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Will Bosnia be the first casualty of the far-right clash of civilisations?
Today we see far-right movements engaging in a coordinated campaign of disinformation to push the narrative of a civilisational clash between Islam and Christianity. This disinformation campaign contains numerous conspiracy theories and racist stereotypes intended to distract their audiences with a scapegoat to blame for their own failures and lack of substantive policy. In the United States, we see politicians and public officials cashing in on this narrative, such as Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who signed into law House Bill 4211 banning ‘Sharia Compounds’ in the state. To be clear, there are no Sharia compounds in the United States in general, and the concept itself is inherently vague and disconnected from reality. Theatrics such as this have now given rise to a substantial number of people who are genuinely afraid of Islam taking over the country and implementing Sharia law despite no evidence of this being a remote possibility.
So what are the primary entities behind this campaign to sow division, and what do they hope to achieve? Conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation form the ideological backbone of the American conservative movement, which then gets picked up and further propagated by global far-right figures and organisations. While previously the Heritage Foundation generally avoided publishing articles directly labelling Islam as a problem inconsistent with Western civilisation, instead focusing on groups such as Hamas and Iran, the tone has shifted within the past two years. For instance, Heritage Foundation Vice President of Social and Domestic Policy Jay Richards published an article in July of this year where he described efforts to support democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan by saying, “seeds thrown on hard, dry soil: It cannot take root”. The rest of the article mentions multiple Muslim countries as being culturally incompatible with democracy and immigrants from those countries as being unable to assimilate into American society. In September, they published a testimony by senior research fellow Mike Gonzalez, which he gave to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia titled ‘Trojan Horses,’ in which he opens by stating the danger of “shadowy non-government organisations or individuals seeking to surreptitiously implant Islamist concepts such as sharia in our midst, and also sow chaos.” These are just a few examples of the kind of ideological narrative being pushed by far-right institutions and officials such as Florida representative Randy Fine, who recently tweeted, “We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational.”
In the past few years, the far-right has begun setting their sights on the Balkans with a particular interest in Bosnia. Balkan Insight recently published an in-depth analysis outlining a multinational coalition of far-right figures across Europe and the United States seeking to shake up Bosnia's current political order among the three primary ethnic and cultural groups. This involves further dividing the country by establishing a new Catholic Croat republic within Bosnia with similar political autonomy to Republika Srpska.
Heritage Foundation Research Fellow Max Primorac has claimed that under the current Bosnian government, the Croat population has decreased by 60%. His reasoning behind this is intense discrimination by the majority Muslim Bosniak population against the Croat minority in the country. While some discrimination does exist, academic studies have indicated that the majority of people who emigrate from the country do so for economic reasons. Regardless, this number comes from comparing the pre-war 1991 census to the current population without taking the refugees who left and never returned after the war into consideration. Primorac also mentions on multiple occasions that the Bosniaks are ‘Muslim-dominated’ while the Croats are ‘pro-West’ Catholics. However, according to a survey by the Atlantic Initiative, 94% of Bosniaks identify as pro-NATO, 80% of Croats, and only 24% of Bosnian Serbs expressed a similar positive sentiment.
It is also important to take into consideration that Republika Srpska has seen a reduction of over 80% of its Catholic Croat population since 1991, who are also prevented from returning to their homes by the Orthodox Christian-dominated government to this day. Presumably, this is not mentioned because Christian discrimination against other Christian denominations does not fit the narrative.
Another reason why there is a reluctance to criticise Republika Srpska by the far-right is that there is actually quite a close relationship between them in Europe and the United States. Portuguese MEP Antonio Tanger Correa has been hard at work coordinating meetings between former Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, the Patriots for Europe group and the Heritage Foundation in order to fundamentally change the power balance in Bosnia. What is interesting about this coalition is that while Republika Srpska and many far-right European figures have friendly relations with Russia and Putin, their American counterparts such as the Heritage Foundation have written extensively about the need to support pro-Western figures in the Balkans to counter Russian influence. Indicating that these groups are indeed doubling down on their clash of civilisations narrative, potentially at the expense of their traditional policy positions.
The reality is that at the end of the day, the far-right has found their scapegoat and are running away with it. We see the global economy facing recession, fuel prices at an all-time high, and our headlines dominated by a war that never had to happen. With a lack of solutions to solve these problems, the far-right has found that the best way to move forward is convincing us that what we really should be worried about is other people just trying to live normal lives. Despite the inflammatory statements coming from far-right figures, I believe that most of the people behind them are not intentionally trying to set the stage for violent confrontation. Unfortunately, a lack of intent does not prevent someone from contributing to an environment where there are real repercussions for their actions.
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