The Srebrenica Massacre – a "human sacrifice” – with Professor Joseph Kaminski (Sarajevo)

[Music] 25 years ago on the 11th of July, the massacres of over 8,000 Muslim men and boys took place in Shrebon Itzer. It followed three years of bitter warfare, pitting the Muslims of Bosnia in an asymmetric conflict against the Bosnian Serbs and their Serbs state backers. President Milosevic's rise to power upon a cocktail of Serbian nationalism and anti-Muslim phobia led to a self-proclaimed policy of ethnic cleansing. As the world looked on, sitting on their hands, serve the forces systematically cleans Bosnia of its Muslims, killing, raping and looting. But Clinton administrations stood back, initially leaving the unfolding crisis to be dealt with by the hapless European Union. The EU saw little interest in settling the crisis, instead hamstringing the Bosnian Muslims by imposing an international arms embargo upon them. When they did move, it was through a weak peacekeeping mission that lacked the political will to defend civilians against the machinery of a state. Shrebon Itzer was a UN-Save haven, protected by Dutch peacekeepers. By 1995, the region had been cleared of Muslims with the small enclave together with Zeppur and Gourage de, a magnet for fleeing civilians. As the facts on the ground changed, and in a US election year, the Clinton administration wanted to pursue a peace treaty that would in effect accept the gains made by the Serbs through conquest. This is where Shrebon Itzer, according to multiple sources, including the US special envoy Richard Holbrook, became a sacrifice for a greater goal of peace. I have detailed some of this evidence in a thread on my Twitter feed, but I have linked in the description of this program. Over a number of chilling days, Muslim prisoners were shot and buried in mass graves. Our guest this week, Dr Joseph Kaminsky is associate professor at the Department of International Relations at the International University of Sarajevo. He has spent the last six years in the country, which he has now adopted as his own. Dr Kaminsky has written a number of papers on Islam and governance, and he is currently offering a book on Islam and liberalism, a matter we discuss at the end of the podcast. On that topic, please remember to sign up to our three comparative ideas course, together with a Nasul al-Fit course organized by a partner institute at the Arqam Academy. The links for both courses are in the description of this program. Dr Joseph Kaminsky, welcome to the program. Actually, if I can start by asking if you don't mind me asking, Joseph Kaminsky doesn't sound like a Bosnian name. So what brought you to Bosnia? Well, you know, the United States, I'm from the United States originally, and the ethnicly, my family's a bunch of different things, obviously probably gathered Polish, but also my father's side is Croatian, so I do have some connections to the region, ethically. But, you know, in the United States, the job market is so complicated, and I wanted to get out of the United States anyways. I just had sort of had enough of it, and would like a little bit time out of it, and that's why I applied all over the world, not just in the United States. You know, I had a job interview with the American University of Beirut, and, uh, so yeah, I had an interview with a guy that gave the job to put the PhD from one school of economics who was going on so far and have a very good career, so like I don't feel any sadness about that. But, you know, I was sort of like, "Uh-oh, I just finished my PhD and it looks like I'm going to go first to into the job market without a job." And then all of a sudden, I get an email out of nowhere from this university, and I check it, and, uh, I was sort of surprised me because they really were very interested in me, and, um, I was basically off of the job, and I asked my advisor, "Should I take this or not?" And he said, "What do you have to lose? You don't have a job." If it's bad, then you just fly back home. They just stay for at least a couple months to make enough money to fly back home, and it's sort of left, and then, you know, six years later, you know, I still am, and I've done pretty well. I'm a associate professor now in a department chair, and it's really worked out for me, and I just published an article about teaching in the developing world. It's very different from teaching in the West. So yeah, I really enjoy where I'm at. I like being a Muslim majority country. It matters to me a lot. And, uh, I'm willing to sacrifice the comforts of the United States for the comfort of having other Muslims around me. So, like, life is not as easy here. You know, it's not that hard either. I don't want to make it sound like that, but, like, you know, just things like, with government and getting paperwork done, it's difficult. But I'm willing to trade that in for the fact that I consider around people that I know don't hate me for my religion. And that really matters to me to deep, uh, in a sort of a subconscious level I've realized because in the United States, I always have this sense of unease, like, I'm being attacked, even when I'm not. And I think it has to do with me knowing that people around me don't like my religion. So I don't know. Alhamdulillah, we had an opportunity to visit last year and it was a great place and lovely people and Sarajevo and Mustar were wonderful cities. Alhamdulillah, we really enjoyed it. It's very amazing. It's a wonderful place. Not just Sarajevo, the whole country, you know, most are Gla-Gay, there's some, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of history here. Uh, and it's really the intersection of multiple cultures. And you really need to spend a little bit of time at a seat all because the longer you're here, it'll start to really understand it because if you just go on a quick tour, you see stuff, but you don't really internalize it. It doesn't sort of absorb into you until you've been here for a few months. And it's really great. I really love it here. Now recently I saw a Facebook post of yours where you described your feelings when you first went to the Shrebranites and Memorial. For the benefit of our listeners, can you please just maybe give us a feel for how you approach and how you responded to the Memorial when you went to it for the first time. Okay, well, um, the beginning of the story actually begins before you actually enter Shrebranites in my case because I'm coming from Sarajevo on a van with my students. And it's a three hour bus ride to go about 140 kilometers because the roads are just really, really bad. So the entire trip, you're sort of the sense of dread. I don't know how to explain it, but like you know you're going to see something bad. But like you have three hours of sort of being uncomfortable, but at the same time you're a professor and you got to make sure you keep a strong face for your students. Mind you, when I first went, many of our students actually had family members who, you know, there's a couple of students I had who've never met their fathers. They were killed during the war, so they were born and then shortly after they were born, their father was killed. So we're a little bit past that now because most of our students were born in around 2000 or 1999-ish. But uh, when I first got here, there was more than a couple of students who never met their father. So like for me, it was very uh, I mean, you know, I had both my parents, you know, my mother recently passed away sadly, but I had my both my parents my whole life and I couldn't imagine never meeting my father and then knowing that he was tortured and during a war. So, you know, when you get there, I get that it is this area calm because the area is very, it's this, it's this world. You know, Serb and Eats is right on the border of a Green River, which is a very beautiful part of the world. People go there for, you know, it's like a river so you can go rafting and people have summer houses on the river. And the Green River is literally on the border of Serbia and Bosnia, so that is the borderline. And Serb and Eats is just before you get to that river. And you know, when you get there, the memorial is actually not, it's just slightly outside the city. So you have to keep going to get into it, but it's just really overwhelming. You see just thousands upon thousands of white grave markers and you actually, when you go on the tour, you actually go into battery factory that with a, the Dutch soldiers were and you see all of that. And it's really an overwhelming experience and uh, I just the first time I went, I really broke down. I, I call my mom, and you know, I, you know, I try to avoid upsetting my mom because I'm mother at cancer for nine years and like, you know, when somebody has that sick, you don't want to call them bad news or sad stories, you know, such an overwhelming experience. And I just, I really broke down. Even talking about it right now is hard for me. And it was difficult because, you know, the kids are looking at me and they understand it. They're not judging me at all. Like, it's just, I feel like I should be able to put on a stronger face, but when you look at a, a grave stone and you see like a birthday and a death date in the same year, that literally means that person was killed within months of being born and like, that's just really hard to look at. And uh, the first time, which very emotionally overwhelming, I don't know if I was able to pay any attention to the actual like talk because that's just being overwhelmed by emotion. The second time was, I was a little bit more um, composed, I guess you would say, but after that, I just, I can't go back right now. Like, maybe in a couple of years, but I just, it's just too overwhelming. It's too sad. And, you know, I don't like to talk about the the war that much with my students because I'm not qualified because many of these students are actually, you know, family members who live through it. So like, it's just, it's, it's, it's a difficult situation, but I fully understand, well, I mean, it's the best I can. Like, the reason why Bush and the Acts are so upset about the Western response to this genocide, because it really has been underwhelming in comparison to other atrocities that have happened in other parts of the world. And, uh, the thing that makes us so difficult is the fact that, you know, the Serbs never have really owned up to what they did. And that makes it worse when there is no reconciliation. And at least at the end of World War II, the Nazis were defeated completely. New regime came into power and it became a major part of the new Germany was recognized as a atrocity, the Holocaust. And this never happened here. And you still have a large part of this country that wants to break off and join Serbia or be independent. You see memorials, and you see two war criminals, the Rackum Lattich, to Rada Van Karcic. And it's just like crazy because when you go and get from city to city in Bosnia, you go through certain Serbian parts. So just because the federation and the people in the Serbsk are set, it doesn't mean that all the Serbs live there and all the Boschniaks live here. So you'll be driving through one town, getting to another town that's Boschniak. And in that town, you'll see they actually have murals of Rackum Lattich painted on buildings. And it's really disorienting to think that this man who caused so much terror for so many years is like being celebrated literally 25 kilometers away from Sarajevo. Like as you go east in the Bosnia, even when you're in the Bosnia and part, you run into these areas and it's just a reminder that the healing here has not really finished yet. And it's questionable whether it ever will, because this narrative of Serbian victimhood is very powerful. And in our lives in the United States, in the area of many Serbian people, and it's still there even for Americans who didn't necessarily even live here during the war, but nonetheless this internalized narrative of victimhood and they really have toxic consequences. - I mean, from our side, we tend to not follow the daily events in Bosnia, of course. And we follow the bigger events. And at least it seems like Serbia now wants to, it's a country that wants to join the European Union. At least it seems like a country that's moved on. I mean, the perpetrators of the conflict have all been tried at the ICTY and the Hague and at least from a very superficial external perspective. The country is trying to move in a more liberal democratic direction. But you're suggesting that there is a still a very deep feeling that the Serbs were in the right, and the war was a just war. - Well, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say that actually. I think that it's more of, most of the Serbs I've spoken with recognize bad things happen. They don't really want to come to full grips with how bad things were. But very few people I've met are actually completely denying this. No, it didn't happen at all alive. The narrative more is overstated or what about a zone or what about this. They did that. And it's interesting because the country's Serbia itself, I think, is different. You gotta remember, the Serbs and the Republic of Serbsko, the Serbian in the country of Serbia, there's a different mindset. I would argue that in Serbia, it's much more progressive actually on this compared to what's you see in the Republic of Serbsko, where these people really are still living in war mindset. I've been to Belgrade a lot. You go to Eastern Serbia. Here's the border of Bulgaria to city like Nish. There's a completely different place. They didn't experience the work so far away, really. It's a very beautiful part of the world as well. The people are very friendly. And in Belgrade, two Belgrade are very cosmopolitan cities. I really enjoy going there. The people are pretty friendly. They don't really like Americans that much because of different things that have happened in recent times. But it's not the Serbian nation of Serbia, that territory. It's the mindset that, especially with the Serbs living in Bosnia, the Bosnian Serbs, what I'll call them, to differentiate. I would say in Serbia, their bigger issue is with Kosovo. And that is still pretty salient. And that is something that they have not yet-- that's where the real tension, I think, is. If you go to Serbia and ask who the real bad guys are, it's always going to be Kosovo. And this is because of the ethnic dimension. People sort of argue that Serbsy Bosnian Axis, sort of their long-loss sort of slower brothers. They're like their cousins who annoy them. But they still share a language. They're still the same ethnicities, technically, in many of the regards. And it's the Albanians with a different language, different everything. That's the external enemy, more so. It's like the Bosnian Axis are misguided. And they can eventually come back to what they should be. But the Albanians are the eternal other. And that's why I think in Kosovo, with the situation in Kosovo, is much more tense than it is with Bosnia, where the Bosnian government and the Serbian government actually enjoy pretty good relations. I want to talk to you about Srebrenica. But before I do, why is it that the Serbian cause has become a rallying call for white nativists around the world? I mean, Brandon Tarant, who was the New Zealand attacker in the two mosques in New Zealand, he played a Serbian war anthem, depicting the Civil War, which Serbs played during the Civil War before he entered the First Muscat. And it just seems that, for some reason, Serbia is a rallying call for these white nativists. And I wonder why that would be. I think the link is pretty clear. I mean, you see the fusion of religion and national identity, tradition, culture, cultural purity, right? And Serbian Orthodoxy is really a Serbian religion in many of your cards. And this is sort of, I think, a vision that's appealing to many white nationalist. I think a lot of these people in the United States would love their own American version of Christianity that's uniquely American thing, because they don't have that the same way. The fusion of the church and state is an ethnic component. And it makes sense, because the Serbs were always seen as the enduring resistance against the Ottoman Empire, if they fought against the Ottomans from the beginning, to the most part. And they had certain successes in their defeats. And they were able to construct a historical narrative based upon that that's appealing. And this is something that I think-- yeah, it doesn't surprise me that this kind of nation-based Orthodox Christianity, the Serbian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, would be very appealing to white nationalist, because it's their own-- it's the Christian tradition, but it's with their own cultural flare, right? Their own saints, their own heroes. And this sounds like something that, yeah, would be appealing. So that's why I think you would see this kind of fusion. So let's go about to the Bosnian Civil War. Now, in 1992, the conflict began, and it followed the breakup of Yugoslavia. Can you briefly explain the tensions that led to the Civil War in '92? Well, first thing I should point out here, in Bosnian people like to call it a Civil War. It wasn't really a Civil War, because the Bosnians were such a disadvantage. It really wasn't one side of the fair. And the rise of Serbian nationalism began in the late 1980s. This is the part that people don't know of the stories. The slowdown to the lows of it started the rise in power in the late 1980s. And there was a wave of the Serbian nationalism that finally was able to come out, because during Tito's time, he made very great efforts to suppress that kind of stuff. And when he died in this sort of a period of transition, the regime started to slowly, you know, unwind itself. And this is sort of what you got with these national politicians. Now, many people knew the writer was on the wall for this, eventually happened. It was just a question of when. And so basically, you know, everyone knew that this idea of maintaining Yugoslavia, which is what the Serbs claim they were trying to do, was really, you know, not really what they were doing. They were trying to create a Serbian, dominant state. And this is what sort of set off the conflict that everyone was aware of was going to happen. So Slovenia was able to sort of break off, because Serbs had no, there was like, there's no Serbs in Slovenia. Everyone in Slovenia is pretty much Slovenia. And so that was able to go away relatively peacefully. But, you know, the other parts, you know, the Serbs living in these regions, especially in Boston and Herzegovina. And this is what sort of led to the conflict. And this sort of historical, you know, in the Lada took care of when you, when you were in the Srebrenica, so one of the things you talked about was defeating the Turks. We finally got vengeance on the Turks, right? And so that's what the Serbs saw with Bosnia and Muslims as. They saw it as Turks. And, you know, this, this historical animosity with economic conditions, there's a combination of multiple factors in my opinion. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what caused what, but, you know, they all interplay together to lead to the situation that eventually happened. And when the conflict began, the international community placed an arms embargo on the Bosnia and Muslims. And you, you intamated, yeah, it was a very asymmetrical conflict. I mean, why, what was behind the arms embargo? What, how did they, how did they argue that? Well, you weren't security council resolution 713. Basically, Dan, and this, this came out September 25, 1991. So this was like really at the very, very beginning. Then the sale of weapons to any. in a former Yugoslav territories. And I think this was a very poorly thought out decision because all the weapons were in Belgrade, which was under control of the Serbs. So the Serbs were cool with this because basically denying their enemies weapons because the Boschniaks didn't have anything. But weapons, armories were not in Syria, but we're not in the possession of the Boschniaks. And believe it or not, one of the countries that played a major role in helping keep this country afloat for those with the beginning was Iran. Iran supplied tactical training. They have, there were people who came here from Iran, probably with the revolutionary guard who helped train Bosnians and actually supply weapons. And this was like sort of a lifeline that helped the Boschniaks maintain at least a fighting chance at the beginning of the war. So in other couple other players, some of the Arab countries too sort of smuggled weapons in here, but the embargo really was probably the biggest problem in the war. And Bill Clinton actually wanted to lift the embargo in '93 and supply weapons to the Boschniaks. The Bosnians and eventually even potentially bomb Serbian targets. But then the EU was really against this because they didn't want this to turn into a larger scale war. So the part of the story people don't really get is that the Europeans were the ones who really drug their feet on this. And if it was up to Clinton, they would have probably, Serbianites, or Kutapas, we wouldn't prevent it altogether. And at the same time though, I mean the ones who, the most of the troops were European, they were in a region. So like any kind of skirmishes would put the Europeans at immediate harm risk not the Americans. So it's always easier to talk about bombing and destroying when you're not putting your own assets on the line. But this lack of coordination in response between the Europeans and the Americans is really allowed for Serbian needs to happen, right? And you know the weapons embargo was a very big problem. I have students who told me stories about their fathers would be out fighting. And the most important part of the mission was not to necessarily kill the guy that was to get their weapons. So if you shot and kill the opposing soldier and then didn't get his gun and his ammunition, that was seen as a waste. These people were so desperate for weapons that they, it was absolutely essential to not only kill the guy, but to get his gun and his weapons and his knife and bring it back so you have something to use later. So that's the level of desperation that these people face regarding the lack of weaponry and I mean even basic gun, basic weapons ammunition bullets. I'm not even talking about like major you know, surface air missiles and whatnot. I would just talk about having the ability to pull a trigger of a gun was something that was very lacking from Bosnian side during the beginnings of this war. And the Bosnian Serbs had the backing of Milosevich and the Serbian state and so they had a backing of a conventional army. And so their supply lines were pretty much in short. Now I understand that the United Nations sent in a protection force to ostensibly keep the peace and to try to create the conditions behind which civilians wouldn't be harmed in the conflict. But of course there's a lot of criticism now, not just over Shurbanitsa, but a lot of criticism of the lack of a mandate or the weak mandate that this protection force had. I mean can you explain the the politics around that? Well basically you and or the EU wanted to keep this as solely the humanitarian peacekeeping mission. That was their explicit express goal. The Americans once again Clinton wanted something a little bit more, but the EU just wouldn't have it. And so they did everything they possibly could avoid having to pull the trigger so to speak whenever it needed to be. And you know, I would argue in another interview I just did that you know with the Dutch soldiers it wasn't that they were incompetent as much as it was they were unwilling. I think that they made a conscious choice to do what they did. I don't think it was because they were confused or lost because they really had explicit orders to avoid escalating this into a conflict that they would have to actually be on the front lines. And you know I think that once again the conflicting message the unclear mission and the soldiers were just unwilling to really put their lives on the line. And you know there's a lot of different reasons for that. I mean one reason obviously I see relates to the Islamophobia you know dimension. I don't think we can deny that. If these were you know different religious background they might have fought harder, but at the same time I mean I just don't think that the typical Dutch troop who was here really had that much interest in this region anyways and was just looking at out of here so it was possible well alive and they did a very poor job obviously they did not you know maintain the peace and as a result they're unwillingness to put their own lives at risk which isn't necessary that's necessary to do if you're going to be a military person. They you know we saw what happened happened and you know like I said the problem here in my opinion is the lack of coordination of what the mission was and the EU countries really wanted to avoid turning this into their mission beyond just humanitarian mission. So by 1995 Schrebenitzer is a safe zone for Dutch peacekeepers are maintaining peace or maintaining the camp of the where the civilians reside and the entire region has changed right the demography of the reason region the Bosnian Serbs are now surrounding Schrebenitzer and Gerardse and Zeppur as well and so these safe zones are compromised and the only thing I suppose to stop in the the Serbs is the presence of the United Nations so I'm trying to understand why leave why then make a decision to leave at that moment when it's it's not inconceivable to believe that the Serbs will will will continue to fight and will ethnically cleanse that part of Bosnian as well. Well interestingly enough in 2019 documents released by British National Archives which indicated that the British military officials actually did not think the Serbs were going to go in and do what they did in Schrebenitzer and they placed the blame bling on the Bosnian Yak muslims for disrupting the Serb communication lines. The British military officials in their internal communications were just declassified. Didn't really think this was going to happen because it seems so ridiculous to think about like if you think about it like the reality of an army marching in committing genocide in three or four different towns at the same time or around the same time. It's hard to you know if somebody told me that wasn't happened I would say that can't be right. But they understood the nature of the conflict they would have known that it was very possible and but they didn't understand I think the true nature the truly the the capacity of Serbian nationalism and that these people didn't want to do this and I think for the European mindset it's just a it's a mindset they couldn't relate with and I think that uh that's sort of how this ended up happening is because a lot of people I think generally didn't believe it. I don't think they let people in good kill those muslims I don't believe that's the rationale the explicit rationale behind the actions I really don't. I think that the people who these European forces just didn't think this was conceivable. I mean how can conceive of any human being or group of human beings marching in another city and murdering 8,000 people in a matter of days I mean it's it's just hard to comprehend and I think that that's part of the problem is a lack of understanding of the dynamics of the region a lack of understanding of the truly dangerousness of the situation you know even before the war started one of the things my colleagues always who are a little bit older than they always say is ever more surprised by as soon as the war started the Serbs had all these weapons it's like they stockpiled individual families have their own arsenals waiting to go they were waiting for this thing right and the Bushnecks didn't have anything but all the Serb families had they would have guns you know when a war started you see your Serbian neighbor with an entire arsenal and where did that come from so many of these people were sort of preparing for this and the Bushnecks I'm afraid just weren't ready for this to happen. What about the uh there's an argument uh which was first floated by Florence Hartman and in her book. That's right the Srebrenica exactly for Srebrenica affair she talks about how the in a sense Srebrenica yes of course they didn't mean they didn't want to hand over it wasn't about handing over civilians to for the commission of the genocide but rather that um ultimately Srebrenica was a lost cause uh the the region had been over run and the facts on the ground had changed and and these free uh safe zones were now inconvenient to peace and if they were settled then the Clinton administration could pursue peace and they didn't in fact after after Srebrenica and so it was in a sense a human sacrifice for peace there was a there was a lack of commitment to to sending ground troops and the United Nations you know were hunkered down in this region and as you said in the Dutch peacekeepers were homesick and they just wanted to get out. And now you have to resolve the problem of this demographic change in as a result of ethnic cleansing. And so it's a case of just accepting this is what it is and we now have to move on and try to pursue a greater peace. Yes, I think that's, you know, for when I've been reading, you know, as I was preparing for this interview that there was, you know, a lot of high-level people talking about this sacrifice would be needed to be paid. And they sort of just, as you said, hoped that this kind of like, you know, ethnic cleansing or this transfer of land would be enough to get people to negotiate and to table. But I don't think they understood the fanatical mindset once again of what the Serbian cause was. But these people weren't going to stop until they got everything. And, you know, I don't know how they misunderstood this because like, you know, if you knew anything about what was going on, you would know that these people were not going to stop until they basically had controlled as much territory as they possibly could. And since they saw the no real effort being put up by UN or the US forces at the time, if you're going to go as far as they could until they got slapped back. And, you know, this is, this is the lesson it wasn't learned, I think, with Kosable because, you know, in that state started bombing Belgrade, that was the end of the war. I read a, I saw an interest in peace here in the UK on one of our programs, the newsnight, and it discussed the role of Richard Holbrook. And he was the US special envoy for Yugoslavia, right, for Bosnia. And at one point, Holbrook sometime later mentioned that the pressure from above, and I would imagine he means from the Clinton administration was, was really, you know, we need to solve this problem so that we can pursue a greater peace. And he also makes reference to being given orders to sacrifice Shurbanitsa, Garaz there, and Zeppur. And of course, you know, one would question whether he means by that sacrifice for the lives of the people there, but rather, you know, ethnic Henson had had now led to this new reality. I mean, do you, can you shed some light on, on the road of Richard Holbrook? Yeah, I think that like, once again, you said like this idea of sacrifice, what does it actually mean? And I think that these American officials were just hopeful that this would happen somehow peacefully, and you know, the bloodshed wouldn't be as bad as it actually was, which is crazy to think about. But I think that the, you know, the Clinton administration has own problems in the mid 1990s. And the Europeans really were helping on making sure that this whole situation didn't turn into an actual war that they had to get involved in. So I just don't really understand the law. I mean, I understand a lot of the calculus of the United States, some call it Vietnam syndrome. They're afraid that American public wouldn't support another American military engagement. You know, there's a lot of different possible explanations, but in the end, what happened was a, the agreement in the situation that was the worst possible scenario came true, were large quantities of people were genocide and rape and tortured, and some of those brutal barbaric ways thinkable. I also think that there could possibly be once again an element of, you know, I don't know, I'd say that I don't want to start sounding social justice warrior, but like, white supremacy element in this, in a sense that perhaps the American thought that these are white people, these are Serbs, they're Europeans. They wouldn't do the barbaric stuff that would happen in Rwanda. I really believe that that might have been a part of the calculus subconsciously, that these are white people, they're Europeans, they'll know where the line is. And I think that perhaps it's just a people of a different ethnic skin colors, so to speak, we might have seen a different response, but I honestly believe that that probably had some element in it. The response was sort of rooted in the fact that well, these people are sort of like us and we wouldn't do that ever, so we're something they would leader. Can you tell me a little bit more about Alia Isid Bekovic, the Bosnian Muslim leader, and he's rolling the crisis, but also he's broader works. I mean, I understand he was not just an activist and a political leader, but he also was a thinker, and he's written some very interesting books on Islam and on modernity. What do you know about Alia Isid Bekovic, Rahmatullah Ali, and what can we learn from him? Well, Alia Isid Bekovic was an important figure for many reasons. He was jailed by the Tito regime. He was a known entity here prior to war and he sort of emerges the natural leader come when things start, when war broke out. And while he was in jail, he wrote some interesting stuff, and Islamic declarations, very interesting, talking about the importance of Islam in the way of life for the Bosnians, talking about sort of a discussing Islamic governance to some extent. One of his interesting points is, you know, it gets lost as he talks about the importance of maintaining your culture, he gives the example of how this is really interesting in my opinion. He talks about how Japan was able to rebuild itself within 20 years after World War II, despite having two nuclear bombs dropped on it, whereas Turkey after Adoptor came and changed the language was still a mess 70 years later. And his argument sort of was that Japan maintained their cultural and language and they maintain their history and they didn't get cut off from it. And he's a big witch that talks sort of about the importance of Bosnians, maintain their identity as, you know, to some extent of the language and the history and to not let that get lost. And I think that's an interesting point. And I like the big witch's vision of this country was actually one of a diverse pluralistic country. He didn't seek to create an Islamic state or an Islamic emirate. He really wanted to have a place where people could code just and live peacefully together. And, you know, when he came to power, he was very, very respected, loved by the Bosnians, but at the same time, it's very little the man could do coming out of a war. And I think he did the best he could in the late 1990s when he was president, but you know, there's only so much he can do in a country where literally the entire downtown area has been flattened by, you know, mortar shells and people are still searching for bodies of loved ones. So I think he was put in a very difficult position. But I think he did a very good job. All things considered. And I think in the West that there does need to be more knowledge of this man, it is legacy. And it is writing and thinking because I think it offers an interesting way to conceptualize Islamic governance, which was my first book was about in the 21st century. You know, he's usually language in terms that are familiar with people today. So, you know, if you want to read "Mawardi" or somebody from thousand years ago, it's going to be hard to take that model of just implemented into a modern nation state. But with people like, he's a bag of what you do, you can read that stuff and you can see where it resonates with the contemporary world. So yeah, I think he's in the thing about he is writing as well, it's not written at a level that's like overly full of academic jargon. So it's something that the typical Muslim who's got a decent IQ and the ability to read and write can read and actually understand it. It's not written like "hey, go, you know?" So I think that's another thing that makes it valuable is it's accessible. It's not written in a manner that you have to have a dense philosophical vocabulary to understand. And I remember when I read his work the first time, the translations of it, I was very impressed with the ideas and I think that more people should read that. And can you recommend a work of his that an English audience would be able to access and try to understand his mindset and his thinking? Well, there's a lot of declaration, this probably is most well known work. Yeah, all the stuff has been translated. Yeah, there's a lot of declaration was published in English in 1990 and it's called the program for the Islamization of Muslims and Muslim peoples. So just by the title you can see it resonates with that side of the Kibalatah system, sort of islamization of knowledge vision. And I think that's sort of an interesting model that also look at. So I think that there's sort of this in the 90s, late 80s and 90s, this idea of the islamization, how do you islamize the society? Because it has to come first, right? You can't just drop down a top heavy handed Islamic government out of population. It isn't capable of or willing to accept it. So it's about changing attitudes and minds and getting people to rethink their norms first before implementing a state. And that's sort of what Isabel Ghibich talks a lot about. It's really interesting. He's very understanding of that the, he's very critical in Muslim world. He talks about the West, he gave a declaration to a OIC in 97 in Iran, noting that the West has been very successful in doing certain things like technology education. That the Muslim world should look to these models to some extent and implement them in an Islamic manner, right? And I think that that's sort of something that more work used to be done upon. And even today, most of the top universities are located unsurprisingly, the countries that are the most powerful, right? I think that the best universities are in the UK, the US, Germany, Japan's lesser extent. And that says something. And if you look in the Muslim world, how many top 155, 500 universities are there? There's very few. So these are things that need to be reconsidered. And this is sort of the heart of the, is the bigger project. And finally, Dr Kaminsky, we hear a lot about the resurgence of Islam in Bosnia. In fact, I think President Macron has been making some speeches recently where he described Bosnia to be a place for jihadism in Europe. And there's some discussion amongst the securitization experts about Bosnia and what they call the sort of resurgence of Islamism in the country. I mean, can you shed some light on these concerns, I suppose, about European nations are raising about Islam in Bosnia? Well, I would say this. I think that this is quite unfounded and quite profoundly demonstrating the ignorance of these leaders. As somebody who actually has an interest in Islamization, I feel like I probably have some awareness of the local Islamizers if you want to call them out. And I can tell you, this is a society that I think is pretty secular for the most part. There are certain Islamic cultural elements to it, but this certainly is not Saudi Arabia, nor is it going to be any time soon. And of course, there's going to always be a few handful of radicals in just about any country. I mean, look at the United States, we're good to say. These radicals, radical white supremacist, far outnumbering the Islamist, white supremacist or Islamist supremacist, or whatever you want to call it here. So I think that this is just once again another example of Europe continually wanting to paint this country as something it's not. The fear of having a strong Muslim country in the heart of Europe is something that is very unsettling for many people, for historical reasons. And I can honestly say, without any doubt, that this country is hardly the securitization risk that whatever these people are playing out to. So I think that the securitization experts like to talk about this, and then in a case or two, emerges of somebody doing something, then it gets blown up into being, you know, what it really is like here. And I think this is a part of the problem with Islamophobia is that all it takes is one case of somebody justifying their claims, and then you feel like you can make them even more expansive. And so I don't know. I don't think I've seen any radicalism here in my six years. The students I've met that are religious. They're pretty religious, and many of my hobbies are Quran and they travel. But I've not honestly heard anybody. People aren't thinking in that manner here. And I think that it's just a terrible tragedy that, you know, this society which is so in my opinion, you know, it's very moderate, is being painted as something that really is not by truly out of touch European elites. Yeah, I would recommend, and I'm sure you would recommend more Muslims, and we tend to visit sort of so-called Muslim, the mainstream Muslim countries when we go on holiday, of course, in a COVID-19 world that's far off. But I would highly encourage Muslims to visit Bosnia. And you've made it your home, right? Yes, as a matter of fact, I'm literally waiting for a fall. The reason I answered the phone call earlier is because I thought it was the Ministry of Interior because I'm supposed to be my permanent residency permit, meaning I will be a green card holder in Bosnia, meaning I can buy property and put it much, you know, at least in the medium term I plan on living here, you know, I have my contract, it's got extended for the five years, and I have no real desire to go back to the United States as it's being destroyed by COVID and political competence to highest levels. So yeah, I mean, this is, like I said, I've managed to make it home here. And you know, I think it's an interesting thing to think about from any Muslims is, you know, America's a tough place to live. I'm not going to deny that. And but at the same time, I think it's so limited opportunity for really political transformative change for Muslims there that, you know, looking to find another place to live is not a bad idea. And, you know, if you're a Muslim and you want to live in Islamic lifestyle, free of all the stress of America, looking into a place like Bosnia or perhaps Kosovo might be an acceptable transition for many people because, you know, you have the Islamic part there, but it's still as Europe and it's not as alienating as perhaps going to somewhere, you know, you know, I don't know, somewhere in the Gulf States where it is very different. Everyone here speaks English, you know, Bosnia, just what everyone speaks pretty good English, Kosovo even better. And, you know, I think it's something that people should think about who want to try to get closer to other Muslims. And I, like I said, you know, there's good and bad that we can talk about a different podcast of living in a developing country, but overall, if you have an open mind, if you're willing to accept it, you're going to have to deal with some nonsense that's annoying. You might really make it here and you might find yourself happier in the end. And tell me a bit about your book project that you're working on at the moment. My book is called Islam liberalism and ontology, critical re-evaluation. And I'm looking sort of at the ontological and epistemological moorings of both Islam and liberalism is discourses more broadly construed in trying to show where dissimilarities primarily lie. Because many people try to find a way to, you know, make the two resonate. And, you know, I feel like nobody's really done a good job of explaining why they don't resonate beyond just sort of very simple, you know, non-really scholarly explanations. So I thought, you know, now's a good time to write a book. It's really breakdown, you know, understanding your moral epistemologies and where rights derive from and how we can conceptualize that between the two discourses. That's what I'm currently doing. That's really fascinating. You must come back on the show to talk about your book once you've completed it. You know, I think the book will be, you know, people will find it interesting because this is a topic everyone's interested in right now is liberalism in Islam. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people don't really know what they're talking about because they either wonder really, they know what they're talking about Islam or they don't know what liberalism is. And I know a little bit about both. So I feel like I can competently comment and, you know, books under contract with Rutledge it'll be, it should be, it should be submitting my final draft to the publisher in September. What I sort of argue in the book is there is a sort of constellation of values of permeated liberal discourse is more generally. And I fleshed them out in my book, secularism, the importance of having a separate literature to state, clearly, is an element. But, you know, people really engage with the actual thinkers on their own terms, you know, Rawls, you know, Habermas, a lot of these people really engage in the technical level about public reason and its limits. And, you know, if you want to critique liberalism, I think it's better to go from these deeper levels rather than just to sort of, you know, liberalism is about doing whatever you want, and Islam is about following rules. Like it's way more complicated than that. Just like I look at it, Dr. Kaminsky, it's really been a pleasure to speak to you today and it's been a very interesting discussion. Next week, we talk to Ismar Roya from the United States about the Benedict option. Assalamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.