Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

ties” with the Serb Republic of Bosnia and advocates Dobrica Ćosić’s “solution”
for Kosovo via partition of the province into a Serbian section (with
most of the medieval shrines included) and an Albanian section (free of
Serbs and free to join Albania). 50
In Croatia, the strong ethnic nationalistic forces envision the country’s
future as a conservative, centralized, Catholic nation-state, possibly enlarged
by the acquisition of a Western section of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Catholic
Church and right-wing parties have labored to overthrow the democratically
elected left-center government. Since the 2000 elections the powerful national
church has flexed its muscles, seeking to reassert itself as a kingmaker
in Croatian politics. The Croatian church hierarchy wants its “own” party
in power, regardless of the outcomes of the democratic process and that
party’s actual performance in the economy and the building of a democratic
polity. In the meantime, in the northwestern Croatian region of Istria, the
strong regional party of Istrian Democratic Sabor (IDS) is cautiously preparing
a ground for the country’s federalization and, if necessary, the secession
of Istria and its inclusion in the European regional association and
eventually in the EU.
Wars of myths and symbols with mutually provocative commemorations
have continued in all successor states. After the 1991–95 wars in Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina that left thousands of places of worship in ruins,
religious organizations strove to rebuild their resources but found it difficult
to break the barriers erected by war and cross new boundaries of the successor
states and “ethnically cleansed” areas. Since 1995, the Catholic
Church in Bosnia has made a number of unsuccessful attempts to restore
regular worship and rebuild churches in Serb-held territories. Likewise, returning
Muslim pilgrims were unwelcome both in Serb and Croat territories.
In the town of Stolac, “cleansed” of Muslims by Croat militants, the local
Croats several times blocked the Islamic Community’s attempt to rebuild the
city mosque. The Serbs were even more militant. On 11 July 2000 and again
on the same day in 2001, the Islamic Community of Bosnia, with thousands
of Muslim pilgrims, protected by international peacekeepers from angry Serb
mobs, commemorated the massacre of several thousand Muslim prisoners
of war by Serbs at the town of Srebrenica. Attempts to held commemorations
and rebuild mosques caused incidents, as in Srebrenica and Banja Luka
in May 2001, when a Muslim pilgrim was killed. After the Banja Luka incident,
the reis-ul-ulema Mustafa Cerić reiterated in several public speeches
that life in the same state with the Serbs (whom he designated racists, fascists,
and people sick with hatred) would not be feasible. 51
Shrines, monuments, and sites of history and memory continue to be
potential flashpoints. Memorials to victims of genocide (committed by all
and denied by all) have been held every now and then. The Serbian Orthodox
Church has lamented over the lost “Serbian Jerusalem.” Serb church leaders
call for pilgrimages to Kosovo, as well as to Jasenovac and elsewhere in
Croatia, and to historic sites in Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Mon-
conclusions 237