which is headquartered in Tirana and has at leasttwo million Albanian adherents, sent a
message to President George W.Bush referring to America as "the pride of this world"
and declaring,"May Allah be, as always, on the side of the American people and
theAmerican state!"7
On October 12, in the Kosovo capital of Prishtina, the grand mufti ofKosovo, Rexhep
Boja, prayed for the American dead at a commemorativemeeting organized by the U.S.
diplomatic office. (Washington has noofficial ambassadorial or consular representation in
Kosovo.) Theprayer service was led jointly with the Albanian Catholic bishop ofKosovo,
Monsignor Mark Sopi. Chief imam of the Kosovo Islamic communityBurhan Hashani
commented: "The people of Kosovo will never forgetAmerica and its assistance."8
The day after the start of the Afghan bombardment, a Tirana dailyoffered a stirring
headline for the military offensive, showing thatsome Muslims eagerly wished for the
punishment of Islamic extremists:"Nobody Veils the Statue of Liberty’s Face."9The
Kosovapress news agency, established by the Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA), printed
statements from the two political formations thatemerged from the KLA, the Kosovo
Democratic Party (PDK) headed byHashim Thaci, and the Alliance for Kosovo’s Future
(AAK) led by RamushHaradinaj. Thaci and Haradinaj are the two public figures
mostidentified with the armed Albanian struggle against Serbia. Theycriticized the refusal
of the Taliban regime to hand over the leadersof al-Qa‘ida, as demanded by the U.S., and
affirmed that "the people ofKosovo bear a natural and special responsibility to the United
Statesand its allies," promising to render "conscious and unlimited support"to the global
fight on Islamic terror.10
There was nothing surprising about the enthusiasm for U.S. globalleadership expressed
by Albanian Muslims. They know the lengths towhich the United States has gone to
protect them and other BalkanMuslims. The resentments they harbor over betrayal by
false friends aredirected not against America but against the Arabs, who either sidedwith
Milosevic or treated Balkan Muslims with supreme condescension.
Milosevic’s Arab Friends
As someone who has lived in Sarajevo, I have been struck by the hostileattitudes of
Muslim politicians and intellectuals toward Arab states.They are bitter that these states
watched passively as thousands ofindigenous European Muslims were slain in the
Balkans, offering noassistance aside from press releases, aid donations, and
religiouspropaganda. In addition, conspiracy theories about Arab behavior aboundamong
Balkan Muslims. Some believe that there existed a clandestinealliance between
Milosevic’s Yugoslavia and the Arab states—an allianceresting on the role of the Arab
Orthodox Christian churches inPalestinian nationalism, historic links between Arabs and
the formerSoviet Union and other Communist states (including former Yugoslavia),and a
common anti-Americanism. Others point to an alleged Arabresentment of the cultural
association between Balkan and OttomanIslamic traditions, both of which are despised by
the followers of theSaudi Wahhabi sect.
There can be no doubt that Milosevic found many bedfellows amongradical Arab states
and movement, which rallied to his defense duringthe NATO operations against him. Iraq
and Libya both described the NATOaction in Kosovo as an anti-Yugoslav aggression,
while Syria andLebanon registered no reaction to events there. Earlier, Libyan
foreignminister ‘Umar al-Muntasir had announced, after a meeting with theYugoslav
ambassador to Libya, that Libyan leader Mu‘ammar al-Qadhdhafisupported "dialogue"
between Belgrade and the Kosovars without foreignintervention.11This amiable exchange
came one month after the first pitched battlebetween Serb forces and the KLA, in the
Kosovo town of Rahovec, on July19, 1998. At Rahovec, up to 150 Albanians died; the
Serbs buried theirvictims in two mass graves in the area of Prizren.
The incident was among the most traumatic of the Kosovo conflict, butcame during a
season of horrors. In August and September 1998—while theLibyans and Serbs were
chatting familiarly—Serb mass executions wererecorded in Ranca (eleven people killed,
eight of them children),Galica near Vushtrri (fourteen dead, mainly young men), and
Golluboc(eight child victims), while in Abria e Epërme, a whole family oftwenty-two
persons was wiped out. By the end of 1998, half a millionAlbanians had fled their homes.
Yet on May 3, 1999, with the NATObombing of Serbia underway for weeks, Qadhdhafi
called for a halt toall military operations in Kosovo, the withdrawal of Serbian and
NATOtroops, a peace agreement drawn up with Yugoslav participation, andcontinued
Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo.12
Libyan involvement with the Milosevic regime and its defense was notmerely rhetorical.
Throughout the period of NATO bombing in Serbia, andas far as may be determined, up
to the present, Libya has maintainedfirm trade and economic relations with Serbia.
Serbian managementcadres have participated in running Libyan industry, and Serb
officersassisted in training Qadhdhafi’s personal guards.
Many Palestinians also nurtured a similar sympathy for Milosevic. Whatmay be
considered the most surrealistic gesture during the entiredecade of recent Balkan wars
occurred six months after NATO’s bombingof Serbia: on December 1, 1999, the
Palestinian Authority (PA) invitedMilosevic to Bethlehem to celebrate the Orthodox
Christmas. News ofthis invitation, although more or less ignored in the West,
wasreported with banner headlines in the Balkans. An Israeli foreignministry spokesman
said that if Milosevic accepted the invitation hewould be arrested on arrival, since Israel,
as a U.N. member, isobliged to fulfill arrest orders issued by The Hague tribunal,
whichhad indicted him. The PA, not being a U.N. member, was under no
suchobligation.13And the PA was not the only Palestinian element to vacillate overKosovo.
Earlier in 1999, the Palestinian Islamic extremist Hamasmovement issued a statement,
denouncing U.S. intervention to settle theKosovo crisis as "hiding under the slogans of
human rights to imposeits power in the Balkans."14 Hamas thus echoed the allegations of
Milosevic’s own media, as well as the Russians and various leftists worldwide.
Islamists in Arab lands likewise did immense damage by making the falseclaim that the
KLA was fighting for an Islamic state. In fact, theKosovo Albanian struggle was ethnic,
not religious, and the KLAincluded Catholic commanders as well as Muslims and persons
with nostrong religious affinities. But foreign Islamists announced that thestruggle was
some sort of jihad, a claim previously advanced byMilosevic, his government, and his
apologists to label the Albanians asreligious extremists. The KLA had to work overtime to
refute themisinformation regularly disseminated about its objectives.
And of course the supporters of bin Ladin did all they could to provokehostility toward the
U.S. role in Kosovo, even after U.S. power endedthe mass slaying of Muslims. In January
2000, a bin Ladinite website inthe United States posted articles falsely claiming that
NATO troops hadintroduced prostitution into Kosovo,15 and attempting to exploit a fatal
sexual assault on an 11-year old Albanian girl by a deranged U.S. soldier.16Other
extremist websites purveyed the anti-NATO arguments that use ofdepleted uranium had
polluted the soil in Kosovo, and that the real aimof the NATO intervention was to secure
control of the Trepca miningcomplex (a facility that is a decade behind the rest of the
world inextractive technology, while the commodities it once produced are allsubject to a
world glut).
In sum, while the rest of the world regarded the sufferings of BosnianMuslims and
Albanians as heart-rending and the basis of a great moralchallenge to global policy
makers, Arab states and Islamic extremiststook a different view. They seemed to regard
ethnic cleansing in theBalkans as secondary to their own complaints against the West
andIsrael, and as some sort of conspiracy of the West to infiltrate theBalkans. But their
posture cannot be explained only by their obsessionwith Israel and their antiAmericanism. It owed much to the views ofWahhabi clerics who dominate religious life in
Saudi Arabia andstrongly influence it throughout the Arab states. Arab indifference tothe
fate of Balkan Muslims cannot be understood without an appreciationof Wahhabi
ambivalence toward Balkan Islam—a very acute clash withinIslamic civilization.
Infiltrating Bosnia
It would be difficult to imagine Muslims less attuned to the nuances ofthe Balkans than
Wahhabis of the Saudi school. They abhor the veryconcept of mixed Islamic and nonIslamic societies such as existthroughout the Balkans. The expulsion of Muslims from
mixed territoriesby the Serbs and Croats caused them little concern. Some Bosnians
havetold me they believed that the Arabs favored reduction of Muslim Bosniato its most
narrow ethnic territory (a strip from Mostar to Tuzla,including Sarajevo) if this would
advance a separatist, supremacist,and Wahhabi agenda. For these Wahhabi foreigners,
the idea of a"green," i.e. Muslim island in Europe meant nothing unless it became
anIslamist enclave along Wahhabi lines. Needless to say, thiscondescending view of
Balkan Islam as an object of colonizationdisregarded the vast contribution of Bosnians
and Albanians to thedevelopment of Islamic civilization in general, and the Ottoman
Empirein particular.
In the case of the Bosnian Muslims, it also contradicted a trulyancient tradition of
interfaith coexistence and intra-religiouspluralism. The Bosnians supported an
independent Christian churchbefore the Ottoman conquest of the country. During
Ottoman times,Bosnian Catholics enjoyed religious autonomy, while the Serb
OrthodoxChurch functioned as the main representative of the Christian millet,or religious
community. Jews, too, were welcomed in Bosnia after theirexpulsion from Spain and
Portugal. There were never any ghettoes orother residential restrictions on Jews in
Bosnia; four synagoguesremain fully intact in Sarajevo alone, a city that in 1941 was
almost20 percent Sephardic. Notwithstanding the horrors Muslims suffered inthe 1992-95
war and the predictable resurgence of Islamic aspects inBosnian Muslim ethnic identity,
almost no native Bosnians couldconceive of their country undergoing a Taliban-style
experiment inIslamic revolution.
Many Bosnian Muslims were grateful for the participation of a thousandor so "Afghan
Arabs" in their defense. But the army of the Republic ofBosnia-Hercegovina (the so-called
Muslim forces) included hundreds ofthousands of fighters, and the mujahideen did not
influence the courseof a single battle in the Bosnian conflict. Furthermore, the
mujahideenwere largely Saudi adventurers who loved war; the Bosnians were
typicalEuropeans who had come to hate war after their experience of Fascistoccupation
and partisan struggle in World War Two. When Bosniansfought, it was for their country,
not for God or the opportunity formartyrdom. When the Bosnian war ended in 1995, no
Bosnians followed themujahideen to battle in Chechnya or Central Asia.
For the mujahideen in Bosnia, "the jihad ended" in 1995 with the U.S. imposition of the
Dayton agreement. 17Most of them departed the Balkans, although a few who had
acquiredBosnian citizenship by their war service or by marrying Bosnian womensettled in
central Bosnia, occasioning much rumor but little realtrouble.
The Saudi and other Gulf states then flooded Sarajevo with money andWahhabi
propaganda, under the ostensible cover of relief operations.Still, Wahhabism attracted
few local recruits. The main conflictbetween Wahhabi acolytes and Bosnian politicians
was a "mosque war"over architectural styles to be adopted in the Saudi- and Gulffinancedreconstruction of religious monuments destroyed by the Serbs andCroats. (Forty
percent of Bosnian mosques, including the oldest andmost important, were leveled
during the war. Most of them were interritory that remains under Serbian control.)
Bosnians wanted theirmosques rebuilt in their original and ornate Ottoman style; the
Saudiswould only pay for the erection of bare, stark Wahhabi-style mosques.18
Although ordinary Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian ulema, and most BosnianMuslim
politicians resented the interference and arrogance of theWahhabis, there was a visible
reluctance in Sarajevo to repudiate themopenly. The causes of this were simple: Bosnia
is impoverished, andthere is no prosperous Bosnian diaspora capable of investing
inreconstruction. In addition, Bosnian participation in Sufi orders, thetraditional barrier to
Wahhabism, had declined drastically underCommunism. The Saudis offered Bosnian
Muslim authorities needed money,and all they had to do was accept free copies of the
Qur’an. Yet evenso, the Bosnian Muslim community remained essentially impervious
topuritan Wahhabism, a situation that prevails today.
Foreign Islam in Kosovo
In Kosovo, Wahhabism encountered far greater difficulties. The mainreason is that
Shi‘ite-oriented Sufism—a double abomination in Wahhabieyes—is the dominant form of
religious expression among AlbanianMuslims in Dukagjini (Metohija), the territory most
distinguished byits history of anti-Serb resistance. It has been estimated that thereare
more Sufis or dervishes in the cities of Dukagjini, such as Gjakovaand Prizren, than there
are Sunni Muslims. Indeed, among Albanians,patriotism and Sufism are closely identified.
The most influentialamong the Albanian Sufi orders is the Bektashiya, an
extremelynonconformist sect with a long history in Anatolia, Central Asia andelsewhere.
The heterodox practices of the Bektashiya, which includeconsumption of alcohol, are so
outrageous to the Wahhabis that theBektashis living in Hijaz were collectively expelled
during the Sauditakeover of that part of Arabia.19 Wahhabis and those whom they
influence typically describe the Bektashis as outside Islam.
In addition, mujahideen were not welcome in Kosovo although there isevidence that
some Arabs went there to fight. Ramush Haradinaj, aleading figure in the KLA, stated in
a book of interviews that "abouttwenty" non-Albanians fought in the organization’s ranks
in Dukagjini.Haradinaj identified their places of origin as "Sweden, Netherlands,France,
Germany, Algeria, Italy, and some other countries. There weremartyrs from [among]
these volunteers," he added.20
Kosovo, like Bosnia-Hercegovina, was deluged with Saudi-funded Wahhabipropaganda
and preachers as soon as the 1999 intervention ended. Kosovogrand mufti Rexhep Boja
commented on the postwar influx of Islamicfundamentalists:
Thereare people who come here and want to tell us how we ought to do things.We have
been Muslims for more than 600 years and we do not need to betold what Islam is. We
have our own history and tradition here, our ownIslamic culture and architecture. We
would like to rebuild ourcommunity and to rebuild our mosques, but we want to do it our
way.21
Itis difficult to say how much money the Saudis put into Kosovo, largelythrough the
Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo (SJRCK). But it wascharacteristic that the
greater part of Saudi aid was spent on Wahhabipropagators and mosque-building, as
opposed to broader humanitarianneeds.22
Another Islamic aid group, based in the United Arab Emirates, promisedresidents of the
Kosovo town of Vushtrri that they would build them newmosques that would be bigger,
better, and "more Islamic"—provided theyfirst demolished the Ottoman-era gravestones
of their Muslim Albanianancestors. (The Wahhabis, who regard tombstones as a form
ofidol-worship, were unwilling to rebuild mosques that had tombstones intheir yards, a
common feature of the traditional Balkan mosque.) TheSaudis seemed intent on
completing the cultural vandalism the Serbs hadinitiated, this time in the name of Islam.
Andras Riedlmayer, fine arts librarian at Harvard University, recalled that in the Dukagjini
city of Peja,
Iwas told about an incident in 1998, when, as the villages in thesurrounding Kosovo
countryside were in flames, a group of Wahhabimissionaries—both Arabs and their
Kosovar acolytes—came to town andtried to impose their own way of praying (the locals
said it involvedsome "odd" body movements) ...
When the Wahhabis took out sledgehammers and set about smashing theseventeenth
century gravestones in the garden of Peja’s ancientDefterdar mosque, angry local
residents beat them up and chased themout of town. I was shown the damaged
gravestones, beautifully carvedwith floral motifs and verses from Qur’an. That was in the
late summerof 1998. Six months later, in the spring of 1999, Serb paramilitariescame
and burned down the mosque. Unlike the fundamentalistmissionaries, they were not
interested in the gravestones.23
Observersof the Kosovo situation were therefore not surprised when, at the endof 1999,
the Kosovapress news agency, the media arm of the former KLA,issued an extremely
strong comment against the infiltration of Wahhabimissionaries into Kosovo:
For more than a century civilizedcountries have separated religion from the state … we
now see attemptsnot only in Kosovo but everywhere Albanians live to introduce
religioninto public schools … Supplemental courses for children have been setup by
foreign Islamic organizations who hide behind assistanceprograms. Some radio
programs, such as Radio Iliria in Vitia, now offernightly broadcasts in Arabic, which
nobody understands and which leadmany to ask, are we in an Arab country?
It is time for Albanian mosques to be separated from Arab connectionsand for Islam to
be developed on the basis of Albanian culture andcustoms.24
In2000, the "mosque war" that had upset Bosnian Muslims expanded toKosovo, where
the Serbs had destroyed almost half the mosques,including several Ottoman architectural
treasures. At the end of July2000, Saudis who had taken over the refurbishment of the
Hadum mosquecomplex in Gjakova, dating from 1595 and devastated by the Serbs
duringthe 1999 war, suddenly turned up in the old Ottoman cemetery inside thewalls and
began removing its centuries-old gravestones. They alsodemolished the remains of the
library, which could have been restored.The Albanians reacted with predictable rage.
Gazmend Naka, an expertwith the Institution for Protection of Kosova Monuments,
denounced theSaudis:
The Saudis say NATO and the U.N. will let them dowhatever they want, and that we
Albanians have nothing to say about it.The Serbs killed us physically, but these fanatics
want to kill ourcultural heritage.25
Naka urged NATO’s KosovoForces command, which mounted guards at Serbian churches
threatened byAlbanians, to place similar protective units at Islamic structures. ButNATO
was trying to get out of the monument protection business: sittingin armored cars and
tanks watching Serbian Orthodox churches was not anefficient use of military resources,
and there was no interest inextending the program to mosques. Fortunately, on August
5, 2000, theU.N.-backed authorities barred the Saudis from the Hadum
mosquerehabilitation project.26
In the media coverage, Kosovar Albanian resentment of Arab meddling waseven more
sharply expressed when an United Arab Emirates diplomatpromised that fifty beautiful,
new mosques would be built aroundKosovo, to be paid out of the diplomat’s own pocket.
Naim Maloku, aformer KLA commander, brusquely rejected the proposal, stating
thatKosovo needed employment opportunities more than mosques.27
Kosovar resistance to Wahhabi mosque demolitions and cemetery vandalismwas not an
insignificant matter. In a sense, Wahhabi missionaries inKosovo had sought to do what
the "Arab Afghans" and the Taliban did inAfghanistan, when they demolished the great
Buddhas at Bamiyan. Suchphysical eradication of a rich and eclectic cultural heritage is
itselfan act of barbarism, whether done by Serb militias or Wahhabi zealots.In
Afghanistan, no one was able to stay the hands of the iconoclasts.In Kosovo, the story
has been different, as the Kosovars have made itclear they will not suffer the imposition
of a foreign and extreme formof Islam, now tainted by its association with terrorism. This
is avictory for moderation, and a great asset for the United States in itsfuture approaches
to the Muslim world.
War against Islam?
During the Afghan war, various Arab and other Muslims declared that theUnited States
was really waging war against Islam, and that it even hada master plan to undermine
Islam. Some Americans agonized that they hadnot done enough to placate Muslim
opinion, and that U.S. policy was toblame for September 11.
The argument was nonsensical. The United States had used its powerrepeatedly in the
1990s on behalf of besieged Muslims, who are gratefulfor its intervention to this day.
Those who charged the United Stateswith being intrinsically hostile to Islam displayed a
willful ignoranceof recent history—so willful that it is doubtful the United Statescould ever
do anything to persuade them otherwise. The United Stateshas every reason to be proud
of its record of solicitude for Muslimswho have been persecuted for their ethnic and
religious identity. Ithas no reason to apologize for its refusal to kowtow to Arab
radicalslike Saddam Husayn, or to indulge a Palestinian leadership thatabandoned
diplomacy in order to foment Balkan-style chaos in the MiddleEast.
Yet the United States has not acknowledged the goodwill it did createin the Balkans. As it
looks forward to the next stages in the "war onterror," it would do well to make the most
of the solidarity shown byBalkan Muslims generally, and Albanians in particular. The
answer toUsama bin Ladin is not the kind of Islam practiced in the Arab world,with its
strong streak of intolerance for difference. It is certainlynot a version of Wahhabism as
exported by Saudi Arabia—a doctrine thatis infected with the germ of terrorist
extremism. It is the sort oftolerant Islam that is practiced in the Balkans, and
whosepractitioners today feel themselves closer to the United States than totheir
benighted Arab "brethren." This is an asset the United Stateswould do well to nurture
and employ. In the post–September 11 world,you never know when you might need a
few good Muslims.
Stephen Schwartz, a long-term resident of the Balkans, is the author of Kosovo:
Background to a War (Anthem, 2001), and the forthcoming Two Faces of Islam.
1
The Washington Post, Oct. 15, 2001.
Interview with Usama bin Ladin, "The New Powder Keg in theMiddle East," Nida’ul
Islam, Oct.-Nov. 1996, athttp://www.islam.org.au/articles/15/LADIN.HTM.
3
BBC News, Nov. 3, 2001.
4
Oct. 15, 2001, at http://www.assahwah.com/Articles/An%20Open%20Letter%20to%20President%20Bush.phtml.
5
"U.S. Understanding of Islam Does Not Confirm Clash of Civilizations Claim," Radikal
(Istanbul), Oct. 13, 2001.
6
Reuters, Oct. 31, 2001.
7
TVSH Television (Tirana), Sept. 12, 2001.
8
KosovaLive News Agency (Prishtina), Oct. 12, 2001.
9
Koha Jone (Tirana), Oct. 8, 2001.
10
Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS) Albanian Language Media Report, Oct. 8,
2001.
11
Arabic News, Aug. 24, 1998, at
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980824/1998082403.html.
12
Ibid., May 3, 1999, at
13
The Washington Post, Dec. 2, 1999. Contrast with Israel’sconduct: in the early phase
of the Kosovo intervention, Israel sent amobile hospital to the main Kosovar Albanian
refugee camp in Macedonia,the Israeli labor federation Histadrut donated ten metric tons
of foodaid to the Kosovars, and Israel took in 112 Kosovar Albanian refugees,none of
whom were Jewish. Israeli aid to the Kosovars was completelydisinterested; there had
been no significant Jewish presence in Kosovosince the Holocaust.
14
Arabic News, Apr. 3, 1999, at
15
Agence France-Presse, Jan. 5, 2000.
16
Reuters, Jan. 15, 2000.
17
Their story is told in two cassettes, In the Hearts ofGreen Birds and Under the Shades
of Swords, available for purchase
athttp://66.96.205.195/~azzam/html/productsgreenbirds.htm;http://66.96.205.195/~az
zam/html/productsswords.htm#top.
18
Stephen Schwartz, "Islamic Fundamentalism in theBalkans," Partisan Review, Summer
2000, athttp://www.bu.edu/partisanreview/archive/2000/3/schwartz.html.
19
M. Darwish, "The Hidden Face of Extremism—the ‘NewWahhabi’ Movement," EastWest
Record, Oct. 8, 2001,
athttp://www.eastwestrecord.com/articles/theNewWahhabMovement.asp.
20
Bardh Hamzaj, A Narrative about War and Freedom: Dialog with Commander Ramush
Haradinaj (Prishtina: Zeri, 2000), p. 141.
21
Personal communications with Andras Riedlmayer, 1999-2000.
22
See the results for a search for "Kosovo" in the SaudiArabian Information Resource,
athttp://www.saudinf.com/scripts/search3.pl?target=Kosovo&_submit=Search&baseurl=
http%3A%2F%2Fwww.saudinf.com%2F.
23
Personal communications with Andras Riedlmayer, 1999-2000.
24
Kosovapress News Agency, Dec. 29, 1999.
25
Interview with author, Prishtina, Kosovo, summer 2000;Stephen Schwartz, "A Certain
Exhaustion," The New Criterion, Oct. 2000,at
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/oct00/schwartz.htm.
26
Jolyon Naegele, "Yugoslavia: Saudi Wahhabi Aid WorkersBulldoze Balkan Monuments,"
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
athttp://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/08/F.RU.000804130919.html.
27
Religion in Kosovo (Brussels: International Crisis Group,2001), at
http://www.crisisweb.org/projects/showreport.cfm?reportid=226.
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at
http://www.meforum.org/article/166
2
The religious 'other'
Posted at 23:09 on October 3, 2006
Greetings!
I chose this topic for it is pretty much interwoven with our discussions on religious
pluralism. Yet i've termed it (as many others have previously done) the religious other,
denoting the egg-or-chicken long debate on 'the other/s'.
Yet, in our discussion we have narrowed down to the religious 'other'. A different
theoretical category.
I would apreciate any inputs of yours related to this topic, be that your ideas, articles, or
links.
Cheers,
Shefik
Fahrudin Kladničanin, Novi Pazar
Manjina i tranzicja
• January 9, 2007 - Papin "nadahnuti govor"
Da u danasnjem svetu svako može vređati muslimane bez posledica, dokaz je i govor
pape Benedikta XVI u nemačkom Regensburgu. Papa je izrazio žaljanje što muslimani
nisu shvatili da su oni zaista takvi kako ih je on opisao i nije povukao to što je rekao.
Podršku ovom govoru dao je Univerzitet u Tubingenu. Žiri katedre za retoriku tog
univerziteta dodelio mu je ovogodišnju nagradu za "Govor godine".Eto toliko, da se zna
da Papa nije sam.
Comments (0) :: Post A Comment! :: Permanent Link
• November 5, 2006 - Vehabizam, sta je to
VEHABIZAM, STA JE TO
PREDGOVOR
U ovoj knjizi, riječ je o historijatu i kolijevci vehabizma, iz pera tri učenjaka: Dehlana,
Zelluma i Šenduba.
Autori otkrivaju svu zbilju, aktere, ideologe i pozadinu vehabizma.
Čitaocu se nameće pitanje: Koliko koristi i kolika je potreba za upoznavanjem sa ovim
fragmentima bolne povijesti islama? U svakom slučaju, kad je riječ o povijesnim
trenucima bilo kojeg perioda islama, nužno je poznavati ih kako bi se upoznali sa
uzrocima aktualne stvarnosti koju živimo. Da je vehabizam bio i djelovao sa osnova
nužnosti i potrebe reforme, te oživljavanje vjerske misli, čišćenja iz islamskog učenja
svega što mu je strano, i da je bio nužni krik protiv nepravde i negativnosti kojima je bio
bremenit islamski svijet, svi bi mu rekli "merhaba" - dobro došao! Iz pera autora ove
knjige, jasno je da je reforma na kojoj je bio angažiran vehabizam, bila na štetu
islamskog jedinstva i na korist kolonijalističkih zapadnih imperija, kojima je hilafet bio
prepreka za ostvarenje njihovih ambicija. Posebno je pitanje da li je svaki upregnuti
faktor kao podupirač vehabizma bio svjestan ovoga,
no međutim svjesnost ili čistoća nečije namjere će se gledati kod Boga -dželle še'nuhuna Ahiret a posljedice konkretnih angažmana se na dunjaluku ili uživaju ili teško
podnose.
Svima je , bar danas, jasno kakvi su rezultati i posljedice tih zbivanja krajem 18 i
početkom 19 vijeka. Hilafet je porušen. Veći dio islamskog svijeta je koloniziran.
Muslimani su dovedeni u težu situaciju od koje su bili pod upravom islamskog halife. S
toga, obraćamo se čitaocu ovoga ovog štiva, da njemu pristupa a da na umu ima te
činjenice. Svaki objektivni musliman treba istinski i bez imalo straha i kolebanja i bez bilo
kakvih predrasuda iskazati spremnost da osudi svaki faktor i svaku djelatnost
koja vodi štetu muslimana da podrži, zalaže se i promiče svaku aktivnost koja donosi
korist muslimanima. S toga nimalo ne sumnjamo da će mnogi mladići čija srca su
ispunjena vjerskim žarom, koji žele da žive i prakticiraju Kur'an i Sunnet, i koji teže
uspostavi društva koje će biti organizirano na temelju učenja Kur'ana i Sunneta, spremno
i odlučno Lorensovim slugama reći:"Ne, nikada više"! Vjernike ne smije zmija dva puta
ujesti iz iste rupe. Ovo štivo bi trebalo da pojača naboj u srcima vjernika da se više
zalažu na putu ponovnog uspostavljanja jedinstva među svim muslimanima.
Ponovno uspostavljanje jedinstva među svim muslimanima svijeta i izbora islamske
vlasti, neće odgovarati dinastijama, partijama ili diktatorima koji trenutno uživaju
blagodati vlasti po podijeljenim i pocijepanim krajevima islamskog svijeta. Allah -dželle
še'nuhu- kaže:"Oni žele da ugase Allahovo svjetlo svojim ustima. A Allah će upotpuniti
Svoje svjetlo, makar to prezirali nevjernici. On je taj koji je poslao Svoga Poslanika sa
uputom i istinskom vjerom da bi njom nadvisio sve vjere, makar to prezirali
idolopoklonici."
/ Saff, 8-9/
Naš ugledni alim Husejn ef. Đozo iznosi svoja zapažanja o situaciji u
islamskom svijetu pa kaže:""Gledao sam svojim očima i slušao
svojim ušima kako hadžije satima stoje, ljubeći zidine Kjabe i zidove
turbeta Božjeg Poslanika, učeći razne dove i tražeći razne murade. Iste takve prizore
gledao sam prolazeći kroz Carigrad, Konju, Bagdad, Kerbelu, Damask, Kairo itd. Sve što
ozbiljnije razmišljam i temeljitije analiziram ove pojave, sve mi više postaje u osnovi
shvatljivije. Sve više uviđam, da mi nedostaje moralne snage i prava da za sve ovo
okrivljujem mase.
Ne znam, teško je reći, ali čini mi se, da im je i ovo bilo pametnije
nego da su se slijepo poveli za kojekakvim Lorensovim slugama. Prošlost je učiteljica
koja nas uči i pruža nam iskustva ranijih generacija, kako bismo mogli nastaviti tamo
gdje su oni stali."
Slična zapažanja iznosi i Šejh Ali Tantavi, kada govori o pojavi vehabizma:"Ono što se
navodi kao manjkavost i nedostataka ( Ibn Vehabu) jeste metoda koju je slijedio u
reformi. Npr. vidio je neke ljude kako se ponašaju na kaburima, te je u tom činu
primjetio vidljive elemente širka, po njegovom mišljenu. Zbog toga ih je automatski
proglasio mušricima. Zatim je isti hukm, odnosno, stav prenio na sve gradove i naselja u
kojima je primjetio kubbeta nad kaburima. Sve te muslimane proglasio ej murteddima (
odmetnicima) od vjere, dozvolio je prolijevanje njihove krvi ( tj. ubijanje) i konfiskaciju
njihove imovine."
Kao rezultat ovakvog učenja i da've uslijedilo je zatiranje svih tragova i kulturnih
spomenika vjekovne islamske kulture i tradicije. Porušena su sva turbeta i nišani nad
najpoznatijim grobljima kao što su: Medinsko groblje Beki'a, groblje boraca na Uhudu,
Mekkansko groblje u koje su zakopani h. Hatidža i Poslanikovi preci, Abdul-Mutalib i dr.
Nad tim mjestima u doba vehabija izvršen je pravi urbicid. Tako da se danas uopće ne
zna gdje se ko nalazi. Šejh Jusuf Rifai u svome djelu "Nesihatt ulemi Nedžda" nabrojao je
više desetina primjera rušenja svega što je podsjećalo na velikane prošlosti. U mjestu
Ebvi, gdje se nalazio kabur Amine, majke Muhammeda 'alejhi-sselam,, tačno nad
kaburom napravlje je rezervoar za benzin. U časnoj Mekki, gdje je bila kuća h. Hatidže,
trenutno je lokacija stočne pijace. Na mjestu u kome je bila kuća u kojoj je bilo
Poslanikovo
rođenja izgrađeni su javni klozeti i sl. Sve su to plodovi vehabijske
da've, ve la havle ve la kuvvete illa billahil-alijjil-azim! Allahumme
nsuril islame vel-muslimine, ve 'ali kelimetel-hakki ve ddin. Allahumme nsur men nasare
din vahzul-men hazelel-muslimine.
VEHABIJSKA FITNA
Znaj da se u doba vladavine sultana Selima Trećeg (1204-1222 h. g.) pojavile mnoge
fitne (kušnje) o kojima smo opširno govorili u našim djelima. Od spomenutih fitni je
“Vehabijska fitna” koja se pojavila u Hidžazu kada su zauzeli Dva Časna Harema i
zabranili dolazak na hadž hadžijama iz Šama (Sirije) i Egipta. Od fitni kojima je bio
iskušan sultan Selim treći posebna je bila najezda Francuza kada su osvojili Egipat 12131216 hidžretske godine. Ukratko ćemo spomenuti o ovim dvjema fitnama a o njima ima
više riječi u historijskim djelima. Postoje pisane opširne disertacije o ovim
dvjema fitnama. Što se tiče vehabijske fitne, početak sukoba i borbi između njih i Emira
Mekke Mevlane Šerifa Galiba ibn Musaida, koji je bio ovlašten od strane sultana da vlada
Hidžazom, bio je 1205 hidžretske godine a to je bilo u vrijeme vladavine sultana Selima
Trećeg koji je sin sultana Mustafe Trećeg sina Ahmedovog. A što se tiče samog početka
pojave Vehabija to je bilo puno godina prije toga. Oni su se prvo oformili i ojačali u svojoj
pokrajini a onda se je njihov šer (zlo) proširio i šteta narasla i vlast njihova se rastegla na
veča područja. Pobili su ljudi da im se ni broj ne zna. Učinili su dozvoljenim njihovu
imovinu i porobili su njihove žene.
OSNIVAC I UTEMELJITELJ VEHABIJSKOG POKRETA
Osnivač ovog nečasnog pokreta bio je Muhammed ibn abdul-Vehhab čije je porijeklo sa
Istoka iz plemena Benu Temim. Rođen je 1111 hidžretske a propao 1200 h. g. Neki
historičari su ovako opisali njegovu propast: “Pojavila se propast (habisa) nečasnika
1206 h.g.”
U početku bio je učenik među učenicima u Medini i Munevveri neka je na Poslanika
Muhammeda 'alejhi-sselam, salavat i selam. Otac mu je bio dobar čovjek. Slovio je kao
učenjak. Također i njegov brat Šejh Sulejman. Njegov otac i brat a i ostali učenjaci su
prognozirali u njemu nastranost i sklonost ka zabludi i zastranjenost srca, jer su bili
svjedoci njegovih riječi i postupaka i njegovog zastranjivanja u mnogim pitanjima.
Kritikovali su ga zbog toga i upozoravali druge ljude od njega. I tačno se i obistinilo
njihovo strahovanje i nagađanje kada se javno pojavio sa novotarijama i zabludama i
nastranjenostima s kojima je zaveo džahile i suprostavio se učenjacima i imamima vjere i
došao do stupnja da tekfiri (proglašava
kjafirima) skupine vjernika. Smatrao je da je posjeta Poslanikovom kaburu 'alejhisselam, i činjenje tevessula s njim i ostalim Poslanicima i Allahovim dobrim robovima i
posjeta njihovim kaburima širk. Smatrao je da je pozivanje Poslanika kod tevessula širk,
također dozivanje drugih Allahovih robova, kada se čini tevessul, je širk. Također je
smatrao da ako neko pripiše neki čin nekome mimo Allaha pa makar riječima simbolike
kao npr. “ovaj lijek mi je koristio”- da taj postaje mušrik. Prihvatio se je nekakvih dokaza
koje ne daju nikakve plodove. Došao je sa nekim potvorenim i izmišljenim izrazima koje
je uljepšao i zbunjivao obični svijet dok ga nisu počeli
slijediti. Napisao je za njih i posebne brošure. Čak su vjerovali da su
večina sljedbenika tevhida postali kjafiri. Ibn Abdul-Vehhab se spojio
sa vladarima Istočnih pokrajina u Der’ijjeti i ostao kod njih dok ga nisu podržali i
prihvatili njegovu da’vu . Vladari Der’ijjete su u tome vidjeli priliku za jačanje,
učvršćivanje i proširenje svoje vlasti. Ovladali su beduinima koji su postali njihova jaka
vojska kojoj se teško bilo oduprijeti.
Vjerovali su da svaki koji ne povjeruje u ono što kaže ibn Abdul-Vehhab postaje kjafir i
mušrik čija krv i imetak su dozvoljeni. Pojava njegove misije u ovakvom svjetlu je bila
1243 h. g. a osvajanja i širenje bilo je poslije 1250. Učenjaci su napisali mnoge odgovore
i disertacije u kojima je odgovor na ovu pojavu. Čak je i njegov brat Šejh Sulejman
napisao djelo u kome odgovara na zablude i opasnosti koje se kriju iza riječi i učenja koje
je propagirao njegov brat. Njegovu misiju i učenje podržao je emir Der’ijjete Muhammed
ibn Saud koji je porijeklom iz plemena Beni Hanife, naroda iz kojeg je potekao Musejleme
Kezzab . Kada je umro Muhammed ibn Saud podršku abul-Vehhabu dao je njegov sin
Abdul-Aziz ibn Muhammed ibn Saud.
Mnogi medinski šejhovi i učenjaci su govorili za njega:”Ovaj će zalutati.” ili “Allah će
njime u zabludu odvesti neke ljude, neka je daleko od nas.”
I tako je i bilo. Muhammed ibn abdul-Vehhab je naglašavao da je njegov cilj i želja sa
ovim mezhebom kojeg je izumio da želi iskrenost u (Tevhidu)
Jedinstvu i oslobađanje od širka. Smatrao je da su ljudi bili u širku
već 600 godina i da je on došao da im obnovi vjeru. Kur’anske ajete u
kojima se opisuju mušrici protumačio je da se to odnosi na tadašnje sljedbenike tevhida.
Kao npr. ajet:”Ko je u većoj zabludi od onoga koji doziva nekog mimo Allaha koji mu se
neće odazvati do Sudnejg dana a oni su prema njihovim dovama nemarni.” ili ajet:” Ne
dozivaj pored Allaha ko ti neće koristiti niti štetu nanijeti.” ili ajet” Oni koji dozivaju one
kojima se neće odazvati do Sudnjega dana “ i slično. Muhammed ibn Abdul-Vehhab je
rekao: ”Ko traži pomoć sa imenom Poslanika Muhammeda 'alejhi-sselam, ili drugog od
Allahovih Poslanika ili evlija ili ga pozove ili traži šefa’at on je kao ovi mušrici
koji su opisani u gornjim ajetima.”
Na istu razinu stavio je zijaret Poslanikovom kaburu 'alejhi-sselam, i
kabure drugih Poslanika i evlija.
Rekao je o Kur’anskom ajetu u kome se govori o mušricima:”Mi ih obožavamo samo da
bi se približili u Allahovu blizinu.”:”Oni koji čine tevessul slični su mušricima koji kažu:”Mi
ih obožavamo samo da se Allahu približimo..”. Ibn Vehhab kaže:”Mušrici nisu vjerovali da
njihova božanstva mogu nešto stvoriti, vjerovali su da je Stvoritelj Allah, jer o tome ima
dokaz u Kur’anu:”A ako ih pitaš ko ih je stvorio. Reći će:Allah.” i u drugom:”Ako ih pitaš
ko je stvorio nebesa i zemlju, reći će: “Allah.” Pa je Allah o njima presudio sa kufrom i
širkom zbog njihova govora “da bi se približili Allahu” tako da su ovi slični njima.”
ODGOVOR ISLAMSKIH UCENJAKA NA POJAVU VEHABIZMA
Učenjaci islama su ovako odgovorili na ovaj pogrešni način zaključivanja i izvođenja
stavova:”Vjernici nisu prihvatili niti ikada smatrali Poslanike niti evlije Božije
božanstvima, niti rivalima – suparnicima Božjim! Vjernici vjeruju i drže da su oni Allahovi
robovi koji su stvoreni i oni ne zaslužuju da budu predmet obožavanja. A što se tiče
mušrika o kojima su objavljeni mnogobrojni ajeti oni su vjerovali da njihova božanstva
zaslužuju da im se čini ibadet i oni su ih veličali veličanjem božanstava iako su vjerovali
da oni ne stvaraju ništa. A vjernici ne vjeruju da Poslanici i evlije zaslužuju da se njima
ibadet čini i da zagovaraju da su božanstva obožavajući ih kako se Bog obožava.
Naprotiv, vjernici vjeruju da su oni Allahovi odabrani robovi i miljenici koje je Allah
odabrao i njihovim bereketom
iskazuje milost svojim robovima. Oni sa njihovim bereketom smjeraju Allahovu milost.
Ovome što smo rekli postoje mnogi dokazi iz Kur’ana i Sunneta.
I’tikad (ubjeđenje) muslimana je da je Stvoritelj, Koji korist i štetu
daje i Koji jedino zaslužuje obožavanje Allah jedini. Muslimani ne vjeruju da iko osim
Njega ima moć utjecaja na bilo što. I vjeruju da Poslanici i evlije ne stvaraju ništa niti
imaju moć da nanesu štetu i priskrbe korist. Stvar je u tome da se Allah smiluje svojim
robovima njihovim bereketom (blagoslovom). Ono što je mušrike odvelo u širk je i’tikad
(ubjeđenje) da njihova božanstva zaslužuju da im se ibadet čini a ne samo njihov govor
“Mi ih obožavamo samo da nas približe Allahu” Jer oni su, kada im je donesen dokaz da
njihova božanstva ne zaslužuju da budu predmet obožavanja, rekli opravdavajući svoje
ponašanje:”Mi ih obožavamo samo da nas približe Allahu”.
Pa kako može biti dozvoljeno ibn Abdul-Vehhabu i onima koji ga slijede da poistovjete
vjernike- mu’mine – monoteiste sa onima koji su mušrici i koji vjeruju u božanstvenost
svojih idola?
Svi prethodni ajeti a i ostali ove vrste se specijalno odnose na kjafire
i mušrike a ni po kakvom smislu ne odnose se na vjernike muslimane.
Imam Buharija je zabilježio Poslanikovu predaju od ashaba Abdullaha ibn Omera r.a. o
opisu Haridžija:” da su oni ajete koji su objavljeni o kjafirima prenijeli na mu’mine.”
Abdullah ibn Omer također prenosi predaju da je Resulullah 'alejhi-sselam,
rekao:”Najviše čega se bojim mome ummetu jeste čovjek koji bi tumačio Kur’an na svoj
način kako ne odgovara.” Ovaj Poslanikov opis bi se mogao prije svega odnositi na ovu
skupinu.
A da se bilo šta od onoga što rade vjernici po pitanju tevessula smatra širkom to se ne bi
desilo da Poslanik Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam, radi i njegovi ashabi i ogromna većina
njegovih sljedbenika. U sahih predajama se navodi da je Poslanik Muhammed 'alejhisselam, učio u dovama :”Allahumme inni es’eluke bihakki ssailine alejke.” Moj Gospodaru
od Tebe tražim hakkom (pravom) onih koji Ti se obračaju.” Ovakav Poslanikov izraz se
smatra tevessulom bez imalo sumnje. Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam, poučavao je ashabe da
čine ovu dovu i naređivao im da tako uče dove. To je sve opširno opisano u knjigama i
disertacijama koje su napisane kao odgovori na Ibn Abdul-Vehhabovo učenje.
Postoji autentična (sahih) predaja da je Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam, kada je umrla Fatima
bint Esed, majka Alije ibn Ebi Taliba ,da je on svojom časnom rukom spuštao u kabur i
proučio dovu:”Allahumme gfir liummi Fatima bint Esed ve vessi’i alejha medhaleha
bihakki nebijjike vel-enbijai ellezine min kabli inneke erhamu-rrahimine.” Moj Gospodaru,
oprosti mojoj majci Fatimi bint Esed i učini joj kabur postranim s pravom ( hakkom)
tvoga Poslanika i poslanika prije mene. Ti si od milostivih najmilostiviji.”
Postoji također sahih predaja da se Poslaniku Muhammedu 'alejhi-sselam, obratio slijepac
sa molbom da mu se vrati vid Poslanikovom dovom. Poslanik Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam,
mu je naredio da se očisti, klanja dva rekjata i da prouči:"Allahumme inni es'’eluke ve
etevedžehu ilejke binebijjike Muhammedin nebijji rrahmeti. Ja Muhammed inni
etevedždžehu bike ila rabbi fi hadžeti litukda. Allahumme šeffi’ahu fijje." Moj Gospodaru,
obraćam Ti se i okrećem Tebi sa tvojim Poslanikom Muhammedom, Poslanikom milosti.
O Muhammede ja se obraćam tobom svome Gospodaru u mojoj potrebi da mi se izvrši.
Moj Gospdaru učini ga da mi bude zagovornik na Sudnjem danu.”
To je uradio pa mu je Allah vratio vid.
Postoji sahih predaja da je Adem 'alejhi-sselam, činio tevessul sa našim Poslanikom
'alejhi-sselam, kada je pojeo sa plodova zabranjenog drveta, jer je vidio njegovo ime
napisano na Aršu i na džennetskim vratima i na stranama meleka pa je pitao Allaha za
njega. Allah mu je rekao:”Ovo je djete tvoj potomak, da nije njega ne bi ni tebe stvorio.”
Onda je Adem 'alejhi-sselam, rekao:”Allahumme bihurmeti hazel-veledi irham hazelvalide.” “Moj Gospodaru tako ti tvoga hurmeta prema ovom djetetu smiluj se ovom
roditelju.” Onda je dozvan o Ademe, da si tražio kod Nas oprost sa Muhammedom za sve
stanovnike nebesa i Zemlje, Mi bi ti ga dali.”
Omer ibn Hattab je činio tevessul sa Abbasom r.a. kada je bila velika suša. Postoje i
mnogi drugi slučajevi što je poznato i mi nismo u potrebi da dalje spominjemo. Način
tevessula koji je objašnjen od strane Poslanika 'alejhi-sselam, u slučaju slijepca kome je
vraćen vid, korišten je i kasnije od strane ashaba i nakon Poslanikovog preseljenja na
Ahiret. Ko bude istraživao ovo pitanje naći će mnogo slučajeva iz perioda ashaba i
tabiina. Npr. govor ashaba Bilala ibn Harisa kod Poslanikovog kabura:”Ja resulellah
isteski liummetik” “O Allahov Poslaniče, traži kišu svome ummetu.”
Naći ćeš, također, pozive koje je Poslanik upučivao kada je posjećivao kabure.
Od najoznatijih šejhova koji su pisali odgovor ibn Abdul-Vehhabu je učenjak šejh
Muhammed ibn Sulejman el-Kurdi, pisac djela Havaši komentar ibn Hadžera.
Rekao je između ostalog:”O ibn Abdul-Vehhabe, savjetujem te u ime Allaha Uzvišenog da
tvoj jezik uvučeš i poštediš muslimane tvog vrijeđanja. Ako čuješ osobu da vjeruje da
postoji utjecaj od nekoga osim Allaha i da se taj tome obraća mimo Allaha, nastoj da ga
poučiš ispravnom vjerovanju i ponudi mu dokaze da nejma utjecaja bez Allaha pa ako
takva osoba odbije onda ga proglasi kjafirom. Ti nejmaš pravo tekfiriti ogromnu većinu
islamskog ummeta od koje si se ti odvojio. Bliži kufru je onaj koji se odvojio od ogromne
većine islamskog ummeta, od onih koji su u ogromnoj islamskoj većini, jer on slijedi put
koji nije put zajednice vejrnika. Allah Uzvišeni
kaže:” Ko se suprostavi Poslaniku nakon što mu je objašnjen pravi put i slijedi put koji
nije put zajednice pustit ćemo da čini što hoće a onda ćemo ga baciti u džehennem a
ružno li je on boravište.” (Nisa 115) A ne zaboravi da vuk jede ovcu koja odluta od
stada.”
Što se tiče posjete Poslanikovom kaburu, to su činili ashabi r.a. i svi
koji su došli poslije. O vrijednosti posjete Poslanikovom kaburu izrečeni su mnogi hadisi
koji se nalaze u pisanim djelima o ovoj temi. A što se navodi o dozivanju drugog pored
Allaha -dželle še'nuhu- odsutnog i umrlog o tome se spominje u hadisu Poslanika 'alejhisselam,:Ako se izgubi životinja nekome od vas u nepoznatom mjestu neka zovne: O
Allahovi robovi, čuvajte je, jer Allah ima svoje robove koji će se odazvati.” U drugom
hadisu:”Ako neko izgubi nešto od vas ili bude u potrebi za pomoći u mjestu gdje nejma
druga neka kaže:”O Allahovi robovi, pomozite mi, jer Allah ima robove koje vi ne vidite.”
Allahov Poslanik 'alejhi-sselam, je običavao kada bi putovao i prikučila se noć rekao bi:”O
Zemljo, Moj Gospodar i tvoj Gospodar je Allah.”
Kada bi posjećivao kabure Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam, bi govorio :”Esselamu alejkum ja
ehlel-kuburi.””Neka je na vas mir o stanovnici kabura.”
A u tešehhudu u učenju na ettehijjatu svaki musliman svaki dan izgovara poziv
“Esselamu alejke ejjuhennebijju.”
Iz navedenog se da zaključiti da dozivanje ili tevessul nejma štete ako osoba koja doziva
ili čini dovu tevessula ne vjeruje u moć utjecaja (te’sira) od strane osobe koju doziva ili s
kojom tevessul čini. Sve dok vjeruje da jedini utjecaj dolazi od Allaha -dželle še'nuhu- i
da drugi nemaju te moći onda nejma štete. Također je stvar sa prislanjanjem nekog čina
ili djela nekome drugom mimo Allaha ne šteti sve dok vjeruje da je utjecaj i dejstvo
jedino od Allaha -dželle še'nuhu- A rečenica se uzima u prenesenom smislu kao što se
kaže:”Koristio mi je taj i taj lijek.” ili “Izliječio me je taj i taj lijek” ili što se
kaže:”Pomogao mi je taj i taj.” A svi vjerujemo da stvarna pomoć i korist jedino od
Allaha dolazi. Nejma pravo niko onima koji ovako govore pripisati kufr zbog toga. Taj
govor se uzima u prenesenom značenju. Smatram o ovome za sada dovoljno. Ko želi da
se
više zadrži na ovoj temi neka se vrati na moju poslanicu koju sam posvetio ovoj temi.
Kada je Ibn abdu-l-Vehhab i oni koji su ga pomogli krenuli sa ovom nečasnom misijom,
zbog koje su proglasili kjafirima većinu muslimana zauzeli su dosta plemena. Njihova
vlast se širila. Zauzeli su Jemen i dva časna Harema (Mekku i Medinu). Njihova vlast je
brzo stigla do granica Šama. Oni su u početku svoga djelovanja bili poslali grupu svojih
učenjaka sa zadatkom da nastoje pokvariti akidu (učenje o vjerovanju) kod uleme i
stanovništva dvaju Harema (Mekke i Medine). Kada su došli kod učenjaka dvaju Harema i
spomenuli šta imaju od učenja o akidi, učenjaci dvaju Harema su im odgovorili
i ustanovili da je u stvari njihovo akide skup propisa o izvođenju iz
islama (tekfir). Onda su im podastrijeli sve dokaze o pogrješnosti njihovih stavova na što
se ovi nisu mogli braniti. Učenjacima dvaju Harema je bilo jasno da se radi o skupini
zabludjelih džahila koji su izgledali smiješno i zbunjeno. Učenjaci dvaju Harema su
napisali ferman kod šerijatskog suca u Mekki sa objašnjenjem da ovo na što ta skupina
poziva je čisti kufr i razaslali su da se to zna među ljudima. To je bilo u vrijeme vladavine
Šerifa Mesuda ibn Seida ibn Sa’da ibn Zejda koji je umro 1265 h.g. On je naredio da se
ova skupina odmetnika uhapsi. Međutim neki su uspjeli pobjeći iz zatvora i otišli su u
pleme Derijjete i izvjestili svoje vehabije o tome šta se zbilo. To im je samo povećalo inat
i oholost. Onda su emiri
Mekke zabranili da njihovi sljedbenici ulaze u Harem na hadž. Tada su vehabije počeli
napadati neka plemena koja su bila u pokornosti i dobrim odnosima sa emirima Mekke i
otpočeli su prvi sukobi. Početak oružanih sukoba između vehabija i emira Mekke Šerifa
Galiba ibn Musaida ibn Seida ibn Sada ibn Zejda, je bio 1205 h.g.. Između tih zaraćenih
strana bilo je više okršaja u kojima je stradao veliki broj ljudi.
JACANJE VEHABIJSKOG POKRETA
Vehabije su iz dana u dan jačali i stalno su nova plemena njima pristupala.
A sve je manji broj plemena ostajao pod upravom emira Mekke. Godine 1217 hidžretske
vehabije su okupili veliku vojsku i napali su Taif. Osvojili su ga i većinu stanovništva
pobili, a žene i imetke porobili. Veoma mali broj se uspio spasiti. Najavili su poslije ovoga
pohod na Mekku ali su znali da se u Mekki toga mjeseca nalaze mnoge hadžije iz Šama i
Egipta, pa su iz tog razloga odlučili sačekati dok se završe obredi hadža i da se povrate
hadžije iz Sirije i Egipta. I zaista nakon završetka obreda hadža spremili su pohod na
Mekku.
Emir Mekke Šerif Galib nije bio dovoljno spreman da se odupre vehabijskoj vojsci te se
zbog toga izmjestio u Džiddu. Stanovnici Mekke su se bojali za svoje živote pa su poslali
izvidnicu pred vehabijsku vojsku da traže od njih sigurnost ako se predaju pod njihovu
upravu. Dali su im sigurnost i ušli su u Mekku 8 muharrema 1218 h.g.. Zadržali su se u
Mekki 14 dana tražeći od ljudi da se pokaju obnavljajući im islam i zabranjujući im da
čine djela za koja su vehabije smatrali da je širk, kao tevesul ili posjetu kaburima. Zatim
su nastavili sa vojskom prema Džiddi kako bi se borili protiv Šerifa Galiba. Kada su
okružili Džiddu stanovništvo Džidde ih je gađalo iz topova i katapulta tako da je ubijen
veliki broj vehabija.
Nisu mogli zauzeti Džiddu pa su nakon 8 dana opsjedanja Džidde odlučili se prekinuti
opsadu. Vehabije su se vratili u svoja mjesta a u Mekki su ostavili emira Šerifa AbdulMuina koji je bio brat Galibov. Ostavili su i nešto vojske koja bi čuvala Mekku. Galibov
brat je to prihvatio da bi sačuvao živote stanovništvu Mekke i otklonio od njih zlo koje ih
je moglo zadesiti od vehabija.
U mjesecu rebiul-evvelu iste godine Šerif Galib je krenuo iz Mekke sa valijom iz Džide a
po naredbi sultana sa vojskom u pravcu Mekke. Kada su stigli tamo istjerali su vehabije
iz Mekke i njemu se ponovo vratila uprava nad Mekkom. Zatim su se uputili da
oslobađaju druga mjesta i uspjeli su povratiti i Taif i imenovali su emira Osmana ElMudajfija. Međutim vehabije nisu mirovali. Oni su nastavili svoje aktivnosti u ratovanju
protiv obližnjih plemena. Za kraće vrijeme ponovo su se okupili i zauzeli Taif i spremali se
na ponovno zauzimanje Mekke. Sa ogromnom vojskom opkolili su Mekku i zatvorili sve
puteve koji vode do Mekke. Mekkelije su se veoma
teško osjećali. Tog vremena je vladala nestašica i glad Mekkom. Stanovništvo je čak jelo
i pse kako bi preživjeli. Šerif Galib je bio primoran na mirovni proces i pregovore.
Napravljen je spoorazum a od uvjeta tog sporazuma je bio da će se vehabije prema
Mekkelijama ophoditi solidno i bez divljanja i da se njima prepusti uprava nad Mekkom.
U Mekku su ušli krajem mjeseca zu-l-Ka’deta 1220 h.g. Zatim su zauzeli i Medinu neka je
na Poslanika Muhammed 'alejhi-sselam, salavat i selam.
Opljačkali su hudžru u kojoj se nalazi Poslanik i pokupili sve vrijednosti.
Porušili su kubbe iznad Poslanikovog kabura 'alejhi-sselam, I po Medini su počinili
nezapamćene zločine. Porušili su sva obilježja na kaburima ashaba. Imenovali su
namjesnikom nad Medinom Mubareka ibn Mudijana. Njihova vlast nad Medinom i
Mekkom trajala je sedam godina. Za to sedam godina zabranili su dolazak na hadž
Sirijcima i Egipćanima. Počeli su ogrtati Kjabu crnim ogrtačem. Prisiljavali su ljude da
ulaze u njihovu vjeru silom.
Osmanska država toga doba je bila veoma slaba i zauzetavođenjem ratova protiv kršćana
kao i unutarnjim previranjima oko vlasti za sultanovu stolicu.
HALIFINI NAPORI ZA GASENJEM VEHABIJSKE FITNE
Onda je izdata zapovijed od strane sultana Mahmuda Hana drugog ibn abdil-Hamid Han
prvog sultan Ahmed, koji je na funkciji halife Allahovoga Poslanika Muhammed 'alejhisselam, egipatskom namjesniku Muhammed Ali Paši da spremi vojsku za boj protiv
vehabija. To je bilo 1226 h. g. Valija Muhammed Ali Paša je spremio vojsku koju je stavio
pod komandu svoga sina Tusun Paše.
Krenuli su iz Egipta u mjesecu ramazanu te godine.
Danju i noću su putovali da što prije dođu do odredišta. Kada su stigli do Jenbua odmah
su ga preuzeli od vehabija. Kada je ta vojska stigla do Safre i Hadideta tu ih je spremno
dočekala vehabijska vojska koju su pomogla sva okolna plemena i tu su do nogu potukli
egipatsku vojsku. Niko se od te vojske nije vratio u Egipat. To je bilo u mjesecu zulhidžetu 1226 h.g. Egipatski valija je odmah sljedeće godine spremio novu vojsku. Lično
se stavio na čelo te vojske i zaputili su se ka Hidžazu. Imali su sa sobom 18 topova više
bombi i velike količine naoružanja.
Stigli su do Safre i Hadidete i zauzeli je veoma lahko od vehabija. Što se tiče lahkoće
uzimanja ovih mjesta zasluge se vraćaju na dovitljivost i snalažljivost Šerifa Galiba Paše
koji je prividno bio stao sa vehabijama ali je održavao kontakt sa Muhammed Ali Pašom i
predložio mu da novcem potplati šejhove poznatih plemena i da im obeća redovna
mjesečana primanja.
Oni se u tom slučaju neće boriti protiv njih. I tako je i urađeno. Mnogo rijala je
podijeljeno plemenskim poglavarima. Jednom šejhu su dali 100 hiljada rijala. Manje
utjecajnim dali su po 18 hiljada rijala. Kada je vojska Muhammed Ali Paše ušla u Medinu
poslali su vijesti u Egipat o tome i tamo je priređeno opće slavlje i veselje. Ubrzo su
nakon toga zauzeli i Mekku kada im je došlo pojačanje iz Egipta. Vehabijska vojska se
razbježala.
Emir vehabija Saud je godine 1227 obavio hadž i zaputio se poslije toga u Taif i zatim u
Derijjete i nije znao za nove promjene na terenu i vraćanje Medine ispod kontrole
vehabija. Tek kada je stigao u Derijjete čuo je o vijestima ponovnog zauzimanja i Mekke i
Taifa od strane sultanove vojske.
U mjesecu rebiul-evvelu 1228 h.g. Muhammed Ali Paša je poslao glasnike na dvor
sultana da ga izvjeste o rezultatima pohoda i poslao je ključeve od Kjabe, Medine i
Džidde koji su postavljeni na zlatne tepsije i iz počasti i uz velik doček sa mirisima,
tekbirima i veseljem dočekani u Istambolu. Muhammed Ali Paša je dobio najveće
odlikovanja od sultana za uspjehe.
Šerif Galib Paša je uspio da uhapsi Osmana Mudaifija koji je bio vehabijski namjesnik u
Taifu. On je slovio kao najveći pomagač vehabijskog pokreta toga doba. Vezao ga je u
lance i poslao ga u Egipat. Onda je iz Egipta poslat na sultanov dvor (portu) gdje je
ubijen. Kada je Muhammed Ali Paša stigao u Mekku Šerif Galib Paša je uspio uhapsiti i
ibn Musaida vehabijskog drugog emira i poslati ga u Istanbul. U mjesecu muharremu
1229 h.g. poslali su i Mubareka ibn Mudijana koji je bio vehabijski emir u Medini. Njega
su vezanog vodali istambulskim ulicama da ga ljudi vide i onda su ga ubili.
Njegovu glavu su objesili na vidno mjesto radi pouke. Tako su uradili i sa Osmanom
Mudifijem.
Šerif Galib Paša je odlikovan od strane sultana i poslat je u Solun
u mirovinu gdje je i dočekao smrt. On je bio upravnik nad Mekkom punih 26 godina. U
Solunu je preselio 1231 h.g. Njemu je izgrađeno i turbe koje se posjećuje. Muhammed
Ali Paša je poslao svoje vojske u istočne pokrajine da se obračunavaju sa preostalim
vehabijskim plemenima i uporištima. Veliki broj vehabija je poubijan od sultanove vojske.
Godine 1229 hidžretske umro je Saud , vehabijski emir, a naslijedio ga je njegov sin
Abdullah. Muhammed Ali Paša je nakon obavljenog hadža 1230 hidžretske zaputio se u
Egipat a u Hidžazu je ostavio Hasan Pašu. U Hidžazu je proveo punih godinu i sedam
mjeseci u borbama protiv vehabija. U Egipat se vratio kada
je bio siguran da je počistio teren i razbio njihovu moć. Od jačih uporišta ostala je još bila
samo Derijjete. Njihov emir je bio Abdullah ibn Saud. Muhammed Ali Paša je poslao
vojsku pod komandom svoga sina Ibrahim Paše.
Abdullah ibn Saud je od prije imao sporazum sa Tuson Pašom kada je bio u Medini u
kome je navedeno da on zadržava vladavinu u Derijjeti i da iskaže pokornost Muhammed
Ali Paši. Međutim, Muhammed Ali Paša nije se saglasio sa ovakvim sporazumom te je
spremio vojsku pod komandom sina Ibrahim Paše na Derijjete. To je bilo krajem 1231 g.
Kada je Ibrahim paša stigao sa vojskom do Derijjete bila je 1232 h.g. Porazio je
Abdullaha ibn Sauda u zu-l-Ka’detu 1233 g. Kada je o tom stigla vijest u Egipat
isti dan u znak radosti ispaljeno je iz hiljadu topova i bilo je veselje
u Egiptu jednu sedmicu. Muhammed Ali Paša je uložio veliki napor u borbi protiv vehabija
i na tom putu potrošio je velika sredstva iz državne blagajne.
Spominje se da su nekada samo za transport municije plačali po 45 hiljada rijala. Npr
samo za transport municije od Medine do Derijjete plaćeno je 140 hiljada rijala. Ibrahim
Paša je zarobio Abdullaha ibn Sauda i ostale emire i poslao ih je u Egipat. Oni su stigli u
Egipat 17 muharema 1234 h.h. i priređen im je veliki doček. Mnoštvo ljudi je došlo da
vide kakve su te vehabije.
Muhammed Ali Paša je primio Abdullaha ibn Sauda kod sebe i razgovarali su. Pitao ga je
o svome sinu kakav je bio u borbi. Rekao mu je da se trudio i uložio sve od sebe kao i
oni, ali je bilo što je Allah odredio. Onda mu je obećao da će se zauzeti za njega kod
Sultana. Abdullah mu je odgovorio:”Biće što je Allah odredio.” Onda je naredio da ga
počaste i obuku u lijepu odjeću. Abdullah je imao sa sobom jedan ukrašeni sandučić.
Muhammed Ali Paša ga je upitao:”Šta je to?” On mu je rekao:”Ovo je uzeo moj otac iz
Poslanikove hudžre, ponijet ću to sa sobom do Sultana.”
Paša je naredio da se otvori. U sandučiću su bila tri primjerka ukrašenih mushafa iz
vladarskih riznica. Bili su tako lijepi da ljepši nisu nikada viđeni. Tu je još bilo 300
komadića bisera nekoliko dragulja i ploča od zlata. Paša mu je rekao:”Ono što ste uzeli iz
hudžre je više od ovoga?” On mu je odgovorio:”Ovo je što je bilo kod moga oca!” On nije
zadržao samo za sebe sve što je bilo u hudžri i drugi su raznijeli.” Onda mu je paša
rekao:”Tačno već smo našli kod namjesnika djelove toga blaga.” Onda ga je poslao na
portu kod sultana.
Ibrahim paša se vratio iz Hidžaza u Egipat u mjesecu muharremu 1235 h.g. nakon što je
opustošio Derijjetu potpuno i stanovništvo rastjerao. Kada je Abdullah ibn Saud stigao na
portu kod sultana u mjesecu rebiul-evvelu proveli su ga po ulicama da ga ljudi vide zatim
su ga ubili. A s njim zajedno i ostale sljedbenike.
Ovo je ukratko kazivanje o vehabijskoj fitni. Njihova fitna (iskušenje)
je bila nedaća koju su trpili sljedbenici islama i njihovim sebebom prolilo se mnogo krvi,
opljačakano mnogo imetka i općenito nanešena je njihovom pojavom velika šteta. I
njihovo zlo je raspršeno fe la havle ve la kuvvete illa billahil-alijjil-azim.
VEHABIZAM JE NOVOTARIJA
U mnogim Poslanikovim hadisima jasno je najavljena njihova fitna. Kao primjer naveli bi
hadis u kome je Allahov Poslanika 'alejhi-sselam, rekao:”Pojavit će se ljudi sa Istoka koji
će učiti Kur’an ali njihovo učenje neće prelaziti granicu grla. Izlazit će iz dina kao što
izlazi odapeta strijela iz luka. Njihov znak je šišanje na čelavo.”
Ovaj hadis je naveden sa mnoštvom predaja. Neke su navedene u Sahihul-Buhariji.
Jasno je naglašeno da je njihova odlika šišanje na čelavo. Oni su naređivali svim svojim
sljedbenicima da briju na čelavo glave a prije njih u povijesti nije bilo pojave da se briju
glave na čelavo kao obavezni znak pripadanja pokretu.
O tome je rekao Sejjid Abdurrahman El-Ahdel:”Nejma potrebe da se piše više kao
odgovor vehabijama od ovoga Poslanikovog hadisa “njihovo obilježje je brijanje glava na
čelavo”. To prije vehabija nisu radili ni jedni pripadnici sekti ili pokreta.
Desilo se da je jedna žena koju su natjerali da postane vehabija kada su joj naredili da
na čelavo ošiša kosu protestirala je kod ibn Abdul-Vehhaba.
Ona je rekla ako naređuješ i ženama da šišaju kosu onda trebaš narediti muškarcima da
briju brade jer je kosa ženi ukras kao što je brada muškarcima.
Ibn Abdul-Vehhab je ostao bez teksta na ovu ženinu primjedbu.
Oni su zabranjivali ljudima da traže šefa’at od Poslanika Muhammeda 'alejhi-sselam,
Iako o tome postoji mnoštvo sahih hadisa i vrijednosti Poslanikovog šefaata za ummet.
Zabranjivali su učenje iz knjige Delailu-l-hajrat koji sadrži salavate na Poslanika
Muhammeda 'alejhi-sselam,. Govorili su da je to širk. Zabranjivali su donošenje salavata
na Poslanika 'alejhi-sselam, na minberima poslije učenja ezana. Bio je jedan dobar
čovjek mujezin. Bio je slijep. On je poslije ezana učio salavate a već su vehabije bile
izrekle zabranu toga. Doveden je kod ibn Abdul-Vehhaba i on je naredio da ga ubiju.
Kada bi bili u prilici da sve spomenemo šta su ovi činili napunili bi puno deftera. Ali
smatramo da je u navedenom dovoljno, a Allah subhanehu ve teala najbolje zna.
ZAVJERA PROTIV ISLAMSKE DRŽAVE
I pored neslaganja nevjernika oko međusobne podjele muslimanskih teritorija u jednom
su bili složni. Svi su bili složni da unište islam. Na tom planu osmislili su više puteva. U
Evropskim zemljama posijali su klicu naconalnih i nacionalističkih pokreta koji će težiti za
suverenošću i samostalnošću.
Klice takvih ideja su prenešene i na teritorije islamske države. Svoje
narode su huškali na islamsku državu. Koji bi se hvatali za tu ideju,
bili bi pomognuti oružjem i imetkom. Taj recept je prvo ispitan u Srbiji
i Grčkoj. Tako su nastojali udariti islamsku državu s leđa. Tako je mjesecu julu 1797 g.
Francuska izvršila invaziju na Egipat i osvojila ga. Glavni cilj ovog pohoda je bio uništenje
hilafeta kao islamskog oblika vladavine.
Nakon zauzimanja Egipta svoje vojne aktivnosti je proširila na Palestinu.
Nakon toga su udarili i na Siriju ali su tu poraženi. Pokušaj rušenja
hilafeta je propao.
Međutim neprijatelji Islama nisu mirovali ni poslije toga. Smišljali
su razne načine kako razbiti moćnu islamsku državu koja već vjekovima u svojim rukama
drži vlast nad najvećim djelom zemaljske kugle. Neprijatelji Islama će nastojati po svaku
cijenu da preuzmu kontrolu u svoje ruke nad ogromnim prostorima koje su pokrivali
muslimani i domoći se njihovih bogatstava.
Institucija hilafeta, koja ima svoje utemeljenje iz Medine - od Poslanika Muhammeda
‘alejhi-sselam- i trajala je do 1924 g.(Sultan Abdul-Hamid) je bila glavna prepreka na
putu podjarmljivanja Muslimana, okupacije njihove teritorije i pljačke njihovih imetaka.
Uspješniji potez koji je Zapad povukao bio je osnivanje jednog vjerskog pokreta koji bi u
svojoj vanjskoj formi izgledao islamski , a u biti zadatak tog pokreta bi bio da se Zapadne
sile, preko njega, domognu vlasti nad muslimanima i da poruše hilafet.
Engleska je posredstvom svoga čovjeka - muslimanskog izdajnika - Abdul-Aziza ibn
Muhammeda ibn Sau‘uda pokušala uzdrmati i oslabiti islamsku državu iznutra. U
unutrašnjosti prostora Arabije došlo je do formiranja vehabijskog pokreta. Englezi su ga
pomogli oružjem i novcem, kako bi mogli dići glas i oružje protiv halife. To se je i desilo.
Poveden je boj između Vehabija i islamske Osmanske vojske. Cilj je bio da vehabije
preuzmu vlast nad većim dijelovima teritorije u Arabiji koju su držali Osmanlije, da na
tim teritorijima zavedu svoj mezheb i da uklone tragove dotadašnjeg hanefijskog
mezheba, koji je bio zvanični priznati mezheb islamske osmanske države.
Sve to treba izvesti silom i mačem. Vehabije su 1788 g. napali Kuvajt i osvojili ga.
Napredovali su sjeverno i stigli do Bagdada kojeg su opsjedali. Cilj je bio da se stigne do
Kerbele i kabura Husejna r.a., unuka Muhammeda ‘alejhi-sselam, da bi ga porušili i
proglasili zabranu zijareta (posjete) njegovom kaburu.
1803 g. su izvršili napad na Mekku i zauzeli je. Godinu dana kasnije, 1804, napali su
Medinu i također je osvojili. Porušili su velika kubeta koja su natkrivala kabur Allahova
Poslanika Muhameda ‘alejhi-sselam Nakon što su potpuno zauzeli Hidžaz - uputili su se
ka Šamu. Došli su u blizini Homsa.
1810 g. su napali Damask kao što su napali i Nedžef. Što se tiče Damaska branio se je
veoma uspješno. Istovremeno sa opsadom grada Damaska poslali su svoje pristalice i
zauzeli sjeverne dijelove Sirije i izvršili proboj čak do Halepa. Općepoznato je bilo da iza
ovoga vehabijskog pokreta stoji Engleska jer su Ali Sauud bili njihove sluge - a iskoristili
su vehabijski mezheb u političke svrhe da bi udarili iznutra islamsku državu. Počeli su sa
izazivanjem raskola među mezhebima koji su veoma brzo prerasli u prave oružane
sukobe unutar Osmanske islamske države. Ali stalno se je vodilo računa da sljedbenici
ovog Vehabijskog mezheba ne spoznaju bit ovog pokreta a posebno njegovu vezu sa
Englezima.
Muhammed ibn Abdul-Vehhab je bio u početku hanbelijskog mezheba. Po nekim
pitanjima je i sam donosio idžtihad. U mnogim pitanjima se je razlikovao od učenjaka
drugih mezheba. Počeo je vatreno da se zalaže kod ljudi da slijede njegova mišljenja
smatrajući ih najispravnijim. Takvim stavom i ponašanjem izazvao je gnjev, osudu i
žestoke prosvjede islamskih učenjaka, vladara i muslimanskih masa. Bilo je očigledno da
izliječe sa stavovima koji su suprotni onim što su učenjaci razumjeli iz Kurána i
Sunneta.
Npr. on kaže:"Posjeta kaburu Allahova Poslanika Muhammeda ‘alejhi-sselam, je haram, i
ako to neko učini, onda je učinio prijestup (ma´sije). Čak onaj ko ide da posjeti
Poslanikov kabur, nije mu dozvoljeno da skraćuje namaz na tom putu, jer je to put u
grijeh. Muhammed ibn Abdul-Vehhab taj svoj stav temelji na hadisi - šerifu:" Nije
dozvoljeno da se neko posebno opterećuje teretom i troškom puta izuzev u tri džamije:
ova moja
džamija, Mesdžidul-haram (u Mekki ) i Mesdžidul-Aksa ( Palestina ). On je razumio iz
ovoga hadisa da nije dozvoljeno nigdje putovati osim u spomenute tri džamije, pa
između ostalog nije dozvoljeno putovati s ciljem posjete Resulullahovom kaburu !!!"
Niko prije njega iz plejade islamskih učenjaka nije rekao sličnu stvar.
U stvari poruka ovoga hadisa je:" Da nije dozvoljeno da se neko posebno izlaže trošku,
trudu i naporu da bi išao daleko u neku džamiju isključivo radi ibadeta, vjerujući da je
ibadet bolji ako se obavi u nekoj džamiji u odnosu na drugu džamiju. Sve džamije su
iste, osim tri spomenute u gore citiranom hadisu. (Vrijednost namaza u mesdžidulharamu je kao sto hiljada namaza na drugom mjestu, u Poslanikovoj džamiji hiljadu
namaza, a u Mesdžidul-aksa
kao pet stotina namaza)Hadis – Prenosi ga Muslim.
U navedenom hadisu nejma nikakve osnove za zabranu posjećivanja kabura, pogotovu
kabura Poslanika Muhammeda ‘alejhi-sselam Allahov Poslanik Muhammed ‘alejhi-sselam
je u jednom hadisu rekao:"Bio sam vam zabranio posjećivati kabure, ali, od sada
posjećujte ih, jer vas oni podsjećaju na smrt."(Hadis)
Zbog navedenih i sličnih mišljenja u kojima se je Muhammed ibn Abdul-Vehhab
suprotstavljao većini učenjaka, biva odstranjen iz sredine, radi štete, fitne i raskola koji
je nastajao među muslimanima.
Protjeran zbog smutnje koju je izazvao među muslimanima, premješta se u pleme Anza,
čiji emir je bio Muhammed ibn Saûd. Obzirom da je emir Anze bio u neprijateljstvu sa
emirom Deri‘jete, iz koje je Ibn Abdul-Vehhab protjeran, to je išlo na ruku da je dočekan
lijepim dočekom i našao sigurno utočište. Ubrzo je našao pristalice i simpatizere svome
novom učenju- mezhebu.
1747 g. emir Muhammed je javno obznanio da se stavlja svojim utjecajem i moći na
stranu Vehabijskog pokreta i proglašava mišljenja Abdul-Vehhaba najispravnijim. Time je
Vehabijski pokret postao zapaženiji jer je imao direktan utjecaj na vlast. Ono što je ibn
Abdul-Vehhab poučavao i propagirao, emir Muhammed ibn Saûd je to vlašću
primjenjivao.
Tako je u toku desetogodišnjeg rada uspostavljanja Vehabijskog mezheba, koji se
uspostavljao silom na tlu Arabije, uspjelo se uspostaviti ovaj mezheb na oko 30 milja
kvadratne površine.
Nakon smrti emira Muhammeda ibn Saûda 1765 g. naslijedio ga je sin Abdul-Aziz.
U njegovom periodu nije došlo ni do kakvih bitnih promjena i može se reći da je
Vehabijski pokret imao jednu mirnu fazu bez ikakvih vidnijih pomaka.
Izvan teritorija koje su bile pod vlašću Abdul-Aziza, niko nije obraćao
pažnju na novi mezheb koji se javljao, niti je iko slutio opasnost koja
vreba iza njega i zlo muslimanima koje im se spremalo.
Međutim, nakon 41- godine, od osnivanja Vehabijskog pokreta (Od 1747- 1788 ) naglo
se je primijetilo ponovno njegovo aktiviranje. Ovaj puta njihov glas se je čuo daleko van
granica teritorija, kojima su gospodarili.
Za ovaj novi mezheb čulo se u svim krajevima tadašnje islamske države.
Sam halifa je osjetio nemir od ovih novih gibanja koja nisu slutila ničemu dobrom.
1787 g. emir Abdul-Aziz je proglasio samostalnu državnu upravu i zaveo nasljedni sistem
vladavine( hukm virasi), osiguravši mjesto svome sinu Saûdu da bude halifa poslije
njega. Okupila se je velika svjetina Vehabija pod vodstvom šejh Muhammeda ibn AbdulVehhaba, i pred tom svjetinom je Abdul-Aziz obejanio da pravo na vlast zadržava u
okviru svoje porodice - njegova djeca isključivo su nasljednici vlasti poslije njegove smrti.
Svjetina je poslušno podržala ovu odluku. To se sve dešavalo uz već postojeći islamski
oblik vladavine (hilafet ) - što je sa islamske tačke gledišta neispravno - jer je
Muhammed ‘alejhi-sselam rekao:"Ako se dâ prisega ( beját ) dvojici halifa, ubijte
zadnjeg od njih dvojice."(Hadisi šerif )
Stvar je potpuno jasna. Uveliko se odmotava klupko dugoročnog plana koji su Englezi
postavili na putu rušenja hilafeta. Približilo se je vrijeme nabacivanja kolonizatorskog
jarma muslimanima za vrat. Englezi su vukli konce a Vehabije su bili igrači.
Usporedo sa proglašavanjem deklaracije o novom vladaru i uspostavljanju paralelnog
vladajućeg sistema uz već postojeći hilafet ( kojeg su nosioci bili Osmanlije) donosi se i
druga deklaracija. Vehabijski mezheb se proglašava zvaničnim mezhebom a potiskuje se
dotadašnji hanefijski mezheb, koji je bio službeni priznati mezheb u Emejevičkom,
Abbasijskom i Osmanskom periodu. Bio je ispravan i valjan za te mnoge generacije od
trećeg stoljeća po hidžri, pa do dvanaestog , a eto dođoše Vehabije i njima ne valja
hanefijski
mezheb.
1788 g. Vehabije su pokrenuli veliku vojnu huntu na Kuvajt. Napali su ga i osvojili. I prije
toga Englezi su pokušavali da pokore Kuvajt ali
im nije polazilo za rukom. A sada preko Vehabija, koje su oni pomogli novcem i oružjem,
uspješe.
1792 g. Šejh Muhammed ibn Abdul-Vehhab je umro. Naslijedio ga je njegov sin. Po istom
šablonu kao što je bilo i u svjetovnoj vlasti. Vlast se prenosi sa oca na sina. Saudijski
emiri su iskoristili vehabijski mezheb, koji je imao obilježja vjerskog pokreta, u političke
svrhe. Domogli su se preko njega vlasti i njime udarili na postojeću islamsku vlast,
raspirujući u početnoj fazi djelovanja među muslimanima mezhebsku netrpeljivost i
kasnije mezhebske ratove...."
DODATAK
Allahov Poslanik a.s. iskazao prezir prema području Nedžda, iz koga se pojavio ibn AbdulVehhab i odbio je da prouči dovu bereketa za Nedžd.
U sahih hadisu je zabilježeneo da je Allahov Poslanik a.s. rekao:"Moj Gospodaru
blagoslovi nam naš Šam ( Siriju) i Jemen. Ashabi su rekli: I naš Nedžd. Allahov Poslanik
je dva puta ponovio Allahumme barik lena fi Šamina ve jemenina. I treći put je dodao za
Nedžd: Tamo su zemljotresi i fitne ( iskušenja) i iz njega će se pojaviti šejtanski rog." Iz
tog područja se pojavio Musejlema Kezzab koji se proglasio pejgamberom i nanio velike
gubitke muslimanima. Njegova fitna je ugašena u doba halife Ebu Bekra hrabrošću Halida
ibn Velida. Iz istog mjesta se pojavila i vehabijska da'va.
Rekao je Poslanik a.s.:"Glava kufra je iz pravca istoka." /
Sahih Muslim/
"Glava kufra je prema istoku." / Buharija/
"Iz ovoga pravca će doći fitne, pokazivao je prema istočnoj strani."
( Sahihul-Buhari)
IZRAZI POHVALE MUHAMMEDU IBN ADBUL-VEHHABU I VEHABIJSKOM POKRETU
Orijentalist Sidjo u djelu " Tarihul-arebil-ami" "Opća
historija arapa"koje je na arapski preveo Adil Zeiter. U poglavlju o revolucijama koje su
dizali arapi s ciljem borbe za samostalnost od vladavine Turaka i Portugalaca napisao je
sljedeće:"Zatim smo vidjeli da se Arabijsko poluostrvo potpuno osamostalilo, početkom
18 vijeka, zahvaljujući trudu i slabosti neprijatelja. Taj uspjeh je pokušalo pleme koje se
pojavilo u Nedždu, otprilike 17749 g. i to je nešto što su pokušavali vehbije do danas.
Oni će imati trajnu utjecaj na sudbinu arabijskog poluotoka, u što nema sumnje.
Ime najutjecajnije ličnosti na to pleme je, abdul-Vehhab Temimi, koji je učio arapsku
književnost, od malih nogu, a najviše se bavio fikhom. Upoznao se sa mišljenjima
učenjaka mezheba te je posjetio Bagdad, Basru i druga mjesta. On je imao samo cilj da
povrati Poslanikov šerijat. Borio se protiv postupaka muslimana koji su previše veličali i
iskazivali počast prema Poslaniku. Borio se protiv kulta svetaca i kabura. Borio se protiv
Turaka i njihovog lošeg ahlaka. ... Isti orijentalist kaže:"...Kada je vidio u Muhammedu
ibn Saudu sposobnost borca i ratnika, udao je za njega svoju kćerku i time njemu predao
političko vođstvo nad vehabijama."
VEHABIJSKA FITNA KROZ VEHABIJSKI POKRET
Prije nego što počnemo upoznavanje sa ličnošću osnivača ovog pokreta i ukažemo na
posljedice koje je izrodio ovaj pokret, smatram korisnim da se osvrnemo na osnovne
ideje pokreta i njegovog utjecaja na tadašnje islamsko društvo. Temeljna ideja pokreta je
poziv da se obožava samo Allah dželle še’nuhu i da se ne čini ibadet nikome drugom,
osim Allahu dželle še’nuhu Bez razlike radilo se o kamenju, drveću ili ljudima. Utjecaj
ovog pokreta je bio usuglašen sa naobrazbom Muhammeda ibn abdul-Vehhaba, koji
svojom idejom i reformatorskim djelom nije izašao izvan okvira sredine i učenja koje je
usvojio od oca i drugih savremenika. To su uglavnom bili
učenjaci koji su se naslanjali na hanbelijski mezheb i misli i ideje šejha ibn Tejmijje i
njegovog učenika ibn Kajjima el-Dževzijje.
Pojavom vehabijskog pokreta nastupilo je vrijeme kada su se lahko uništavali ljudski
životi, napadala naselja, dozvoljavalo se lahko ono što je bilo zabranjeno vjerom,
spaljivala su se drveća i rušile kuće. To je provođeno nad muslimanima. Sve s ciljem
vraćanja ljudi čistoći islamskog vjerovanja, koji su u osnovi pripadali tom vjerovanju
(akidi). To je vrijeme kada su bile rasprostranjene vradžbine i čarolije koje su neke ljude
naveli da smatraju svetim kamenje i drveće. A to iz razloga što je područje Hidžaza bilo
totalno zapostavljeno, posebno pustinjska područja i beduinska naselja od strane vlasti.
Niko nije vodio računa o tome šta se tamo dešava. Hidžazu se nije posvećivala nikakva
važna pažnja.
U to vrijeme u Evropi su bili aktualni reformatorski pokreti koji su
korijenito mijenjali tok povijesti. Iz starog svijeta ušli su u novi moderni svijet, te su
zahvaljujući nepažnji, učmalosti i zaspalosti muslimana postigli da muslimani postanu
lahak plijen i igračka u rukama industrijski moćnog svijeta; Istoka ili Zapada.
Uspjeh koji je postiglo vehabijsko misionarstvo nije imao traženi odjek koji je bio
potreban muslimanima ovog stoljeća. Zato što je reforma koju je zagovarao vehabizam
bila ograničena i previše lokalna i što je bila čisto vjerskog karaktera. Uspješna reforma
koja je trebala muslimanima nije mogla biti isključivo vjerskog karaktera, nego reforma
vjerskog, političkog, sociološkog i naučnog karaktera, koja bi muslimane dovela ondje
gdje je stigla Evropa u ovom stoljeću.
Da, trebala je reforma koja bi muslimane dovela tamo dokle je stigla Evropa svojom
renesansom. Nije bilo dovoljno rušenje kubbeta nad kaburima, zabrana “tevessula sa
Poslanicima i evlijama“ da iznese muslimane u potrebnu renesansu.
Na vehabizam je najviše idejnog utjecaja bilo od ibn Tejmijje, a poznato je da je ibn
Tejmijje imao kritičan stav i ignorirao je filozofiju i njene znanosti. To je bio veliki minus
u vehabijskom pokretu koji mu je prouzrokovao veliku štetu. Filozofija u doba ibn
Tejmijje je bila stara filozofija koja nije imala neku posebnu naučnu vrijednost u
praktičnom životu. Što se tiče filozofije u doba djelovanja vehabijskog pokreta, ona je
već imala drugačiju dimenziju i težinu. Bila je usko povezana sa naukom i imala je
vidljivu korist i utjecaj u praktičnom životu. Nije dobro za jedan reformatorski pokret da
negira praktičnu korist filozofije ili da je smatra beznačajnom. Obzirom da je vehabizam
nastao među beduinima i u jednoj primitivnoj sredini, onda im se opravdava da su
reformu izvršili u toj mjeri zadovoljavajući potrebe beduinsko - pustinjskih uvjeta
življenja.
Međutim to nije bilo ni blizu dovoljno niti prihvatljivo za ostali daleko
veći dio naprednog islamskog ummeta. Stav naprednog i civiliziranog djela islamskog
ummeta spram vehabijskog pokreta bio je da mu se ne da podrška i zahtijevali su veću
dozu islaha (reforme). Čak i više od toga, zauzeli su spram njega stav ne baš plemenite
osobe, osporili su ga i suprotstavili mu se svim raspoloživim sredstvima. Tako da je
rezultat svega toga bio da je došlo do ratova koji su povećali jaz i podijeljenost među
muslimanima.
Dodatno tome, vehabijskom pokretu se pripisuje udio u tim ratovima koji su nastali
među muslimanima njegovim povodom. Jer vehabijski pokret nije bio mirni misionarski
poziv koji se obraćao nosiocima suprotnog mišljenja sa lijepim savjetom (mevízatun
hasenetun) i pozivanjem ljudi u svoj pokret (bileti hije ahsen ) - na najljepši način. Oni
su objavili sveti vjerski rat s ciljem podrške svom pokretu, kako bi silom natjerali
protivnike na ulazak u njega, pa ko bi povjerovao bio bi spašen, a ko bi se suprotstavio i
pobunio proglasili bi ga otpadnikom i učinili dozvoljenim prolijevanjem njegove krvi i
konfiskaciju imovinu. Vehabije su tako postupali sa zemljama
u koje su ulazili počevši od Jemena, Hidžaza, rubnih dijelova Šama do Iraka. Svaku
državu u koju su ušli, smatrali su je dozvoljenom za objavljivanje rata protiv njenih
stanovnika. Ako bi imali snage za zadržavanjem u tim zemljama pripajali bi ih svojim
pokrajinama gdje su već imali vlast, a ko ne bi mogli ostati zadovoljavali bi se
pustošenjem, rušenjem i pljačkom plijena.
Nema ni najmanje sumnje da je vehabijski pokret ovakvim činom izlazio iz okvira
islamske tolerancije. Jer je islamsko misionarstvo isključivo miroljubivog karaktera i ne
oslanja se na rat izuzev u nužnim situacijama; kao što je odbrana. Islam ne dozvoljava
da se prvi napada ratom na neprijatelja, jer nije dozvoljeno nikoga silom ugoniti u islam.
To je od elementarnih odlika islama, koje su poznate svakom. Ali vehabije u tom
vremenu nisu mislili tako. Smatrali su da je islam krenuo sa sabljom pa su rekli:“Neka i
poziv u njega bude sa sabljom.“
Po islamskom učenju, muslimani trebaju i sa svojim protivnicima koji su nevjernici
postupati postupkom tolerancije. Međutim, vehabije su se žešće obračunavali sa svojim
neistomišljenicima nego što su to činili muslimani sa svojim protivnicima-nevjernicima. U
najmanju ruku trebali su postupati sa svojim neistomišljenicima, kao što to čine
muslimani u duhu islamskog učenja. S tom razlikom što vehabijski neistomišljenici nisu
bili nevjernici. To su bila jedna većina muslimanske populacije koji su vjerovali u Allaha i
Njegova Poslanika, ali se nisu slagali sa učenjem vehabija. Pa i ako su možda neki od njih
dozivali mrtve i tražili njihovu pomoć i molili im se za postizanje potreba i traženje izlaza
iz teškoća, kada bi se i pomirili sa činjenicom da su to elementi širka, ipak ne može činiti
širk ko vjeruje u Allaha. Te ljude je trebalo poučiti, a ne ubijati ih.
Potpora koju su Ali Sauud dali vehabijama je bila dovoljna da su mogli objaviti džihad
svojim neistomišljenicima. Iako je miroljubiva metoda, po nama, bila veći garant uspjeha
i proširenja da’we od metode sile. Njihovo posezanje za argumentom sile rezultirao je da
su i neistomišljenici posezali za istim argumentom. To je rezultiralo da se o ovom pokretu
iskrivila slika u očima mnogih ljudi i tako su mnogi udaljeni i od pomisli da pristupe
takvom pokretu. Veoma mali broj arapa u svojim državama je pristupio ovom pokretu,
jer im nije stigao u njenom izvornom obliku, nego je do mnogih dostizala veoma
iskrivljena slika. A da su kojim slučajem vehabije upotrijebili metodu miroljubivog širenja
da‘we, vjerojatno bi im povjerovao veći broj
ljudi, naročito poslije naglog porasta stepena obrazovanja i interesa
za obrazovanjem.
A i sada glavna brana za ulazak u ovaj pokret su primitivni i umišljeni pozivači koji ne
odustaju od metode sile i strogosti koja je bila prisutna i u početku širenja vehabijskog
pokreta.
Također, ono što se zamjeri vehabijama i njihovoj misiji je činjenica
da su pozivali deklarativno na otvaranje vrata idžtihada a sami su ostali slijepo držeći se
hanbelijskog mezheba. Od ibn Tejmijinog učenja uzeli su samo učenje o akaidu
(islamskom vjerovanju), a ništa nisu prihvatili od njegovog idžtihada u propisima
(ahkam), kao npr. pitanje talaka isl.
Čak i od samog ibn abdul-Vehhaba ne spominju se noviji idžtihadi osim u nekim
pitanjima koja nisu od neke posebne važnosti. Npr. Pojavio se je sa mišljenjem da
krvarina muslimana je 800 rijala, umjesto vrijednosti 100 deva, što je ustavovljeno
hadisom Allahova Poslanika. Mada su muslimani sada a i tada bili u velikoj potrebi za
idžtihadom stvarni idžtihad ni sa ovim pokretom nije profunkcionirao. Nije bilo dovoljno
da se stane ondje gdje je stao ibn Tejmijje. Bila je potreba za idžtihadom koji bi otklonio
tragove učmalosti i zaleđenosti islamske misli, evidentne u stoljećima koja su prošla.
Uslijed nedostatka istinskog i efektivnog idžtihada muslimani
su dovedeni u stanje dekadente i potrebe oslanjanja na druge i posuđivanje njihovih
zakona.
Šejh Ali Tantavi uzima središnji stav spram pojave vehabijskog pokreta.
U jednom njegovom dijelu podržava ga, a u drugom kritizira. U svome djelu o ibn abdulVehhabu, na stranici 5 , šejh Ali Tantavi kaže sljedeće:“Čitalac koji čita biografiju ibn
abdul-Vehhaba, će lahko doći do zaključka da on nije bio veliki učenjak , ali će lahko
primjetiti da je bio veliki učitelj. U njegovo vrijeme bilo je mnogo učenjaka koji su bili
učeniji od njega i koji su više pamtili vjerskih tekstova i koji su više napisali knjiga od
njega, ali zato u njegovom vremenu, čak i u periodu unazad 500 godina do danas, nije
postojao neko ko je više utjecao na islamsko društvo i promjene u njemu od njega.
Usprkos što je izrastao u lokalnoj sredini i gradu koji je bio daleko od centara žive
islamske misli, niko nije potresao islamsko društvo kao što je to učinio ovaj čovjek. Ja se
i sada divim žestini propagande i snazi kojom se je borio.“
U djelu o ibn abdul-Vehhabu Tantavi kaže:“Šejh Muhammed
ibn abdul-Vehhab nije došao sa novotarijama niti je uveo nešto novo u islamu. Pozivao je
samo ispravnom tevhidu /monoteizmu/ i istinskom islamu. Sama misija, pozivanje u
islam ili njegova da´wa, njoj se nejma šta prigovoriti i njoj se ne zamjera. Ono što se
navodi kao manjkavost i nedostatak jeste metoda koju je slijedio u reformi. Npr. vidio je
neke ljude kako se ponašaju na kaburima, te je u tom činu primjetio vidljive elemente
širka, po njegovom mišljenju. Zbog toga ih je automatski proglasio mušricima
(politeistima).
Aleksandra Basa, Sombor
Aleksandra
December 29, 2006 - koja rec za kraj o religiji Maasai-ja
Religijska slika Kenije je sarena: 38% populacije su protestanti, 28% katolici a 6% su
Muslimani. Preostali procenat cine pripadnici tradicionalnih religija! Vrlo je tesko naci
knjigu na temu religije po knjizarama u Nairobiju, mada je tesko naci I knjizaru, al ko
trazi taj nadje! Bar nesto! ☺
U kampu nedaleko od Naro-Murua sam uz knjige o planinarenju, zoologiji, citanju mapa,
hipotermiji, zoologiji, astronomiji… nasla I jednu vezanu za tradicionalne reglije u Africi.
Jako mi je zao sto nisam imala vremena za citanje, nego sam je samo preletela na jedno
pola sata, al nije ni to lose…
Problemi sa kojima su se istrazivaci sreli (knjiga objavljena jos ’73) su ‘klasicni’ problemi
vezani za sociologiju religije: problem definisanja pojmova: da li je rec o tradicionalnim
religijama ili samo o religiji? Sta ulazi u obim pojma? Kako se uklopiti u evropsku
terminologiju I kako dominantno hriscanskim recnikom objasniti africki specifikum?
I sam autor se ogradjuje od generalizacija I zakljucaka I kaze da je suvise ambiciozno
teziti pisanju knjige koja bi ponudila sve odgvore na pitanja vezana za religiiju u Africi, a
njegova je ideja samo da ukaze na svu raznolikost I potrebu daljeg istrazivanja…
Kako smo bili na zemlji Maasai-ja, ja sam resila da pogledam deo vezan za njigovu
religjiu. Religija Maasai-ja je ‘ocuvana’ tj nije trpela gotovo ikakve izmene jer su Maasai
ziveli u rezervatima za vreme kolonijalnog perioda I nisu imali priliku da dodju u kontakt
sa drugima.
Bog Maasai-ja je Enkai (ili Ngai, bilo je pomenuto jos 5 ili 6 razlicitih nacina izgovora, ali
ih se ne secam); to je bog koji je kreator neba I zemlje I svega na zemlji. Enkai ili Ngai
znaci I nebo. U svakom slucaju, Enkai ima u sebi I muski I zenski princip, a sam nije ni
jedan. Javlja se u 2 oblika - kao dobar I kao los: dobar je crn I simbolise Maasai-je a zla
forma se cesto koristila kao simbol za Britance.
Po mitologiji, Enkai je stvorio stoku Maasai-jama, koje su nomadsko pleme, I zato oni
sebe vide kao centar Univerzuma I kao ‘izabran narod’ (zasto mi je ovo poznato? ☺).
Bog je stvorio 3 grupe ljudi: lovce I sakupljace ( to se odnosi na jedno plene – zaboravila
sam ime! Sorry!). Oni imaju divlje zivotinje I stoku. Drugu grupu cine ljudi plemena
Kikuyu I od njih je bog napravio one koji ce na neguju I kultivisu, tj. ratare, pa imaju
seme, a treca grupa su Maasai-je kojima je bog dao stoku. Taj deo mita Maasai-jama
sluzi I kao opravdanje da otmu stoku od susednih plemena ako njihovo stoka dozivi
pomor ili nedevoljan broj grla dodje na svet.
Svaki deo plemena ima svog proroka, a nazivaju se Laiboni. U knjizi je koristena rec
prophet mada mene opis vise podseca na samana, jer Laiboni je neko ko je poslat od
Enkai, da bude duhovni vodja, da savetnik, prorok, lekar, iselitelj. Njihova glavna uloga
je da budu link izmedju ljudi I Enkai-ja.
Knjiga je imala jedno 500 strana a ja sam za tih pola satu uspela da ‘pohvatam’ samo
neke ideje…
December 27, 2006 - VZ i civilno drustvo
Prvog dana u Nairobiju, tj tokom otvaranja, govorio je jedan stariji covek. Nije ga bilo u
zvanicnom programu pa nisam znala nista o njemu niti o onom sto ce nam pricati. Od
zene koja je sedela pored mene, a koja ga poznaje odavno, sam cula da je Kanadjanin,
kveker i da zivi u Nairobiji preko 30 godina. Secam se da sam ocekivala neki verom
nadahnut govor pa bas nisam bila odusevljena.
U svakom slucaju, predstavio se i rekoa da ce nam pricati o AVP treningu (Alternative to
Violence Project), pa me je to donekle zainteresovalo, ali sam jos uvek bila u krivu, jer
sam ocekivala neku verom obojenu pricu.
Covek je ukratko predstavio radionicu: cilj je da se istraze i ispitaju nacini na koje
reagujemo kad smo izlozeni nepravdi, predrasudama, frustracijama i besu, a koji mogu
voditi agresivnom ponasanju i nasilju. Polaznici treba da nauce da prepoznaju i afirmisu
dobro u sebi i drugima, da razviju komunikacijske mogucnosti i tehnike, da nauce kako
se moze ostvariti saradnja, i kako izgraditi komunikaciju zasnovanu na poverenju i
odgvornosti.
AVP moze imati vaznu ulogu (negde vec ima) u poboljsanju odmosa u skolama,
univerzitetima, firmama, izmedju etnickih i religijskih zajednica, lokanlnih zajedica.
Takodje, moze poboljsati razumevanje i saradnju u organizacijama u kojima radi velik
broj jako razlicitih ljudi.
Cilj je takodje da polaznici nadju bolje nacine za snalazenje u potencijalno nasilnim
situacijama...
To je ono sto smo culi. Onda smo mogli postavljati pitanja, pa sam ja pitala da li je AVP
novi religiskji pokret? na cega sam dobila odgovor da nije religijski pokret u smislu u kom
se obicno misli, niti je povezan sa bio kojom posebnom verom ili sektom. Medjutim, AVP
se temelji na uverenju da je moguce menjati se i tako steci novu nadu i snagu za ono sto
zivot dalje donosi, bez obzira koliko to nekad tesko bilo. Filozofija AVP ne lezi na
pasivnom ili submisivnom prihvatanju nasilja, nego na trazenju kreativnih i
konstruktivinh odgovora i pristupa koji vode pomirenju i win-win sitiaciji.
AVP jeste potekao od kvekera i oni su ga 'patentirali', pa su to onda ponudili na
koristenje i onim svima koji nisu kvekeri. Mislim da je to nesto sto zasluzuje paznju...
December 24, 2006 - kibera, VZ i socijalna (is)pomoc
Medju hriscanima u Kiberi su najbrojniji katolici pa onda idu protestanti:
adventisiti sedmog dana, Jehovini svedoci, kao I Provincial churches of Kenya, Peoples
assembly’s of God, Africa inland church... Sve statistike treba uzeti s rezervom, jer se ne
zna ni tacan broj ljudi koji tamo zivi pa se onda ne moze ni znati religijska struktura. Po
procenama, oko polovine stanovnika Kibere su muslimani.
U svakom slucaju, VZ koje tamo postoje pokusavaju da organizuju zivot:
one otvaraju ambulante i bolnice, pred-skolske ustanove i skole, a ako mogu stipendiraju
djake koji obecavaju, organizuju sportske aktivnosti... Imaju mrezu volontera i socijalnih
radnika koji pokusavaju da pomognu kod slucajeva porodicnog nasilja – koje je medju
najvecim problemima, kao i HIV pozitivinim zenama i deci, koji su jako brojni. Ipak, ni uz
najbolju volju, to sto VZ rade nije dovoljno! Ni blizu!
Iz razgovora sa stanovnicima se da lako saznati da je jedina pomoc koju imaju,
pomoc neke VZ! Kazu da VZ nije vazno da li im pripadaju ili ne: raspodela pomoci cesto
ide po teritorijalnoj osnovi, pa onda 'pravo' na pomoc imaju oni koji zive u blizini!
Ovo je jedna od crkava! Kibera je ogromna i nije sva u blatu, ali ni oni delovi koji
izgledaju uljudnije jos uvek ne prelaze liniju ljudskog dostojanstva! Ovaj foto je samo
primer - foto nije moj, nego je sa neta al smo mi bili u toj crkvi pa sam je zato skinula.
Pre ulaska u Kiberu nam je savetovano da ne fotografisemo, jer bi to moglo biti opasno!
A i da nije, mislim da ljudima koji tamo zive ne bi prijalo da budu fotgrafisani kao neko
cudo...
December 24, 2006 - nastavak
ovo je lipstick koji se moze kupiti u nairobiju! (ja pokusavam da smanjim format
fotografije al mi nesto ne ide od ruke; nadam se da ipak mozete sve videti)!
anyway, lipstick nije skup, al nije bas ni jeftin, al se mnogo kupuje: kako deci tako i
starijima!
pokusala sam 'prebaciti' ovaj omot u nas kontext i ne ide mi - ne mogu zamisliti da u bilo
kojoj apoteci na Balkanu ili Evripi mozete kupiti lipstick sa ovakvim omtom, slikama i
porukama!
to je valjda jedna od kulturoloskih razlika...
December 24, 2006 - Looking good for Jesus - postmodernizam na africki nacin
December 24, 2006 - Kibera - intro
Kibera ja slum u Nairobiju u kojem zivi izmedju 800,000 I milion ljudi. Struktura
te populacije je veoma raznolika kao I njihova istorija – jedan deo cine bivsi kenijski
vojnici koji su se borili za vreme II svetskog rata. Kada su prestali dobijati beneficije od
drzave, a ako nisi bili u stanju da se sami izdrzavaju, migrirali su prema periferiji dok na
kraju nisu zavrsili u slumu.
Takodje, tu je I velik broj ljudi koje su tu naselile britanske koloijalne vlasti:
poreklom su sa severa, neki cak iz Egipta, I sada, vec generacijama zive u Keniji.
Problem je sto im drzava ne priznaje nikakva prava, cak ni onima koji su tu rodjeni, pa
su ti ljudi, u svari, apartridi. Oni ni ne postoje: nisu zavedeni nigde kad su rodjeni, niko
nece zapisati njihovo ime kad umru. Zvanicno: oni ne postoji…Nisu u boljoj situaciji ni oni
sa nekim pravima: oni su jako zanimljivi pred izbore jer imaju pravo glasa – zasto mi ja
taj deo jako poznat??? – I tu se zavrsava svaka prica.
U svakom slucaju, sa pravom glasa ili bez njega, svi stanici Kibere imaju slicne
problema: nemaju pravo da otkupe zemlju, nemaju tekucu vodu, nemaju kanalizaciju,
nema komunalnih sluzbi koje odnose smece, nikakvu zdravstvenu zastitu, zive u
‘kucama’ od blata, nemaju skole u koje bi poslali decu…
Drzava nije zainteresovana za ove ljude whatsoever, ali VZ jesu. Dve najvece religijske
grupe u Kiberi su hriscani I muslimani. Hriscanima pripadaju uglavnom ljudi iz plemena
Kikuy, Kissia, Kambas, a muslimani su uglavnom oni doseljeni sa sebera – Nubijani I deo
Somalijaca.
U Kiberi ima mnogo crkava I dzamija koje su napravljene od malo boljeg
materijala od prirucnog – al ne jako boljeg - a smestene su na ‘glavnim ulicama’! U
svakom slucaju, uklapaju se u ambijent!
November 21, 2006 - univerzalnost poruke
svako zamilja Isusa na svoj nacin... U tome je lepota hriscanstva cini mi se...
u nedelju sam isla na misu u St. Vincent Palotti Church koja je odmah uz Shalom House!
Prvo cujete gospel hor - mislim da nista lepse u zivotu nisam cula. u horu ima oko 30
ljudi razlicitiog uzrasta. ne koriste instrumente - samo pevaju! savrseno!
na glavnom zidu iza oltara, nalaze se slike verske sadrzine. iste motive imate i na velikim
prozorima. prvo sto nama evropljnima upadne u oci jeste to da su Isus kao i svi apostoli
kao i svi sveci prikazani kao crnici. ikone su mnogo jednosavnije i lakse salju poruku.
misu je vodila zena. na svahiliju. slusali su je ljudi iz razlicitih plemena - neki obuceni u
svoje narodne nosnje.
hor je cesto pevao!
ja nisam hriscanka al sam se osetila 100% dobro dosla. uz to sam bila jednina belkinja
medju 500 crnih ljudi. mnogo mi je ljudi prislo da se rukuje i podeli osmeh sa mnom.
savrsen osecaj!
October 20, 2006 - epizoda iz Gracanice
letos sam bila pristini...
jedan dan smo otisli u Gracanicu da vidimo manastir. na ulazu nas je ljubazno na
srpskom pozdravio svedski vojnik.
nas par je uslo u manastir: na ulazu su sedele dve monahinje koje smo mi ljubazno
podravile na srpskom. jedva su nas pogledale jer su bile zauzete slanjem sms. moje
prijateljice su upalile svece, pa smo zajadno pogledale unutrasnjost manastira.
monahinje su i dalje slale sms. rekle smo da smo studenti iz Bg pa smo zamolile da nam
kazu nesto o manastiru i tome kako zive... jedna je odmah skocila i rekla drugoj da nam
nista ne prica, jer 'ko smo mi da nam one pricaju kako zive', pa se obratila nama i rekla
nesto na racun naseg odevanja (koje je bilo primereno mestu, jer smo mi i planirale da
odemo u posetu manastiru - nismo slucajno tamo upale)...
ja sam izasla iz manastira...
nisam se vise ni vratila...
verovatno ni necu...
Tanja Meničanin, Beograd
Dijalog,tolerancija i mir
Home - Profile - Archives
Tolerancija u medijima
Posted on December 26, 2006 at 10:25 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link
Govor mrznje na Radiju 101
Tomislav Domes
27 November 2006
U ponedjeljak 20. 11. zagrebački je Radio 101 u emisiji "Zagrebački odrezak" emitirao
prilog o "Danima srpske kulture" koje je od 21. 11. organiziralo Srpsko kulturno društvo
Prosvjeta. Činjenica da je navedena manifestacija organizirana samo tri dana nakon
obilježavanja petnaeste godišnjice zločina na Ovčari, navela je autora / autoricu priloga
da SKD Prosvjeta izravno poveže s počiniteljima zločina, sugerirajući kako je svako javno
djelovanje građana srpske nacionalnosti u ovo vrijeme politička provokacija.
U prilogu se od tajnika Prosvjete, Rade Dragojevića u više navrata traži da objasni zašto
su Dani srpske kulture organizirani baš u ovo vrijeme, a njegove se izjave izmjenjuju sa
iskazima preživjelih svjedoka događaja u Vukovaru 1991. s posebnim naglaskom na
"klanje Hrvata". Uz to, voditelji više puta sugeriraju kako je riječ o provokaciji
izjednačujući gostovanja predstava i filmova iz Srbije s tenkovima 1991.
Dragojević je dan nakon emitiranja priloga medijima uputio protestno priopćenje u kojem
komentira kako je prilog nedvosmisleno huškačkog karaktera i stoga predstavlja
potencijalni poziv ovdašnjim ekstremističkim grupacijama da se obračunaju s onima koji,
navodno, skrnave vukovarske žrtve. "Stoga ću, ako se, ne daj Bože, bilo kojem našem
beogradskom gostu ili nekom iz publike na Danima srpske kulture dogodi neka
neugodnost u smislu da ih netko napadne, a znamo iz nedavne prošlosti da je Prosvjeta
nerijetko bila meta huliganskih napada, odgovornim smatrati Radio 101 i to upravo zbog
tog huškački intoniranog priloga." - navodi se među ostalim u priopćenju.
Zanimljivo je međutim kako se većina medija, osim Novog lista i Glasa Istre u potpunosti
oglušila - kako na sam prilog, tako i na priopćenje. Još je zanimljivije da je istog tog 21.
11. Radio 101 proslavio desetu obljetnicu prosvjeda protiv odluke tadašnjeg Vijeća za
telekomunikacije da se tom radiju oduzme koncesija. Ti se prosvjedi, kao i sama
Stojedinica još uvijek smatraju jednim od najvažnijih simbola borbe za građanska prava i
slobodu medija, a protiv autoritarne vlasti. No ako je za suditi prema tonu "Zagrebačkog
odreska" - ta je Stojedinica danas bliža "državotvornim" medijima autoritarnog režima iz
ranih 1990ih nego nekom simbolu demokratskog građanskog društva.
Prije nekoliko dana pokrenut je blog na temu navadenog priloga
(krvaviodrezak.blogspot.com), na kojem se, kako se čini, razvija burna rasprava.
"Neznam sto je bilo urednicima radija, jesu li privatno fasisti, jesu li tog dana bili lose
volje, ili bilo sta. no, valjda je najvise cemu se moramo nadati, kako ce za takve izjave
odgovarati, kako se uostalom i nadamo pravnoj drzavi i principu odgovornosti i
smjenjivosti" - navodi jedan od sudionika.
Prilog iz "Zagrebačkog odreska" moguće je downloadati i poslušati ovdje (mp3, 1,1 MB).
Ucenja o toleranciji
Unazad nekoliko godina pokusavajuci da razresim neke svoje dileme posadjala sam razne
skole i kurseve na temu tolernacije. Isprva mi nije bas bilo jasno kako se to tolerancija
moze nauciti ali vremenom sam pronasla odgovor. Mislim da najveci problem u tome sto
nismo kao drustvo iamli mnogo prilike (posle zadnjih ratova) komunicirati i biti u
kontaktu sa drugima posebno jucerasnjim "neprijateljima" kako bi smo naucili vise jedni
o drugima. TU je kljuc - neznanje je najveca prepreka svemu u zivotu pa tako i
toleranciji. Naravno da mnogi drugi uticaji predstavljaju preduslov za to do koje mere
smo tolerantni prema drugima u svakodnevnoj interakciji ali uceci o drugima i tako
razbijajuci predrasude rezultati mogu biti zapanjujuci. Moje najvece otkrice u tom
pogledu nije samo tolernacija prema onima o kojima manje znamo (drugim kulturama,
religijama) vec i koliko smo oprezni u interakciji i sa onima koji nam slicni i koliko se
trudimo da i od njih nesto naucimo. U tom smlislu predrasude postoje i prema onima koji
su nam slicni u kulturoloskom smislu ali nista ne treba uzimati zdravo za gotovo.
Najzanimljiviji kurs koji sam pohadjala nije bas direktno imao veze sa tolerancijom ali mi
je jos dodatno pojasnio kako neke Zapadne skole i ucenja apsolutno nemaju mesta na
Balkanu jer nisu ukorenjene u njegovoj specificnoj, izmesanoj kulturi i tradiciji. Kurs
emotivne inteligencije je bio pravo otkrice u tom smislu. To je verovatno najskuplja
edukacija koju trenutno novac moze da kupi u Americi dok je za mene predstavljao nista
drugo nego ucenje o bontonu i toleranciji. Na kraju se sve opet vrti oko meni vecnog
pitanja da li nas Zapad moze nauciti toleranciji ili mi sami posedujemo potencijal za to?
Badnje vece podvuceno plavim
Kako izgleda tolerancija jedne EU drzave iliti kvazi EUdrzave. Tekst sa B92.net. KAko
Zapad izgleda na Balkanu - vecita tema....
Badnje veče, podvučeno plavim
Jelica Greganović (24 Decembar, 2006 - 23:13)
Sada je Badnje veče. Sve porodice u Sloveniji su zajedno, pa čak i proterana romska
porodica Strojan. U predgradju Ljubljane, u ogradjenom vojnom području, Strojanovi
slave Božić. Jedini put, koji vodi u tu zonu, čuvaju dve policijske patrole. Badnje veče,
mir i ljubav svima, podvučeno plavim.
Popodne su se Strojanovi konačno okupili, baka Jelka i unučići, sa ledine u Ambrusu i
ostatak Strojanovih, koji je još uvek živeo u Centru za strance. Sva trideset i tri člana
porodice su, bez predhodnih najava okolnom stanovništvu, preseljena u prizemnu kuću,
u vlasti države, koja se nalazi u pomenutoj vojnoj zoni. Strojanovi su poslušali molbe
predsednika države i pristali da se presele u taj objekat, kao privremeno rešenje, do
proleća.
Susedni, naravno ljutiti meštani su prekasno saznali za doseljavanje Roma. Kada su se
meštani okupili, Romi su već bili u ogradjenoj vojnoj zoni. "Razdragani" meštani, sve u
skladu sa današnjim miroljubivim praznikom, su poručili državnim službenicima, koji su
Rome doveli, da ih vode svojim kućama, da se sa doseljavanjem Roma ne slažu, kao i da
su razmišljali o postavljanju blokada na puteve, ali da su ih nadležni pretekli...Nisu
zaboravili ni slogu, o kojoj baš na ovaj Badnji dan treba misliti i jedan od bližnjih suseda
je poručio da su do sada svi u tom kraju živeli u slozi sa svim ljudima, ali da sada više
neće...i da su Romi preblizu, čak tri stotine metara od prve susedne kuće.
Kako god, Strojanovi su noćas na toplom i svi zajedno. Kao što je red za Badnje veče.
Nadležni državni službenici mogu mirnije da spavaju noćas...i da se možda nadaju da
radi ona stara arapska poslovica :" Učini sevap, baci ga u vodu, ako riba ne zna, Alah će
da zna"...ili Ješua Hanocri, kome je noćas rodjendan. Sevap je sevap.
Identitet i tolerancija
Pitanje etnickog identiteta na Balkanu je nezaobilazna tema bilo u dnevno-politickim
manipulacijama, porodicnom i profesionalnom okruzenju ili naucnim krugovima. Cinjenica
ostaje da sto bolje spoznamo sami sebe kao roditelja, strucnjaka, vernika, NVO aktivistu,
sestru, Srbina, najboljeg prijatelja i sto je veci broj identiteta sa kojima mozemo da se
pomirimo manja je verovatnoca da cemo biti izmanipulisani pozivima na versku, etnicku
ili drugu pripadnost. Nazalost i danas mozemo videti takve apele koji jos uvek imaju
odredjenog odziva medju stanovnistvom na ovim prostorima.
Strani uticaji na procese pomirenja na Balkanu
Svi koji su u bilo kom trenutku svog profesionalnog ili privatnog bavljenja sukobima na
Balkanu imali prilike da ucestvuju u raznim radionicama i seminarima na temu tolerncije,
pomirenja i poverenja sigurno su iskusili razlicite pristupe i metodologije vecinom
"Zapadnih" skola iz ove oblasti. Mada sam i sama deo eksperimentalnog projekta
Multikuluturalnog zivota - koji se vecinom zasniva na iskustvima "zapadnih" strucnjaka
iz pomenute oblasti mnoge stvari su mi jasnije. Ovaj projekat instistira na dubokom
poznavanju lokanih kultura i znanja i njihovom uskladjivanju sa "zapadnim"
metodologijama. Moze zvucati sasvim logicno ali cinjenica da je bilo puno pograsnih
pristupa u bavljenju sa saniranjem posledica rata mi je tek skoro u punom sjaju dosle
pred oci. U okviru svog samostalnog projekta na uspostavi pomirenja u Istocnoj Slavoniji
na kome intezivno radim stupila sam u konatkt sa brojim lokalnim zvanicnicima srpske i
hrvatske zajednice. U razgovoru sa jednim od njih cula sam sledecu recenicu (parafraza)
: "Vise sam se osecao kao majmun sa crvenom lopticom u ruci dok sam sedeo u krugu sa
drugima na seminaru o pomirenju, nego sto sam nesto korisno naucio". Nista vise od
toga nije moglo da mi po ko zna koji put vise otvori oci o tome koliko je vazno da te
"zapadne" metode prilagodimo svojim uslovima. Ali pitanje je da li je to uopste moguce
ako niste i sami sa ratom zahvacenog podrucja u kome zelite da radite. To pitanje mi se
javilo odmah nakon ovog razgovora kada sam u toku proslavljanja Slave Svetog Nikole u
krugu porodice, u toku rituala secenja slavskog kolaca shvatila kako mi sami imamo
svoje nacine lecenja psiholoskih trauma rata. Nije to bas lako objasniti ali u svakom
slucaju nakon ovih i ovakvih iskustava sam jos blize svom prijasnjem stavu da prvo
moramo sami sa sobom se pomiriti pa onda to pokusati i sa drugima, uz upotrebu svih
raspolozivih tradiocionalnih ali i "zapadnih" metoda. MIslim da je to uveliko nedostajalo
mnogim "strucnjacima" koji su pokusavali da nas pomire tako sto su nas "lecili" od post
traumatskog sindroma i slicno.
VZ u NGO sektoru
Nakon zivahne rasprave na zadnju temu o tome da li i kako bi VZ postale (ili vec jesu)
deo NGO drustva i ideje gradjanskog drustva moram da dodam jos nekoliko razmisljanja.
Poenta nase rasprave na chatu je bila prilicno promasena jer se na kraju svela na to da li
je NGO sektor odlican ili su VZ bolja forma podrske razvoju gradjanskog drustva. Niti
jednog momenta moja ideja nije bila da je predstavim NGO sektor u najlepsem mogucem
(nepogresivom) svetlu vec da ukazem na strukturne i idejne razlike u postojanju jednih i
drugih kao i na prepreke koje se mogu pojativi u medjusobnom dijalogu. Prepreke su
daleko vece od dnevnvih aktivosti jednih ili drugih - kao to je na chatu bila polemika da li
i kako se postaje clan VZ ili NGO-a. Mislim da je u tom pogledu takva rasprava bila
promasena i suvisna. Mislim da je mnogo vise paznje trebalo posvetiti istorijskih
aspektima delovanja jednih i drugih sto bi omogucnilo da se bolje definisu razlike
strukturne i idejne prirode.
Kako do pomirenja?
Posted on December 21, 2006 at 22:27 - Post Comment
Jedno glavnih pitanja kojim se bavi vecina teoreticara iz polja transformacije konflikta
svakako ukljucuje i razmisljanja o teorijama i praksama koje mogu doprineti pomirenju
medju sukobljenim stranama nakon konflikta. Na prostoru Balkana postoji i postojalo je
niz inicijativa i novih metoda. Ono sto mislim da je jako korisno i na srecu imacu prilike
ucestvovati u takovom poduhvatu jeste sakupljanje prica o pomoci koju su pripadnici
jedne etnicke grupe pruzali drugoj u toku samog konflikta. Projekat na kome cu
pomagati ce se odvijati u Ruandi koja je pretrpela strahovite zlocine i genocid Tutsija od
strane Hutua. Projekat ce se odvijati u Kigaliju ovog Januara i Februara i nadam se da cu
dosta toga nauciti sto moze biti primenjivo i na Balkan. Ovakvim nacinom rada i
upozanavanja obe etnicke grupe o dobrim primerima pomoci bystandera u toku rata
pomirenje ima daleko vece sanse i daje nadu za novi pocetak zajednickog zivota. Bila bih
vrlo zahvalna ako neko zna za nekakav slican poduhvat na nasim prostorima koji bi
mogao posluziti kao uporedna studija.
Pomirenje
Posted by Ivan on December 23, 2006 at 13:48 - Link
Koliko ja znam, jedan takav poduhvat je radjen u Bosni. Gotovo sam siguran da znam i
ko je radio, ali da ne bih pogresio, prosledicu ti tu informaciju od ponedeljka.
Pozdrav iz Nisa!
Veronauka u skolama
Posted on November 30, 2006 at 12:30 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link
Na zalost nismo uspeli malo vise da prokomentarisemo ovaj dogadjaj ....
PRETPLATA NA ČASOPIS "SVETOSAVSKO ZVONCE", U IZDANJU SRPSKE
PRAVOSLAVNE CRKVE, dobrovoljna je, a roditelji učenika koji žele taj časopis,
potpisuju narudžbenicu koju deci daje veroučitelj, rečeno je danas agenciji Beta u
informativnoj službi patrijaršije.
Jugoslovenski komitet pravnika (YUCOM) uputio je u utorak, 21. novembra, Ministarstvu
prosvete otvoreno pismo posle primedbi roditelja da se na nastavi veronauke u osnovnim
školama distribuira taj časopis, čiji je sadržaj neprimeren za decu tog uzrasta.
Roditelji učenika prvog razreda osnovne škole u Beogradu obratili su se za pomoć
YUCOM-u zbog teksta koji je objavljen u časopisu "Svetosavsko zvonce" broj 8 iz ove
godine, a u kome se opisuje da su jednom ruskom vojniku, koji nije hteo da se odrekne
Hrista i primi islam, čečenski teroristi "posle tromesečnog mučenja testerom odsekli
glavu".
Pomoćnica ministra prosvete i sporta Vesna Fila rekla je danas agenciji Beta da
distribucija časopisa u školama nije u nadležnosti tog ministarstva već Ministarstva
kulture i da bi trebalo videti na koji način je časopis "Svetosavsko zvonce" dospeo u
školu.
Prema njenim rečima, distribucija časopisa je interna stvar škole, a svaki direktor škole bi
mora da proveri šta ulazi u školu i ne može pitati Ministarstvo da li da se neki časopis
distribuira u školi.
Državni sekretar u Ministarstvu kulture Ljiljana Šop objasnila je da to ministarstvo "nema
nikakve veze sa distribucijom tog ili bilo kog drugog časopisa" u školama.
Prema njenim rečima, Ministarstvo kulture sufinansira oko 36 časopisa različitih kulturnih
sadržaja, ali ne učestvuje u njihovoj distribuciji.
U SPC je rečeno da časopis "Svetosavsko zvonce" naručuju učenici, a da roditelji
potpisuju narudžbenicu za godišnju pretplatu.
"Veroučitelji biraju koji će tekst čitati deci, a sve što je u časopisu primereno je uzrastu
osnovaca", navode u SPC.
Irak
Posted on November 29, 2006 at 16:31 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link
Another failed US intervention. How much longer we will have to wait until we
all learn a lesson. You can not install democracy by war – violence can never be
an answer to violence in order to bring peace and tolerance.
Americans blame Iraqis, Iraqis blame Americans…
Jeff Severns Guntzel, Electronic Iraq, 27 November 2006
Democrats in Washington are attempting to shake off responsibility for the situation in
Iraq and hold fast to their assertion that "American support for Iraq is not unconditional"
and "we cannot save Iraqis from themselves."
Iraqis, meanwhile, have not thrown the transformative event--the 2003 invasion and
subsequent occupation--down the memory hole.
A Newsweek profile of Muqtada al-Sadr resurrects a Sadr quote from earlier this year:
"The occupation is the decision maker...any attack is [America's] responsibility."
And in the Los Angeles Times, a roundup of recent comments by other Iraqi clerics:
"The roots of our problems lie in the mistakes of the Americans committed right from the
beginning of their occupation," said Sheik Ali Merza, a Shiite cleric in Najaf who is a
leader of the Islamic Dawa Party.
Iraq's most prominent Sunni cleric expressed a similar viewpoint. At a Cairo news
conference, Harith Dhari demanded that American troops withdraw.
"Since the beginning, the U.S. occupation drove Iraq from bad to worse," said Dhari, who
became a fugitive this month after the Shiite-led government issued a warrant for his
arrest on allegations that he has supported terrorism.
Religion and reconciliation in the Balkans - religious leaders?
Posted on October 11, 2006 at 11:38 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link
The issue of religion and conflict is the primary one all over the world. Those two things
become inter-dependent more often.
I think that many religous leaders misused their power and even contributed to the
conflict.
Therefore I think it is very rare to see a religous leader playing a role in the dialogue
process at any level.
Additinal reason is the structure of the church it self. It leaves very little room for a good
influence of an individual if there is one.
Some positive local initiatives I have seen in my work but religous leaders think too
similar to politicians. They care a lot about "political" correctness of their preeching.
After the damage has been done there is very little religious leaders can do not only
because of the iner-structure of the church but for the fact that the core values that the
church should be promoting have been broken in all aspects during war. It is very hard
for a community to suddenly accept forgivness and "turn the other cheek" if the religion
has not been a core value in their lives before the war. I think this is a key answer to this
questions since none of the communities in the Ex-Yu have been trully practicing regilion
during comunism. Plus the religous leaders at the brake of war were newly recognized
individuals within the community and not some old reliable people that the coomunity
has been turning too for a long time.
Not to mention the fact that many people started going to church after the brake of war since it was fashionable and again "politically correct".
I would love to hear other views and experiences.
Ines Kotarac, Zagreb
Edukacijom do tolerancije
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Ne postoje ljudi bez predrasuda. A predrasude nas zatvaraju u zidove vlastitog identiteta.
Da bismo razumjeli i prihvatili Druge, moramo uciti, preispitivati svoje poglede na svijet i
otvarati se prema drugacijem. Ja cu to pokusati ovim blogom.
Kraj
January 8, 2007
Ne volim krajeve knjiga. Krajeve rijeka. Krajeve filmova. Krajeve razdoblja u životu.
Krajeve kolača. Pogovore. Završetke govora. Rastanke. Slijepe ulice. Uglove. Kuteve.
Rubove. Krajeve. Pa ipak ta riječ u sebi krije raj. Ovim ću se oprostiti od svih vas. Hvala
vam na svemu što sam od vas naučila! Iako je kraj raj s k na početku, zaista se nadam
da ovo nije kraj već početak! Ines
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Taize
January 3, 2007
Tko ne zna što je Taize? Taizé, na jugu Burgundije u Francuskoj, dom je međunarodne,
ekumenske zajednice. Zajednicu je 1940. godine utemeljio brat Roger da bude jedan od
načina koji bi pomogli prevladavanju vjerskih razdora među kršćanima i sukoba u
čovječanstvu. Braća žive monaškim životom, zavjetujući se na život u duhovnom i
materijalnom zajedništvu, celibatu i velikoj jednostavnosti. Okosnicu njihova života čine
molitva, rad i gostoprimstvo. Kako mi je na pamet palo da ovaj post posvetim baš
Taizeu? 40 000 mladih iz cijele Europe i predstavnici drugih kontinenata skupilo se u
Zagrebu od 28. prosinca do 1. siječnja, na 29. europskom susretu kojeg organizira
Zajednica iz Taizéa. Više informacija može se dobiti na stranici: http://www.taize.fr/hr.
Papa Benedikt XVI, patrijarsi Bartolomej iz Konstantinopola i Aleksej II iz Moskve,
canterburyjski nadbiskup, dr. Rowan Williams, kao i glavni tajnik Ujedinjenih naroda, Kofi
Annan poslali su poruke sudionicima ovog zagrebačkog susreta. Ovdje ću izdvojiti tek
dva navoda iz dvaju poruka.Glavni tajnik Ujedinjenih naroda, g. Kofi Annan tvrdi
sljedeće: "Mir i suglasje među ljudima i civilizacijama zahtijeva stvaranje zajedničkih
prostora za raspravu. Tražite te zajedničke prostore. Tražite mjesta za susret s onima
koji su drugačijih uvjerenja. Kad svatko razmišlja u svojem kutu i zatvara se za
razmišljanja drugih, umjesto da se približavamo boljem svijetu o kojem sanjamo, ovaj
svijet u kojem živimo činimo još grubljim i nesigurnijim. Sve je očitije da su narodi
svijeta prinuđeni stvarati jedinstvenu i relativno ujedinjenu zajednicu. Naša se društva
sve više isprepliću. Kad vi, mladi, svojim sudjelovanjem pokazujete put na razini vaše
zajednice, vaše države u otvorenom dijalogu zasnovanom na poštivanju različitih gledišta
i na dostojanstvu i jednakosti svih ljudi, možda ćemo tada moći ostvariti taj ideal mira za
cijeli planet." Nadbiskup canterburyski, dr. Rowan Williams ovako vidi stanje današnjeg
društva: "Posvuda se čini da je naraslo nepovjerenje među vjerskim zajednicama i
rasama odnosno nacijama, potpomognuto svima koji žive u strahu ili su zaljubljeni u
vlast. U razvijenim društvima postoji dosta cinizma prema svim oblicima autoriteta i
svakom idealu. Povjerenje nam je potrebno kao što nam je potreban svjež zrak. A našem
svijetu sve više nedostaje daha i zraka zbog nepovjerenja, sumnji i beznađa." Smatram
da ciljevi i djelovanje zajednice u Taizeu mogu biti zvijezda vodilja za ekumensko
djelovanje i za učenje tolerancije.
Čestitka
December 25, 2006
Svima onim koji slave BoÅ¾iÄ‡, Å¾elim da im bude sretan i blagoslovljen...
Ja bih TV
December 6, 2006
ZAGREB - Hrvatska bi mogla dobiti katoličku televiziju. Takvu je mogućnost, naime,
otvorio nadbiskup zagrebački i predsjednik Hrvatske biskupske konferencije kardinal
Josip Bozanić u svom intervjuu u 500. jubilarnom broju Veritasa, glasnika sv. Antuna
Padovanskog.- Valjalo bi promisliti je li nam potrebna vlastita televizija ili pak jaka
producentska kuća koja bi radila kvalitetne vjerske programe koji bi mogli naći svoje
mjesto na već postojećim televizijama. Sve su to stvari o kojima treba zajednički
promišljati, jer je televizija nesumnjivo jedan od najutjecajnijih medija danas - rekao je
kardinal Josip Bozanić, dodajući kako je do naših biskupa u HBK stiglo već nekoliko
inicijativa u tome smislu.- Radi se o zahtjevnom projektu koji traži vrlo ozbiljan i razborit
pristup. Moje je mišljenje da bismo se, prije nego što uopće počnemo raspravljati o
jednom takvom zasebnom projektu, trebali zapitati koristimo li se dovoljno
mogućnostima već postojećih, kako nacionalnih, tako i lokalnih televizija - rekao je
kardinal Bozanić. - Budući da živimo u zemlji s katoličkom većinom, Crkva ima pravo na
svoje mjesto na televiziji.Tvrdi da katolici u Hrvatskoj nisu u potpunosti iskoristili
mogućnosti koje su im se pružile i koje su zajamčene sporazumom izmeđe HBK i HRT-a,
a na temelju ugovora između Svete Stolice i Republike Hrvatske o suradnji na području
odgoja i kulture.- Isto tako osjeća se potreba za profesionalno obrazovnim kadrovima
koji bi na raznim TV postajama mogli raditi kvalitetne emisije. Tome ćemo nastojati
doskočiti stručnim programima na Hrvatskom katoličkom sveučilištu - rekao je kardinal,
dodavši kako se nameće dvojba treba li Crkva posjedovati vlastitu televiziju.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++Ostala sam paf na ovu vijest. Istina je da katolici čine većinu (85%) stanovništva
Hrvatske, no vlastita televizija? Nije li to malo previše? Ako bi se i osnivala neka televizija
s vjerskim sadržajem zar ne bi bilo zanimljivije i edukativnije uključiti i druge VZ? Ne
znam postoje li u nekim drugim državama takvi projekti?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++Donosim ovdje odlomak izvještaja Američke ambasade o religijskim slobodama u
Hrvatskoj za 2005. god. koji se tiče ove teme: "Sporazum između Katoličke crkve i
Hrvatske radio-televizije, koja je u vlasništvu države, osigurava redovito, opširno
izvještavanje o katoličkim događajima (čak 10 sati na mjesec). Ostale vjerske zajednice
dobivaju otprilike 10 minuta emitiranja na mjesec, ili čak i manje. Katolička crkva
posjeduje privatnu nacionalnu radio stanicu, Katolički radio, čiji se rad financira privatnim
donacijama. Ne postoje ograničenja vezana uz emitiranje vjerskog programa. Teme
zanimljive glavnim vjerskim skupinama osim rimokatoličke skupine pokrivaju se redovito
u tjednim vjerskim emisijama na HRT-u. Rimokatolička je crkva nekoliko puta reagirala
na ponašanje prema njoj u medijima. U travnju 2004. pomoćni zagrebački biskup Vlado
Košić, koji predsjedava Komisijom biskupske konferencije "Justitia et Pax" pisao je CNN-u
i tražio ispriku zbog komentara o blaženom hrvatskom kardinalu Stepincu izrečenom
tijekom pogreba pape Ivana Pavla II. CNN je izvijestio da su mnogi Stepinca smatrali
veoma bliskim nacističkom marionetskom režimu zemlje za vrijeme II. svjetskog rata.
CNN se odbio ispričati s tvrdnjama da nisu izravno optužili Stepinca i da su samo
izvještavali o njegovu životu. U studenom 2004. organizacije kršćanske mladeži
prosvjedovale su protiv satiričke crtane serije koja kritizira Rimokatoličku crkvu, a koju
emitira hrvatska nacionalna televizija. U svibnju 2005. Udruga katoličkog radija Marija
prikupila je više od 40.000 potpisa kojima se traži ukidanje serije i poslala otvoreno
pismo OESS-u u kojemu izražava neslaganje sa stavom te organizacije da je ta emisija
izraz građanskih i medijskih sloboda. Svake godine televizija uživo iz zagrebačke džamije
prenosi proslavu Bajrama, blagdana muslimanske zajednice, kojoj obično prisustvuju
visoki državni dužnosnici. Islamska zajednica hvali televizijsku emisiju "Ekumena" koja se
emitira jednom mjesečno, zbog značajnog doprinosa ozračju veće tolerancije."
Papa u Turskoj
November 26, 2006
Pogledala sam neke kasnovečernje vijesti i jedan me je prilog posebno zainteresirao.
Radi se o Papinom pohodu Turskoj. Na ekranu se mogao vidjeti popriličan broj jako
uzbuđenih prosvjednika. Već par dana pratim sve moguće vijesti o toj temi. Govorilo se o
Papinim spornim izjavama o islamu kao vjeri koja se širi mačem, o Papinoj isprici, o
iznimnom broju ljudi zaduženih za sigurnost, o prethodnim papama i njihovim posjetama
te konačno o prosvjednicima. Broj onih kojima dolazak pape u Tursku nije mio očito raste
iz dana u dan jer ono što sam danas vidjela moglo bi se nazvati gomilom. Tijekom
današnjeg, nedjeljnog angelusa na Trgu svetog Petra Papa je kazao kako već sada
upućuje pozdrav "dragom turskom narodu, bogatom poviješću i kulturom"."Tom narodu i
njegovim predstavnicima izražavam osjećaje poštovanja i iskrenog prijateljstva." Pitanja
koja se otvaraju: Mogu li lijepe riječi poništiti, ispraviti ružne riječi? Bi li prosvjeda bilo da
sporne izjave nisu bile rečene odnosno jesu li one uzete samo kao izgovor za opravdanje
prosvjeda? Što se može reći o nepogrešivosti pape? Je li moguć, u situaciji kakva je sad
u Turskoj, susret koji bi pokazao svjetlost tolerancije i mogućnost dijaloga?
pitanje
November 30, 2006
Procitao sam tvoj tekst, i zaintrigirala me je jedna recenica, a ona glasi:"Što se može reći
o nepogrešivosti pape?"
Interesuje me zbog cega si postavila ovo pitanje, odnosno u kontekstu cega?
Puno pozdrava
Nikola
Posted by Anonymous
Untitled Comment
November 30, 2006
izvinjavam se jer se nisam prijavio prilikom postavljanja prethodnog komentara
Posted by nikola
Odgovor
December 6, 2006
Nepogrešivost pape - dogma koja me zaista muci. Zašto sam je spomenula? Hajde da
vidimo...Ako netko izrekne nešto i onda se nakon toga isprica i ispravi te svoje rijeci,
samim tim cinom potvrdjuje da je pogriješio. Ako to ucini papa ne radi li se onda o
potkopavanju ili cak rušenju dogme o papinskoj nepogrešivosti. Vrijeme je kada i rijeci
mogu donijeti probleme pa treba biti na velikom oprezu pri njihovom upotrebljavanju
posebno kad si papa i kad si nepogrešiv...
Edited by Ines on December 6, 2006 at 10:33 am
Posted by Ines
o papskoj (ne)pogresivosti
December 16, 2006
Draga Ines,
dogmat o papskoj nepogresivosti, sa ne odnosi na sve reci koji je neki papa rekao. Cini
mi se da on obuhvata samo onaj deo, kada papa (kao poglavar Crkve) govori "sa
katedre" i to samo o pitanju "vere i morala". Njegovi dnevnopoliticki izleti stoga, ne
potkopavaju ovaj dogmat. Jer bilo bi zaista cudno, da Crkva nekoga smatra
nepogresivim, kada nam sama istorija govori suprotno.
Pozdrav Zagrebu, Splitu (ili gde se vec sada nalazis) iz Srbije
Nikola
Posted by nikola
Untitled Comment
December 27, 2006
Hvala ti Nikola na objašnjenju, stvarno! To je ipak tvoje područje! Ja te učim...
Ines
Posted by Anonymous
Dan tolerancije
November 17, 2006
Obilježavanje 16. studenog kao Međunarodnog dana tolerancije pokrenuo je UNESCO
1995. godine. Riječ tolerancija vuče korijene iz grčke riječi tolerare što znači ponositi,
trpjeti i uvažavati tuđe mišljenje i uvjerenje, a upravo je to i cilj obilježavanja Dana
tolerancije - tolerancija, borba protiv nasilja i uvažavanje različitosti. Svake godine na
ovaj dan, UNESCO dijeli nagrade za poticanje mira i tolerancije, koju će ove godine dobiti
Veerasingham Anandasangaree, predsjednik Tamilskog oslobodilačkog fronta u Šri Lanki.
Jednostavni aforizam
November 11, 2006
Hvala Bogu, ateista sam!
Granica
October 30, 2006
Nekako imam osjećaj sa me se nije dobro razumjelo na forumu prošli tjedan. Radi se
naime o temi dijaloga. Ja u popunosti shvaćam da se dijalogom upoznaje drugi, razvija
poštovanje prema različitom, uči tolerancija. Opet su bile spomenute sličnosti koje nas
zbližavaju i različitosti koje treba poštovati. Slažem se i s tim. No, uputimo se malo dalje.
Ako mi mislimo da je naša vjera prava, onda ne možemo uspostavit kompromis po tom
pitanju ni naći se na pola puta s pripadnikom neke druge vjere koji smatra da je njegova
vjera prava. Ta točka je ona granica koja postoji u religijskom dijalogu preko koje je
nemoguće ići. Ta točka je točka negacije drugog uz sve poštovanje prema njemu.
Feredža
October 20, 2006
Tema feredže spominjala se u ovotjednim raspravama. Čini mi se kao da vijesti na koje
nalijećem prate područja naših interesa. Pa evo... ISTANBUL - Nakon što je cijeli život
posvetila proučavanju starovjekovne kulture Sumerana, 92-godišnja arheologinja Muazez
Ilmiye Cig morat će na sud zbog optužbe da je "širila rasnu i vjersku mržnju" u knjizi
koju je lani objavila o prvoj drevnoj civilizaciji koja je niknula u Mezopotamiji u 4.
tisućljeću pr. Kr. Ona i njezin izdavač mogli bi biti osuđeni na kaznu zatvora do tri
godine. U svojem tekstu istraživačica tvrdi da su feredžu, koju u Turskoj iz vjerskih
razloga nose mnoge žene, ali koja je nepoželjan odjevni predmet u laičkoj tradiciji
kemalističke Turske, prvi put počele nositi prostitutke koje su ljubavi poučavale mlade
Sumerane. Ova je tvrdnja razbjesnila mnoge muslimane, posebno odvjetnika iz Izmira
koji se obratio tužiteljstvu i ishodio pokretanje postupka protiv Cig. Slučaj svjedoči i o
društvenim i političkim napetostima koje muče suvremenu Tursku u kojoj su od 2002. na
vlasti umjereni islamisti predvođeni premijerom Redžepom Erdoganom. Cig, inače
uvjerena laikinja, je upravo supruzi premijera Erdogana nedavno poslala pismo kojim je
poziva da ne nosi muslimanski veo u javnosti. "Slobodno je nosite kod kuće, ali Vi ste
premijerova žena i ne smijete nositi feredžu, kao primjerice ni križ, u javnim prigodama."
U Turskoj je nošenje feredže zabranjeno na javnim manifestacijama i na sveučilištima.
Mnogi Turci, posebice vojni časnici, na veo gledaju s podozrivošću jer ga interpretiraju
kao način kojim se javno iskazuje naklonost radikalnim islamističkim političkim grupama.
Veo
October 15, 2006
Ja ponovno donosim vijest iz tiska. Tiče se ovotjedne teme. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"Jack
Straw, bivši britanski ministar vanjskih poslova i sadašnji vođa laburističke frakcije,
izazvao je bijes dijela javnosti izjavom u kojoj predlaže muslimankama da sa svog lica
skidaju veo. Glavni motiv za tu sugestiju mu je poboljšanje komunikacije i povjerenja
među ljudima i različitim vjerama. Straw tvrdi kako kontakt u kojemu jedna strana skriva
lice, a zajedno s njime i emocije, ne može nikako biti jednako iskren kao kontakt između
osoba s nepokrivenim licem. Shahid Malik, laburistički parlamentarni zastupnik,
muslimanske vjere je Strawa pohvalio zbog "iskrenosti", ali i kritizirao zbog "klime" u
kojoj je iznio takve stavove."---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ovaj nam postupak odnosno izjava sugerira
da pozicije i pogledi pripadnika različitih kultura i vjera mogu lako stvoriti konfliktnu
situaciju. Poboljšanje komunikacije i povjerenja među ljudima i različitim vjerama zvuči
kao uistinu lijep cilj. I argumenti koje dotični gospodin navodi drže vodu. No s druge
strane, je li bijes dijela javnosti neopravdan? Mislim da nije! Promjena bilo kojeg dijela
kulture, običaja i dr. bilo koje zajednice treba doći iz same te zajednice. Pripadnik druge
kulture, a posebno ako je ta druga kultura većinska treba biti jako osjetljiv u izricanju
komentara jer se može dogoditi da se čak i najdobronamjernija izjava shvati kao uvreda.
Raz(govor)
October 11, 2006
Donosim par komentara iz internetske verzije Večernjeg lista koji pokazuju koliko je
teško uopće uspostaviti dijalog između pripadnika različitih vjera i koliko to zapravo
postaju odijeljeni monolozi. ********************************edib 20.09.2006
09:34 Odgovor ISPRAVNO VJEROVANJE-KRAJ KOMENTARA Božiji Poslanik Muhammed
a.s. nas je unaprijed upozorio da će se njegova zajednica podijeliti u 73 skupine, 72 će u
džehennem (pakao), a jedna u džennet (raj).Kad ga ashabi (drugovi) upitaše za
džennetsku skupinu, odgovori im: "Zajednica... koja se drži vjere moje i mojih drugova!"
Ta se grupa zove "Ehlisunnetom", pošto se pridržavaju sunneta, pravca Božijeg
Poslanika. Oni čine oko devedeset posto od onih koji sebe zovu muslimanima. A veli
Allahov Poslanik Muhammed a.s.: "Moj se ummet (zajednica) neće okupiti na zabludi."
Zamolimo Boga, Allaha Svemogućeg, da nas učvrsti na ispravnoj stazi i sačuva od
zabluda, i da nam da snage i znanja da one koji još lutaju (Kršćane i Jevreje)
pridobijemo da sa nama idu ispravnim putem! Amin Bože Jedini !
********************************* lastavica 22.09.2006 12:02 Odgovor zabluda
Nema spasenja doli po jedinom , a to je Isus Pomazanik. Jedini put do Oca Svevišnjeg je
ISus Mesija ili Krist što znači Pomazanik. Bez Krista svi su ljudi na zemlji izgubljeni s toga
i muslimani jer ne vjeruju u onoga koga je Svevišnji poslao, a to je Isusu, jedino ime
danono ljudima da se spase jer On je Otkupitelj svijeta. Bog Otac je dao svoju Riječ
(Bibliju) i ljudi su se vjekovima mogli odlučivati za ili protiv Boga, zašti bi Bog najedanput
pogazio svoju Riječ ta Bog se ne mijenja. Religija ne spašava pa kako god se ona
zvala:Islam, Katoličanstvo Protestantizam, Pravoslavlje, Hinduizam, itd., sa vjera u ISusa
možemo doći u spasenje i pomirenje s Bogom Amen! Isus je iznad svakog drugog imena!
Neka se sveti ime njegovo! ******************************************edib
26.09.2006 15:36 Odgovor ISA (ISUS) ISA (ISUS) JE BOZIJI POSLANIK I MUSLIMANI
GA PRIZNAJU ZA BOZIJEG POSLANIKA.MEDJUTIM, ON JE COVJEK I POSLANIK. ON NIJE
NI BOG NI BOZIJI SIN. ZASTO BI SE BOG POJAVLJIVAO U LJUDSKOM OBLIKU ? STA CE
BOGU SIN ? SVE STO VIDIMO, I STO NE VIDIMO, BOZIJE JE !
Iz Jutarnjeg lista
October 7, 2006
Jutarnja propovijed don Zivka Kustica u danasnjem broju hrvatskih dnevnih novina kao
da se nadovezuje na nasu proslotjednu raspravu. U svojim je kolumnama spomenuti
gospodin znao iznijeti jako duhovite, ali i jako konzervativne stavove. Da bih to ilustrirala
na pamet mi pada njegova poredba homoseksualnih parova s kljicevima i bravama
odnosno da dva kljuca i dvije brave nemaju sto da rade! Kljuc i brava predstavljaju
heteroseksualni i svrsishodan odnos, jedinu vrstu ispravne ljubavi! Danasnja njegova
propovijed me je s druge strane ugodno iznenadila tako da cu je prenijeti u cijelosti: "Od
Lepanta do Domovinskog rata" Na Mariji Bistrici vojni biskup opet je podsjetio da su
mnogi hrvatski branitelji u Domovinskom ratu nosili oko vrata Marijinu krunicu. Vecina ih
vjerojatno nije znala krunicu moliti, ali ona im je zacijelo bila znak vjernosti katolickoj
bastini, poboznosti majka i baka koje su ih ucile moliti. Takoder znak nekog pouzdanja da
ce ih Bog u ratu stititi. Mozda neki od njih nisu bili ni krsteni, ali taj ih je znak ipak
povezivao s povijescu krstenoga naroda. Danas Crkva blagdanom Blazene Djevice Marije
od Krunice spominje veliku pobjedu koju je vojska europskoga zapada - Spanjolske,
Venecije i Genove - s blagoslovom pape Pia V. postigla nad mornaricom Turskoga
Carstva 7. listopada 1571. kod Lepanta na ulazu u Korintski zaljev. Papa je uoci te bitke
pozvao vjernike moliti Gospinu krunicu, pa je i pobjedu pripisao njezinoj pomoci. Ta je
pobjeda oznacila pocetak kraja turske premoci na Sredozemlju. Tako ce velika krscanska
pobjeda nad Turcima kod Beca 12. rujna 1683. oznaciti kraj njihove premoci na
europskom kopnu. Papa je tu pobjedu oznacio blagdanom imena Marijina. Tako vise
Gospinih blagdana oznacuje vazne datume u otporu turskom nadiranju u Europu. U nase
se doba rada pitanje ima li vise smisla isticati te blagdane. Nije li vrijeme prepustati
zaboravu krvava razdoblja, zaputiti se putem dijaloga i sporazumijevanja s bastinicima
davnih agresora? Ocito prevladava misljenje da povijest ne valja zaboravljati. Mozda je
ipak pravi cas razjasniti da ono nisu ratovale vjere - islam i krscanstvo - nego drzave
koje su se tim vjerama sluzile kao drzavnim ideologijama. Ta bi spoznaja u znaku svete
Marijine zenstvenosti i materinstva mogla oslobadati danasnje krscanske i islamske
vjernike da ponovno ne zaglave u krvave sukobe. Mozda bi bas na te blagdane krscani
trebali citati priznanja i pohvale koje je Muhamed u Kuranu odao Djevici Mariji.
Dijana Stojanović, Skoplje
seminarska - politika i religija
December 21, 2006
Sodržina
Voved...................................................................................................... 2
Definiranje na poimot religija..................................................... 3
Neramnopravnosta na ženata i mažot vo opštestvoto............ 5
Ženata vo pravoslavieto................................................................. 7
Ženata vo islamot............................................................................. 9
Ulogata na ženata vo politikata................................................... 12
Zaklučok............................................................................................... 16
Bibliografija.................................................................................... 18
Voved
“Nikogaš ne uspeav da sfatam što e toa feminizam. Znam samo deka me narekuvaa
feministka sekoj pat koga će go kažev javno svoeto mislenje što me razlikuvaše od
običen brišač za čevli.” - Rebeka Vest.
Ovoj esej će se zanimava so ulogata na ženata vo opštestvoto i politikata niz prizmata na
pravoslavieto i islamot. Najprvo će bide napraven obid da se definira religijata so seta
nejzina kompleksnost, brojnosta na religiite, preku edna od najznačajnite dopirni točki verata. Potoa preku definiranje na terminite pol i rod, i ukažuvanje na nivnite razliki, će
bide daden opis na neramnopravnosta na mažite i ženite vo opštestvoto, čii koreni se vo
antikata, a vrvovi vo denešnicata. ]e bide dadena ulogata na ženata vo pravoslavieto,
preku tolkuvanje na delovite od Biblijata vo koi se spomnuvaat i ženite, koe odredeni
"ženomrsci" go upotrebuvaat vo pežorativna smisla, a samata Biblija go govori
sprotivnoto. Esejot će ja obraboti i ulogata na ženata vo opštestvoto i politikata dadena
preku islamot, opfaćajći gi tolkuvanjata na konzervativnite islamisti koi iznesuvajći gi
javno svoite stavovi sozdavaat grda slika za islamskite zemji i nivniot opšt odnos kon
ženite, koja vo suština ima mnogu nedostatoci i nevistiniti informacii. Poslednata glava će
dade opis na ulogata na ženata vo politikata, počnuvajći od vremeto na Aristotel, preku
strahopočitnata borba na sufražetkite, do celosnoto osvojuvanje na aktivnoto i pasivnoto
izbiračko pravo, koe, za žal, sč ušte vo odredeni zemji ne e del od ustavot, nitu pak e
zakonski regulirano.
Definiranje na poimot religija
Dokolku se obideme da dademe točna, precizna i opštoprifatena definicija na poimot
religija, će se soočime so problem, bidejći sekoja zaednica i individua koja živee vo nea
može da ja tolkuva religijata i veruvanjeto vo nea na sopstven način.
Nitu poimot religija (religion), koj poteknuva od latinskiot zbor religiare što znači
obvrzuva, ne može mnogu da ni pomogne, bidejći ne dava objasnuvanje kon što toa
obvrzuva religijata!? Sepak religijata ima ogromno etičko i moralno značenje vo sekoja
opštestvena zaednica, pa potrebata za nejzino definiranje se nametnuva samata po sebe.
Definicijata "religijata e organiziran zbir na veruvanja, čuvstva, simboli, kultni aktivnosti i
moralni propisi vrzani za idejata ili zamislata za 'natprirodnoto bitie'" , bi bila
nekompletna, ako ne se dopolni so stavot deka "religijata se posmatra kako opredelena
struktura koja kako svoi sostavni delovi gi ima, na primer, sfaćanjeto za božestvoto ili
nastanuvanjeto na svetot, svoite simboli, rituali, normi, ustanovi, službenici".
Univerzalnite religii go tretiraat čovekot kako suštestvo koe sekade i sekogaš se soočuva
so relativno "isti problemi" vo odnosot najprvo kon sebe si i bogot (bogovite) vo koj(i)
veruva, a potoa i vo odnosot so svetot vo koj bitisuva, pa zatoa pripađanjeto na čovekot
vo odredena opštestvena ili kulturna grupa stanuva rabota od vtorostepeno značenje vo
odnos na pripađanjeto vo odredena religija.
Mnogu od luđeto veruvaat vo toa deka nekoja vonzemska sila vlijaela na sozdavanjeto na
svetot i deka taa donekade vlijae i vrz životot na poedincite, bidejći vo prirodata na
čovekot e da veruva, samo što toa veruvanje može da se realizira na različni načini.
"Potrebata za veruvanje e ista, samo načinot na zadovoluvanje na ovaa potreba e
različen".
Verata, koja može da ja definirame kako "uveruvanje vo vistinitosta na nekoi tvrdenja
bez nejzino proveruvanje" e od golema korist vo sekojdnevniot život na čovekot, bidejći
luđeto postojano veruvaat vo poraki, idei, ljubov, drugi luđe, pa duri i vo mnogu
neverojatni nešta.
I pokraj postoenjeto na tolku mnogu religii može da se zakluči deka vo suština "site
religii zboruvaat za istoto, samo na različni načini i na različni jazici" , bidejći "suštinata
na verata ne se menuva, se menuva samo nejziniot oblik".
Neramnopravnosta na ženata i mažot vo opštestvoto
Polot kako biološka i trajna kategorija, gi opredeluva prirodnite razliki na čovekot ušte od
negovoto rađanje. Luđeto se rađaat ili kako ženi ili kako maži i ovaa nivna kategorija e
"relativno" nepromenliva. Razlikite koi se rezultat na polot se značajni za reprodukcijata i
opstanokot na čovečkiot vid i poradi toa se potrebni i prifatlivi.
Različnite ulogi na ženite i mažite vo opštestvoto se rezultat na rodovata opredelba, koja
gi opredeluva socijalnite odnosi pomeđu mažite i ženite. Ovie odnosi se razlikuvaat od
polovite, po toa što zavisat od odreden kontekst, imaat odredeni zaednički raboti so
drugite socijalni odnosi (klasa, etnikum, rasa, vozrast, religija), možat da se menuvaat i
kako rezultat na toa postoi odreden otpor kon nivnoto menuvanje. "Ramnopravnosta
pomeđu mažite i ženite (rodovata ramnopravnost) se odnesuva na ednakvi prava,
odgovornosti i možnosti za ženite i mažite, devojčinjata i momčinjata. Ednakvosta ne
znači deka ženite i mažite će stanat isto, tuku deka pravata na ženite i pravata na
mažite, odgovornostite i možnostite - ne zavisat od toa dali se tie rodeni kako ženi ili
maži".
Ulogata na mažot vo kućata, pa i vo opštestvoto e opredelena pred mnogu mileniumi,
ušte koga drevnite grčki moralisti smetale deka mažot na ženata treba da í pristapi
mudro i strogo, za slučajno da ne razbudi vo nea strast. Ženata voopšto i ne e smetana
za građanin, pa zatoa & bilo odzemeno pravoto ramnopravno so mažot da učestvuva vo
donesuvanjeto na odlukite koi go zasegale polisot. Taa se naođala vo ist koš so robovite i
decata, bez nikakvo pravo na glas.
So doađanjeto na hristijanstvoto ne se sozdava nova teorija za semejstvoto, tuku se
obnovuva starata, vo koja semejstvoto se smetalo za mala crkva, a mažot za poglavar.
Vo sredniot vek, kako vo Anglija, taka i vo Fracija, vo srednovekovniot učebnik za
crkovnite prava, prifateno e praviloto deka mažot može umereno da ja kazni svojata
žena, bidejći taa mu pripađa na negovoto domaćinstvo.
Vo periodot na 17-18 vek ideal za odnosot među ženata i mažot bila knigata "Domostroj"
vo koja se sovetuvala telesna kazna za ženata koja bila celosno potčineta na mažot. "So
cel jasno da se istakne distancata i razlikata među mažot i ženata, mažot, gospodarot,
sekogaš ostanuval nepristapno nastrana".
Deka plodnata klima za ugnetuvanje na ženata traela so vekovi i bezmalku do denešni
dni, govorat poveće fakti od različni oblasti na životot. Početokot na učestvoto na ženite
vo univerzitetskiot život na najvisoko nivo se čini tolku blisku ako se znae deka "vo 1848,
edna Amerikanka bila nagradena so titulata Doktor po medicina za prvpat". Skorešna e i
pobedata vo koja se dobieni osnovnite izbirački prava za ženite: pravoto da glasaat i da
bidat glasani, koi gi imaat steknato pred relativno kratko vreme, "Nov Zeland e prva
zemja koja vo 1893 godina im dala pravo na glas na ženite; posledna zemja koja go
ukinala izborniot cenzus za ženite e Lihtenštajn vo 1984 godina; dodeka vo Kuvajt i
Soedinetite Arapski Emirati ženite sč ušte nemaat pravo na glas" .
Ženata vo pravoslavieto
Iako Biblijata često e koristena so cel da se obezvredi ženata, ako podlaboko se navleze
vo nejzinata sodržina i donekade se otfrlat nejzinite "maški" tolkuvanja, može da se
zabeleži deka stavot na Biblijata kon ženata e vsušnost pozitiven. Nejzinoto tolkuvanje
preku odgovaranje na prašanjata “Dali e Bog maško?”, “Dali Eva e poveće vinovna za
prviot grev?”, “Zošto Pavle im naredil na ženite da molčat?” i sl., može da gi navede
ženite da razmisluvaat deka Biblijata e samo ušte edna kniga koja ja napišale mažite za
mažite. So generacii ženite go otfrlale hristijanstvoto, veruvajći deka Biblijata e opasna
politička kniga, koja stoi na patot na osloboduvanjeto na ženite.
[to se odnesuva na razlikite među polovite vo Biblijata, tolkuvanjata odat vo dve
krajnosti, ili gi apsolutiziraat razlikite među polovite i go proglasuvaat edniot pol za
podreden, ili taa razlika ja relativiziraat i ja sveduvaat na najmala merka.
Prvata krajnost zboruva za Eva kako za žena so nedostatok na intelegencija, bidejći go
izela jabolkoto koe í bilo zabraneto, slušajći ja zmijata, što deluva pomalku smešno, kako
i niza drugi slučajnosti vo koi sekogaš bile vinovni ženite. Veruvam deka isto bi se slučilo
i dokolku jabolkoto mu bilo prvo ponudeno na Adam, no kako i sekogaš prikaznata bi se
svrtila vo korist na mažite, što vsušnost i bilo napraveno od strana na teoretičarite vo
sredniot vek, kako Luter, Avgustin i drugi, vrz osnova na tolkuvanje na delovi od Noviot
Zavet na Biblijata "I Adam ne se prelaža, a ženata prelažuvajći se stana prestapnik.
Timotej (I, 2:14)".
Spored Tertilijan, Eva ja snosi najgolemata odgovornost za grevot na čoveštvoto, a Sirah
poddržuvajći ja taa teza veli “Od žena počnal grevot i poradi nea site umirame”. Na Adam
mu e prosteno zatoa što greši protiv svojata volja, zatoa što motivite mu se čisti pomalku
e vinoven. Odbranata na Adam odi dotamu što Ivan Zlatoust veli deka ”toj ne zgrešil
zanesen od apetitot, tuku od razgovorot so negovata žena”, a spored Luter, Adam ne go
odbil jabolkoto bidejći ne sakal da ja ražalosti radosta na svojot život t.e. svojata žena.
Za da se sfati dolgogodišnoto potisnuvanje na ženite, dovolno e samo da se poglednat
nekolku stavovi za ženite koi besramno gi izrekle nekoi hristijanski svetci:
"Sv. Ivan Damaskijac: "Ženata e ćerka na lagite, čuvar na pekolot, neprijatel na mirot;
preku nea Adam go izgubil rajot";
Sv. Kiprijan: "Ženata e instrument koj đavolot go koristi za da stigne do našite duši";
Sv. Ante: "Ženata e izvor na đavolovite race, nejziniot glas e zmijsko pištenje";
Sv. Grigur Veliki: "Ženata ima otrov kako zmija otrovnica, zloba kako zmej".
Od ženska gledna točka Eva e remek - delo na maškata manipulacija. Nejzinata odbrana
e zasnovana na malubrojni fakti i koristejći go toa "vospituvačite nikogaš ne propuštaat
da go okarakteriziraat kako 'žensko' seto ona što e slabo i inferiorno, a kako 'maško' seto
ona što e hrabro, golemo i što ima čovečka vrednost".
So vekovi ženite bile proglasuvani za neramnopravni vo odnos na mažite, a Biblijata
vsušnost govori deka ženata imala isto mesto vo poredokot kako i mažot, tie imaat
zaednička cel na Zemjata. Dadena im e zaednička odgovornost da gi odgledaat decata i
zaedno da se grižat za site drugi raboti, za što se govori i vo Noviot Zavet na Biblijata
"Ženata ne e gospodar na svoeto telo, tuku mažot, taka i mažot na e gospodar na svoeto
telo, tuku ženata. Korićani (I, 7:4)". Ženata i mažot se prestaveni kako prijateli i partneri
sî dodeka Bog ne gi protera od svoeto carstvo otuđuvajći gi eden od drug.
Ženata vo islamot
Golem broj na radikalni muslimani go imaat prifateno mitot deka ženata e izvor na
čovekovata tragedija poradi nejzinata bibliska zaveduvačka uloga i naveduvanjeto na
Adam na neposlušnost kon svojot Gospodar. "Nagovarajći go svojot maž da go izede
zabranetiot plod, taa ne samo što pokažala nepokornost kon Alah, tuku i predizvikala
progonuvanje na čoveštvoto od Rajot, stanuvajći taka pričina za site čovekovi stradanja
na zemjata".
Ovoj mit e dosta raširen vo islamskata zaednica, pred sč među mnogubrojnite ženomrsci
vo konzervativnite muslimanski redovi, iako Alah vo Kuranot istaknuva deka Adam sam e
odgovoren za svojata greška. "Spored toa, vo islamskata doktrina i vo Kuranot ne postoi
ništo što ženata ja pravi odgovorna za Adamovoto progonuvanje od Rajot, ili za nevoljite
na čoveštvoto koi što sledele potoa".
Kako rezultat na pogrešnata interpretacija na hadisot, doađa do širenje na negativen
odnos kon ženite, pri što se namaluva važnosta na ženskite členovi na muslimanskite
opštestva, a se zaborava na faktot deka Islamot & dava na ženata prava vo site sferi od
životot koi bi trebalo da vodat kon nejzino počituvanje.
"Spored islamskiot zakon, koj e izveden od Kuranot i porakata na prateniot od Gospoda,
mažot ima dolžnost da obezbedi sredstva za život kako što se hrana, obleka, stan i site
ostanati sredstva, duri ako e potrebno i za sluginkata, za ženata da može mirno da se
posveti na odgleduvanjeto na decata. Po toj povod od ženata ne se bara nikakva
odgovornost, duri ne se ni obvrzuva da vrši kakvi bilo raboti vo kućata ili nadvor od nea,
koi ako saka može da gi raboti, a na ekonomskiot prihod, koj e proizvod na nejzinata
rabota i e samo nejzin, mažot isto taka nema nikakvi prava".
Ramnopravnosta među polovite ne treba da se sfati kako ukinuvanje na site razliki,
bidejći toa e nevozmožno i nepotrebno. Ramnopravnosta znači ednakvi šansi i ednakvi
prava za ženite i mažite na site polinja na deluvanje i vo site međusebni odnosi, bidejći
na mnogu ženi ambiciite, želbite i potrebite im se nasočeni nadvor od domot i nivno
čovečko pravo e svoite talenti i potencijali da gi koristat vo soglasnost so svoite
možnosti, onaka kako što toa go pravat mažite so vekovi.
Vo neislamskite opštestva vladee mislenjeto deka islamot ja ponižuva ženata i ja smeta
za pomalku vredna od mažot, a vsušnost zapadnata "ramnopravnost" e svedena na nivo
na "ednakvost" najmnogu vo odnos na zgolemuvanje na rabotnite obvrski na ženite.
Ovaa "sličnost" među ženite i mažite voopšto ne im e vo korist na ženite, tuku e vo korist
na kapitalistite koi gi zgolemuvaat rabotnite angažmani na ženite pod izgovor deka gi
izednačuvaat so mažite, pri toa zaboravajći da gi zgolemat i nivnite plati.
"Toa što e prisutno na Zapad e proces vo koj preovladuva mislenje deka i so mažite i so
ženite za sč treba ednakvo da se postapi bidejći i dvajcata se luđe. Od druga strana, na
vrodenite i prirodnite razliki među mažite i ženite, nimalku ne se obrnuva vnimanie, a
bidejći i ženata e čovek, nejzinata ženstvenost e potpolno prepuštena na zaborav, i toa
sč vo imeto na ramnopravnosta na obata pola".
Preku svoeto silno vlijanie državite od Zapadot se obiduvaat da gi integriraat site
muslimani vo duhot na sopstvenite opštestva, naveduvajći gi da gi prifatat nivnite
opštestveni vrednosti, a muslimanite i muslimankite se ohrabruvaat što poaktivno da
učestvuvaat vo političkiot život. Seto ova "osloboduvanje" na duhot na demokratijata vo
muslimanskite opštestva e smešno, ako se znae deka "dodeka na Zapad ženite morale da
se borat sč do 20 vek za pravoto da go izbiraat svojot vladetel, islamot toa pravo na
ženata i go dal ušte pred 1400 godini. Ne samo što toa & bilo dozvoleno, tuku od nea se
očekuvalo i zaedno so mažite halifi da dava svoja zakletva (bay’ah)".
Islamskite zemji i nivnite socijalni sistemi ne ja poznavaat kategorijata politička
ednakvost među mažite i ženite od prosta pričina što smetaat deka taa e produkt na
Zapadot i kako fraza opstojuva pretežno vo prozapadnite zemji, bidejći islamot &
"dozvoluva, ta duri, i ja ohrabruva ženata da učestvuva vo politikata, ako toa ne & preči
vo nejzinata primarna uloga na majka i sopruga".
Ulogata na ženata vo politikata
Ušte 350 godina pred našata era, slavniot antički teoretičar i filozof, Aristotel vo svoeto
delo "Politika" jasno stava do znaenje deka vo terminot građanin nema mesto za ženite, i
pod izgovor deka ženata ne e sposobna za svesno rasuduvanje poradi nedostatok na
inteligencija i koncentracija & se odzema pravoto na glas vo donesuvanjeto na odlukite
od opštestveno značenje. Ovoj stav možebi i bi se opravdal vo vremeto vo koe nastanal,
no ona što zagrižuva e negovoto opstojuvanje niz vekovite duri do denešni dni i negovata
odbrana so rečisi nepromeneti argumenti.
Potrebata za priznavanje na pravoto na ženata za aktivno učestvo vo političkiot život, ne
pretstavuva samo borba so pretstavnicite na maškiot pol, tuku politička, pravna,
socijalna borba protiv site odnesuvanja i deluvanja zasnovani vrz neednakvost. Ovaa
borba "nema za cel izednačuvanje među mažot i ženata, tuku utvrduvanje na čuvstvoto
na ednakvost so nego, što će go zgolemi i dostoinstvoto na ženata, će & ovozmoži taa da
gi izrazi svoite osobenosti i vrednosti vo site podračja na aktivnosti, koi do skoro bea
"ekskluzivno" rezervirani za mažite" . Vo vakvi uslovi na ženata će & se ovozmoži da gi
uživa istite prava vo politikata, kako i mažot, istovremeno imajći podednakvi možnosti za
uspeh.
Sepak, deka komoditetot, konformizmot, manipulacijata, licemerieto, pritaenoto nasilstvo
ili ednostavno neinformiranosta se vgradeni vo maškata dominacija, se gleda vo
podatocite na OON, spored koi ženite glavno ne poseduvaat zemja, no glavno ja
obrabotuvaat, nemaat kapital, no rabotat poveće za pomalku pari, spored brojnosta, tie
se mnozinstvo od biračite, a nesoodvetno se zastapeni vo vlasta, visokite mesta vo
prosvetnite, akademskite i zdravstvenite institucii se pomalku propustlivi za ženite i tie
na čuden način isčeznuvaat koga će dojdat do nivo na profesor, direktor, vodač.
Dvaesettiot vek gi stavi pred golemo iskušenie site onie protivnici na učestvoto na ženite
vo političkiot život, otvarajći gi portite na salite vo koi sedat misterioznite donesuvači na
odluki i za ženskite umovi. Toa otvaranje na dotogaš cvrsto zapečatenite porti nimalku ne
beše lesno, a popušti ušte poveće pod pritisokot na upornoto turkanje na sufražetkite,
ženite što gi davaa svoite životi za da dobijat edno od osnovnite čovekovi prava, pravoto
na glas. Glasačkoto pravo, za koe sufražetkite protestirale, bile tepani i štrajkuvale so
glad vo zatvorite, e dobieno vo tekot na minatiot vek. Toa e osnovniot uslov za polova
ramnopravnost iako ne e sigurno sredstvo za vospostavuvanje na pravednost, bidejći ni
denes posle rečisi eden vek, ne e postignat pola - pola odnos vo vlasta, nikade vo svetot.
Sepak i pokraj kurcijalnite promeni koi započnaa minatiot vek i sč ušte traat, založbite na
mnogu ženi za aktivno učestvo vo politikata egzistiraat samo na hartija. Iako denes
formalno političkata arena im pripađa na site građani, mažite se tie koi što sč ušte držat
monopol i poradi takvite vospostaveni odnosi na moć i vlast postoi diskrepanca pomeđu
formalno-pravniot status na ženite i nivnata vistinska moć vo formalnata politika.
"Ednakvata formalno-pravna položba sč ušte ne osiguruva vistinska ednakvost vo
opštestvenata položba" , zatoa demokratija vo koja ženite nemaat odlučuvačka moć, ne
e vistinska demokratija. Ova tvrdenje go potvrduva izveštajot na Unifem, koj pokažuva
deka "2002 godina širum svetot samo 14% bile ženi među členovite na parlamentot".
Ušte pozagrižuvački e faktot što odredeni arapski zemji na ženite ne im davaat voopšto
pravo na glas, a da ne zboruvame deka mestata vo parlamentot im se nedostapni.
Sepak i pokraj sč ženata deluva vo svetot bezpoštedno davajći se sebe si, gi usoglasuva
svoite obvrski i kako sopruga od koja zavisi semejstvoto, i kako majka od koja zavisat
nejzinite naslednici, i kako žena, nositel na značajni politički odluki, od koja zavisi
razvojot i opstanokot na opštestvoto. I zatoa "dodeka celta na mažot e da deluva, na
ženata e da bide, a toa e najmoćnata religiozna kategorija".
Zaklučok
Vrz osnova na toa što beše navedeno vo ovoj esej može da se zakluči deka pri sekoj obid
da se definira religijata, najprvo se sudruvame so kompleksnosta na nejziniot poim,
mnoštvoto definicii koi se nadopolnuvaat i isprepletuvaat opišuvajći mnogu različni religii
so edna edinstvena zaednička smisla, verata. Isto taka, ovoj esej pokaža deka i pokraj
povremenoto mešanje na terminite pol i rod, se raboti za dve sosem različni kategorii koi
zavisat od biološkite i od sociološkite razliki među ženite i mažite, i deka ramnopravnosta
za koja ženite se borat ušte od vremeto koga ne bile tretirani ni kako građani, voopšto ne
znači ednakvost. Preku ulogata na ženata vo pravoslavieto, esejot se obide da pokaže
deka samo pogrešnoto tolkuvanje na Biblijata može da nč navede da mislime deka taa
prastara kniga govori protiv ženite, omalovažuvajći gi. Za žal, istoto se slučuva i vo
islamskite zemji, kade nivnata sveta kniga, Kuranot, e simbol na "gospodarstvoto" na
mažot vrz ženata, no samo dokolku go tolkuvaat konzervativni islamisti, bidejći vo
sprotivno se otkrivaat podatoci koi govorat za ramnopravnosta na ženite i mažite vo
islamskite zaednici ušte mnogu odamna. Za kraj, esejot se obide da dade opis na
mestoto na ženata vo politikata, počnuvajći od Antikata, koga bila stavana na isto
ramnište so decata i robovite, pa preku borbata na sufražetkite koi uspeale da
izdejstvuvaat pravo na glas i za ženite, do denešninata koga sč ušte imame zemji koi &
go negiraat ova pravo na ženata, samo poradi toa što e žena. Sepak, krajniot zaklučok
na ovoj trud e deka ulogata na ženata vo opštestveniot i političkiot život ne e odredena
od svetite knigi, Biblijata i Kuranot, bidejći sekogaš i sekade vo svetot će postojat
"isfrustrirani šovinisti" koi će gi tolkuvaat rabotite vo svoja korist i plašejći se od
povtornoto vraćanje na matrijarhatot, će se borat za večno prodolžuvanje na mitot za
mažot -gospodar na site polinja, vklučuvajći ja i politikata, i ženata - domaćinka.
BIBLIOGRAFIJA
Koristena literatura:
1. Vuk Karaxić, "Novi Zavjet gospoda našega Isusa Hrista", Izdanje britanskoga i
inostranoga biblijskoga društva, Biograd, 1899 god;
2. Gzime Starova, Položbata i pravata na vrabotenata žena, "Sojuz na organizacii na ženi
na Makedonija", Skopje, 2003 god;
3. m-r Mirjana Dokmanović, "Rodna ravnopravnost i javna politika", Ženski centar za
demokratiju i ljudska prava, Subotica, 2002 god;
4. Pavle Evdokimov, "Ženata i spasenieto" - hristijanska antropologija za darovite na
ženite, Feminizam-negovite lagi i vistini, Veles, 2001 god;
5. Seminar "Žene i politika: pitanje roda u političkoj teoriji", dokumentacija, "Ženska
infoteka" tekst - Ines Jemrić, Hrvatska,
Dubrovnik, 2002 god;
6. m-r Slavejko Sasajkovki, doktorska disertacija "Revitalizacija na opštestvenata
funkcija na religijata, versko-političko soočuvanje so religiskiot fenomen", Institut za
sociološki i političko-pravni istražuvanja, Skopje, 1998 god;
7. Čedomir Čupić, "Politička antropologija" - hrestomatija, Fakultet političkih nauka
Univerziteta u Beogradu, Čigoja štampa, Beograd, 2002 god.
Koristeni internet linkovi:
1. http://njnjnj.ibn-sina.net/tekstovi/?ID=309
2. njnjnj.idea.int/gender/facts.htm
3. http://islam.dzemat.org/modules.php?name=Nenjs&file=article&sid=2227
4. http://islam.dzemat.org/modules.php?name=Nenjs&file=article&sid=2527
http://forum.idividi.com.mk/printer_friendly_posts.asp?TID=3855
5. http://hr.njikipedia.org/njiki/Vjera
Daniel Jovanović, Prokuplje
Moja razmisljanja
Home - Profile - Archives
Crtice o Bogu i ljudima (sa Foruma)
KRATKE CRTICE O BOGU I LJUDIMA (izabrani delovi sa Foruma)
***
Atmosfera nepoverenja i odbijanja dijaloga- nesagledavanje Drugih- govori o slaboj
zajednici koja ima svoj pocetak i kraj, što znaci da nije u zajednici s Bogom.Svako ko ima
zajednicu jednih s drugim, jednih sa svim i sa Bogom, apsolutno je otvorena licnost i zna
samo za ,,DA" i za ljubav.
***
A mislim da iz doslednog pridržavanja zajednickih etickih principa, molitve i saznanja da
nam je isti Otac nebeski, koji će razlicito nagraditi sve koji ga mole, može u buducnosti
roditi osnov za toleranciju i prijateljstvo. Verujem u to jer kad ne bih verovao u to onda
ne bih verovao ni u covecanstvo.
***
Nijedna religija nije savršena, niti je njena misija završena. Da jeste- nastupilo bi
Nebesko carstvo. Prema tome pred svima nama su izazovi i iskušenja modernog doba
koje treba pobediti novim odgovorima i novim naporima.
***
Pravoslavni bi morali shvatiti da je Božju ljubav nemoguce ,,sacuvati" samo za sebe i da
smo je dužni širiti. Iz Božjeg dara slobode dobili smo postulat da druge moramo prihvatiti
kakvim jesu i voleti ih kakvim jesu. Moramo biti otvoreni. Separacija i privatizam
nedvosmisleno vode u degeneraciju - to je zakon u koji ne sumnja nijedan zdrav razum.
Naše obeležje nije suprotnost vec razlika.
Sve vere imaju istog, mocnog i opasnog neprijatelja, koji ovde i sada deluje u ljudima i
kroz razne organizacije, necu ih imenovati . Svi znamo da postoje i da rade i protiv
Pravoslavne, Katolicke, Protestantske, Islama, itd. Samo zajedno ga(ih) možemo
pobediti.
Svako MOJE,JA,NAŠE, ukida veru. Mi se molimo Bogu ,,Tebi od Tvojih, od svih i za sve"
tokom Liturgije. Svaku molitvu govorimo u ime celog covecanstva a to jeste bukvalno
znacenje reci ekumenizam (Oce naš a ne Oce moj).
***
Ako ljudskom bicu zabranite ili uskratite religiju postace pseudoreligiozan, saznavace o
religiji na sporedne nacine, ,,nelegalnim,, kanalima, i imaćete kontraprodukt. Nesreca da
tvorci Jugoslavije toga nisu bili svesni. Sreca da su kreativni tvorci BiH toga svesni.
***
Da nije bilo rata i ubijanja na Balkanu, sasvim bismo u drugačijem svetlu i kontekstu
posmatrali odnos nacije i religije.
***
Verske zajednice su zajednice religije (vezati, povezati) koje se cine ljudi koji priznaju
odredjene dogme i formule vere svojih osnivaca i koje se prvenstveno odnose na
poznanje istine=ver.Osnovna razlika u odnosu na druge društvene grupe je njihova
okrenutost ka duhovnom delu ljudskog bica i cilju postojanja, odnosno verske zajednice
postoje da bi se njeni clanovi mogli spasiti pre svega smrti. Dakle one nemaju
prevashodno u fokusu trenutni, aktuelni život mada je i on deo celokupnog plana
spasenja. Jer ako nema spasenja onda ni vera ni Bog nisu potrebni.
***
Najprostije: građansko društvo ne bi bilo slobodoumno, napredno i otvoreno da nema
ucešca verskih zajednica, da ne govorimo o duhovnoj dimenziji.
I obrnuto: verske zajednice bi ostale zatvorene, apaticne i sebicne da se ne okrenu
društvu, dijalogu i toleranciji - za šta im građansko društvo pruža priliku i prostor.
Mala privatna anketa
Mala privatna anketa
Pre nekoliko meseci sproveo sam malu privatnu anketu među ljudima koje dobro
poznajem i koji su slucajan uzorak utoliko što je rec o bliskim rođacima, dakle nisam
birao uzorak. Radi se o 24 osoba, razlicitog profila, razlicitog uzrasta i razlicitog socijalnodruštvenog statusa. Svi su skoro ceo život proveli u Prokuplju i svi su završili makar
srednju školu. Interesovalo me koliko poznaju svoju veru.23 se izjašnjavaju kao vernici.
Pa recimo: samo dvoje zna o cemu konkretno govori Novi Zavet, mada nijedan ne
zna koje knjige otprilike, osim Jevanđelja cine Novi Zavet, i niko ne zna sadržaj Isusovih
Beseda na gori.22 zna Isusov život (uglavnom iz filmova), 22 zna skoro sve o Svetom
Savi, 16 znaju sadržaj i suštinu slave, ili su barem blizu pravilnom shvatanju.23 ima
negativno mišljenje o sveštenicima i 23 podržava uvođenje veronauke u škole.Nijedan ne
zna suštinu posta, ispovesti i pricešca. Nijedan ne ide redovno na liturgiju a 23 ide u
crkvu samo na velike praznike (slava, Božic, Uskrs).
Kada bih krenuo sa daljom okolinom rezultati bi bili još poražavajuci, kada na
osnovu ove mini ankete razmislim o ljudskom sklopu komšiluka, daljih rođaka i prijatelja.
Ovo govori o lošem stanju u društvu (makar o tome da se deklerativni vernici koji
ne poznaju osnovne istine svoje vere mogu nazvati licemerima), govori o izuzetno
niskom stepenu misionarstva SPC, o nedostatku edukativnih verskih sadržaja na javnim
medijima i o mom lošem radu na prosvecivanju familije u prethodnom periodu.
Može se reci,takođe, da su komunizam i socijalizam ostavili katastrofalne
posledice i da danas ucenik cetvrtog razreda, koji pohađa veronauku od prvog razreda,
zna mnogo više o svojoj veri od fakultetski obrazovanog građanina.
Od ovih istina ne vredi bežati vec se sa njima treba suociti i poboljšati stanje. Ili
smo vernici ili nismo. Nije problem ako nismo. Problem je ako mislimo da jesmo a nismo.
Mada je istina da se vera ne iscrpljuje saznanjima o njoj, naprosto, neko može
posedovati ljubav prema veri i Bogu a da ga ne poznaje. Teoretski to je moguće ali
prakticno ja licno ne verujem u to. Onaj koji nekog voli zasigurno želi i što bolje da ga
upozna, odnosno da sazna šta je to što voli. Prirodno, sve su to dobri ljudi, porodicni,
visokomoralni, koji vole svoju okolinu i ljude, i koji imaju veliki potencijal da svoju
dobrotu bolje upoznaju i usaglase sa Božjom dobrotom. Pitanje je samo kako?
Na žalost vreme ne prašta, brzo prolazi i nema prazan hod. Uz sve to, današnji
tempo života i teško ekonomsko stanje ostavlja mnogo malo vremena da bi se covek
okrenuo sebi, odnosno svojoj duhovnosti.
Usuđujem se reci da covek koji ne poznaje veru ne može poznavati ni sebe. Jer u
svakom coveku, bez izuzetka postoji majušni deo do koga ne može da dopre bez vere i
koji mu je darovan od Boga. Neko taj deo naziva savest a u psihologiji zauzima znacajno
mesto u celokupnom Ja-identitetu. Savest pomaže coveku da nekako koriguje nesklad
između svojih želja, misli, osecaja i dela.Međutim, veliko ALI, ako covek ne shvati
pravilno svoj odnos prema Bogu i ne upozna ga, ta savest pretvara njegove dane na
zemlji u pravi pakao i on nema mira. Od irealnih strahova, neprirodnih kompenzacija,
neverovatnih kompleksa do preterivanja u svemu.Isto se dogodi ako pocne da shvata
Boga kako njemu odgovara ili bude zaveden u pogrešne pseudoreligijske zajednice.U
krajnjem slucaju,takav covek ne može biti ni socijalno pouzdan ni društveno pozitivan
cinilac bilo kog društva ili zajednice.Doduše on funkcioniše , poput mašine, ali u velikoj
zavisnosti od okolnosti, uslovljen ogranicenjima prirode, na primer ekstremno je
nervozan u slucaju gladi ili bilo kakve apstinencije.
Ako se ikada desi da svoju egzistenciju veže uz Boga i pronađe,upozna veru
takvog coveka je teško uporediti sa pređašnjim. Iz njega izbija mir i strpljenje. On
ponovo može da gradi svoje veze sa ljudima i zajednicama na potpuno novim osnovama.
Savremene zajednice i vera
Bez obzira na veliki broj zajednica u savremenom svetu, po važnosti bih se fokusirao
na sledece, po velicini zajednice: porodica, ulica, opština, država, Evropska unija, svet.
Ovo su zajednice kojima svi, hteli-ne hteli, pripadamo i koje odlucuju o našim životima,
pored drugih koje izaberemo. Da li je verska zajednica u odnosu na ove osnovne posebna
ili je svim ovim zajednicama neophodno prisustvo vere?
Polazeci od trihotomne podele coveka duh-duša-telo (za pravoslavne u Poslanici
Solunjanima apostola Pavla 5,23, a za ostale kod Aristotela) možemo reci da se i svaka
zajednica sastoji od delova duh-duša-telo, naprosto jer je cine ljudi a ne ormani. Vec na
ovoj tezi prelazimo u sferu natprirodnog i da li je to baš tako ali ja cu nastaviti kao da
smo se složili. Evo jednog poucnog primera: Bertold Švarc, kaluđer iz XIV veka, pomešao
je drveni ugalj i šalitru verujuci da ce dobiti zlato. Ne poznajuci unutrašnju strukturu i
svojstva elemenata, njihovu istinsku prirodu,siroti Švarc je dobio sasvim suprotan
rezultat od onog koji je ocekivao- smeša je eksplodirala. Njegov izum se danas zove
barut. Istina, on je pribavio znanje o elementima spoljne prirode, ali je neznanje o
elementima unutrašnje prirode imalo katastrofalne razmere.
Danas smo mi na nivou na kojem je bio Švarc Bertold u poznavanju spoljašne
prirode posebno u ostvarenju života zajednica- apsolutno ne poznajemo prirodu i dejstvo
pneumaticnih sila, cak ih dobar deo i ne priznaje (za sastavni deo zajednice ne coveka).
Ako ih i priznaje ne obraca potrebnu pažnju na njih. Mali broj ljudi smatra da bi u odnosu
na pneumaticke sile prirode bilo neophodno bar takvo solidno znanje koje postoji u fizici,
hemiji ili biologiji (kod zajednice u ekonomiji,sociologiji i psihologiji). Odbijajuci znanje o
natprirodi mi ne možemo upoznati ni prirodu.
Kosmos je stvoren po težini, broju i meri: drevni narodi su to znali. Mi danas ne
znamo. Nastupili su humanizam,renesansa,realizam, darvinizam,ateizam,
komunizam,nacionalizam i pomutili nam vezu sa iskonskim znanjima i iskustvima.
Najveci umovi covecanstva prihvatli su postojanje Tvorca kao osnovnog polazišta za
definisanje i razumevanje ustrojstva prirode i sveta. Pitanje je kako preneti ova znanja i
iskustva iz oblasti prirodnih u društvene oblasti i kako razvijati licni i zajednicki odnos
prema Tvorcu. Na primer:analiza fenomena toplotnog zracenja koju je izvrsio Maks Plank
i kvantna teorija Nilsa Bora pokazale su da se ponašanje svetlosti identifikuje sa gradjom
i strukturom atoma, odnosno sa nacinom na koji se i najmanja kolicina energije nudi
posmatracu. Pojavljujuci se nekad u vidu cestice, a nekad u vidu valova, najmanja
,,monada" materije ili svetlosti predstavlja cinjenicu prenošenja energije. A to znaci da
materija u sebi sadrži svojstva i komponente svetlosti, a da svetlost predstavlja idealnu
materiju.
Svako ljudsko bice može lako razviti i formirati svoj odnos prema ovom pitanju i
omoguciti skladan i primeren odnos između tela, duše i duha ali to ne sme biti
cilj. Potpuno je beskorisno , nemoguce i neprirodno omoguciti blagostanje samo sebi a
ne svojoj porodici, prijateljima, celom društvu. Zajednica ili odnos zapocinje onda kada
prestanemo biti okrenuti samo sebi odnosno kada se otvorimo za druge.Tek kada
pocnemo da poštujemo sve što nas okružuje shvatamo da to nisu stvari vec ostvarene
licnosti. Zajednica je realna samo ako nju cine slobodne licnosti.
Da li je, prema tome potrebno priznati i poznavati duh i dušu zajednice i prema
tome delati? Apsolutno da. Priznavanje prisustva pneumaticnih sila u nekoj zajednici je
prvi, pocetni, najteži korak. Sva vrata se kasnije otvaraju mnogo lakše, od pitanja
porekla tih sila do odgovora na pitanje koja je zajednica najbolja da bi se ostvarilo
blagostanje svih. Ako je blagostanje rec koja definiše svrhu postojanja zajednice.
Moja razmišljanja o veri
Posted on October 30, 2006 at 11:49 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link
O veri i Bogu sam poceo razmišljati prilicno kasno, tek u trecem razredu srednje
škole, dakle u sedamnaestoj godini. Ovo je posledica stanja u mojoj okolini, religija je
smatrana opijumom za narod a vernici za cudake. U detinjstvu su me ucili da se uhvatim
za dugme kada vidim popa. Najbolji drug iz srednje škole postao je sledbenik Harekrišne
i otišao u Austriju a najbolja drugarica je pripadala americkoj Hristovoj crkvi u
Beogradu.Oni su me uputili u prve duhovne sadržaje ali nisam bio zadovoljan odgovorima
koje su mi dali.Poceo sam intenzivno da citam svu duhovnu literaturu koja mi je došla
pod ruke: od Bagavgite, Tome Kempijskog do Aleksandra Šmemana. Odlucio sam da se
krstim i da upoznam pravoslavnu veru da bih mogao da se približim Tvorcu zemaljske
lepote i da ga zavolim.U pravoslavlju sam zavoleo monahe- divne , smirene starce po
manastirima i lepotu i svecanu atmosferu bogosluženja.Siniša-Šritimukhadaš je predivno
pevao pesme i spremao fenomenalne indijske specijalitete, protestanstki sveštenik je
divno pričao o Hristu ali mi je nacin postojanja Boga kao zajednice Oca, Sina i Svetog
Duha najviše ulivao poverenje i garantovao da mogu biti slobodna licnost ostvarena u
zajednici ljubavi ciji je primer dao.Iz želje da što bolje upoznam Boga poceo sam da
citam pravoslavnu literaturu , da se pridržavam crkvenih zapovesti i da odlazim na
Liturgiju.
Ono što sam do sada shvatio i što je postalo moje razmišljanje o veri saznao sam
vecinom iz literature a ranije je predstavljalo prepreku da verujem u postojanje Boga, a
mislim da je ,,opšte" mesto:
a) Bog oduvek postoji kao Otac,Sin i Sveti Duh. Otac je uzrok i od Njega sve postaje, iz
ljubavi rađa svog Sina i ishodi Svetog Duha. Bog je realna zajednica tri licnosti koje
imaju istu suštinu. Ljudskoj logici ovakav način postojanja Boga je neshvatljiv ali to nije
ni prva ni jedina stvar koja izmice ljudskoj logici. Uostalom ,kakav bi to bio Bog koji bi
bio smestiv u ljudski um ?
b) Bog je Stvoritelj koji je sve stvorio slobodno (neusloveljen nicim pa ni ljubavlju) i ni iz
cega. Prvobitni naziv za Boga El- sila. Nijednu tvorevinu Bog nije stvorio uzalud i da bi
propala.Sve ima svoju suštinu i svoj smisao i pravo na večno postojanje. Ukoliko se ne
odvaja od izvora svog života.
c) Bog se otkrivao ljudima tokom istorije postupno i postepeno u skladu sa njihovom
mogucnosšcu da prihvate Istinu. Današnjim ljudima Bog se otkriva posredstvom srca u
toku molitve.
d) Da bi molitva dala ploda, covek je prethodno morao biti liturgijski vernik. Liturgijski
vernik je onaj koji je kršten, posti sve propisane postove i tokom njih se ispoveda i
pricešcuje.
e) Osnovni pokazatelji da li je covek u veri na doborom putu jeste da li je uspeo da voli
svet tvorevinu i sve ljude bez razlike i to ne zbog njih vec zbog toga što su delo
Stvoritelja. I još: da li su zadobili smirenje ( citaj: životnu radost). Ukoliko ovoga nema
nešto nije u redu ili sa verom ili sa vernikom.Uzaludna je vera bez smirenosti.
f) Ljudi su milost pred Bogom zadobili zbog i posredstvom Sina. Bog je Otac samo svom
Sinu i nikom više. Zajednica koja priznaje Isusa Hristosa za Sina i koja se sa Njim moli
Ocu zadobija pravo na sinovstvo i naziva se Crkva. A zgrada u kojoj se prinosi i moli
naziva se hram.
g) Najvažniji i najveći problem covecanstva je smrt i Hristos je došao da bi dao odgovor
na ovo pitanje. Dakle, život posle smrti postoji i to je vaskrsenje u jedinstvu tela i
duha.Ne samo duh i ne samo telo. To je veoma važan princip: u pravoslavlju jednaku
važnost imaju i telo i duh. Duh ima prvenstvo ali se priznaju kao jednakovažne i potrebe
tela (,,hleb naš nasušni daj nam danas" odnosi se i na telesni i na nebeski hleb)
h) Bogorodica Marija i sveci mogu biti i jesu ljudski predstavnici i posrednici pred Bogom
zato što su svojom ljubavlju i žrtvom stekli večitu milost pred Bogom.I Stari i Novi zavet
su prepuni primera svetosti koji su morali ostaviti posledice po ljudski rod.
i) Crkvena pitanja i probleme rešava Sabor episkopa kojim predsedava Patrijarh. Nema
nijednog razloga za sumnju u njihove odluke i stavove, bile one poslanice ili priznavanje
autokefalnosti ćerki crkvi.Nemoguce je da vecina mudrih i ucenih ljudi ne može dati
prave odgovore na svetovna pitanja.
j) U pravoslavlju postoji Sveta tajna sveštenstva koja je u tesnoj vezi sa Svetom tajnom
pricešca. Zbog toga se svakom svešteniku celiva desnica, ne zato što bi mogao biti
posebno dobar i svet, već zato što samo posredstvom te desnice možemo fizicki dobiti
krv i telo Isusa Hrista.
Ostalo o sveštenicima je istorija.
k) Grehove (greške u prirodi) koje mi opterećuju savest i smetaju razvoju licnosti
moguce je ispovedati iskusnom duhovniku ili parohu. Postom, molitvom, ispovešću,
pricešcem i trudom moguce je pobediti osobinu koja je dovela do greha.
l) U veru se ne ulazi radi sticanja nekog posebnog znanja niti religijskog iskustva već
radi susreta sa Istinom koju ne samo znate vec i ŽIVITE. Pravoslavlje je aktivan život sa
Bogom u kome svakog casa znate svoje mesto i kada je cemu vreme.Carstvo Božje je u
veri razvijeno kroz delanje.
lj) ,,Idite dole i držite krst visoko uzdignut, kako bih ga mogla do smrti videti. I naglas
govorite, kako bih vas mogla cuti." (Poslednje reci Jovane Orleanske, Pariz, 30.maj
1431.g.)
m) ,,Vera je pak, tvrdo cekanje onoga cemu se nadamo, i dokazivanje onoga što ne
vidimo."(Apostol Pavle, Poslanica Jevrejima 11,1)
Pošto se pitanja ne vide, u stvari sam (osim pod lj) naveo odgovore na pitanja koja
sam sam sebi postavljao o veri i koja su me zbunjivala. Pokušao sam da što manje bude
tuđih reci odnosno, zvanicne dogmatike ali negde sam morao pribeci i takvom postupku.
Kad svedemo racune mislim da je svet u kome živimo prepun negativnog potencijala koji
cini ljude neuroznim i da je nastala nagla moralna degradacija. Živim u maloj sredini
,Prokuplje ima jedva 30 hiljada stanovnika, ali šta da vam kažem kada se pre nekoliko
dana porodila učenica sedmog razreda osnovne škole (a to nije usamljen slucaj). Droge
ima na svakom koraku, dileri je prodaju usred bela dana, više se ne kriju kao
ranije.Korupcija i nepravda svuda.Nerealno je verovati da će zemaljski sudovi uticati na
ljudsku savest.Pošto imamo negativnih iskustava. O tome. Samo pozivanjem i ranim
vaspitanjem dece da postoji nebeska pravda i svemoguci (mada predobri) Bog postoji
mogucnost uticaja na ljudsku savest. Ova zemaljska savest ne radi. Nemoguce je dušu
sacuvati u miru i radosti bez Boga. Bez obzira kako ga zvali i kako mu se molili.
Untitled Comment
Posted by Ines on November 11, 2006 at 16:19 - Link
Uzivala sam citati tvoju poruku.
Ines
Đorđe Kaluđerović, Podgorica
DJORDJE
Pocetak
Za kraj bilo mi je nepotrebno da se osvrcem na neku dnevnu trenutno aktuelnu temu,a i
iskreno receno ne mogu trenutno da se sjetim neke posebno interesante,tako da cu se
samo zahvaliti svima koji su na bilo koji nacin ucestvovali u svemu ovome.Takodje
nadam se da ovo nece biti kraj nasem radu na slicnim temama,kao i naravno nasoj daljoj
saradnji uopste,vec upravo pocetak toga.Sto se mene tice ovaj kurs znacio mi je ne
samo sa stanovista znanja koje sam stekao kroz textove i razgovore ,vec i pomoglo u
razvoju sposobnosti i uocavanju znacaja produktivnog dijaloga.Za kraj(pocetak) Hvala.
14:51 - January 13, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment
S obzirom da sam bozicne praznike proveo u Crnoj Gori interesantno mi je da jos nesto
napisem o situaciji i odnosu SPC i CPC.Jos jedan primjer koji potvrdjuje ono sto sam u
prethodnim blogovima pisao o njihovom uticaju na situaciju medju ljudima video se
tokom Badnje veceri i tokom paljenja badnjaka .Kao i mnogo puta do tada nije se previse
brinulo o situaciji koju mogu da izazovu njihovi svojeglavi potezi,tako su se recimo u
mnogim gradovima skupovi organizovali nedaleko jedni od drugih i u isto vrijeme.Srecom
pa nije doslo ni do kakvih znacajnijih sukoba ,sto se mozda moze pripisati i nesto boljem
stanju u samom drustvu.Ali i bez sukoba stvarno je bilo zalosno gledati kako bacaju
prokletstva jedni na druge ,cak se stiglo i do bacanja prokletstva na televiziju,kao i
naravno ponovnih najava pohoda na manastire i sve tako u krug,bez previse obzira i
ponajmanje stvarne zelje za mirom,tolerancijom i prastanjem koje su barem tih dana
trebali propovijedati.
17:38 - January 11, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment
Cestitka
Cestitam svima Srecnu novu godina,pravoslavnima i katolicima Bozic,a Bajram svima
kolegama muslimanske vjeroispovijesti.Ja to po malo unaprijed ,a htio sam cestitati i na
forumu ,ali mi ponestaju ideje za blog pa cisto da iskoristim ovu priliku i dodam nesto na
blog.Pozdrav za sve.
Dijalog
U proslim nedjeljama razgovarali smo ponajvise o znacaju dijaloga u danasnjem svijetu i
tu me je jedna konstatacija zaintrigirala,a to je da dijaloga ne moze biti bez potpunog
znanja o drugom.Na prvi pogled reci tako nesto cini mi se ispravnim,ali sto duze
razmisljam o tome sve vise mi se cini da dijalog ujedno jeste i proces upoznavanja
drugog,a ne prosto iznosenja cvrstih stavova .Ukoliko sagovorniku pristupimo sa stavom
da o njemu vec sve znamo,pa i to sta mozemo ocekivati od njega , mislim da moze voditi
odredjenoj blokadi u razgovoru i suzavati mogucnost resenja.Dakle,predrasude u takvoj
situaciji mogu biti kobne.Ipak ,logicno da je za svaki dijalog potrebno i odredjeno
obostrano poznavanja ucesnika ,ali je,barem tako ja razmisljam jos logicnije da se tom
procesu ostavi odredjeni slobodan prostor i tok,tj. da se oslobodi predrasuda i
stereotipa.Treba to djelovanje shvatiti kao dalje upoznavanje,spoznavanje i shvatanje
sustina zelja, potreba i neophodnosti drugoga.Ako ga tako shvatimo mislim da cemo
imati mnogo vise sanse da u njegovom resavanju budemo uspjesni,nego li sa cvrstim i
beskompromisnim stavom.
Nastavak
Ovaj put dodajem jos neke izvode iz crnogorskih dnevnih novina "Vijesti" koje
ukazuju na sukobe u okviru same muslimanske zajednice tj. preciznije izmedju
Bosnjacke stranke i Muslimanske matice Crne Gore.Ova rasprava se vodi
povodom stvaranja novog Ustava CG ,posebno u vezi pitanja konstitutivnih
naroda.Ipak i pored trenutne aktuelnosti ovog problema njegovi korijeni sezu i
dublje i dalje.
KEMAL PURIŠIĆ NUDI LIJEK PROTIV “ASIMILACIJE” NJEGOVOG NARODA
Bošnjake u ustav, stariji bosanski od crnogorskog
Podgorica - Postoji trend asimilacije Bošnjaka u Crnogorce koji se može
zaustaviti samo ako se u novom ustavu kao autentični konstitutivni narodi
pobroje Crnogorci, Srbi i Bošnjaci, ocijenio je juče Kemal Purišić, poslanik
Bošnjačke stranke.
Purišić je “Vijestima” rekao da je od 1991. do 2003., kada je rađen posljednji
popis stanovništva, nestalo 13.100 Bošnjaka koji su se 2003. izjasnili kao
Crnogorci islamske vjeroispovjesti.
“Ne postoje Crnogorci islamske vjeroispovjesti, mi znamo da su to u stvari
Bošnjaci. To je pokazatelj da postoji trend asimilacije i mi bi voljeli da se taj
trend zaustavi. To se može uraditi nabrajanjem Bošnjaka kao konstitutivnog
naroda u preambuli, a onda možemo dosljedno da razradimo građanski koncept
države. Mi se ne zalažemo za dvodomi parlament, ali insistiramo da se u
preambuli ustava prosto upiše ko to ovdje živi, kakvi su mu istorijski doprinosi i
težnje”, istakao je Purišić.
On je upozorio da se u preambuli ustava ne može govoriti samo o crnogorskom
narodu, kako je to učinjeno u ekspertskoj verziji, i o težnji crnogorskog naroda
da se Crna Gora razvija kao građansko društvo u 19. vijeku.
“Ova konstatacija je problematična, ali je za nas više problematično to što se
pominje samo crnogorski narod i njegov doprinos stvaranju Crne Gore. Mislimo
da je bolja formulacija da se pomenu narodi Crne Gore, jer Crnu Goru tvore, po
nama, tri konstitutivna naroda - crnogorski, srpski i bošnjački, dok Hrvati i
Albanci sebe doživljavaju nacionalnim manjinama, a autentični su stanovnici
ovog prostora. Mi sebe doživljavamo konstitutivnim narodom Crne Gore”,
naglasio je Purišić.
Ocjenjujući da su barem u posljednjih 120 godina i ostali narodi doprinijeli
očuvanju crnogorske državnosti i da je bošnjački narod veoma doprinio
promjeni državnog uređenja, on je poručio da to treba zabilježiti.
“Postoji i neko raspoloženje da se taj dio preambule prosto izbriše samo da se
ne bi pomenuli doprinosi i ostalih naroda. Mi smo radiji da se to upiše”, kazao je
Purišić.
On ističe da BS smatra i da crnogorski ne može biti službeni jezik, odnosno da
moraju biti pobrojani i ostali jezici jer je to isti jezik sa četiri imena.
“Moj jezik je bosanski. Potpuno jednako pravo ili možda za jednu nijansu malo
više prava imamo da i bosanski bude službeni jezik zato što je priznat
Dejtonskim sporazumom, što možda ima dužu tradiciju, ima bosančicu kao
pismo, pravopis... Želimo da i crnogorski jezik bude priznat, ali se zalažemo i za
normiranje bosanskog kao službenog jezika”, rekao je Purišić.
REAGOVANJE MATICE MUSLIMANSKE CRNE GORE
Kako su Bošnjaci nestali kad ih nije bilo do 2003.
Podgorica - Matica muslimanska Crne Gore reagovala je juče na stavove iz
teksta pod naslovom "Bošnjake u ustav, stariji bosanski od crnogorskog",
objavljenog u "Vijestima".
"Matica muslimanska Crne Gore još jednom ukazuje na velikobošnjačku
asimilaciju koja je u posljednje vrijeme sve izraženija zahvaljujući indolentnosti
državnih organa. Već duže vrijeme ukazujemo da neko protivzakonito želi da
ukloni građane islamske vjeroispovijesti koji su se na prethodnom pop-isu
izjasnili kao Muslimani ili Crnogorci. Velikobošnjačka asimilacija Muslimana
iskazuje se na svakom koraku pa tako i u izjavi Kemala Purišića datoj
“Vijestima”. Između ostalog, gospodin Purišić tvrdi da je od 1991. godine do
2003. godine po popisu nestalo 13.100 Bošnjaka. Gotovo je nevjerovatno što je
izgovorio gospodin Purišić, jer na popisu iz 1991. nije bilo niti jednog Bošnjaka,
kao ni na bilom kojem ranije. Upravo zahvaljujući velikobošnjčkoj asimilaciji
Bošnjaci su se pojavili prvi put u istorji Crne Gore u popisu stanovništva 2003.
godine. Naravno nezadovoljni jednim velikim brojem samosvjesnih građana
Crne Gore koji nijesu prihvatili velikobošnjačku asimilaciju, Purišić govori o
asimilaciji Bošnjaka u Crnogorce.
Na žalost sva naša dosadašnja ukazivanja na primjere bošnjačke asimilacije u
Crnoj Gori ugroženosti Muslimana kao autohtonog naroda ostali su bez rezultata
zarad “viših” ciljeva. Samo da se “viši” ciljevi ne slome o glavu", stoji u
reagovanju Predsjedništva Matice muslimanske Crne Gore.
Vjerovatno sam malo zakasnio sa ovim blogom,ali moze biti interesantan nekome s
obzirom da ima veze sa jednom od nasih prethodnih tema.Povezano je sa onim sto smo
pricali u vezi uloge religije u jacanju ratnih sukoba u bivsoj Jugoslaviji i uopste tom
koktelu religije ,politike ,drustva.Interesantno mi je bilo da dodam neke stavove sa
socioloskog stanovista .Tako sam pronasao recimo stav profesora Vukasina Pavlovica koji
govori o formiranju tzv. militantnih etnonacionalistickih pokreta na prostoru bivse Yu koji
su citiram”bili pothranjivani neodgovorinim medijskim i drugim javnim nastupima
politicara ,novinara,naucnika i drugih nacionalisticki orjentisanih intelektualaca.Dodajem i
stanoviste njemackog sociologa politike Klaus Ofe-a koji se posebno interesovao za
prostor Istocne Evrope koji je ove procese koji su se desavali kod nas,nazivao
etnifikacijom politike koji su po njemu bili glavno obiljezje politickog i javnog prostora .
Cisto toliko da dodam ,a ako nekom ovo bude interesantno jos bolje.
Evo od mene izvod iz Vecernjih novosti o posjeti Pape Turskoj ,tj. carigradskoj
patrijarsiji u svijetlu onoga sto smo pricali o ekumenskom dijalogu:
Za pomirenje hrišćana
Ismet KOčAN, 30. novembar 2006
Od stalnog dopisnika "Novosti"
ISTANBUL - Na preksinoćnjoj misi dobrodošlice i liturgiji koja je održana u čast zajedničkog svetitelja Andrije u patrijaršijskoj crkvi Svetog Đorđa u Istanbulu, dogodilo se upravo
ono od čega je zvanična Ankara zazirala i čemu se oštro protivi: papa Benedikt XVI je carigradskog patrijarha Vartolomeja nazvao ekumenom čitavog pravoslavnog sveta.
Ovo je, u završnici papine četvorodnevne posete Turskoj, najnoviji moment, za koji se
tek očekuje da će izazvati komentare Ankare, koja je na stanovištu da je Vartolomej
predstavnik jedne turske crkvene institucije i zastupnik samo tri hiljaditne grčke pravoslavne zajednice u Turskoj.
Međutim, papa, kojeg je Vartolomej nazvao "starijim bratom iz Rima", misli drugačije.
Juče je eksplicitno upotrebio tehnologiju "rimska crkva" i "crkva iz Konstantinopolja" i
dao do znanja da su katolička crkva i carigradska patrijaršija najmerodavniji faktori za dijalog o postizanju duhovnog jedinstva u hrišćanskom svetu.
Posle liturgije u crkvi Svetog Đorđa i pre potpisivanja zajedničke deklaracije, papa je izjavio da će raditi na otklanjanju prepreka koje su bile izvor nesporazuma i da će podržati
aktivnosti pravoslavne crkve za unapređenje međusobne saradnje.
Feudalci
Moze biti da je ovo prakticno nastavak prethodnog bloga sa novim akterima i jos jedan
primjer prozetosti i negativnog medjuuticaja religije i politike.Ovaj put mjesto dogadjaja
jeste Crna Gora i odnos,bolje reci neodnos SPC,CPC i drzave.Najgore u tom sukobu jeste
sto se zaboravlja da ce narod na kraju ispastati i biti doveden u nezavidnu situaciju i na
polju medjuljudskih odnosa zbog njihovog trvenja.Jos jedna losa stvar jeste mijesanje
drzave koja se deklarise kao sekularna i stavovi pojedinih ministara koji se upadljivo
stavljaju na jednu stranu.
Veoma aktuelan problem ovih dana jeste pitanje pretenzija na pojedina crkvena imanja i
vjerske objekte tj.koja crkva ima pravo na njih.Sa jedne strane CPC krece u pohode na
vjerske objekte koji su bili u rukama SPC ,pa u danasnjem broju dnevnih novina "Vijesti"
objavljena je pretenzija CPC na sve pravoslavne hramove u CG.Takodje komentarise se i
postupak mitropolita Amfilohija koji je u Budvi prvi put ustao na himnu Crne Gore,pa
makar to bilo samo iz protokolarnih razloga.Taj potez se i u vlasti komentarise dvostruko
,sa jedne strane predsjednik skupstine CG je to okarakterisao kao izuzetno pozitivno i
vazan korak ujedinjenju Crne Gore ,dok neki drugi visoki zvanicnici vlasti na to gledaju
kao ustupak zbog zelje SPC da u Budvi izgradi Saborni hram ,najveci na primorju.Kako
god bilo izgleda da se krenulo sa oponasanjem krstasa i njihovih pohoda i da su se
materijalne teznje stavile visoko iznad duhovne veze sa vjernicima.Ta kultura mira,
tolerancije i doborsusjedstva koju bi trebalo da sire izgleda da je danas na pauzi ,a
mozda ce zeleti da ga nastave kada neko od njih postigne dominaciju,ali ce tada
vjerovatno biti kasno.Ocito je koliko su im trenutno materijalni i teritorijalni ciljevi ispred
duhovne strane njihovog djelovanja i koliko ne zele da zrtvuju svoj prostorni konfor,u
korist brojnih drugih problema koji postoje i cekaju da se rijese.U nekim momentima
izgleda kao da ih ne interesuje koliko njihovi postupci mogu pojacati tenziju,a vjerovatno
ce tako i biti sve dok ne ostvare svoje materijalne pretenzije.
Veo religije
Koliko vise ni sami ne znamo sta da radimo,ni kako da se odnosimo u toj smjesi religije
,politike i drustva vidimo i po najnovijim ponasanjima i problemima koji se desavaju u
vezi nosenja burki i velova kod muslimanskog stanovnistva kao u Evropi ,tako i u drugim
djelovima svijeta.Recimo u Holandiji zemlji koja prednjaci u sirini ljudskih sloboda vlada
je izglasala zabranu nosenja burki.Razlog je navodno to sto ljudi zele svom sagovorniku
da vide oci,mimiku i sve ono sto ukazuje na neciju iskrenost ,osjecanja...Naravno kao jos
jedan razlog jeste bezbjednost i sigurnost gradjana koji osjecaju strah i podozrenje
prema nekom ko ima pokriveno lice.Tako da je na sve to jedna holandska ministarka
izjavila da oni to cine ,jer su veoma liberalna zemlja,i da bi ljudi mogli biti
ravnopravni,sigurni itd.Takav gest je naravno izazvao proteste muslimanske
manjine ,kako ce dalje biti ostaje da se vidi ,ali nam iskrenosti i tolerancije i sa i bez
burki nedostaje.Sa druge strane u Bangladesu prilicno siromasnoj , vecinski
muslimanskoj zemlji uprava jednog univerziteta ,je odlucila da izbaci profesora koji je
trazio od studentkinja da nose burke i veo .Na takav zahtjev studenti su se pobunili
,smatrajuci da je njihovo pravo da odluce da li to zele ili ne,dok je profesor svoj stav
branio govoreci da je to njegovo licno misljenje i da on nece da drzi casove dok one to ne
ucine.O tome da li treba da se nose ili ne,nemam neko posebno misljenje ,ako zele u
redu ,ako ne isto tako,osim naravno na licnim dokumentima:-),samo sam zelio da
pokazem koliko nismo svjesni ,niti spremni da budemo dosledni i valjani ,ukoliko u nama
vlada neznanje.
Dalji uticaj
Ovaj moj sledeci blog posveticu mojim razmisljanjima u vezi naseg kursa ili mozda
ljepse receno skole.Naravno,da je sve ovo odlicno iskustvo za sve nas,bar za mene
jeste,a pretpostavljam i za ostale.Jer ne samo sto pruza nove informacije,nova znanja
,upoznavanje novih ljudi,dublji uvid u ljudske odnose,vec i sto je na sirem drustvenom
planu najvaznije jeste povjerenje u mogucnost postojanja normalnog,produktivnog
dijaloga,razgovora ,bez obzira na sve nase razlicitosti.Tako nesto je u ovo nase vrijeme
izuzetno bitno,jer nam prethodnici bar na ovim nasim prostorima nisu ostavili previse
mesta za tako nesto.Nije ni da ja nesto nas uzdizem,jer imamo i mi svojih mana,ali cini
mi se da postovanja prema drugima ovdje bar za sada ne nedostaje.A sto se tice znanja
koja sticemo ,to je naravno izvanredno,jer unapredjujemo sami sebe ,a tako i druge,bar
bi tako trebalo da bude.Naravno,nase znanje bez dalje i vece sire akcije ,nece mnogo
uticati na nasu okolinu,cini mi se.Jer potrebno je da se mnogo toga ucini ,da bi se
shvatila vrijednost suzivota u razlicitosti,i da bi se iz nje izvukle najbolje pouke.Ovo je
dobar put,ali ga treba i prosiriti i uciniti prometnijim,kroz mrezu drustvenih akcija, i
ovakvih vidova obrazovanja i komunikacija i veceg broja ljudi koji ce u njemu
ucestvovati.
12:25 - October 26, 2006 - comments {0} - post comment
Nepoznato
Za prvi put pisem o necemu sto se desilo nedavno ,i sto je ostavilo veliki utisak na mene.
Vjerovatno je vecina vas cula ili procitala nesto o ubistvu amishkih djevojcica u jednoj
skoli u Pensilvaniji.
Koliko znam o njima amishi pripadaju anabaptistima i veoma su zatvorena
i povucena etnicka zajednica koja ne prihvata mogucnosti danasnjice,bile negativne ili
pozitivne.
Nismo bas bili u mogucnosti,da ih vidimo kod nas ,ali smo to mogli na filmu sa
Harisonom Fordom,
cijeg imena trenutno ne mogu da se sjetim.
E sada ono sto se desilo posle tog ubistva ,tesko da mozemo da zamislimo, a kamoli da
cujemo da
se desilo u nasoj sredini.I to je ono sto ja nisam umeo da nazovem pravim imenom,jer
cini
mi se da je nemoguce.Neki bi za to rekli da je ljudska samilost ,mozda i zalost za
ljudskom dusom
bilo kako gresna bila ,neki bi sigurno nazavali i gluposcu.Ali pripadnici te male zajednice
su smogli snage
da mirno prisustvuju sahrani ubice(nije amish) djece svojih komsija ,rodjaka,prijatelja.
Da li smo mi na nasim prostorima sposobni za tako nesto?Cini mi se da ne.
A da li je i potrebno da cinimo tako nesto?I to mi se cini nepotrebnim i za nase ,a i sire
nemogucim.
Sada je pitanje da li mi sebi postavljamo niske granice u ljudskosti,da li se ogranicavamo
u tome?Izgleda da da.
Onda ako je neko sposoban da ucini takav akt,siguran sam da i u nama postoji prostor za
djela koja ce iz nas
izvlaciti mnogo manje duhovne,psihicke snage,a opet mogu mnogima da znace sve.
22:36 - October 10, 2006 - comments {1} - post comment
Dragana Kovačević, Mladenovac
Meditacije
Razmisljanja o sopstvenim religioznim ubedjenjima
Cestitke
December 29, 2006
Srecan Bozic i Nova Godina svima , bez obzira na hronoloski red ova dva dogadjaja !
Kraj skole
December 20, 2006
Drago mi je reci da sam kroz ovaj program zaista shvatila i naucila mnogo toga, o sebi ,
o drugima i o svetu. To je i bilo moje ocekivanje. Zelela bih da se zahvalim onima koji su
organizovali, i svima onima koji su ucestvovali, jer smo na poseban nacin bili povezani
ovih 10 (11) nedelja. Kad smo se "sretali" na chatu, mogolo se videti da ste svi vi svesni,
pametni i jako zanimljivi ljudi, i na tome vam takodje hvala, jer cinjenica da takvi ljudi
postoje uvek me razveseli i podstakne da se i sama trudim da budem sto bolja i sto
tolerantnija. Nadam se da ovo nije nas zadnji kontakt, vec pocetak buduce komunikacije
i saradnje na mnogim poljma Veliki pozdrav i puno srece svima Dragana
Religija u savremenom svetu
December 10, 2006
Postajem ubedjena da se religija na neki nacin mora modernizovati i prilagoditi
savremenom svetu, inace ce doci do trenutka kada ce bitiili poptuno prevazidjena, ilitamo gde ovo nije slucaj- samo instrument u rukama fanatika. A ne zelim da dodje do
trenutka u komebiti istinski politicki korektan mora znaciti da si ateista, - sve vise ljudi
usvaja i brani takvo uverenje.To je bar moj utisak. Iako licno znam i verujem da su
mnogi religiozni ljudi krajnje tolerantni i razumni. Cesto prevagnu oni drugi i daju opsti
ton jednoj zajednici.
Post
December 4, 2006
Post je poceo. Necu ucestvovati. Sad sam stvarno daleko. Ne znam hocu li se moci
vratiti, nakon svega. Nakon mojih gresaka, vise nego nakon onoga sto mi je vezano za
samu crkvu.
Licne dileme
December 4, 2006
Sta znaci biti pravoslavac? Postalo je nekako previse vezano za neke stvari koje mi nisu
bliske. Ili je uvek bilo, ali ja to nisam znala. Zar je moguce da mi jedno ime, ime jednog
sveca , koje predstavlja ono osnovno i prvo sto sam cula o svemu tome sada moze da mi
pravi problem? Slava moga dede. Sveti Nikola... Ovo necu objasnjavati, ovo je bas licno.
ali je meni bitno da to ovde stoji. Mene da podseti.
November 20, 2006
Pa strasno!! Na Balkanu ni reality show na kraju nece proci bez nacionalno - verskih
zadevica?? Pa kad cemo se nauciti.. Narocito sa tim pesmama. Sve je pocelo od pesama i
stadiona. Grozno.
Kad smo kod privilegija i suprotnog...
November 12, 2006
Često nosim teret i žalim što sam rođena tu gde sam. Svi mi smo milion puta rekli sebi
da je nefer sto smo bačeni na ovaj Balkan, i da zavidimo jednom Evropljaninu(jer mi to
izgleda nismo) na lakoći života i neopterećenosti nasim nasleđem. I druga je to
dimrenzija. Drugi svet. Oni ne idu svetom opravdavajući se što su to sto jesu. Koliko puta
sam pomislila,negde u inostranstvu, da ne mogu više.Ne mogu da slušam i da se
objašnjavam, da se pravdam i da se napadam, da budem ja... dođe mi samo da se
vratim kući i ne idem više nigde, jer kući se svi prećutno razumemo bar oko toga, i kad
sam, i pored toga što me prihvate i što me poštuju, ja svuda ipak...Balkanski čovek...pa
još gore, Srbin.:) I : „OK,Dragana, ne kažemo za tebe, ali...“...Još mi se nešto prašta!
Još sam izuzetak?!... Još gore...
Ali onda opet...jeste i privilegija. svuda si ti zanimljiviji od njih:). Svuda oni tebe
pogledaju, priđu ti i i pitaju : Iz Srbije? (Hrvatske, Bosne, Kosova....) Pa, kaži mi, kako je
tamo? Šta je ovo, šta je ono... Barataju na smešan stranački način našim „čuvenim
imenima“ i silna im je egzotika u sred rečenice koja je na engleskom, sa kotrljajućim R
reći RepublikaSrpska, ne ni slučajno Serbian Republic, i gađati se sličnim opšte poznatim
balkanskim terminima. Tu se baš osećaju kao da nešto znaju:)
Nosiš sa sobom i teret i prednost. Svaka škola se plaća, tako se i to što smo mi na kraju
mi, moralo platiti, jednim dugim periodom bola, nesigurnosti izla, ali jesmo mi na kraju
mi. I znamo jedni druge mnogo bolje nego što ce nas drugi ikad znati, i nosimo u sebi
onu energiju koju neko drugi nema, onu dozu melanhiolje koja te čini čovekom i daje ti
širu dušu... If I may say so..
.Vidite kako sam ovde pisala... mi i Oni. Drugi. opet Drugi, samo drugi Drugi. Strašno!
Stidim se. Ali znate na šta sam mislila... I svi smo mi ovde u mom kontekstu Mi. A dugo
nismo bili. Lakše ćemo i sa ovim Drugima postati Mi ako se prvo međusobno povežemo.
Zato molim da mi se samo ovom prilikom oprosti ova „other“- izacija. I neću više,
obećavam :)
Katolicizam
October 28, 2006
Andrija Kopilovic: "Ono što me se silno dojmilo je ponajprije spoznaja da se ne može biti
vrhunski teolog, a da ne bude najprije i ponajviše„vrhunski“ čovjek. Obistinio se onaj
dobro poznati aksiom: Najprije čovjek, a onda kršćanin."
Samo sam se setila jednog imena: Andjel oDjuzepe Ronkali. Kako je za njega rekla Hana
Arent: Kako je moglo da se desi da pravi hriscanin sedi na stolici svetog Petra?Pronadjite
ko je ovaj covek i znacete zasto sam ga se setila.
Kosovo.
October 28, 2006
Opet sam bila na Kosovu i ovaj put videla Manastir Svetih Arhangela kod Prizrena,
Dusanov manastir. Ili ono sto je od njega ostalo. Prejako mesto. I monahova prica: Kako
je crkva srusena od strane Turaka da bi se kamenje ugradilo u Sinan Pasinu dzamiju u
Prizrenu. I kako su ovu dzamiju srpski Prizrenci zastitili posle pada Turaka kada je srpska
vojska htela da je srusi i vrati gradju u manastir. I kako Albanci sada pricaju strancima
da su Srbi to kamenje Turcima prodali ali da o tome nema govora. Sta ja mislim? Ja ne
znam. Pitao nas je imamo li pratnju za Prizren. Nismo je imali. I bio je prvi dan Bajrama,
Prizren je bio prazan. I velika razapeta scena na platnu u dvoristu manastira: Krunisanje
cara Dusana od Paje Jovanovica. Vidljiva sa puta. A okolo: zica i vojni kamp i Nemci. I
gore, na Dusanovim zidinama, Nemci. Monah je rekao da je i Dusan ovde dovodio
nemacke placenike, da se istorija ponavlja. Bogorodicu Ljevicku nismo videli. Ja ni ne bi
mogla, prepukla bih. Lakse je pretrpeti davno zlo od svezeg zla, sto jos jednom dokazuje
lekovitost vremena
posle chat room-a o pravoslavlju
October 15, 2006
Imam utisak da nismo bas najbolje komunicirali u utorak. Priznajem to odmah kao svoju
gresku. Ja sam mozda krenula sa predrasudom. Ali stvarno sam se salila za vikanje.
Mozda nije trebalo. Kritika prihvacena. Poradicu na sebi.
Nisam mislila da je tako u onom trenutku, ali je mozda trebalo jasnije sebi da objasnim
da svi ljudi koji su se prikljucili ovoj nasoj skoli jesu oni kojima je do tolerancije stalo, bili
u nekoj crkvi ili ne. A cini mi se da smo svi na kraju kroz naseg predavaca videli samo
SPC i njene mane i pitali za to, ne za one pozitivne strane i pozitivne ljude kojih tamo
ima. A izgleda narocito ja, misleci da najvise prava imam da kritikujem ono svoje, jer je
videti balvan u svom oku siguran put da oprostis trn u tudjem. Mislim, muke Srbinu da
pljuje islam ili katolicanstvo, toga smo se naslusali, hajdemo malo da vidimo sta nama
fali i sta je kod nas lose...
Samo, STVARNO. Nisam mislila da se neko ljuti i vice, uopste, ni jednog trenutka. A i da
sam mislila, nisam to trebala da kazem tako. IZVINJAVAM SE.
Untitled Comment
October 17, 2006
Dragana, cestitam na tome sto svoj nastup u utorak karakterisete kao gresku mada ga ja
sam ne karakterisem nuzno kao takav. Jednostavno, stilovi komunikacije svakog od nas
su specificni, kao i senzibiliteti i stavovi. Vazno je jedino da ostanemo u okvirima debate
uz uzajamno uvazavanje, a po meni Vas nastup nije izasao iz tih okvira, siguran sam da
ce i Aleksandar deliti moje misljenje.
Milan
Posted by Milan
Pravoslavlje
October 8, 2006
Promenila sam se.Nešto u meni je ipak kliknulo. Još uvek se prekrstim kada prolazim
pored crkve u mom gradu. (Ipak je crkva pored gimnazije, pa bi se svi mi gimnazijalci
nekada imali običaj prekrstiti kada prođemo,da bi izbegli problem i zamolili Višu Silu da
nas u školi ne pitaju kada nismo naučili :). Još uvek se naježim kada uđem u neki stari
manastir. I ipak sam plakala prošlog meseca kada sam videla Gračanicu po prvi put. Ali
ne mogu više da nemam zadršku kada pomislim na pravoslavnu crkvu. Nema mi više
onaj povlašćeni status koji je imala nad ostalima, u smislu da sam uviđala i smatrala da
neki drugi puno greše, ali ”Pravoslavlje je drugačije”.
A bila sam neko ko je sam našao veru, ko je u gradu Zadru 1987 godine, sa 7
godina, rešio da će da veruje u Boga, iako ga to nisu učili u kući, (Valentina je imala
samo godinu više i naučila me je Očenaš koji sam otada, do pre godinu dana, nekih 18
godina, svako veče izgovarala pred spavanje. Mada, priznaću da bih nekad baš zbrzala i
”odradila” :) ) I opet, bila sam neko ko je sa 9 ili 10 uvideo da pripada srpskoj naciji i
crkvi, pa opet nije odustao od želje da u tu crkvu ide, a možete misliti šta je to značilo u
Zadru 1990 godine. I jeste da znam napamet sve reči na staroslovenskom i u glavi mi je
dobro sačuvana altovska melodija čitave liturgije Sv.Jovana Zlatoustog, i tropari koji idu
o praznike, jer sam pevala u horu 5godina. (Mada, istini za volju, imala sam 18 kad sam
počela, pa možete misliti, važnije je bilo družiti se i smejati gore na balkonu,nego
pognuti glavu i učestvovati u molitvi. :) )
Ali sam ipak i ranije bila od onih koji baš i ne mogu da ne zamere što se na
liturgiji kaže ”Bože spasi srpski narod”. A drugi? I sto je ime SPC , opet, Srpska, srpska,
srpska. I nije mi išlo da budem posvećeni i poslušni vernik. Rekao bi neko da sam od
onih: pročitaju DaVinčijev kod i posumnjaju u crkvu...smešno. Nije baš tako. Uvek sam
imala svoja pitanja.I nisam našla ni jedno nazovi-duhovno lice voljno da otome priča sa
mnom, osim jednog đakona, koji to više nije, jedini koji je zaista osećao svoj poziv im
nije bio podoban, njega su ražalovali.Naći ćeš samo one koji će ti reći kako da izvedeš
ritual, fizički, dakle koliko se puta krstiš i obrneš kolač, i koliko košta da dva puta mahnu
kandilom, naročito to.
Ne sviđa mi se ovo političarenje.I blago je reći da mi se ne sviđa što nisu znali
kazniti Pahomija. Zaštitili su zlotvora! A kako onda, recite mi,da se vratim pod okrilje
”Majke Crkve”?
Mislim da sam i dalje religiozna, ako pod religijom shvatate veru u nešto što je
iznad nas, veru u nešto što je istinski dobro i neprolazno... To će uvek biti u meni. Samo
mislim da mi više ne trebaju posrednici i tumačikoji toga nisu dostojni, Ako je Pahomije
moj predstavnik i posrednik,ako Bog njega sluša i Sveti Duh silazi kada on mrmlja
naučene reči na liturgiji, neka nikada ne budem spašena.
Aleksandar Žolja, Banja Luka
zolja blog
blog za skolu tolerancije
Za kraj
January 8, 2007
Sretna vam svima Nova Godina i vjerski praznici (pronadjite koji vam odgovara) Sretan
Bozic, Bajram, pa opet Bozic.
Bilo mi je super.
Sve vas pozdravljam i zahvaljujem Bosu.
Cet sesija odrzana 21.XII
January 8, 2007
Razgovor sa profesorom Miloradom Bjeleticem o vjerskim zajednicama i civilnim
drustvom. Ili ostatkom civilnog drustva.
VZ vs CD.
Lijepa tema.
Pitanje: poreza, favorizovanja odredjenih VZ.
I odgovor Milanu. Predsjednik svetosavske omladine je Radujkovic(sinoc ga vidjeh na
TV), i zena mu je Ljiljana.
Cas kod profesora Pavicevica
January 8, 2007
Razgovarali smo o Evropskom identitetu i problemima oko evropskog ustava.
Pravi skolski cas nam je profesor Pavicevic odrzao. Sto uopste nije lose bilo.
Bilo je prije svega drugacije, a i nesto smo naucili.
Ostala je, takodje, jedna nedoumica. Doduse veoma jasna.
Slozili smo se o razlicitosti uticaja (narocito velikih religija), koji su kreirali "Evropu", ali
da se u Ustavu ne pominju pojedinacno.
I eto razloga da Ustav padne.
Zakljucak: Ne znamo ko smo.
Sesta cet sesija, 9.11.2006.
December 27, 2006
Nisam se proslavio na sestoj cet sesiji na kojoj se razgovaralo o Balkanskom granicnom
pojasu religija.
Nisam sve bas najbolje razumio, osim da preko nas ide neki veliki sav.
Neko nas je usio.
Peta cet sesija 2.11.2006.
December 25, 2006
Razgovarali smo o oblicima ucesca VZ u politickom zivotu.
Odavno mislim da problem predstavljaju projekti koji se negdje drugdje rade za Balkan.
Milan na ovom cetu iznese da nije odusevljen idejom da se sa Z Balkana plasiraju mnogo
originalni koncepti.
Eto sad sam u nedoumici.
Pozitivna i negativna stvar u isto vrijeme
Cetvrta cet sesija 26.10.2006.
December 25, 2006
Na cetvrtoj sesiji razgovarali smo sa Dr Kopilovicom.
Jedan dio sesije bio je posvecen i ekumenskom dijalogu. I dalje sam u nedoumici za
motive ovog dijaloga. Da li su oni konsolidacija hriscanstva u odnosu, izmedju ostalog i
na Islam.
Posljedice ekumenskog dijaloga mislim da mogu biti negativne, ako se dijalog ne otvori
na sve strane. Posebnost ekumenskog dijaloga (npr zajednicka molitva) mozda i nije
opravdanje da se dijalog vodi samo u okrilju Hriscanstva.
Treca cet sesija 19.10.2006.
December 25, 2006
Isalam i druge religije. To je bila tema trece cet sesije, na kojoj sam se, blago receno,
dobro provalio.
Profesoru Alibasicu dugujem izvinjenje. Pitao sam ga, naravno u kontekstu price, gdje se
u Kuranu nalaze "sejtan ajeti" (satanski stihovi). U trenutku kad sam poslao ovo pitanje
bukvalno sam se ujeo za jezik, cak sam pokusao da kazem da je sala, to mi se ucinilo
mnogo gorom idejom, onda sam samo ucutao.
Izvinjenje profesoru Alibasicu. To je bila cista nesmotrenost.
Pogled na prvu cet sesiju - 6.10.2006.
December 25, 2006
Posto nisam bio na prvoj cet sesiji trece grupe pregledao sam je i izdvojio bih neke
probleme o kojima se na sesiji raspravljalo. Bilo je riječi o prevazilazenju predsrasuda
narocito kod mladih ljudi. Cini mi se da su seminari (radionice) sa raznolikim grupama
(razlicite drzave, narodi, itd.) idelana mjesta da se upozna neko sa "imenom i
prezimenom". To je najbolja stvar za upoznavanje "drugog" i prevazilaženja straha i
predrasuda.
Znam to iz licnog iskustva
Zabrinuti rezultatom istrage u slučaju ”Starovlah” (Nezavisne novine)
November 21, 2006
Zabrinuti rezultatom istrage u slučaju ”Starovlah”
D. Muminović 20.11.2006 20:08
SARAJEVO - Međureligijsko vijeće u BiH izražava zabrinutost što ni do danas nije
provedena podrobna i nepristrasna istraga o akciji koju su u aprilu 2004. godine provele
snage SFOR-a, kada su nanesene teške povrede sveštenicima Jeremiji i Aleksandru
Starovlahu.
Ovo je jedan od zaključaka jučerašnje sjednice Međureligijskog vijeća, čiji su čelnici
pozvali bh. i međunarodne institucije da utvrde odgovornost za napad na sveštenike.
Osim zajedničkog stava o napadu na sveštenike u Palama, čelnici četiri monoteističke
religije u BiH reisu-l-ulema Islamske zajednice BiH Mustafa efendija Cerić, nadbiskup
vrhbosanski, kardinal Vinko Puljić, mitropolit dabrobosanski Nikolaj, te Jakob Finci,
predsjednik Jevrejske zajednice u BiH, dogovorili su se da Međureligijsko vijeće bude
aktivnije u rješavanju narušavanja vjerskih i ljudskih sloboda, kao i napada na vjerske
službenike i objekte.
"Dogovrili smo se da svi sveštenici i vjerska lica s terena Međureligijskom vijeću
dostavljaju sve informacije o nemilim incidnetima koji se pojavljuju. Sada ćemo imati
informaciju o svakom incidentu kada su napadnuti vjerski službenici ili objekti, te ćemo
se zajednički izjašnjavati o tome", kazao je Vanja Jovanović, paroh sarajevski.
Čelnici vejrskih zajednica istakli su da nemaju vlast da rješavaju goruće probleme, kao
što su problemi u vezi s izmještanjem vjerskih objekata na spornim lokacijama, ali da će
u dijalogu pokušati doći do rješenja.
"Do sada smo učinili neke dobre stvari, ali moramo dalje. O ovim spornim pitanjima treba
da nađemo zajednički stav, koji ima moralnu težinu. Boreći se za tuđa prava, mi se
borimo i za svoja prava", kazao je reis Cerić, istakavši da "nema mira u džamiji ako
nema mira u crkvi" i obrnuto. Kardinal Puljić je istakao da je prvih deset godina rada
Međureligijskog vijeća ispunilo svoj cilj, a to je da su prepoznati i u svijetu. Poručio je da
moraju još raditi.
Čelnici četiri monoteističke religije složili su se da su u BiH zagarantovane vjerske
slobode, ali da su mnogima, posebno povratnicima, ugrožene egzistencijalna pitanja, a
samim tim oni su kao ljudi i vjernici ugroženi. Dogovoreno je i sazivanje donatorske
konferencije radi prikupljanja novca za funkcionisanje i bolju efikasnost Vijeća, a
predstavljena je i inicijativa da se i na manjim nivoima u hijerarhiji vjerskih zajednica
organizuju međureligijska vijeća.
Novinski clanak iz Nezavisnih novina
October 30, 2006
Tolerancija put kojim treba da idu sve vjerske zajednice
SARAJEVO - Medjureligijska tolerancija i saradnja su put kojim bi trebalo da idu sve
vjerske zajednice u BiH, zakljuceno je u subotu uvece na medjureligijskom susretu
"Pomirenje i mir" odrzanom u crkvi svetog Ante u Sarajevu.
Fra Ivo Markovic iz Komisije za pravdu i mir kaze da je cilj ovog susreta da se religije
u BiH upoznaju i da se iz iskljucivosti predje u saradnju. "Mi smatramo da BiH moze biti
nadahnuce Evropi i svijetu primjerom da religije iz svoje saradnje mogu ponijeti glavnu
moralnu odgovornost", kazao je Markovic.
Jerej Vanja Jovanovic ispred Srpske pravoslavne crkve porucio je da se vjera mora
zivjeti, a ne formalizovati i svoditi na radnje i pokrete.
Predsjednik Jevrejske zajednice u BiH Jakob Finci rekao je da se svijet nalazi na
raskrsnici izmedju razumijevanja, tolerancije i postovanja drugog ili u zajednickoj
propasti.
"Svi se nalazimo na istom camcu, a oni koji buse rupe moraju biti svjesni da svi zajedno
mozemo potonuti", kazao je Finci.
Reisu-l-ulema Islamske zajednice u BiH Mustafa Ceric naglasio je da je tolerancija
izraz snage i moci, dok je netolerancija prema nekome ko je druge vjere kukavicluk i
slabost.
Medjureligijskom susretu "Pomirenje i mir" prisustvovali su i predstavnici Adventisticke i
Baptisticke crkve, Sathya sai centra, Drustva za svjesnost Krisne, a po prvi put se
predstavila i Bahaji zajednica u BiH.
O jucesnjoj raspravi u cet sobi
October 12, 2006
Upravo sam pregledao jucesnju raspravu u cet sobi i primijetio da sam se slabo snasao,
pa iz tog razloga sada ovo pisem.
Intrigantno je ono o cemu je Vladimir govorio, medjutim sve je tako brzo bilo da sam ga
samo shvatao, ali ne i reagovao. ("Odgovor znam kad ostanem sam."/Stefanovski)
Prije nekoliko godina poceo sam nesto slicno da osjecam, a radi se o osjecanju
"odgovornosti", osjecanju "krivice" ili "o savjesti". Namjerno sve stavljam pod navodnike
jer ne znam kao ovo osjecanje (vise nisam siguran ni da ja osjecanje u pitanju) da
imenujem.
Juce mi se ucinilo da je odgovornost previse racionalan pojam da bi objasnio npr.
izvenjenje zbog krstaskih ratova. Moguce de je zaljenje, kako rece Milan, prilicno
zahvalniji pojam bar kad su u pitanju velike vremenske ili prostorne distance dogadjaja
koji su se desili, a u kojima mi nismo licno ucestvovali ali nas ipak nekako pogadjaju.
Iskreno kada su u pitanju neki davni dogadjaji, odnosno izvinjavanje zbog njih, mislim da
je to licejmerno.
Ovo govorim iz razloga sto danas imamo za sta da budemo odgovorni i imamo za sta da
se izvinjavamo
Kada je u pitanju indirektna odgovornost, da je tako nazovemo, mislim da je veoma
bitno da smo savremenici tih dogadjaja.
Sad se ponovo vracam na pocetak ovog pisanija. Kada je poceo rat imao sa nepunih
devetnaest godina (nisam imao pravo glasa na zadnjm prijeratnim izborima) i bio sam
prilicno ljut na one koji su me otjerali u rat. Medjutim, danas osjecam izvjesnu krivicu (ili
odgovornost?) kad je rat u BiH u pitanju, iako nista lose nisam uradio, ali sam mogao
vise da uradim da bi to sprijecio. Mislim da bi se svaki građanin u BiH, bez obzira da li je
nesto lose uradio ili nije trebao osjecati odgovornim.
Ovim, naravno, ne stajem iza onih koji su pocinili zlocine.
odgovornost i pomirenje
October 31, 2006
"Mislim da bi se svaki građanin u BiH, bez obzira da li je nesto lose uradio ili nije trebao
osjecati odgovornim.
Ovim, naravno, ne stajem iza onih koji su pocinili zlocine."
A mislis li da KOLEKTIVNO stradanje moze da se "izvine" priznanjem,pokajanjem,kaznom
odgovornih POJEDINACA?
("Nikad ne mrzi celi narod,mrzi jednog po jednog pa dokle stignes/Balasevic)
Posted by Anonymous
Krivica vs Odgovornost i Savest
November 24, 2006
Drago mi je da te je zainteresovalo ono sto si procitaou vezi sa mojim 'izlaganjem' na
chatu. Naravno i sam znas da je chat vrlo nezahvalan za diskutovanje o ovako
komplikovanim temama. Pokusacu da do kraja kursa odvojim vreme i malo pojasnim
svoje vidjenje i postavim ga na blogu SPQR.
Jedino sto ti sada mogu reci da ova tri termina nisu u potpunosti strucna (jesu delimicno
u krivicnom pravu) i da je meni sasvim ok da ih svako, uz argumentaciju, dozivljava na
svoj nacin. U tom smislu se sa dosta stvari slazem sa tobom. Ja sam tada ziveo u
izolovanoj Srbiji, i imao 12 godina kada je rat poceo, ali ipak imam osecaj prema tim
stvarima, pa cak osecam odgovornost, ne u samim togadjajima, vec u tome sto sam
pripadnok jedne vece zajednice, a metode licnog rasterecenja savesti, i tu se moje
misljenje ne poklapa sa tvojim, razlicite su kod svakog od nas i zbog toga izvinjenje za
davne dogadjaje ne mora biti licemerno. Jednostavno ne dolazimo svi iz istog konteksta,
a i ako sve podignes na najvisi nivo, u slucaju hriscanastva je to nivo Bozanske licnosti,
mogao bi da kazes da je Isus licemer, a ja mislim da nije. Jer on je bio covek (za
hriscane i deo Bozanske licnost u isto vreme), koji je preuzeo na sebe grehe sveta, sve i
svih. Zasto onda, po uzoru na njega, a trebalo bi da je on neki ideal, neko ne moze da se
iskreno izvini u ime svojih predaka, ako u sebi oseti potrebu za tim? Mi imamo svoje
grehe i svoju odgovornost i nasi preci ih imaju, i oni nemaju veze sa krstasima, ali ovi
mladi Nemci imaju veze i ja sam ubedjen da to ne mora biti licemerno.
Posted by SPQR
Nikola Radić, Smederevo
January 13, 2007 - Deus caritas est
Deus caritas est
(Bog je ljubav)
Da li je ovo samo fraza koju mi hriscani preterano koristimo, ili je to zaista tako?
Da li mozemo, pa sto ne reci i da li smemo ovo izgovarati samo zato sto lepo zvuci, a
zvuci zaista lepo. Da li mi Hriscani, naseg Boga pretstavljamo drugima kao takvog, ili
nasa dela govore drugacije? Da li posmataci sa strane bili oni pripadnici neke VZ ili
ateisti, sve jedno, mogu iz naseg ponasanja steci predstavu o hriscanskom Bogu kao
nekome ko kaze: “Ljubite neprijatelje svoje, blagosiljajte one koji vas kunu, cinite dobro
onima koji vas mrze i molite se Bogu za one koji vas vredjaju i gone” (Mt. 5,44)? Ne
verujem da su ona plemena i oni narodi koji su primali hriscanstvo uvek dozivljavali
hriscane kao covekoljupce. Na zverske nacine su u hriscanskim zemljama kaznjavani
ljudi tokom proteklih 2000 godina. Cak je i Crkva u nekim slucajevim to podrzavala ili
ako nije podrzavala ona je cutala, posmatrajuci sve sa strane. Sta se to desava sa onom
verom koju su pre 2000 godina poceli da propovedaju galilejski ribari? Sta se promenilo
u pristupu hriscana veri? Nekada su hriscani jednog mesta prodavali svu imovinu koju su
smatrali viskom i time hranili gladne, pojili zedne, oblacili nage…Danas hriscani gomilaju
nepotrebne stvari po svojim kucama, kupuju stanove, kuce njive, u kojima niko ne zivi i
koje niko ne obradjuje, dok prvi komsija umire od gladi. Kakvi su verni (laici) takav je i
klir. Niti se pozivaju verni da daju od svog suviska, niti im njihovi pastiri primerom
pokazuju sta se treba ciniti. Cini se da se nesto zaboravilo?
Da se pogresno ne protumaci, ne mislim je da su hriscani najgori, vec kao hriscanin
dozavoljavam sebi da kritikujem samo svoje. Onog koga volimo, kritikujemo da bi se
poravio, da bi bio bolji. Mislim da bi Crkva danas mogla da se malo vise okrene COVEKU,
pojedincu, onom koji negde tamo sedi i muci se “sitnim” problemima. Sitnim za nas koji
to iz daljine posmatramo, a njemu velikim i neresivim. Posao, smestaj, hrana, odeca,
decije knjige za skolu…to su problemi koji muce tog nekog tamo. To su problemi,
takodje, koje njegov komsija moze da mu resi ili bar pomogne u resavanju. Ako nekoga
volimo (a da podsetim, hriscanima je zadatak da vole sve ljude), nije nam problem da se
zbog njega malo zrtvujemo, da se necega sitnog odreknemo, kako bi tom drugom bilo
lakse.
Mislim da to nije veliki problem.
December 20, 2006 - Martin Friedrich Gustav Emil Niemöller
Original
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
Translation
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I did not speak out;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
November 24, 2006 - o delima o. Serafima i jos po nesto
Ovaj tekst je ispunjenje obecanja koje sam dao gospodinu Katsomoto-u na forumu.
Iz prethodnog teksta se nesto moglo pogresno zakljuciti.
Da nisam nikada citao dela o. Serafima, sigurno je da ne bih mogao (ili ne bih imao
prava) da Vam napisem da je ta literature dogmatski neispravna. Tu sam pre svega
mislio na njegova pisanija o mitarstvima, za koja smatram da su umetci, skroz
neprimereni hriscanskom ucenju.
“ Ne odbacujem blagodat Boziju; jer ako pravednost kroz zakon biva, onda Hristos uzalud
umrije.” (Gal.3,21)
A mitarstva su upravo to, pokusaj osvecenja sebe i spasenja sebe (sve individualno) kroz
dela zakona. Jer sta su one stanice, na kojima nam se po tom ucenju sudi, ako ne mesta
na kojima se proverava nasa pokornost zakonu? Po tom ucenju, Bog je jedan bezosecajni
sudija, koji ce nas, uprkos nasoj ljubavi prema Njemu i prema bliznjima, osuditi za
najsitniji prestup ( u koliko je broj prestupa, za samo 1 veci od broja dobrih dela na toj
carini). Mozemo osim tog prestupa, na ostalim “carinama” biti u velikom plusu sa dobrim
delima, ipak nam nista ne moze pomoci. Jer kada samo na jednoj od njih padnemo, vec
smo zavrsili sa svojim nadama na zivot vecni. Iz toga sledi da Bog nije cak ni pravedni
sudija, vec sitnicar koji na sve nacine gleda da nas osudi.
Toliko o mitarstvima.
Sledece, o dogmatskoj (ne)pogresivosti svetih. Velika je zabluda, kada smatramo svete
dogmatski nepogresivima. To znaci da tokom citavog svog zivota nije nista pogresno
rekao, uradio, napisao. Pa mi pravoslavni se bunimo zbog “papske nepogresivosti”, a sa
druge strane mislimo da nam je nepogresiv ceo crkveni kalendar. Retki su veliki
bogoslovi u Crkvi. U prilog tome ide nam i cinjenica da ovaj naziv nose samo tri svetitelja
u crkvi. Nije svaki svetitelj Grigirije Bogoslov, Vasilije Veliki, Jovan Zlatousti, Atanasije
Veliki, i drugi slicni njima . Oni su u vremenu u kome su ziveli imali zadatak da bozijom
blagodacu i svojim bistrim umom sacuvaju cistocu vere. Nisu to radili svi sveti toga doba,
mada ih je u kalendar tada najvise ulazilo (govorim o III, IV i V veku). Sveti Nikola
episkop Mire u Likiji, poznat je u Crkvi kao veliki cudotvorac. U njegovom zitiju pominje
se dogadja sa nikejskog sabora, a o kome istorija nista ne zna. To nam samo kazuje da
zitja svetih nisu Biblija, odnosno da su njih pisali ucenici tih svetih, koji su u duhu tog
vremena morali i po neki ukras da dodaju. A sta je veci ukras, nego li prisustvovanje i
aktivno ucestvovanje na saboru na kome se okupila cela crkva. A na zitju svetih je i
stvoreno ucenje o mitarstvima, i to na samo jednom zitiju.
(pokusavam ovo da napisem vec nekoliko dana, ali mi ne uspeva da u jednom kratkom
tekstu odgovorim na sva Vasa pitanja, zbog toga Vas molim da prepisku nastavimo ili
putem maila ili da pitanja budu preciznije formulisana, kako bi moji odgovori mogli da
budu kraci. Takodje Vas molim da ne postavljate duge tekstove, jer zaista nisam u
mogucnosti ih ispratim. )
HVALA NA RAZUMEVANJU
November 19, 2006 - Odnos Crkve i drzave kroz vekove (od Hrista do pada
komunizma)
Kao sto sam vec pisao Crkva je u prvim vekovima prolazila kroz razlicite faze, od toga da
je bila surovo gonjena, do toga da je ona gonila neistomisljenike. Takodje sam naveo i to
da Hristos ne uci svoje ucenike da mrze i ubijaju, a opet im govori da ce biti gonjeni i da
to moraju istrpeti. To im je pokazao i licnim primerom, kada se na krstu moli za one koji
su ga raspeli. Kao i Hristos, tako i ostali hriscanski ucitelji prvih vekova govore o zivotu
Hristovih sledbenika na zemlji, kao o onima koji tu samo privremeno borave.
Zbog cega oni o tome u opste pisu?
Znajuci kakvi su ljudi, oni pokusavaju da svojim spisima preduprede ono sto ce se
neminovno dogoditi. A dogodice se upravo to da ce se Hriscani kasnijih vekova vezati za
ono, sto su njihovi predhodnici nazivali mestom stanovanja (ili privremenog boravka).
Vezace se za drzavu i njenu politiku, vezace se za novac i vlast i sto je najzalosnije
izgubice onaj duh zbog koga su mnogi i postali hriscani. Aludirajuci na bogatstvo i vlast
pojedinih episkopa (odnosno onih u velikim centrima imperije: Rim, Aleksandrija,
Antiohija, Jerusalim) paganski senator Agorije Pretekstat u sali je govorio: "ucini me
episkopom Rima, pa cu vec sutra postati hriscanin."
Naravno da je u to doba bilo i onih koji su pre svega bili Hriscani, i koji su se trudili da
ucenje koje su primili i u koje su poverovali, propovedaju ne mareci za to kome su
prekore upucivali. Vec sam pominjao Svetog Amvrosija, episkopa Milanskog koji je cara
Teodosija odlucio od Crkve (390. g.), sve dok se ovaj javno ne pokaje za pokolj koji je
izvrsio nad stanovnicima Soluna. Onda Sv. Jovan Zlatousti, episkop Carigrada, koji je
uporno sa crkvene katedre prozivao caricu Evdoksiju, da se okane nacina zivota koji je
vodila (a koji je bio daleko od hriscanskog) i ako je nekoliko puta zbog toga proganjan sa
svoje katedre (a u progonstvu je i umro). Sve u svemu od 313. g. pa sve do 1054. g., i
ako su i pre tog dogadjaja neki hriscanski delovi imperije odvojeni od matice (monofiziti
u Egiptu i sl.), drzava je pokusavala da na razne nacine ocuva jedinstvo Hriscana za rad
mira u imperiji.
Sazivani su mnogi sabori na kojima su carevi insistirali na tome, ne da se dodje do istine,
vec da se dodje do narusenog jedinstva. Zbog toga su mnogi pravoverni proganjani i
kaznjavani, jer u razgovoru sa jereticima nisu zeleli ni za trenutak da odstupe od Istine.
Medjutim i kada je raskol potresao hriscanski svet, neki vizantijski carevi i dalje
pokusavaju da uz pomoc pomirenja hriscana, iznova vrate slavu svome carstvu. Rast
papske vlasti na zapadu, davao je vizantijskim carevima nadu, da bi uz pomoc rimskog
Episkopa, iznova mogli zagospodariti hriscanskim svetom (ako ne vojnom silom, koju vec
nisu imali, onda bar politickom-preko pape). Posto nisu u zapadu nasli svoje saveznike,
koji bi im pomogli u odbrani od nadolazece opasnosti (Turci su vec tada predstavljali silu
kojoj se Vizantija nije mogla odupreti), padom Carigrada 1453.g. i Vizantija je prestala
da postoji. Tada se menja i odnos drzave prema Crkvi.
Mada su sultani davali odredjenu vlast i pocasti carigradskom patrijarhu, ipak je patrijarh
imao neuporedivo manje vlasti no u doba vizantijskih careva. Tada crkve umesto
Hristovog ucenje, prioritet daju stvaranju i cuvanju nacionalne ideje (kod nas su manstiri,
cini se jedino zbog toga i postojali). Dok je zivela u rimskom carstvu, izgleda da crkvi nije
bilo vazno ko je odakle, i da li se treba suprotstaviti okupatoru (jer su u velikom delu
rimskog carstva, rimljani smatrani okupatorima - sto su na kraju i bili). Sa pojavom
Turaka, dolazi i do sirenja Islama, te se sada u manastirima vera vezuje za nacionalnu
pripadnost (kao ono Srbin pravoslavac), sto ce kasnije izazvati velike probleme, jer cemo
se lako odricati delova svog naroda koji nije iste vere kao i mi. Oslobodjenjem od turske
vlasti stvaraju se nacionalne drzave, u kojima crkva ima znacajno mesto. Na ucenje se
zaboravilo, pa svestenici u propovedima cesce (ili gotovo uvek) izgovaraju junacke
pesme, nego sto tumace crkvene dogmate. Dogmati postaju nesto o cemu se ne sme
razgovarati, jer su "njih doneli OCI".
U stvari rec je o potpunom ne poznavanju ucenja crkve, te nisu mogli o dogmatima i
ocima pricati oni koji ne poznaju ni jedne ni druge (a i danas je tako, jer pre neki dan na
forumu neko pomenu velike ucitelje crkve danas, koji su omrazeni jedino iz razloga jer
znaju nesto sto drugi ne znaju. A sta to oni znaju? Poznaju dela otaca i poznaju ucenje
Crkve. Oni koji su ravni svojim predhodnicima, bivaju isto tako i proganjani - kao
Zlatousti, Atanasije i drugi.). Posto nacionalisticka ideja koju crkva sa kraja XIX i
pocetka XX veka propagira, postaje strana komunistickoj ideji, logicno je bilo da
dolaskom komunista na vlast Crkva bude zabranjena. Period posle revolucije u Rusiji je
Crkvu podsetio kako su izgledala najstrasnija gonjenja u prvim vekovima. Desetine
hiljada svestenika, monaha, monahinja i vernih ubijano ja za noc. Mnogobrojne crkve i
manastiri su sruseni, ili pretvoreni u raznorazne objekte. Taj period je jedan od
najstrasnijih u novijoj istoriji crkve. Njegovim zavrsetkom, pocinje nova epoha u istoriji
Crkve.
(jedan od najznimljivijih prikaza istorije Hriscanstva na srpskom jeziku mozemo naci u
"Imperijalno jedinstvo i hriscanske deobe" Jovan Majendorf - do duse radi se o periodu
od 450 - 680.god., ali je bas... i ako nema ovog dela, mnoge zanimljive tekstove iz
oblasti teologije mozete naci na http://www.verujem.org/ )
November 1, 2006 - O odnosu crkve i drzave u prvim vekovima hriscanstva
Poznato je da je hriscanska crkva, u prvim danima svog postojanja prezivljavala, ne bas
blagonaklon odnos okoline prema njoj. Pocev od Jevreja koji su je dozivljavali kao neku
sektu koja kvari njihovu religiju (ne sme se zaboraviti da je prva Crkvena opstinajerusalimska Crkva, bila sacinjena iskljucivo od pripadnika jevrejskog naroda), Crkvu
kasnije pocinje da proganja i zvanicni Rim. Carevi su ne malo puta potpisivali dekrete
kojima se hriscanstvo stavlja izvan zakona, odnosno mogli ste bez problema ubiti
hriscanina ili mu oduzeti imovinu, dok se on zbog toga nije mogao nikome zaliti. Naravno
da Crkva nije proganjana u svakom delu imperije i neprestano. To se dogadjalo
sporadicno, i retko, ali kada se dogadjalo (po pisanju hronicara toga doba) izgledalo je
zastrasujuce. O tim dogadjajima nam svedoci i mnostvo Hriscana mucenika, koji su u
tom periodu postradali. Ali sve pocinje da se menja 313. godine u kojoj do tada
proganjana, crkva postaje po pravima jednaka vladajucoj mnogobozackoj religiji. Kao i
sve religije, tako se i Hriscanstvo ponasalo tolerantno prema drugima, sve do casa dok
apsolutna vlast nije pala u ruke Hriscana. Od tog trenutka stvari pocinju da se menjaju, a
neki delovi istorije, zbog hriscana, izgledace mnogo krvaviji nego oni pre njih. Jer
mozemo zamisliti pokolje u religiji u kojoj se ljudi prinose na zrtvu nazovi-bogovima, ali
je to isto, u hriscanstvu nedopustivo. Nikakav cilj (pa makar bio i najveci) ne dopusta
hriscaninu da pocini bilo kakav zlocin, a da ne govorimo o ubistvu. Nikakav rat se ne
moze opravdati nicim, jer nam Hristos (kao osnivac religije) naredjuje da se molimo za
neprijatelje, i da ih blagosiljamo, a ne da ih kunemo i ubijamo....
Kanita Spahić, Sarajevo
IMPERARE SIBI MAXIMUM IMPERIUM EST
January 12, 2007 - Medijski uticaj na percepciju religija
Emisija emitovana prije par godina(otrpilike nekih pola godine poslije 11.9.2001.)
je nesto na sto se zelim osvrnuti ovdje na svom blogu..
Emisija je o djeci u Engleskoj,Italiji i Njemackoj koja su sjedila i diskutovala o
religijama sa vjerskim vodjama(hriscanskim,islamskim i jevrejskim vjerskim vodjom)
90% te djece je bilo hriscanske vjeroispovijsti, a skoro sva njihova pitanja su bila
vezana za Islam.
Pitanja su bila tipa :
zasto muslimani po svojoj vjeri moraju da ubijaju druge ljude?
zasto muslimani trebaju da mrze nas Evropljane?
zasto muslimani zele da nas ubiju?
itd.
Zasto su djeca postavljala takva pitanja?
Zato sto su se prvi put pozabavili sa Islamom poslije 11.Septembra.
Dotada u svojim zatvorenim vjerskim sredinama nisu imali prilike da upoznaju
islamsko ucenje, kao
ni njihovi roditelji, tako da su pitanja djece "logicna" i posljedica onoga sto su,suocena
sa medijskim izvjestavanjem zapadnih tv stanica i novina, "naucila" o islamu.
Njihovu dotadasnju sliku o Islamu kreirao je diznijev lik Aladin.
Nakon 11.Septembra odjednom se taj crtani film pretvorio u horor film..a taj isti je
prijetio da postane stvarnost.
A zasto takva pitanja ne postavlja neko ko ima prijatelje muslimane,
Zasto to ne pita neko ko je bio kod muslimana kod kuce? Ko je bio pozvan na bajram
itd?
NEZNANJE i PREDRASUDE koje iz njeg proizilaze su idealna podloga medijskoj
manipulaciji
i neuporediva je razlika izmedju toga kada zivis s nekim aktivno, i kada za nekoga
cujes samo iz novina.
Tu su visereligijske sredine, poput nase, u prednosti iako smo u proslosti bas zbog
tog "bogatstva razlicitosti" imali sukobe i ako smo i sami podlozni medijskoj i politickoj
manipulaciji, ostaje otvorena mogucnost onima koji to zaista zele da u direktnom
kontaktu sa svojim susjedima "iz prve ruke" saznaju o onom drugacijem od cega cesto
imaju strah ili zbog cega bar osjecaju nelagodu.
Ovdje se postavlja pitanje ko je kompetentan da daje informacije o islamu i da
tumaci islam nemuslimanima.
Sa sigurnoscu se moze reci da ljudi koji vrse teroristicka djela u ime islama o islamu
neznaju gotovo nista
vec su izmanipulirani od strane odredjenih ideologa, koji ih koriste za ostvarenje
svojih ciljeva.
Opcepoznato je da sve religije pozivaju suzivotu i toleranciji medju ljudima.
Zbog toga je zalosno da se zbog sake ekstremista o islamu formira iskrivljena slika,
iako je poznato da iza njih ne stoji nijedna drzava , nijedna institucija, niti neki od
vjerskih autoriteta.
January 12, 2007 - Crni oblak
Isjecak intervijua sa Predragom Matvejevićem, koji je jedan od najvećih
intelektualaca Evrope danas, ugledni književnik i profesor Univerziteta "La
Sapienza" u Rimu...
Crni oblak
S druge strane, nad Bosnom se nadvija još jedan crni oblak u vidu nastojanja da
se bosanskim muslimanima, Bošnjacima imputira fundamentalizam, vehabizam,
da ih prikažu kao bijele teroriste. Koliko je to opasno?
- To pokazuje neinformiranost zapadnog svijeta, ali i jednu opasnu tendenciju zapada da
sav islam stavi pod jednu kapu. To Bošnjake, muslimane iz Bosne, nažalost, može skupo
koštati. Evropa treba znati da to nisu nikakvi teroristi i fundamentalisti. Oni su Evropljani
i imaju svoj evropski identitet. Uzmite knjige od Maka Dizdara do mog prijatelja Avde
Sidrana. To su evropski pisci, pjesnici... Bošnjake često provociraju pričom o teroristima i
fundamentalizmu, ali odoljeli su oni i gorim stvarima. Mislim da je pravo lice muslimana u
Bosni pokazao i reisu-l-ulema dr. Mustafa ef. Cerić čija je Deklaracija evropskih
muslimana jako dobro primljena u Italiji. Zaista u Rimu nisu očekivali da će čuti velikog
muftiju Bosne da kaže da se muslimani trebaju boriti protiv antisemitizma, ali i da se
zajedno s Jevrejima trebaju boriti i protiv islamofobije koja zahvata Evropu.
Duboko sam vezan za Mostar i BiH
Rođeni ste u Mostaru, studirali u Sarajevu, u Zagrebu ste proveli više od 30
godina, predavali ste u Parizu, a već 12 godina živite u Rimu. Imate pasoš BiH,
Hrvatske i Italije. Čijim dijelom se najviše smatrate?
- Duboko sam vezan za Mostar i BiH. No, vezan sam i za Hrvatsku. Ni to neću
potcjenjivati. U suštini, ja sam kosmopolita. Moj otac je Ukrajinac koji je, bježeći od
boljševizma, 1920. došao iz Odese i nastanio se u Mostaru kojeg je neizmjerno zavolio.
Majčina familija je iz Mostara. Postoji jedna zanimljivost koja govori i o razlozima zašto
sam duboko vezan za Mostar i BiH. Naime, dok sam bio dijete dali su me na čuvanje
jednoj mladoj ženi, nerotkinji koja se zvala Hatidža. S njom sam gledao filmove Čarlija
Čaplina kada sam imao tri-četiri godine. U njenoj kući sam provodio dane i dane. Kako je
njena stara majka klanjala pet vakata namaza, ja sam, imitirajući je, počeo klanjati i
prije nego sam znao moliti u crkvi. Hoću da vam kažem da je to Mostar, to je odnos
pravih ljudi u Mostaru, starih mostarskih familija. Ali to potvrđuje razloge moje ljubavi
prema ovoj zemlji, zašto sam za nju duboko vezan, ali i zašto se smatram kosmopolitom.
January 12, 2007 - Jos jedan zanimljiv tekst;)
Događaji dana
‘Papino prozivanje ateista vraća nas u srednji vijek’ Piše: Orlanda Obad
Foto: G. Mehkek, R. Belošević, arhiva EPH, EPA
Hrvatski agnostici
Benedikta XVI.
odgovaraju na oštar istup pape
ZAGREB - Nakon izjave pape Benedikta XVI. po kojima se “misterij zla, moć tmina” u
naše doba očituje u podlim i opasnim oblicima “od ateizma koji se povodi za znanošću do
predstavljanja takozvanoga moderniziranoga ili postmoderniziranog Isusa” hrvatski
ateisti danas su kritizirali papin stav.
Katoličkoj crkvi i njezinu poglavaru su, među ostalim, poručili da se svojom retorikom ne
vraća u srednji vijek te su izrazili zabrinutost zbog neizravne kritike znanosti. Neki su u
šali najavlili i tužbe zbog prijetnji paklenim mukama. Osnivač splitskog Medilsa i jedan
od najuglednijih hrvatskih znanstvenika, Miroslav Radman, smatra da je izjava Benedikta
XVI. “korak unazad.”
- Papa Ivan Pavao II. je kazao da je evolucija činjenica i da nije suprotna vjeri u Boga.
Ali, razumijem nervozu koja izbija iz ovih izjava jer Crkva stvarno ima puno problema.
Ako ne evoluira, postat će suvišna jer će znanost sve više pokazivati da su neki vjerski
tekstovi bezvezni. Ako evoluira, izgubit će identitet - kaže Radman, koji ni sam ne zna je
li ateist ili skeptik.
- Profesija znanstvenika ne ide uz slijepo vjerovanje. A i pape kad se razbole idu u
Švicarsku u najbolje medicinske institucije - kaže Radman.
Ivo Brešan, autor mnogobrojnih drama, osam romana i sedam filmskih scenarija, među
kojima su i “Kako je počeo rat na mom otoku” te “Maršal”, objašnjava da je agnostik,
odnosno da na pitanje postoji li bog - nema odgovora. Ateizam je, smatra on, također
vjera jer se zasniva na “čvrstu uvjerenju u nešto o čemu ne možemo suditi,” pa ga tako
treba i tretirati - s dozom tolerancije.
Ateizam postoji otkako je čovječanstva, od grčkih mislilaca nadalje. Ako je
ateizam zlo koje treba iskorijeniti, onda bi pola svjetske literature, i znanstvene
i beletrističke, trebalo na lomaču staviti. A to je povratak na srednji vijek, kaže
Brešan
- Ateizam postoji otkako je čovječanstva, od grčkih mislilaca nadalje. Ako je ateizam zlo
koje treba iskorijeniti, onda bi pola svjetske literature, i znanstvene i beletrističke,
trebalo na lomaču staviti. A to je povratak na srednji vijek - kaže Brešan. Umirovljena
sveučilišna profesorica psihologije Mirjana Krizmanić kaže da se ovakvih Papinih izjava
“silno boji.”
- Takve nas izjave vuku u neznanstvenu tminu. Imam osjećaj da ćemo uskoro i u
školama i na fakultetima prestati poučavati znanstvenu istinu. Negirati znanost je
nazadnjački, no tko negira činjenice i ono što se temelji na činjenicama, njegova će
snaga i moć biti veći - kaže Krizmanić.
Spisateljica i blogerica, autorica knjige “Svijet i praktična žena” Zrinka Pavlić kaže da ju
Papine izjave ne zabrinjavaju iz praktičnog razloga: ako je ateistkinja, ne vjeruje u raj,
ali ni u pakao. - Neka Crkva radije prebroji koliko je lošeg učinjeno u ime ateizma, a
koliko u ime vjere pa ćemo vidjeti kakva je bilanca - govori Pavlić.
Profesoricu filozofije Filozofskog fakulteta u Zagrebu Nadeždu Čačinović izjava o ateistima
zaintrigirala je toliko da je potražila transkript Papina govora. I zaključila da stavovi
Benedikta XVI. nisu ništa novo. - On u ovom govoru samo radi svoj posao i kaže da je
protiv ne samo ateista, nego i svake moderne i postmoderne verzije Krista, new agea i
slično. On želi tradicionalni, klasični katolicizam, a mislim da je dosad imao i gorih izjava
- zaključuje Čačinović, koja je ateistkinja zato što, kaže, “predobro misli o Bogu.”
- I racionalno i emocionalno ne smatram da postoji bog. Uostalom, predobro mislim o
bogu da bih vjerovala da postoji jer ako je on odgovoran za ovakav svijet, to mu ne ide u
prilog - zaključuje Čačinović.
Pisac i novinar Boris Dežulović smatra da papa Benedikt XVI. svojim izjavama ateistima
zapravo prijeti “paklenim mukama, nekom vrstom doživotne smrtne kazne”. - Ja sam
zato već poduzeo korake i zbog prijetnji smrću Državnom odvjetništvu Republike
Hrvatske podnio kaznenu prijavu protiv Josepha Aloisa Ratzingera (80), po zanimanju
rimskog pape - našalio se.
- Gospodina Ratzingera se ne bojim, poručujem mu da sam nabavio bejzbol-palicu i da
ga čekam. Krajnje je vrijeme da se netko suprotstavi tim kabadahijama, kad već policija
ništa ne radi - kaže Dežulović.
October 27, 2006 - Zanimljiv clanak:)
Što nam je katolički džihad donio osim zla?
U onoj legendarnoj sceni iz kultnog "Brianova života" John Cleese kao Reg, vođa
Narodnog Fronta Judeje, gleda u areni borbe gladijatora i retorički se pita što su im to
uopće Rimljani dobra donijeli. "Vodovod", ...
...dobacio je jedan suborac. "I kanalizaciju", sjetio se drugi.
"Dobro", nevoljko je priznao Reg, "slažem se da su vodovod i kanalizacije dvije stvari
što..."
"I ceste" dodao je opet prvi.
"Da, očito”, promrsio je Reg. "Ali osim vodovoda kanalizacije i putova..."
"Medicinu", prekinuo ga je drugi. "I obrazovanje"
"U redu, dovoljno je", iznervirao se Reg.
"I melioraciju", nastavili su drugovi.
"Javna kupatila"
"I vino"
"Da,vino", kimnuo je onaj prvi, "vino će nam zaista nedostajati kad odu.”
"U redu”, planuo je konačno Reg, - ali osim vodovoda, kanalizacije, cestogradnje,
obrazovanja, melioracije, javnih kupatila, vina i zdravstvene zaštite, što su Rimljani ikada
učinili za nas?”
Piše: Boris Dežulović, Globus
Gledam tako na televiziji papu Benedikta XVI. kako s katedre sveučilišta u Regensburgu
citira bizantskog cara Manuela II: "Pokažite nam što nam je to novoga donio Muhamed,
osim zla i neljudskih stvari, poput zapovijedi da se vjera širi mačem?"
I sve mi se ispod one bjele kapice ukazuje Regovo lice, pa umjesto pape vidim Ivan
Cleesea Drugog kako se retorički pita: "Što su nam to uopće muslimani dobra donijeli?"
"Matematiku", dobacit će iznenada student informatike iz zadnjeg reda.
"Decimalni sustav, brojke koje i danas nazivamo arapskim, nepoznanicu 'x' i
revolucionarnu nulu nakon koje svijet nikad neće biti isti. I
trigonometriju i algebru, koja se zove tako po Kitab Al Jabru, djelu
čuvenog matematičara Al-Hawarizmija. Po kojemu je, usput, svoj
naziv dobio algoritam.
"Dobro", nevoljko će priznati Benedikt XVI. vođa Narodnog Fronta
Europe – slažem se da su brojke i algebra dvije stvari što...
"I geografija – sjetit će se treći student.
"I filozofija. Svojim prijevodima u mračnom su nam srednjem
vijeku spasili grčku filozofiju. Izradili su prvu kartu svijeta, prvi
izračunali opseg Zemlje i otkrili heliocentrični sistem. Sagradili su
prvi opservatorij, utemeljili modernu astronomiju i s Istoka nam donijeli kompas. I papir.
I rižu.
"U redu, dovoljno je", iznervirat će se Papa.
"I šećer, naranču, limun, breskvu", nastavit će studenti – prešu za ulje, sustav
navodnjavanja i uopće modernu poljoprivredu. Pamuk, tekstilnu industriju i modu. Jakna
je arapski izum. Konstruirali su prvu cameru obscuru i utemeljili optiku. Onda qitara. Da,
gitara. I kava.
"Da, očito", procijedit će Benedikt s katedre – ali osim matematike, geografije, filozofije,
astronomije i gitare...
"I farmakologije – dodat će nadobudna studentica. U vrijeme kad se Europa gušila u
smradu i bolestima, Arapi su nam dali sapun i parfem, objasnili da se zaraza širi
zagađenom vodom, te donijeli čuveni Qanun Ibn Sine, prvu enciklopediju lijekova i
eliksira – pardon, al-iksira. Najzad upravo su arapski alkemičari – alkemija, od al-kimya –
očevi moderne kemije. Između ostalog otkrili su lužine i barut, izmislili destilaciju i dobili
al-kuhul. Zvuči poznato?
"Da, alkohol" - Kimnut će netko – alkohol će nam zaista nedostajati kad odu.
"U redu", planuo je konačno Benedikt XVI. – ali osim decimalnog sustava, brojeva,
algebre, matematike, filozofije, karte svijeta, kompasa, papira, riže, šećera, pamuka,
navodnjavanja, camere obscure, optike, jakne, gitare, kave, parfema, sapuna, alkohola,
farmacije, higijene i moderne kemije, što su muslimani ikada učinili za nas?
Što su nam, dakle, muslimani novoga donijeli osim zla i neljudskih stvari? – čita s papira
studentima regenburškog sveučilišta Joseph Ratzinger, sav u svili i kadifi, zanemarujući
za tu prigodu ne samo činjenicu da su mu muslimani donijeli i to što na sebi nosi, i papir
s kojeg čita, veći neumoljivu činjenicu da su čak i koncept sveučilišta preko Španjolske u
Europu donijeli upravo Arapi.
"Učenjakova tinta svetija je od mučenikove krvi," rekao je, nećete vjerovati – strašni
Muhamed. 1
A što nam je Muhamed donio osim zapovijedi da se vjera širi mačem? – pita se Benedikt
XVI. u govoru o besmislenosti širenja vjere silom, propuštajući prigodu da u tom smislu
malo zaore vlastito dvorište, pa podsjeti na katolički džihad. I da se zapita: pokažite mi
što je to Isus novoga donio Južnoj Americi, osim zla i neljudskih stvari? Dobro, osim
vodovoda, kanalizacije, cestogradnje, obrazovanja, poljoprivrede, zdravstvene zaštite,
tehnologije, filozofije, arhitekture, kazališta, umjetnosti i vina?
U redu, i nogometa.
Bilješka:
1 Hadis glasi: "Na Sudnjem danu, tinta naučnika i krv šehida bit će vagani i tinta
naučnika imat će veću težinu od krvi šehida"
Vladimir Cvetić, Beograd
January 15, 2007 - »Tolerancija« i »mir« kao posebni kvaliteti
Iskoristio bih priliku da, sa ostalim učesnicima ovog kursa, podelim svoja
razmišljanja u vezi sa svrsishodnošću ovakvih i sličnih kurseva i seminara. Postoji
izuzetno veliki broj ljudi, žitelja tzv. Zapadnog Balkana, koji nemaju blagonaklon stav
prema nevladinom sektoru i njihovim aktivnostima.
Nažalost, takođe je izuzetno veliki broj nevladinih organizacija koji ovakav stav
opravdavaju svojim nesvrsishodnim aktivnostima i nemanjem sluha upravo prema
ljudima koji bi trebalo da budu prvenstveni korisnici njihovih »usluga«. Marketing NVO
sektora, bar kada govorimo o Srbiji, izuzetno je loš, a same organizacije i svet koji se
kroz njih kreće, zatvoren u posebnu, uslovno rečeno, društvenu grupu, dok paralelno
bujaju i napreduju netolerancija, ekstremistički stavovi, pa i nasilje. Ko treba da vodi
računa o ovom ljudima? Čija su oni briga i odgovornost? Ako, bilo ko od NVO aktivista
misli da je to državna briga nega se zapita u čemu je onda njegova lična poenta, kao i
čitavog nedržavnog sektora.
Ne želim da ovo izlaganje bude shvaćeno kao kritika, već prvenstveno kao
podstrek ljudima koji delaju iz iskrenih pobuda i pokušavaju da od nemogućeg naprave
moguće i da ni od čega stvore nešto, da i dalje istraju na svom putu jer i najmanji korak
u ovako zamršenim problemima je izuzetno značajan. Pristalica sam ideje da je na nama
građanima ogromna odgovornost za društvo u kojem živimo i da zato ne smemo da
budemo pasivini, ali isto tako moramo biti svesni svojih ograničenja i mogućnosti, te ne
smemo očekivati da ćemo izmeniti svet odmah.
Za mene su tolerancija i izgradnja mira proces, koji ima svoje faze, isto kao i
stvaranje sukoba. Ne želim da kažem da je »mir« samo zato što nije »rat«. Vrednosti
kao što su »mir«, »ljubav«, »tolerancija«, »nenasilje« za mene nisu negacija ili odsustvo
suprotnih vrednosti (»rata«, »mržnje«, »netolerancije«, »nasilja«) već samostalni
kvaliteti koji imaju svoje posebnosti.
Ukoliko se ovim vrednostima na ovaj način priđe, verujem da je verovatnoća
uspeha i njihovog opstanka sigurno veća. Graditi i izgraditi »mir« čini mi se sasvim
drugačijim od pojma zaustaviti »rat«, jer »rat« uglavnom ne prestaje zbog pobede
»ljubavi« i »tolerancije« već najčešće silom i nasiljem, tako da »mir« koji iza njega
nastupi, samo je uslovno rečeno »mir«, a ja bih pre rekao da je to odsustvo sukoba
samo preduslov za izgradnju nezavisnog i posebnog kvaliteta kao što je prema mom
shvatanju »mir«. U tom smislu, mi na prostoru bivše Jugoslavije, tek smo sada u prilici
da se borimo za određene vrednosti i gradimo »mir« i »toleranciju«. I to je prvenstvena
uloga nevladinih organizacija, pa čak i sa tendencijom da postanu vladine, jer mislim da
bi država takođe trebalo da se posveti ovom problemu. Verovati u sebe i u svaki život
ključno je za napredovanje u mirovnim aktivnostima, naročito za one osobe koje u sebi
neguju religiozna osećanja. Osobe koje sebe smatraju hrišćanima moraju znati da je
jedan od osnovnih temelja ove vere sam čovek, i to svaki čovek posebno, kao
neponovljiv i neprocenjiv mikrokosmos u kome leži i delić Božje ličnosti. Ako je život dar
Duha svetoga, bilo kakav zločin prema ljudskom životu i dostojanstvu je ujedno i zločin
prema Bogu.
Ponašanje određenih ljudi u Božje ime izuzetno je uticalo na lični odnos ljudi prema
Bogu, ali to i dalje ne opravdava ljudsku pasivnost i ravnodušnost, a kamoli mržnju i
nasilnu aktivnost. »Okrenuti drugi obraz« kada si napadnut ne znači pasivnost već stav.
Ukoliko mislite da svet nije onakav kakv bi trebalo da bude, odnosno kakav bi mogao da
bude, ne čekajte da se promeni sam ili da ga promene drugi, jer »Ako nećeš ti, ko će?
Ako nećeš sad, kad ćeš?«
October 15, 2006 - Osvrt na crkvenu hijerarhiju i put ka pomirenju
Crkvenu hijerarhiju uporedio sam sa hijerarhijom u jednom društvu. Osvrnimo se
na istoriju poslednja dva ili tri veka, period u kojem se gradilo građansko društvo i
savremena demokratija koju danas poznajemo u Evropi. Nosioci najznačajnijh promena,
a potom i nosioci stabilnosti bili su pripadnici srednje klase. Vrh društvene lestvice
uglavnom je ostajao konzervativan i pokušavao da zadrži status quo. Najniži sloj, kome
su promene bile najpotrebnije i čija su prava bila najugroženija, najčešće je bivao samo
izmanipulisan, posluživši kao instrument ostvarivanja tuđih ciljeva. Prenesimo to sada na
crkvenu hijerarhiju.
Ono što bismo u društvu nazvali srednjom klasom, nečim što se nalazi između
vrha i dna lestvice, u verskim zajednicama bi to bilo sveštenstvo. Obični vernici, ili kako
ih crkvena hijerarhija naziva, laici, su uslovno rečeno, niži sloj. Tu se prvenstveno misli
na praktičnu mogućnost i ovlašćenja koja laici imaju u odlukama jedne verske zajednice
na najvišem, nivou. Ovde treba istaći i da je crkvena hijerarhija znatno kruća nego
građanska i, za razliku od nje, nije se mnogo izmenila od srednjeg veka. Moglo bi se reći
da sami laici, kao i nekada niža klasa nemaju neposrednog interesa u sukobu sa istim
slojem u drugom društvu, u ovom slučaju sa vernicima druge konfesije. Problem je
iskorišćavanje i manipulisanje od strane lica iz sledećeg stepena hijerarhije, vrlo često u
interesu vrha, ali isto tako i u svom interesu. Ljudi neretko više veruju svojim
duhovnicima, posrednicima pred Bogom, nego sopstvenom instinktu i osećanjima koja
gaje prema svojim različitim susedima.
Sa druge strane, najviši nivo verskih zajednica, danas komunicira bez ikakvih
značajnih poteškoća. I u tom smislu možemo uporediti crkvu sa državom jer i u najvećim
sukobima najčešće postoje, bar alternativni, diplomatski odnosi. Međutim, kako je vreme
otvorenih sukoba prošlo i kako se sve više insistira na dijalogu i pomirenju, na
neizbežnom suživotu, tako se sve više čuje i glas verskih vođa. Taj glas je kod
pojedinaca postojao i tokom sukoba, ali ne dovoljno glasan, najčešće je bivao potpuno
zanemarivan od strane sveštenstva koje jedino i ima pravi i direktan odnos sa laicima, tj.
sa građanstvom. Nepopularnost svešteničkog poziva uticala je na praktično uslovljavanje
politike crkvenih vrhova kako ne bi ostali bez svojih posrednika. Tako se vraćamo na
centralnu tačku, a to je sveštenstvo, kao nosilac promena ili stabilnosti hijerarhije.
Tokom devedesetih, a i danas, sveštenici igraju veoma značajnu ulogu kako u
uspostavljanju dobrih odnosa, tako još u većoj meri i u produbljivanju jaza među
pripadnicima različitih konfesija.
Ne može se generalizovati odgovornost ovih ljudi koji su stajali ispred svojih
vernika, ali je njihov uticaj nakon pola veka gušenja nacionalnih i verskih osećanja
izuzetno veliki. Zato se treba vrlo kritički osvrnuti na njihov protekli rad, ali isto tako, i ne
sa manje entuzijazma, na njih gledati kao potencijal ponovnog uspostavljanja najpre
podnošljivih, a potom kvalitetnih i trajnijih odnosa.
Među vernicima vlada neznanje, velika praznina u vezi sa poznavanjem drugoga,
a ove praznine su u najboljem slučaju ispunjene neinteresovanjem, a češće
predrasudama. Dijalog i rasvetljavanje tako često izgovarane sintagme jednakost u
različitosti moraju biti prikazani najpre na primeru sveštenstva. U doba komunizma,
često kritikovanog u svim republikama bivše Jugoslavije, bilo je više mešovitih brakova
nego danas, kada navodno živimo u svetu koji postaje tzv. globalno selo. Naši pastiri, bili
oni pravoslavci, rimokatolici ili muslimani nisu bili dorasli svom zadatku i pozivu u
prethodnom periodu, ali danas, kada se u našim državama postepeno uspostavlja
demokratski sistem, uloga laika, postaje sve jača i značajnija. Postoje mnoge
organizacije i grupe ljudi koje aktivno učestvuju na seminarima, u projektima,
radionicama koje za cilj imaju upoznavanje zajedničkih vrednosti različitih verskih
zajednica, ali i sekularizovanog društva.
Deviza svake od ovih konfesija koje potiču od iste ideje jednog Boga kao
uobličenja ljubavi, od tzv. Avramovih religija, jeste ljubiti svog bližnjeg. Potrebno je
zaista verovati i prihvatiti ovo načelo u sopstvenom verskom uverenju, sopstvenoj
zajednici, i pokazati ga u dijalogu sa drugima. Nije dovoljno ostaviti kleru da, umesto
onih kojih se u krajnjem slučaju najviše i tiču mir i suživot, uspostavlja porušene
mostove. Potrebna je svest tolerancije i poštovanja u svakome od nas, bili vernici ili ne, a
to se može postići jedino obrazovanjem, najpre u okviru sopstvene religijske doktrine (a
nijedna ne poziva na nasilje prema drugima), a zatim sa tom svešću i u dijalogu sa
drugim koji isto tako ima pravo na svoja verska osećanja. Otkrivanjem istih vrednosti
kod drugih konfesija jedinstvo u različitosti ne ostaje antagonizam već postaje realnost.
Naša sloboda ograničena je slobodom drugoga, to ne smemo zaboraviti ni onda kada
smo duboko i najiskrenije ubeđeni u jedinu Istinu koju pronalazimo u sopstvenoj
konfesiji.
October 7, 2006 - Znacaj i uloga verskih zajednica
Religija, ili još bolje konfesija, je ostala snažan faktor u ljudskim životima, uprkos
mnogim nastojanjima ekstremno, ali i umereno liberalnih i levičarskih grupa i
organizacija. Nemoguće je govoriti o dijalogu verskih zajednica i njihovih predstavnika,
kao ni o njihovom značaju u izgradnji mira, ukoliko im se ne pristupi temeljnije i ukoliko
se dublje ne analizira njihov značaj u izgrađivanju identiteta naroda i nacija na ovim
prostorima. To se pokazalo kao istinito i u slučajevima kada nema praktikovanja verskog
života već samo deklarisanja da lice pripada određenoj veroispovesti, odnosno konfesiji.
Danas u Evropi ne postoji nijedna značajnija konfesija koja je potpuno izolovana,
koja nije u bilo kakvom dijalogu sa drugim verskim zajednicama. Nažalost, baš u
vremenima kada je međureligijski i međukonfesionalni dijalog počeo da daje i neke
opipljive rezultate, na našem području usledio je sukob koji je, iako se manifestovao kao
nacionalni, duboko u sebi krio vekovni verski rat.
Crkvena hijerarhija, bilo koje od tri najzastupljenije veroispovesti na prostoru
Srbije, Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine odigrala je vrlo značajnu, što najčešće nije
podrazumevalo i pozitivnu ulogu u sukobima. Danas ovaj proces sve više hvata maha i u
Makedoniji i Crnoj Gori.
Pojedinci i njihove porodice doživljavali su tragedije za koje se mislilo da su
prošlost na evropskom kontinentu. Često u takvim trenucima, građanstvo se obraćalo
duhovnicima i verskim zajednicama za pomoć, savet, najzad i utehu. A, da li su dobili
pravi savet? Da li im je preneta ona ista poruka koja se nalazi u svetim knjigama ove tri
konfesije? Nažalost, crkvena hijerarhija i mnogi pastiri bili su uz preovlađujuću politiku
svoje nacionalne zajednice, moglo bi se reći uz manipulatorsku politiku nasilja.
Ukoliko su religijske zajednice i osećaj pripadanja nekoj od njih odigrali tako
značajnu ulogu tokom sukoba na prostoru nekadašnje SFRJ, javlja se kao zaključak da
one isto tako mogu u dijalogu doprineti i ponovnoj normalizaciji odnosa i izgradnji mira.
To niti je lako niti ima pozitivnih reakcija na svim nivoima hijerarhije. Ipak, danas mnogi
intelektualci, vernici, ali često i ateisti, pokušavaju da izgrade mostove među nacijama i
narodima polazeći upravo od religioznih shvatanja ljudi našeg podneblja.
December 13, 2006 - Žolja
Posted by Anonymous
Vladimire,
drago mi je sto si posjetio moj blog.
Razumio sam tvoje kritike.
Ja vjerujem da postoje ljudi koji stvarno mogu osjecati krivicu i za cijeli svijet, a ne samo
za svoj narod.
Ali u slucaju Njemica (ne znam da li su mlade) mozda je grubo reći da su licjemerne, ali
naivne u svakom slučaju jesu. Hajde da se zapitamo o motivima njihovog izvinjenja.
Mozda je to samo bijeg od Drugog svjetskog rata (holokausta)!?
Ili, koliko danas ima ljudi da im je pomoc potrebna, npr. Afrika. Mene bi iskreno kupile da
su prikupile neku pomoc za one kojima je strvarno potrebna, a mislim da bi i Bogu to bilo
ugodno.
Ostajem pri tome da su rijetki ljudi koji iskreno mogu da se osjećaju tako nesto i da se
izvinjavaju za te stvari, ali svakako postoje.
Pozdrav i izvinjenje za kasnjenje

RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE CHANGING WORLD

Transcription

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