Indigo Jo Blogs

At least the Islamophobia of Balkan Orthodox Christians (who suffered for centuries under the Ottoman yoke) is far more comprehensible than that of American Christian Zionists...

How much "suffering" did the Balkan people actually experience under Ottoman rule? I've even read somewhere that Ottoman rule actually preserved the Orthodox churches by giving them power over their communties at a time when the Western Church was ascendent and would probably have consumed the eastern churche eventually. Virulent hatred of Muslims does seem to be restricted to the former Yugoslavia though. I mean, there isn't the same hatred in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary or the Czech Republic, all of whom came under Ottoman rule at some point.

How much "suffering" did the Balkan people actually experience under Ottoman rule? I've even read somewhere that Ottoman rule actually preserved the Orthodox churches by giving them power over their communties at a time when the Western Church was ascendent and would probably have consumed the eastern churches eventually.

I read something similar on the alternate history forum I used to frequent, from a poster with the screen name "Abdul Hadi Pasha" - his real name is John Piccone.

The dershirme system of enslaving children to serve in the Sultan's army was bound to foment major resentment of the Ottomans among Balkan Christians.

(By the way, was devshirme - essentially the enslavement of dhimmis - even legal Shari'ah-wise? When I brought it up twice on the MPACUK forum the regulars seemed to think no.)

Also, let's not forget the role of Russian propaganda in inciting hatred of Muslims...

Virulent hatred of Muslims does seem to be restricted to the former Yugoslavia though. I mean, there isn't the same hatred in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary or the Czech Republic, all of whom came under Ottoman rule at some point.

The Czech Republic was never under Ottoman rule - that would only have happened if Vienna had fallen.

Also Hungary was only Ottoman-ruled for a brief period (and wasn't Orthodox) while Romania never integrated into the Ottoman state proper but was ruled by Christian puppet rulers.

Bulgaria did have a lot of Islamophobia, and most of the Ottoman-era Muslims were ethnically cleansed due to the 1878 Russo-Turkish War.

GC: Devshirme did not last as long as the Ottoman empire did; it was actually abolished in 1648 according to the Wikipedia entry on the subject. So, whatever the Ottomans did to the Serbs in the 18th and 19th centuries, devshirme is no excuse for anyone to hate Muslims in Bosnia in the late 20th. For one thing, no actual memory exists and no living Serb or Bosnian Muslim was either a victim or a perpetrator of anything ugly which happened in Ottoman days.

The article below provides a typical example ( 3 actually) of the treatment Christians recieved under the Ottomans, a treatment that continues even today!

Ok, perhaps the Byzantines didn't hand over the city quickly enough to the Turks, but that's no justification for hating and murdering Christians today, now is it?

Yosuf's utter nonsense about the devshirm notwithstanding.

Some here seem to think it racist and intolerant to boot out individuals who arrived, uninvited, on the heels of a brutal mililtary conquest.

It isn't.

Why would anyone in their right mind extend tolerance to a belief systeme that spent centuries stealing, kidnapping and murdering?

Especially when one knows it's a brutal, ugly truth that still applies.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/18/europe/EU-GEN-Turkey-Bible-Attack.php

"Virulent hatred of Muslims does seem to be restricted to the former Yugoslavia though."

Greeks aren't very fond of muslims either. The fact that the ottomans had given up enslaving christian children as soldiers wouldn't make people who might be liable to it if it was resumed any fonder of them. Equally, the fact that the Bosniak muslims weren't particularly sincere in their beliefs except their belief in their own privileges [the last serfs in Europe were owned by Bosniak muslims] wouldn't make their fellow-countrymen admire them any the more.

The Bulgars do still have a 10% Muslim minority who don't appear to be hated in the manner of Yugoslavia. The expulsion of 1868 you mentioned could be put down to the sort of reprisals that an imperial people or fallen elite suffer everywhere and at all times, including right up to the last century. Interesting that the Serb mythology (like much Western Islamophobia) seems to conflate "Europeanism" with their Christianity and a hatred of the dark skinned, hook nosed Oriental. Do they not realise that Jesus (AS) himself was of such appearance?

Gee, that benevolent Byzantine empire that was so tolerant and kind was struck down by tyrannical and evil muslims, was it?

[ www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/answers/oppressed.html ]

That Orthodox church that was so tolerant of others and didn't engage in slavery, torture, or rape was brutally insulted by Bosniak muslims, eh?

Guess I shouldn't worry about the misunderstood Milosevic and Karadzic, you guys have really cleared that up for me, thanks.

/sarcasm off

More of the same, but in Baghdad. And there's nothing like being confronted with CURRENT examples of Islamist violence, examples that mirror those of the past, to pump up the volume of silence and denial.

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9026&size=A

Do they not realise that Jesus (AS) himself was of such appearance?

Uh, so you've seen Jesus?

Was this before or after his resurrection?

Perhaps we could ask one of the thousands of Turkish reverts to Christianity.

Byzantine intolerance of non-Greek Orthodox was in part to blame for the first wave of Islamic conquest, in two ways:

1. Because it inspired their invasion of Italy which diverted their forces and thus encouraged the Persians to attack (the resulting war badly weakened both Byzantine and Persian empires).

2. Because the Monophysites (unitarian Christian heresy which views Jesus as purely divine, not human) of the Levant viewed the Muslims as liberators from Byzantine oppression.

Because the Monophysites (unitarian Christian heresy which views Jesus as purely divine, not human) of the Levant viewed the Muslims as liberators from Byzantine oppression.

Imagine how clueless they were?

I'm sure their liberation was most enjoyable.

I'm wondering, though, where are they now?

Imagine someone so out of the loop they'd embrace individuals who view the divinisation of Jesus as blasphemy.

Very similar to the delusions the British Left now live under, isn't it?

John Palubiski: Yes, that those crazy Monophysites thought that muslims might treat them better than Byzantine Christians, much as Lebanese Christians now trust HezboLlah more than the French and the Americans to defend them. (selling $100 million worth of missiles to the army attacking Beirut isn't the best way to help Lebanese)

Or those crazy Assyrian Christians who trusted the British and American troops to guard them, that was really ludicrous - only the Oil and Interior Ministry offices really need protecting, Christians should just count on God, and forget that there was a ever a time when Sunni muslims defended them and helped rebuild their churches.

Oh, I guess you'd rather they committed the following 'Christian' atrocities:

In Bratunac, Imam Mustafa Mujkanovic was tortured before thousands of Muslim women, children and old people at the town’s soccer stadium. Serb guards also ordered the cleric to cross himself. When he refused, ‘they beat him. They stuffed his mouth with sawdust, poured beer in his mouth, and then slit his throat.’ [2]

Routinely, Muslims held in concentration camps also told of being forced by their captors to sing Chetnik songs or to make the sign of the cross. Suggestions to Muslims that they convert to Serbian Orthodoxy could be viewed as yet another means to eliminate the Muslim presence. [3]

[2] Roy Gutman, A Witness to Genocide: the first inside account of the horrors of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bosnia (Shaftesbury: Element, 1993), 78.

[3] Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia : the policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’ (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995), 59.