The Ticking Time-Bomb In Europe

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.