Earlier this month, France’s Emmanuel Macron warned of a “ticking time-bomb” in Europe. Referring to Bosnia-Herzegovina, he
stated that the country was the greatest threat to Europe in the Balkans, due
to the “problem of returning Jihadists” from Syria and Iraq. Following France’s
successful blockage of negotiations for North Macedonia and Albania to
start the EU accession process, Macron intimated that in fact it was not these countries
– both with large Muslim populations – that posed a threat to the Union, but
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In the wake of political uproar in Britain and France over
their own returning Jihadist populations – most notably the furore over the
potential return of British
school-girl Shamima Begum and calls from the families
of French Jihadists to allow safe return for their family members as Bashar
Al-Assad began to retake land across Syria – it seems strange for Macron
to focus his attention on the small Balkan state. Certainly, as Muhamed Jusic,
a spokesman for Bosnia’s Muslim community, stated
in response to Macron “Some 300 Bosnian citizens, most of them women and
children, went to the battlefields in Syria and Iraq compared to over 1,900
French”. It was reported in 2015 that France held the dubious title of being Europe’s
largest
exporter of jihadists. Again, with home-grown
Syrian networks being linked to the Paris attacks, the threat of returning fighters
to France seems much greater than the threat of returning fighters in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which despite ongoing ethnic tension has suffered very few
terror attacks and in fact had seemingly managed to
stem the tide of fighters travelling to and from Syria by 2016. (NB: I should also note here that the figures
quoted are of French and Bosnian citizens who have gone to fight in Syria – these
are not the figures for those fighters working with ISIS, Al Qaeda, or other fundamentalist
radical groups – which could be much smaller).
The comparatively low number
of Bosnian fighters compared with French does not detract from the overall
point that Macron was trying to make with his comments. In reality, this
statement was not really about returning fighters at all. There may be more
Syrian fighters born in France and the UK than in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but BiH
is a majority-Muslim country. And, as Macron has made clear with his blockage
of North Macedonian and Albanian accession to the EU, countries with a prevalent
Muslim
identity are not to be considered part of Europe. Fortress Europe has spent a
lot of money and sacrificed a lot of lives to make sure that refugees and migrants,
many of them Muslim, are not allowed entry. South-Eastern European countries that
share a belief system that differs from the Central and Western European norm
have been extended the same courtesy.
These two policies have recently come to a head in a perfect
storm of human suffering in Bosnia-Herzegovina. As refugees and migrants from the
Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa make their way towards the supposed
safety of Europe they have found
themselves trapped in camps in the rural north of Bosnia. Unable to enter
Croatia (a predominantly Christian
country, sharing “European values” and welcomed into the EU in 2013), the
migrants meet the end of their journey in overcrowded,
underserviced camps, desperately unprepared
for winter and surrounded by landmines
(an uncomfortable reminder of the two-decade old violence of BiH, in which the
Muslim Bosniak population suffered
genocide at the hands of Serb ethno-nationalist Ratko Mladic). With much
less press coverage than the equally
inhumane camps in Lesbos, aid agencies struggle to provide for the growing
population of transitory migrants in a country already stretched
to the limit to reach the needs of its own people.
As Macron’s government struggles with how to define it’s own
relationship with Islam – suffering a wave of
home-grown terrorist attacks, banning
the burqa (and later the “burkini”), then warning against
stigmatising Islam or equating the religion with terrorism, and most
recently turning its attention to Bosnia-Herzegovina as a threat to European
peace and stability – BiH has quietly gone about repairing community ties
between its Bosniak Muslim community and their former aggressors, following the
worst incidence of ethno-nationalist violence in Europe since the end of World
War Two. As France, and
Europe more widely, struggles with questions of national identity,
Bosnia-Herzegovina serves as a living, breathing, pilot project for peaceful co-existence
in the aftermath of unimaginable violence.
If Macron was truly concerned about the threat of returning
Jihadists, he would focus his attention on the much larger number of western
European fighters who are currently fleeing Syria as the tyrant Bashar al-Assad
reasserts his authority. If he truly was concerned about radicalisation in
Bosnia-Herzegovina itself, he would do much more to alleviate the poverty and
disenfranchisement still felt by many rural populations across the country. He
would also encourage other EU states to support the refugees currently stranded
in inhumane conditions as the bitter Balkan winter rolls in. He would stop the
dangerous rhetoric and take action to improve the quality of life of groups
that are scared, angry, and looking for a support network. He would open his
arms, not close his mind.
Macron is unfortunately not alone in this dangerous
misrepresentation of the realities of life in the furthest corners of Europe.
Tribalism and Islamaphobia are driving ever-deepening divisions not just in
France, but in the UK and the rest of the continent. Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country
that knows all too well the dangers of letting the rhetoric of division spiral
out of control. To be targeted by one of the key players in Europe because they
do not fit the mould of what a European country “should be” must feel like
several steps in the wrong direction.
Words matter, and framing a country still healing from bloody
conflict as a threat, especially when the targeted population were the victims
of a brutal genocide, is more than a throw-away comment.
Bosnia-Herzegovina continues its rocky journey towards sustainable
peace, in extremely difficult circumstances and struggling with a new crop of
refugees and migrants fleeing violence that mirrors the recent memories of many
ordinary Bosnians. As it looks to the beacon of the European Union for support,
it finds itself alone and in the cold.
The misplaced fears of Macron are symptomatic of a Europe
obsessed with protecting its borders at a time of deep re-evaluation of its own
identity. The threat of terror
attacks and hate
crimes in the western European states remains high, and fear abounds in both
migrant
and local
populations. Politicians have for too long scapegoated “otherness” as a threat
to national interests, and for many, turning people against each other has
proven a successful tactic to gain and hold power. When we fear outsider
groups, we fail to turn our attention to those in power who can cause
us real harm. But the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina could
already have told us that, if we had listened and learned from their story.
And still we refuse to listen.
Instead of the hoped-for support of an inclusive
international community in Europe, the ticking time-bomb of reactionary ethno-nationalism continues
to spread across the continent.
