Bosnia is proof that you can be secular, irreligious, and liberal Muslims and it won't really matter at all because you will still be the target of systematic Islamophobia and Islamophobic propaganda. So, justifying how "you're not like other Muslims" is fairly useless.
I'm not a very religiously adhering person but my DMs, emails, and mentions are constantly filled with hateful messages about how I'm an Islamic terrorist, jihadi, ISIS whore, & how I want to convert Christians. I'm not gonna scream about how no, actually I'm a cool Muslims.
It's not that they actually believe that Bosnia is filled with extremist Muslims ready to burst at the seems. They know that Bosnia is largely a secular country with the majority of Muslims being fairly liberal. They don't care b/c it doesn't suit their narrative.
We have seen this narrative get worse post 9/11 with people like Dodik and his ilk specifically pushing this Islamophobic rhetoric in order to appeal to the fearful Western mindset. It existed before 9/11 but that was a real turning point for their Islamophobic propaganda.
My messages over the last several days have been swamped with this rhetoric and it sounds just like Milosevic & Karadzic's propaganda in the 80's and 90's. Word for word, often. Very little has changed.
It sometimes genuinely takes me back a bit at the fact that the Islamophobic propaganda of the 90s is still very much alive. Things like how the Bosniaks are gonna force the Christians to wear hijabs (when even most of us Bosniaks don't wear them) is just horrifying.
This was not an invitation for non-Balkan Muslims to lecture us on how we chose to relate to Islam nor should it be acceptable to insinuate the genocide happened b/c we were not pious enough. The entire Middle East is constantly in turmoil & we'd never make such an insinuation.
People are secular & liberal for a variety of reasons not simply because they want to "fit into the West", I'm not discussing the way people chose to personally relate to religion but rather those who believe being a "good Muslim" will spare them from Islamophobia. Thanks!
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