1971 Yugoslavia: The Muslims They Couldn't Categorize

[00:00:00]So, those will be people that you would now consider to be Bosnians. However, in 1971, when they're asked what their nationality is, they simply say they are Musliman, they're Muslims. Just Praise is the only app out there that tracks every single of your prayers. And it stops every other app when it's time to pray. That means no more checking messages, no more doom scrolling when it's time to pray. I didn't partner with any other app for one simple reason, they're not habit forming. I would download an app, use it for 2 minutes, after that I would get bombarded by ads, close it, and never open it again. Just Praise is in a completely different league. It notifies you before your prayer, manages the time window, tracks your delays, and documents your spiritual journey. On top of that, they have an amazing gamified interface where every prayer grows your garden. You can literally see your progress. Additional to that, it has the function of the prayer circles, where you can pray together with friends and family. You can stay accountable and see who prayed or not. All right, guys. Welcome back to the channel. If you're new, my name is Bobby Guys. Today, we're going to check out the video "How Citizens Declared Their Nationality in Yugoslavia, 1971."

[00:01:07]I'm going to watch this video actually out of personal interest, I have to admit. For people that are familiar with my work, I am from the Balkans, Northern Macedonia to be precise, but I already voiced myself on being opposed to modern-day nationalism.

[00:01:20]Especially when it comes down to the nation-state of Northern Macedonia, it is clear to see that this is a later invention, that there is no real ethnicity tied to Northern Macedonia.

[00:01:30]But that being said, you could make the argument for many other nation-states as well. Especially the Balkans are such an interesting subject because it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire till roughly 1922.

[00:01:41]So, this video was recorded around 50 years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and obviously therefore you would still have some culture that survived the time of the Ottoman Empire.

[00:01:51]How were people declaring themselves under the Ottoman Empire before they gained a national consciousness so to speak. What was their self-identification? We're going to check it out in today's video, guys.

[00:02:03]Before we do so, as always, if you enjoy my content, leave me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and check out the links in the description box below to further support my work. Thank you very much for that.

[00:02:11]And now, with no further ado, let's have a look.

[00:02:18]Okay, so there are no subtitles here.

[00:02:20]I'm going to translate it for you. The interviewer asks, "How do you self-identify? Which nationality?"

[00:02:26]Precisely, the nationality is at question here. And this woman here with the hijab is answering Pravoslavna, which means she is Orthodox Christian.

[00:02:36]This is a very familiar sight to me. My grandmother was wearing a hijab as well in a very similar style to this, maybe a little bit more covered even. But Orthodox Christian women on the Balkan were wearing the hijab, were wearing a covering. And moreover, back then, they were simply identified as Orthodox Christians. This was the way that people saw themselves. There was no nationality attached to their persona. And that being said, this video, recorded in the early '70s here, this woman must have been 70, I assume. Meaning, at the fall of the Ottoman Empire, she was around 20. And therefore, she's a prime example for the self-identification through religion rather than through nationality. Very interesting.

[00:03:29]Okay, so he asked her, "You don't identify as a Serbian or as a Yugoslavian?" And the way that I understood it here is she simply answers, "Oh, well, I haven't been home here. I don't know what my husband said about this." Something along those lines. Anyways, point of the story is that she doesn't have this understanding of nationalism.

[00:03:50]Yeah, very interesting here as well.

[00:03:51]This is a very young lady. We can only assume how old she is because let's be honest, back in the day even younger people looked away older. So, I would guess that she is 22, 23, something on those lines. But back in the day, maybe she's just 17, who knows. Anyway, she's been asked if she identifies as a Yugoslavian and she says that she will identify as a Yugoslavian. However, in her home nobody does till now, but she will. And this will be the generation of my parents and they were identified as Yugoslavians.

[00:04:22]Yugoslavians, call it what you will.

[00:04:26]And this lady here is identifying as a Serbian and you can see that she is a little bit older. So, maybe end 20s, something on those lines.

[00:04:38]This is very interesting as well because she is born in Bosnia, but identifies as a Serbian.

[00:04:52]This very pretty lady here was asked if she identifies as a Croatian or as a Dalmatian because there were two different descriptions of that country.

[00:05:00]Some say Hrvatska, which means Croatia, or Dalmacija, Dalmatian. Anyway, she identifies as Croatian and that's not surprising to me whatsoever because the Croatian part of Yugoslavia, well, they kept their identity for the longest time and this might be one of the reasons why the Yugoslav project failed.

[00:05:28]Yeah, this officer or whoever he is, very authoritarian here, of course. He says he identifies as Yugoslavian, of course, because he lives in Yugoslavia now. Therefore, he's Yugoslavian. I mean, this is just the archetype of the stereotypical system follower. I mean, you can see it right here. He has some sort of governmental position, potentially police officer, whatever.

[00:05:47]And therefore, it is needless to say that if the government calls itself Yugoslavia, you of course will be identified as Yugoslavian. There's nothing surprising whatsoever.

[00:06:06]She says she's been born in Croatia and therefore she will die as Croatian.

[00:06:17]Yeah, those are Slovakians. Very obvious as well that they will identify as Slovakians. Slovakians didn't really have this adherence to the state of Yugoslavia either. This might be surprising to many because Yugoslavia or Slovakia sounds very similar, but the language of the Slovakians was very different from the rest of the Balkan.

[00:06:45]Churchnitsa. Honestly guys, I don't know what this is. Please, the Balkan cracks, let me know in the comment section.

[00:06:57]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, really not surprising at all.

[00:07:00]Slovakians and Croatians, I don't want to say I don't consider them part of the Balkan because that is not true, but they're very very close to Austria, very very close to Germany, to Middle Europe, and therefore there was always this separation even under Yugoslavia.

[00:07:43]Exactly right. So, those would be people that you would now consider to be Bosnians. However, 1971 when they're asked what their nationality is, they simply say they are Musliman. They're Muslims. Then they're being asked even if anybody is identified as a Bosnian, and they say, "Well, I haven't heard this. I haven't heard anybody being identified as a Bosnian." For them it's completely normal that everybody is identified as a Muslim. And then they're being asked, "Is there anybody here that is Serbian in the village or in the surroundings?" And then they say, "Yeah, there are Orthodox Christians and Catholics." So, this national consciousness again didn't exist back then. The Serbs simply were Orthodox Christians or Catholics, and the Bosnians were simply Muslims. And that's how it separated. And this obviously further proves my point that the Balkans are simply one country if you talk about modern-day nation-states, ethnicities, call it what you will, but the separation initially happened through religion.

[00:09:02]It's really funny to see even amongst those guys, the Croatians always had this national identity.

[00:09:43]>> Yeah, those are the hippie types.

[00:09:45]Anyways, they say, "Oh, well, we identified as Croatians, and I guess that's who we are because we were born in Croatia, but if we were born somewhere different, then we would be something different." But, they don't really mind. It just is what it is.

[00:09:57]That's their self-identification. That's what has been given to them. But, that's what I say here, that the Croatians and the Slovakians, they really had this nationality push way, way earlier. But, the rest of the Balkans, under the millet system, under the Ottomans, for them, the self-declaration just happened through religion.

[00:10:27]Very interesting. So, this guy, I don't understand if he said if he would be something else, or if he actually is Bosnian. He said, "I would have to admit that I'm Bosnian, and then I would have to admit that I'm Muslim." All right, guys, and that's it for today's video.

[00:10:39]Extremely interesting for me personally to see this. Obviously, I'm biased here because I am from the Balkan, but I believe that this is very interesting for the Muslim ummah as well because the Ottoman Empire was the last caliphate.

[00:10:49]And after the dissolving of the Ottoman Empire, we had no caliphate at all. And where did it dissolve? It dissolved in the Balkans before it pulled back into Turkey and ended there. After that, we had communism, secularism, etc., etc., and modern-day democracy. But, those are the remainders of the understanding of how people identified themselves. For me personally, it was a journey into looking who I am as a person. I want to understand this. I was always seeking truth. I want to understand where I am coming from, what my ethnicity is, whom my ancestors were, etc., etc. And when I looked into the creation of the nation-state of Macedonia, at first, I had to realize, well, this is a modern-day invention. Prior to that, Macedonia was part of Bulgaria, if not even the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom in Ohrid. But then it became very interesting for me to understand why were the Macedonians, formerly known as Bulgarians, actually Orthodox Christians. So I started looking into how Orthodox Christianity came about, how the first Bulgarian Orthodox Church was created in Ohrid. And like that, I started deconstructing further and further what it actually means to be Northern Macedonian, what it actually means to be from the Balkan, what it actually means to be Orthodox Christian.

[00:12:00]And all of this in the end led me back to Islam. Alhamdulillah. But what this really should teach us, of course, is the sickness of nationalism. I mean, think about it. Of course, wars have been always fought. That is just human nature and it will never stop. However, if you really think about how unnecessary and stupid those nationalistic wars truly are. They're all just mind constructs, mental images, people imagining certain things, and then attacking each other for absolutely nothing, for no gain whatsoever. Think about the massacre in Bosnia, Srebrenica, right? When the Serbs declared the Bosnians to be Turkish, to be Muslim, to be the other, and therefore they had to go there and kill them, right? That was the understanding back then, some sort of national battle between Serbians and Bosnians.

[00:12:49]It's so ridiculous. The Serbs and the Bosnians, and I know that nobody wants to hear this, but ethnically speaking, are simply one and the same. There's no difference whatsoever. And of course, this goes further and further and further beyond the Balkan even.

[00:13:01]Nationalism is a sickness anywhere you go, be it Germany, be it Poland.

[00:13:06]The modern-day neo-revival of nationalism now, where people simply hold onto really sick ideas and fight each other for no apparent reason whatsoever. Anyways, I could rant about this forever. I hope this video was interesting for you just as it was for me to see that people back in the day actually were identified with their religion first, especially the Muslims still there. Of course, some Orthodox Christians as well, but the quote-unquote Slavic population was faster to fall into the Communist propaganda. The Christians were much more willing to let go of their religion and become Communists. Not that it didn't happen to Muslims as well, it certainly did, but the Christians pioneered this very unfortunate movement. Anyways, guys, that's it for this video. If you enjoyed it, leave it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. Check out the links in the description box below to further support my work. Thank you very much for that. And as always, may God bless you all. Much love and peace.

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