Ethnies ou groupes importants d'origine religieuse ? Vers leur coexistence.: De la genèse de la République socialiste plurinationale " islamique " de Bosnie-Herzégovine
In: Revue d'études comparatives est-ouest: RECEO, Band 11, Heft 3, S. 101-120
ISSN: 2259-6100
Towards the Co-existence of Ethnic and Significant Religious Groups. (The Genesis of the Multi-National "Islamic" Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.)
This study takes the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina as starting point for an examination of the various national, religious, social and political factors whose complexities and inter-relationships are particularly important in the context of developing countries such as Yugoslavia. The author also refers to sub-Carpathian Ukraine, and observes how, in these multi-national and multi-religious regions, ethnic and religious factors go hand in hand.
In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, religion is the basis of the quasi-nationality represented by the Moslem community. Having examined the growth of this group prior to the Second World War, the author goes on to analyse the part played by the war in the creation of a separate community. While the broad mass of the Moslem group may have remained more or less in a state of expectant passivity, there emerged an élite within the party, the armed resistance and the activists for socialist workers competition after the revolution. Identifying themselves as a Moslem entity within the nation, this group thereby signified their mistrust of the other two main groups (orthodox Serbs and catholic Croats), their national pride bolstered and their collective advancement encouraged by the liberal attitude of the Party, and then of the State, towards their aspirations, both on the national question and on socio-economic matters (self-management) and individual freedoms. This atmosphere encourages differentiation within the Moslem community, between strict believers and liberals, clerical and secular. A greater degree of ideological and political tolerance would help to create better lines of communication among the three communities, and might lessen the danger of a spread of theocratic or Khomeini-like enthusiasms among the Moslems.