By: Julia Gorin
Republican Riot

Among the handful of non-pro-Islamic Balkans-observers in America, all eyebrows raised on Friday when The New Republic outdid its own famous fabulist Stephen Glass with two new ones, who penned an opinion article clunkily headlined “Putin is Behaving in Ukraine Like Milosevic Did in Serbia.”

Set aside that virtually no one outside the Balkans knows how Milosevic actually did behave in Serbia. And set aside that the headline and article read as if TNR has started outsourcing copy-editing to non-English-speaking countries. Set aside also TNR’s unequivocal policy-lockstep stance on every 90s war we waged against Orthodox Christians in the Balkans (a September 1999 article-rejection I got from a senior editor there: “i think there are other magazines that would be happy to publish it. the problem is that tnr has a fairly firm editorial line on the balkans, and i’m afraid your piece doesn’t quite match it…were it not for our disagreement on the issue this would have been a good piece for us.”)

Set aside all that, along with the consistent pattern that Balkans material in the U.S. is exempt from the usual editorial checks and balances when it’s written from the ‘correct’ perspective, giving writers free rein to make stories up out of whole cloth and, alternately, to graft their sources’ yarns directly from the reporter’s notebook to the newspaper.

One supposed it was only a matter of time before the deceased Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was yet again dredged from his grave, this time in service of some pathetic attempt at a Putin analogy. But if you can imagine, this product was a notch more ridiculous even than the usual.

This morning the Reiss Institute published director Nebojsa Malic’s reaction to the TNR “article” (some links added):

Holocaust Denial at The New Republic (Reiss Institute, June 23, 2014)

On June 19, The New Republic published an article by Vera Mironova and Maria Snegovaya, that not only violates the rules of journalism in a manner reminiscent of Stephen Glass, but also engages in outright Holocaust denial by declaring the very real genocidal atrocities committed by Croatian and Ukrainian fascists during World War Two to be “old myths” promoted by Serb and Russian “propaganda.”

Snegovaya…and Mironova, a first-time contributor, describe Croatia and Ukraine as “Catholic and much more pro-Western” nations upon which Serbia and Russia “…imposed their rule.” While Catholicism is indeed a defining characteristic of Croats, most Ukrainians are not Catholic by any stretch of imagination.

Having thus made up a key “fact”, the authors go on to describe both Croatia and the Ukraine as “colonies” of Serbia and Russia, respectively. Therefore, they argue, “Understandably, both Croatia and Ukraine resisted what they perceived as invasion, and in the 1940s, this resistance translated into substantive support for fascists in both countries.” (emphasis added)

Though they identify, however grudgingly, Ante Pavelić and Stepan Bandera as fascists, there is no mention in their essay – not a single word – about the atrocities Pavelic’s Croatia, or Bandera’s followers, committed as Hitler’s allies. This is not an accidental omission, but a crucial one; just a paragraph later, the authors claim that Serbs and Russians – in the 1990s and today, respectively – created ethnic conflict “where none existed before”, clearly implying the 1940s atrocities never happened.

But the worst outright lie is Snegovaya and Mironova’s claim that “Russian and Serbian propaganda referenced the old myths of Croatian (and Ukrainian) fascists”, [and conjured] the imagery of Bandera and Pavelić to unjustly accuse modern Ukrainian and Croatian nationalists…:

“To personalize the link with the Nazis, the historic character Ante Pavelić was used in Croatia, just as Stepan Bandera was used in Ukraine.”

Note the passive “was used”, suggesting it was the Serbs and Russians using Pavelić and Bandera to smear the Croats and Ukrainians as Nazis. The clear implication is that no actual connection exists between the followers of Pavelić and Bandera in the 1940s and the Croats and Ukrainians of today, and that any such connection is purely a product of Serb and Russian propaganda. In actual fact, not malicious fantasy, present-day Croats routinely give Mass for Pavelić and his Ustasha, whom they have promoted to Christ-like martyrs (e.g. Bleiburg), while modern “Ukrainian nationalists” organize torchlight parades in which they march carrying Bandera’s portraits. Simply put, Croat and Ukrainian chauvinists consider Pavelić and Bandera their national heroes. This is not something the Serbs or Russians made up.

[The writers attribute the 1990s Ustasha revival to a “Serb portrayal” of modern Croatia. Whence came, then, all the hard copies of 1990s articles that I have in my drawer, put out by mainstream media and Jewish news agencies and making the same inescapable observations about Croatian streets being renamed for Ustasha “heroes;” about actual Ustasha who’d served in WWII being brought back from South America and given official positions; about the popular band Thompson’s songs rhapsodizing about concentration camps, Pavelic and the Black Legion. These news outfits, ranging from Guardian, to Christian Science Monitor to NY Times, aren’t named Slobodan Milosevic. And that’s without mentioning the busts to the Croatian fuehrer Pavelic that still adorn Croatian cultural centers across the globe. And what did Snegovaya and Mironova make of the sieg-heiling by FIFA-sanctioned Croatian soccer player Joseph Simunic, or of Mario Mandzukic, the Croatian soccer player doing the same a year earlier? Do they think Bob Dylan is just talking out of his rear end?]

There are multiple gross factual errors in the essay by Snegovaya and Mironova. One example is their use of “Greater Serbia” to describe “the region with self-proclaimed pro-Serbian republics, partially located in modern-day Croatia”…“Greater Serbia” is but an Austro-Hungarian propaganda canard predating the Great War, and used by Serbophobes ever since.

Another factual error is their accusation that “Milošević went as far as to suggest that Croats were Serbs converted to Catholicism.” There is ample evidence to support that contention as historical fact – but they offer no evidence that Milošević himself ever said so. Then again, it would not be the first time Milošević has been deliberately misquoted. [Besides which, one might ask: Where did all those Serbs converted to Catholicism in WWII go? And do Croats and Bosnian Muslims just happen to have Serbian first and last names by accident? And speak the Serbian language?]

Stephen Glass made his stories up to advance his career. Mironova and Snegovaya go a step further, making up or outright inverting facts in order to whitewash the atrocities of the Kiev junta today, and those of the Croatian and Ukrainian fascists in the 1940s, by accusing the Russians (and ethnic Ukrainians in the East) trying to defend their lives, property and identity from attack — as well as the Serbs who tried to do the same in the 1990s — of being the real aggressors.

Mironova and Snegovaya need to be sanctioned for their gross misconduct, while the The New Republic owes both the Serbs and the Russians an apology. However, having seen the impunity with which the Serbs and the Russians have been demonized in the Western press for almost 25 years, we’re not holding our breath.

By: Ashraf Ramelah
Voice of the Copts

Egypts newly sworn-in president apologized in person to a woman who was sexually assaulted

As the live airwaves of Egypt’s state TV deliver the Al Ahzar lectures cautioning against apostasy and Atheism to all those carrying state-issued I.D. cards indicating Egypt’s official religion, Egypt’s newly installed president, Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, foregoes public prayers and mosque attendance as the first modern leader ever to skip over this tradition within his initial days of office. Since the uprising of January 2011 against former President Mubarak — propelled by a platform of human rights, equal rights, secularism and religious freedom which in turn brought down Mubarak’s successor, Mohammed Morsi — ¬¬more and more Egyptians have fled Islam by quietly claiming Atheism and enduring the harassment that comes with it.

Likewise, those converting to Christianity proclaim Atheism in order to avoid death threats. Now however, unlike earlier times, Muslims are apt to keep their Islamic birth names rather than switch to Christian ones like David or Maria. Rejecting the practice of matching one’s name to one’s religion is seen as bold and dangerous — introducing Christianity into personal circles. But it is consistent with the outcome of the recent presidential election hoped and seen by some as a potentially fierce challenge to the theocratic state. Generally, the name-religion change means that the very personal matter of spiritual belief and departure from Islam and the mosque must remain on the sly to avoid the treachery embodied in religious juridical law.

President Al-Sisi was installed this month on June 8 in a swearing-in ceremony before Egypt’s Constitutional Court surrounded by representatives from many nations – heads of state and high-ranked envoys — including a member of the U.S. State Department. Almost three years from Egypt’s first uprising, a president enters office knowing that the 23 million votes cast for him (more than double cast for Morsi) were cast for a better future and not, as in the past, for provisions of rice and oil. Egypt’s electorate, mindful of turmoil in Libya and Syria, chose Mr. Al-Sisi, a man with backbone; now Iraq’s ISIS (a terror faction working alongside Al Qaida) threatens Egypt and Al-Sisi, and Egyptians count on their former field marshal and backer of the freedom movement to defend Egypt’s borders and continue to extinguish internal terrorism.

Egyptians also expect the new president to waste no time in addressing the issue of religious doctrine which Al-Sisi prioritized in his pre-election promise to begin his term by “renewing the Islamic religious discourse.” He spoke this in a speech about revising the practice of religious hate. But Al-Sisi has already missed an easy opportunity to exercise this conviction. He could have discreetly disallowed the Quran readings during his installation ceremony (a tradition started by Sadat) without question, appearing innocent in the watchful eyes of Al Ahzar. Overlooking an important moment to demonstrate a principle of his campaign, Al-Sisi is seen by some as a bit mysterious regarding his resolve to take on the ultimate challenge to the Islamic establishment. Egyptians watch and wonder about the man they elected and his claims toward a modern state.

Moreover, Al Ahzar Institute has anticipated the threat of Al-Sisi by sending clear territorial signals. For instance, in the April issue of the monthly magazine, Islamic Research Academy, Al Ahzar religious scholar and chief editor, Mohammed Omarah, denounced the critical thinking of two Egyptian Islamic scholars, Judge Mohammed Al Eshmawy and Dr. Hamed Abu Zeed, who both wrote on the issue of renewing Egypt’s religious discourse based upon the concept of the Quran as a historical document. The two separate authors stated that Qur’anic verses were not to be applied to every time and every place but were meant only for the Arab Peninsula during the 7th century. This theory strictly limits the Quran’s relevance and interpretation to that particular age. The views of Judge Al Eshmawy and Dr. Zeed were considered sacrilegious upon issuance and targeted again by Al Ahzar just two months ago, one month before Al-Sisi was elected. Furthermore, the deaths of both thinkers have been viewed with suspicion — Zeed in 2010 and Eshmawy in 2013. Al Ahzar chooses this moment to revisit this topic.

Meanwhile, the new president has illustrated some inspired contradictions to the Islamic state opening up a dialogue across the country. Sending shockwaves through the public sensibility giving hope to modern Egyptians, Al-Sisi’s actions on two occasions within three days’ time serve to enlighten Egyptians on how far he will go to prove his commitment to the people. After addressing citizens for the first time as president, Al-Sisi bicycled through the Heliopolis section of Cairo. Sporting white sneakers, tennis shirt and no helmet, Al-Sisi led a pack of more than three thousand students (military and police academy) through the city’s neighborhoods. Soft-spoken and even-toned, more priestly than charismatic, Al-Sisi thanked all participants for accompanying him.

The spectacle of a marathon-style bike ride – where the president was open and vulnerable – only endeared him more to his admirers. The oddity and simplicity of the event was anything but gimmicky. His genuineness, the closeness, his courage and oneness with the people projected a plain and genuinely humble man. He was believable when he said, “I am one like you. I am not above you. Any identity that tries to damage this country I will not let come close to you to harm you. I will never allow that to happen.”
Some say that Al-Sisi’s call for 6 a.m. aerobics bonded him to Egypt’s young men suggesting that in doing so Al-Sisi gave the notion that a less than industrious male workforce should now rise early and do its part to turn the country around under his leadership. Many speculate that Al-Sisi’s message is one of discipline for a new era. This makes sense in light of the president’s attention to a second issue.

Two days before biking through city streets, Al-Sisi visited the hospital bed of a rape victim. The president personally apologized for her tragedy and handed her a bouquet of red roses. What does Al-Sisii’s visit mean in a country where rape is seen as a woman’s fault and where lax laws or punitive laws substantiate this cultural understanding? President Al-Sisi indicates that Egypt’s epidemic of sexual assaults on women in the protest squares and elsewhere is unacceptable and laws must change to act as deterrent to this crime. According to reports, Al-Sisi attended the victim’s bedside and expressed to the woman and her mother who had been forced to watch her daughter’s gang-rape and now stood by her side, “I am personally apologizing to you for what happened, and I apologize to all Egyptian women. They [the government, the police and the courts] will do everything to prevent such things from happening again.”

Taken at face value, such modern, civilizing chords struck by Al-Sisi in a style like no other holds great promise for ordinary Egyptians, including Copts. As the former Interim Government’s Prime Minister, Ibrahim Mahalab, begins to form a new government at Al-Sisi’s request, the president deepens his connection with the people who have faith in his capacity to remember why he is there. The majority of Egyptians understand that the challenge is larger than any one man. Meanwhile, the enthusiasm that brought Al-Sisi to head the country will be sustained by the very actions we see him doing. This is a good thing for a country looking for radical change beginning with safety and the rule of law.