The Salafists and the Balkans

I've recently watched 2 very interesting and disturbing French documentaries about the expansion of salafism in the Balkans. La Bosnie-Herzégovine, fief du salafisme européen is not so suprising to me. It explains how the moderate (with many Sufist influences) Islam that was common for Bosniaks (Muslim Bosnian population) was first exposed to the radicalisation disease when Jihadists from Arab countries and Pakistan, Afghanistan and other shitholes (indeed many of them had just finished their "work" in the Afghan war) ran into the Balkans to support their Muslim "brothers" during the collapse of Yugoslavia. After the war, some of these scum bags decided to settle in Bosnia and began to spread their poisonous ideas. Some of them would settle in rural areas and create "salafist villages".

These yihadists played a role, but for sure the main actors in bringing and spreading fundamentalism in Bosnia have been the Golf countries and Turkey, that have built new mosques managed by imported or reeducated radical Imams and have funded "cultural associations" aiming to push Bosniaks into fundamentalist Islam. This is clearly seen in the documentary, with the "hispter salafists" leafletting on the streets and the caritative associations helping the poor to buy their acceptance.

This documentary was like the appetiser, the main dish is served by this other documentary, Bosnie, Serbie, Kosovo, les nouveaux territoires de l'islam radical. This is an excellent report. It starts with Bosnia, and shows an even more worrying portrait. The drift towards a much more strict interpretation of Islam can be clearly felt on the streets. It's not just a matter of the increasing presence of women with niqabs and men with the salafist dress code. Now many bars have stopped serving alcohol, the Halal market (not only for the soaked in suffering meat) has just exploded, and the socialization habits are changing. The part that surprised me a lot is that part of these changes are also due to the country having become a tourist destination for the middle classes of the Golf countries. Huge touristic villages (well, they are planning a city for 100.000 people) made up of secondary residences for Arab families are springing up like mushrooms. It makes sense, if you are a devote Arab family and want to enjoy a green, mountanious landscape (even ski sports) in a place where your strict moral views won't be disturbed, a place desperate for investment like Bosnia seems ideal (adjusting their secular Islam to a more rigorist one is just a compromise). It's particularly sad to see in this documentary how the huge radical mosques funded by Saudi Arabia are full of "believers", while a Sufi mosque preaching a tolerant and moderate version of Islam is almost empty...

Seeing how Arab investment is shaping (destroying) the present and future of Kosovo was not surprise to me either, but what shocked me is the influence of radical Islam in Serbia and Montenegro. Come on, Serbia!? a country that represents slav "culture" at its most (Orthodox Christianity, nationalism, conservadurism...), that during the wars against Bosniaks and Kosovars made of ethnicity and religion a huge factor... Well, to my surprise, there's a region stretching over the borders of Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia, Sandjak, where there's a huge percentage of Muslim population, that is also being exposed to fundamentalist views. Odd that the Serbian authorities allow salafists to proselytize on the streets of its main city, Novi Pazar.