Yankee-stani
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In theory, we know that Muslims should be a single political body – the Ummah.
In practice, however, we see that the Saudis are at odds with Qataris, the Emirates with the Turks, the Egyptians with the Sudanese, the Pakistanis with the Bangladeshis and so on.
Also, Ibn Khaldun explained why, long before the creation of modern nation-states, the Ummah was not a single actor, but rather a space where such actors operated – various groups, asabiya’s, often created with an ethnic or clan attribute. Such were the Umayyads, Abbasids, Moguls, Ottomans and others. But they even spoke on behalf of all Muslims, regarded themselves as their rulers and were ready to patronize them. Today we live in the era of nation-states.
What, then, should European Muslims do? They live in different nation states and therefore it may seem that their situation is different depending on the states in which they live or parts of those nations to whom the belong. Because if Muslim converts belong to non-Muslim nations that do not protect their rights as Muslims, then the position of members of European Muslim nations is different, or it may seem that it is different.
It may seem that the interests of Muslims of Bosnia and Albania are protected by their states – Bosnia and Albania, as well as Kosovo. But not everything is so simple. In addition to the fact that among the Bosniaks themselves there are anti-Islamic secularists, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state is created in such a way that Muslim Bosniaks can not decide anything without the Orthodox Serbs and Catholics Croats. Albania, on the contrary, is monoethnic. But the Albanians themselves are a multi-confessional nation and, together, Christians and anti-Islamic secularists block the positions of Muslims. In Kosovo, this is expressed even more.
Other held nations of European Muslims have either territorial (Sandzak in Serbia, Western Thrace in Greece, Tatarstan in Russia), or only cultural autonomy (Lipka in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, Pomaks in Bulgaria and Gorans in Serbia).
But each of these nations faces serious pressure. The positions of the Albanians so far look best for demographic reasons, but Catholics, secularists and Orthodox do not allow them to act as an Islamic nation. Bosniaks as a Muslim nation claiming to have their state, for this reason are under great threat. They are confronted by both Serbs and Croats supported by neighboring Serbia and Croatia, each of which is a larger state than Bosnia. Serbs are supported by Russia. Croatia supported by neighboring Austria. And now the new government of Austria with the anti-Islamic party (FPO), proposes to support the separation from Bosnia of both, the Croats and the Serbs, seeing the Bosniaks as an “Islamic threat”. Muslim states will not support Bosniaks, Muslim volunteers can come to support them, but they will immediately be declared “Islamic terrorists” against whom NATO will wage a war. In Western Thrace, the new Greek government limited traditional Sharia autonomy. Russia successfully restricts and virtually eliminates the autonomies of Tatarstan and other (non-European) Muslim peoples. From Pomaks and Lipka peoples, they demand that they become ordinary Bulgarians and Poles, abandoning Islam under the pressure of growing Islamophobia.
Apparently, none of these Muslim nations is non-competitive against more powerful, more numerous forces. Moreover, in many cases their historically formed nationalism does not help, but prevents them from assessing their positions and opportunities and achieving their goals.
The Bosnian patriots put the territorial integrity of their state and its sovereignty first and demand that the Croats and Serbs live in it consider ing themselves to be Bosnians of the Catholic and Orthodox faith, and not as separate nations. At the same time they themselves did not want to be Croats of the Islamic faith in the 20th century, as they were offered, but wanted to be a separate nation. As a result, in this case the Bosnian national project faces Croatian and Serbian national projects, which have more strength and support. And in the next war against them and the anti-Islamic forces that will support them, Bosnia can either completely cease to exist, or become an even more fictitious state where Bosniaks have no rights as a Muslim nation.
Tatars and other Muslim nations, limited by nationalism, are incapable of uniting their forces, although there are 6 million Tatars, while the total number of Muslims in Russia is about 20 million amongst 140 million of Russia’s total population.
In Poland and Lithuania, limited Tatar nationalism does not allow Lipka to realize neither their potential, nor their essence. Instead of representing themselves as Muslims in the local blood and language and inviting the local population to Islam with attractive face, they bulge and even specifically import the exotic cultural traditions of other Tatars, with a completely different genetics and geography. As a result, more and more young Lipka go from such exotics to ordinary Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians – non-Muslims, instead of Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians are embracing Islam through them.
In Greece, the state recognizes the Muslims of Western Thrace as an autonomous Muslim community – the Muslims of Greece, being the only EU country that allows Sharia law and court for its Muslims. But instead of using it to strengthen the positions of Islam in Greece and the EU, many local activists demand to be recognized not as Greek Muslims, but as Turkish minority, that is, the fifth column of a neighboring, non-European state. And this despite the fact that some of the Muslims of Western Thrace are Pomaks, while the local Turks themselves are genetically closer to Europe than to Anatolia.
None of these Muslim peoples see or use the potential of the other Muslims in Europe, nor do they see them as their support, as it could be. Moreover, divided by national borders, even neighboring Muslims, who have not only a single religion, but also a language or genetics, can not unite their efforts, as is the case in the Balkans.
We are far from those who criticize nationalism from the standpoint of the abstract unity of the Ummah, which, as we have shown, is far from reality. But we must distinguish nationalism, which allows us to achieve the goals of Muslims of a certain locality, culture and origin, from historically conditioned and limited nationalism, which no longer serve this purpose.
It is also necessary to distinguish the essence, the feeling of identity from the form, which it accepted. For example, the feeling of identity of the Lipka is religiously – Islamic, linguistically – Slavic, genetically – Eastern European with a minority of the steppe component. If at the same time they present themselves as Polish or Lithuanian Tatars, just as their Macedonian people wear their Greek name, this is normal. But when Eastern European Slavs try to be steppe Asians, not thinking about their ethnic essence, or their potential for Islam – such nationalism is harmful.
In fact, in essence, the essence of their identity is the same for all indigenous groups of European Muslims – it is their Islam and their native Europeannes. Enemies of Islam want them to be divided, telling them that Europeans can’t be Muslims, and that Muslims are perceived as non-Europeans, which is a case of mass non-European immigration. And they achieve this task, successfully neutralizing the European Muslim peoples one by one, because due to national limitations they are unable to overcome their differences, unite their forces or develop a successful overall strategy.
At the same time, these indigenous European Muslims are the natural leaders of Islam throughout Europe. Not only because they are its aboriginal inhabitants, but also because, unlike immigrants, they still have their territories, and hence opportunities. This is a huge potential – instead of sitting in the reservations of small nations and hoping for non-European Muslims who either are not able or don’t want to solve their problems, being indigenous Europeans and Muslims they have the potential to carry and introduce Islam to more than 500 million people similar to them .
Realizing itself at first place as European Muslims, these peoples could first of all establish intensive ties among themselves. Then they could together become the center of attraction and support of Muslim converts from among the indigenous European peoples who still do not have such a center, unlike Turks, Moroccans, Indo-Pakistanis, etc. They could unite the potential of their diasporas, where they exist, with the potential of local converts – Germans, Swedes, Swiss, etc., so that together they can represent Islam to local peoples. Also attract to themselves other Muslim Europeans living in these countries, as well as other Muslims, similar to Europeans (Chechens, Circasians, light-skinned Turks, etc). Having solved this problem, they can strive to lead all Muslims in Europe. But exactly that – to lead them, rather than join them behind, allowing them to behave.
These are white Muslims – those who, first, are indigenous to Europe, and secondly, have a destiny in their land, which are the natural centers of Islam. For this reason, the need for the leadership of white Muslims among Muslims in Europe is just as natural as the Quraysh leadership among the Arabs was natural. White Europeans are Qurayshites of Europe, and Muslims of their indigenous peoples are Qurayshites of their countries, and while immigrants in the Europe do not recognize this natural order of things, Islam instead of religion addressed to its peoples will be held hostage by the“identity politics”.
Nevertheless, it is worth emphasizing that what has been said above in no way means the need to abandon the already existing identities of Muslim European peoples. Ethnically and culturally, they can and should be preserved, acting as different tribes of a united nation. But politically – and nationalism is a political phenomenon – they need to overcome the limitations of outdated national political forms and move on to a more large-scale thinking – European Muslim nationalism. The latter, however, should also be seen as a means, not a goal. A Muslim should not be a hostage to nationalism, but he can use it to promote and protect the interests of Islam where he finds himself. And for us, the indigenous Europeans, such a space and a zone of our responsibility is the whole of Europe and then the entire Western world.
