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Radio ReOrient S14:6: The Road to Sarajevo, with Haris Tagari, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan
01:03:19
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- [00:02]
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Saeed Khan
Welcome to the New books.
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Tell Award
You're listening to Radio Reorient, the decolonial podcast in partnership with the New Books Network. How should we study the things that we study after the critique of Orientalism
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Saeed Khan
as Salam alaikum listeners and welcome to another episode of Radio Reorient. Your hosts today are myself, Saeed Khan,
- [02:57]
Claudia Radvin
me, Claudia Radvin, me, Amina Isaat Das
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Tell Award
and me Tell Award.
- [03:02]
Claudia Radvin
Today's episode is part of our Forgotten Ummah series and takes us on an extended journey across Europe before arriving in Sarajevo, Bosnia with Harris Tigani and his
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Amina Isaat Das
Toyota Yaris drove from the UK to Sarajevo documenting lost Islamic history on the way before Arriving in Sarajevo, where he explored Muslim identity, genocides, past and present, and solidarity.
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Tell Award
The conversation took us on a whirlwind journey, which you can follow on Instagram using the handle harrisstory. And while you're there, don't forget to follow us, Ms. Reorient. So without further ado, let's listen in.
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Claudia Radvin
Assalamu alaikum, listeners, and welcome to another episode of Radio Reorient. And today we're joined by Harris Tagari to hear about his journey, dubbed on Instagram. Harris Inayaris, welcome to the show.
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Harris Tigani
Thanks for having me on.
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Claudia Radvin
Thank you for joining us. Do you think you could kick things off by telling us about the origins of the journey, why you started and what the plan was?
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Harris Tigani
Well, there's many, there's many origins of the stories of the story of why I decided to jump in a 20 year old, you know, beaten up Yaris. But one of, one of the reasons why I haven't talked about as much because it's a little bit controversial and that's the reason behind, you know, doing this, this trip, which is almost like a mainstreaming history. I was permanently or temporarily banned on Instagram. That was because of my activism in regards to the genocide in Gaza. In terms of, even in Bosnia itself, I had a lot of accounts which reported my videos as hate speech, as promoting violence and other random bogus claims. So I had to come up with a way to make the history mainstream. I needed a breakthrough. And so this idea of a Yaris, this entertaining sort of, it's, it's a journey, it's a trip, people want to follow along. But also I thought, okay, what cool way I'm driving through Europe, I might as well document Muslim history in Europe. You know, Muslim participation in European civilization in terms of the culture, the education, how Muslim history has influenced the geopolitics of, of the continent of Europe. And so naturally this was like the perfect idea to do that.
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Saeed Khan
So one of the things that really struck me about your journey, Horace, is, and we mapped this out, I think it was about 21 hours of driving in Europe itself and then making it over to Europe from, from the UK and so, you know, tack on another four or five hours, I imagine. And being in America, driving 24 hours, you're still in America in the sense that you, you could cross from, from where I am in Michigan. In 20 hours, you can get fairly close to the west coast of the country and you're in that same space. Some would argue maybe there's some cultural differences from one region to the Other. But here you are going through such a long span of, of the European continent with, with such a diversity of languages and contrary to how Europe badges itself, a single culture. How did you find on this, on this trek, if you will, of this odyssey, the changes as you go through the continent?
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Harris Tigani
Yeah. So from UK to probably, I want to say maybe southern Germany, you have the same landscape, even the same geography. Flat fields, you know, some hilly mountainous areas. But what struck me the most, and I still can't fathom this, how quickly it is to go from, you know, continental Europe, you know, the Europe that you know of churches, you know, European way of life. Literally within three hours drive from Germany, you're in a completely different world in which there are mosques, there are bridges built by the Ottomans, there are communist apartment blocks, there are churches, synagogues, all on one street, and a place which looks like it's been ripped straight out of, you know, somewhere in Anatolia, literally just within three hours. So there was one moment in which I was driving from Austria and I had to pass through like four countries within three hours. And I passed through, I think maybe like two or three different languages, you know, Austrian, German, then Slovenian and then of course, Bosnian. I mean, they're the same language. But it was just such a weird culture shock to be able to drive such a short amount of time but cover almost different continents.
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Saeed Khan
So here you're mentioning, and thank you for doing so, providing that reminder that not only coming into central Europe, you're experiencing the Islamic influence of the region, but you're also in experiencing the post communist aspects of this area. The fact that until fairly recently, the early 1990s, there was a whole different governmental or political system, social system than what western Europeans would would recognize and in many ways would, would even have any idea of what it must have been like. How did you see that aspect of it with, as you said, these tall communist style buildings and all?
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Harris Tigani
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's super strange and, and you get most of this as you go into Bosnia, as you drive into Bosnia. I mean, in Croatia there's not that much. Slovenia is kind of modernized, so you don't see that industrial side of of, of Slovenia, the old Yugoslav era, but it's definitely prevalent in Bosnia and especially Sarajevo. Like I mentioned, these are like huge ginormous communist apartment blocks. And I don't think anywhere in the world will you find so many different cultures, so many different civilizations pass through literally one street. And in Sarajevo there's a street and it's, it's nicknamed the meeting point of cultures. You look left, and it's Austrian architecture. Look right, it's Ottoman. It's a typical Ottoman bazaar ripped straight out from Turkey. And then in the distance, you can see the apartment box. So it is truly like such a. I've never been in a city that is more perplexing and it is more cosmopolitan than Sarajevo.
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Claudia Radvin
I think there's something really special about that. And it's, I think, the example that Saeed gave of traveling through America by comparison, you know, your example of traveling through, you know, three different nations in such a short space of time and exploring so much of what is essentially forgotten Muslim history in the region, as well. As Saeed mentioned, we tend to think of Europe, or some people tend to think of it in these kinds of homogenous terms, Western Eurocentric terms. But going on to Bosnia, most people, when they think of the Balkans, they think about the conflict and the genocide in the 90s. But you also explored Serbian efforts to eradicate Muslimness in the region, not just in the 90s, but going back to World War II and beyond that, in your travels, how did you negotiate that trajectory of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the region? The kinds of, you know, the denial and the continuation of Islamophobia as well. Islamophobic abuse.
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Harris Tigani
Yeah. The Serb. Serb nationalism, Serb ultranationalism has. Has such a strong yoke over Serbian society continuously. Like, time won't wither Serbian nationalism away. It's been almost 200 since the original Serbian revolt against the Ottomans, which coincided with the first major genocide against the Bosniak people. And the ideas of that time are still prevalent in Bosnia. And I think a really, really stark and pertinent case study for us to look at to understand this persistence of Serb nationalism is the city of Vishygrad. I'm not sure if. Do you know where Visigrad is? Yeah. So for those who don't know, Vishegrad is a city in eastern Bosnia. And Both in the 1940s and the 1990s, similar acts of genocide took place. And I mean, to the t, there was a case in which a village close to Vishygrad in which 50 Bosniaks, Muslims who were indigenous to Bosnia, who were indigenous to Europe, they were uprooted. They were taken out of their homes by these Serb nationalists, these nationalists who had an ideology called Christoslavism, and that was the Bosniak Muslims, were traitors to the Serb religion. They converted to Islam during the Ottoman time. And so they thought and sought to eradicate these traitors from Bosnia. And so in this village 50 Bosniaks were thrown into the River Drina, and this was in March 1942. And all of those 50 people drowned and died, except for one person, and that was a young boy. His name was Cheval Tabakovich. He survived that. And the Chetniks, as they are called, these Serb nationalists, they knew about his story. They taught their children about the story of how he survived. Imagine the damage to their ego that they failed to kill and erase this Muslim village. And so this Muslim boy grew up, and the story was well known. And fast forward literally 50 years, almost till the day in. In the spring of 1992, in Vishygrad, on the same river Drina, these Chetnik forces hunted down this young boy, who is now in his 60s maybe, and they tied his arms before they threw him into the river, because they said, last time you survived because we didn't tie your arms up. And so they tied his arms up and they threw him into the River Drina. And in 2010, they found his body that had rotten and had decomposed. And that is the epitome of what Serb nationalism is. Like I said, even with time, it doesn't wane, it doesn't decline, and it has only been emboldened, even after the genocide which took place in the 1990s.
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Saeed Khan
So, Haris, I mean, here you're talking about something obviously very horrific, and there's a famous adage that those who don't learn their history will be doomed to repeat it. You traveled through, I suspect, the Republic of Srpska, the small area that's, thanks to the Dayton Accords to end the conflict in the 1990s was officially recognized. And you also have, in the south of Bosnia, Herzegovina, you have Herzegovina, which is, for all intents and purposes, a Catholic province of its own. And traveling from Sarajevo south toward Mostar, you realize that you're no longer in a Muslim ethnic area. It's very, very Catholic. What do you think keeps this very troubled and very tragic and yet beautiful country together? You have three very distinct identities, and at any given moment, they may be susceptible to these spasms of nationalism, hate that boils over toward even potentially genocide. How did you feel when you were there? I mean, was it in the air, I guess, is the question I'm asking.
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Harris Tigani
It's. It's always in the air, and it's very fragile. But answering the question of how do you think Bosnia is still persisted? It's, you know, it's. Of course, it's fragile, and it's on the brink of yet another escalation. I think what really, you know, grips it together are, I think it's the majority of people, those living in the fields, in the farms, who, during the 600 or almost 500 year rule of the Ottomans, the religious harmony that was entrenched within society. I mean, Sarajevo was called the European Jerusalem. You can go there today, even after the genocides which had taken place, there are still churches, there are still synagogues. Previously, before the 1500s, before the Ottomans, there were no synagogues in the Balkans. They were destroyed by the Catholics or the Orthodox. And you go to Sarajevo and you find those synagogues. So I think it's the tradition, the tradition of the existing idea of harmony and religious harmony, coexistence which is keeping Bosnia together. Although it's kind of ironic, seen as most of the genocides and the violence you see in the Balkans is because of supposed religion, religious motives. But alternatively it's the other way around as well. Religion is actually keeping people together. And in Mostar, this place, as you mentioned, that has a, a church that was destroyed during the Bosnian war, it was actually rebuilt and when it was rebuilt the second time, it was rebuilt by both Muslims Christians, Serb Christians and also Croat Christians. So this idea of religious harmony is still very much present.
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Saeed Khan
Well, it's, it's, it's somewhat ironic, isn't it, that under the Ottoman Empire there was the official policy of the millet system which allowed every religious minority community full authority over its own religious affairs. And even if there was an intra faith dispute, that those things could be managed by that respective group's religious laws. And there's always this debate that one of the unintended consequences of that is it helped to create the, the framework of nationalism, people not necessarily being obliged to see themselves as part of a bigger and broader diverse empire, but being within their own little pigeonhole. And here we are when it comes to Bosnia now and we see one of those unfortunate and unintended results of it.
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Harris Tigani
Yeah, absolutely.
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Claudia Radvin
I think this sort of draws us into a kind of a broader conversation as well. Thinking about sort of, as you said, things are somewhat on the brink right now as we speak, there's been a lot of tension building and I mean, we hope that it doesn't escalate. But when you were exploring these various parts of Serbian history, and naturally this involves the ideology of Greater Serbia, this was something that was brought up a lot during the genocide in the 90s. Did you find similarities to the discourses emerging from other genocides that are ongoing? I know that you've explored other contexts where this kind of violence goes on. Do you think that we can see the rhetoric of Greater Serbia in other examples?
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Harris Tigani
Of course, without a doubt. And the best case study for that, of course, is Ghaza right now, when I asked this question to Imam Omar Suleiman when he was in Sarajevo. And we both came up with three distinct ways in which Serb nationalism is almost related and similar to that of Israeli nationalism and the idea of a Greater Israel in three distinct ways. And number one is the religious sanctioning of violence. Number two is the sexual abuse. And number three is cultural genocide. Cultural genocide is a very important one. We saw in Sarajevo the city hall, the library, which had documents of hundreds of years of Muslim coexistence, manuscripts, Qurans. It was a beautiful library. And that was the largest book burning in modern history in the 1990s by the Serbs to eradicate and to erase that history that Muslims were part of, of Europe. And so if you erase that, you erase the existence of Muslims and you make it easier for, you know, to replace them. And likewise, we've seen Gaza, there is not a single education institution that is left standing. All of them has been systematically leveled flat. And then we have sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is the idea of degrading a Muslim woman to the extent where their bodies are literally becoming permissible targets of violation. The Serbs believed and is part of their greater Serbian ideology to replace the Muslims. The Muslims were Turks, right? They were the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. And according to their ideology, you couldn't convert a Muslim man to Orthodoxy, so you had to kill them. And that's what we saw in Srebrenica. The whole male population of Sylebnica were. Were massacred like cattle. As for the women, they could be converted, and that was through rape. So they could be forcefully converted. That was their ideology, that they would plant their seed within the. The. The Muslim woman to make them into an Orthodox Christian. And there were rape camps across Bosnia, the famous, rather infamous photograph of Farida Osmanovic, who had to hang herself because of being belittled and humiliated in such an extent where she couldn't take it any longer. And many people used to kill themselves because of the diseases which came with such abuse. And likely. And similarly in Gaza, we have recent reports showing that Palestinian detainees have to suffer rape from dogs, from animals. And lastly, the third thing which is, brings the greater Serbian ideology with the greater Israeli ideology and the similarities between them is of course, the religious sanctioning of things, of violence against the indigenous population. In Palestine, we see Today, you know, the idea of it was promised 3,000 years ago, the Greater Serbia, Judea and Samaria. And we have even rabbis who are blessing Israeli forces upon the entry into Gaza. The writing of famous Jewish historical names on bombs before they're flown into and flung into children. And likely with Bosnia as well. We have Radovankaradic. He used to have around him a Chetnik priest, a Serbian Orthodox priest. His name was Vasili. Vasilia, I believe. And in 1995, upon their invasion into Muslim villages around Sarajevo, this Chetnik priest would bless these soldiers, and Radhavan Karadic would comment, saying, I feel like King Lazar, which was the king before the Ottomans had come. I feel like King Lazar ready to expel the enemies forever. As he quotes. So this religious sanctioning of violence, it made it more acceptable that, yeah, these people are like, they're similar to you. The Bosniaks, the Serbs, the Croats. They have the same language, they have the same culture, the traditions. They all eat baklava, they all eat burek, they all eat cevapi. Yet it was the very fact that these were Muslims which made them permissible targets.
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Saeed Khan
Harris, did you find. I mean, you've been to Sarajevo on so many occasions. If you could speak a little bit about the. The level of Muslim identity and Muslim expression. I was. I was in Sarajevo, as a matter of fact, a few months ago, and that was my second time there, the last being about a decade ago. And I felt that there was a shift when it came to how. And I know this is a very loaded term, Muslimness was. Was visible within the public sphere. I was wondering what you notice about that.
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Harris Tigani
Yeah. So, of course, you have to understand that it wasn't just the war which may have taken people away from religion. You had 50 years of communism, so that degraded religion as it was. Religion became just the idea of a mosque. Everything outside wasn't religion. Religion just was confined in the mosque. And even the mosques were shut down, were destroyed and leveled in the guise of modernizing. But actually, the war led to an explosion of faith. I spoke to a genocide survivor in SZA by chance, and his name is Hasan Hasanovic. And he would tell me he was a young boy during the war in Srebrenica, in the town of Srebrenica, where all this horrific crimes took place. And he tells me that because of communism, the Muslims couldn't learn, they couldn't read. But when you had the Bosnian war, it led to almost like a. You know, it was like the gates were open, people could now understand their faith. They're going to die for their faith, so they may as well learn their faith. And he said that for the Friday prayers, they had to have three or four Friday prayers because the whole mosque was full, which couldn't have taken place during communism. So it actually led to people discovering their faith. And of course, even today you have the youth with social media, you know, global village. You know, I could watch a video in Bosnia from somewhere in the Middle east or in the Arab world, and I could be educated on these topics. I don't need a local scholar. So I think the youth, the Muslim youth today is. Is they're rapidly growing and they're learning, you know, more than. Than previous generations, and they're undoing the. The damaging effects of communism.
- [25:00]
Claudia Radvin
When we sort of think about our conversations broadly on Radio Reorient, we've had the opportunity to speak to a number of guests about Islamophobia in a lot of different contexts. And I think we can see some of the family resemblances between your journey in Bosnia and some of the conversations we've had around things like the Uyghur genocide, for example, particularly when you spoke about, you know, the cultural genocide, the destruction of Islamic heritage of mosques, and also some of the very specific types of horrifying violence that you refer to as well, particularly in terms of projects of eugenics. We've also had the opportunity to sort of talk to people specifically about Islamophobia in a number of European contexts, whether that's Denmark, Germany, Austria, France. How did you find navigating that and sort of how you saw Islam represented in Europe? Because obviously you had quite an extensive journey before getting to Bosnia. So how did you encounter sort of Muslim sense of identity and history and some of the kinds of forgotten Muslim histories, if you like, that you were exploring?
- [26:16]
Harris Tigani
Yeah. One of the most unique things I discovered on this trip, and I didn't know about until I had gone on this trip and searched for it, was the very strange phenomenon of European monarchies in the 1600s making fake mosques because they were so inspired by the ideas and the wisdom and the culture. Of course, this is very Oriental, without a doubt, but the fascination of the Muslim world during this time. And so these European, you know, aristocracy, the royals, they would build these fake mosques. And the strangest thing about them, they'd have Quran, they'd have the Quranic script, they'd have the Shahada, which is La ilaha illallah. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad, is a messenger. So these are Christians, but They're writing the Islamic Declaration of faith. And you know, contrast that to today where European leaders and politicians and people are calling for the eradication of Islam. We need to deport the Muslims. We don't want anything to do with the Muslim culture. When we look just, you know, maybe 150 years into the past and it was the complete other way around. That's also something that was, I was fascinated truly by, along with of course, the extensive depth to which Muslim history has permeated Europe, whether it's a city in France, the Toulon, in which the whole city in the 1500s was evacuated by the French to make way for the Ottoman Muslims. I believe 30,000 Ottoman Muslims that wintered there during the French and Ottoman alliance that they had. Can you imagine a French city making way for Muslims to settle in a French city? Contrast that with the, you know, the idea of deportations in France going on to the idea of Muslims, you know, the cultures, the different types of Muslims and how they're navigating, especially Islamophobia. The Muslims in France are strong. They, they have kept their identity. They came during the, the 1940s, 1950s, to help rebuild the French economy. And I'd say they were the most integrated in terms of learning the language, you know, in terms of multiculturalism I had seen in Europe, which I was also surprised by.
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Saeed Khan
I remember Harris in 1984 when Sarajevo hosted the, the Winter Olympic Games and watching them without really having much idea that this was a, a Muslim city for all intents and purposes, perhaps because its narrative was eclipsed by the, the fact that it was in a communist country. Today I, I think that such ignorance, shall we say, about Sarajevo's Muslim composition, its heritage, its history, is no longer there. And in part thanks to people like yourself and others who have made Sarajevo a tourist destination, a place to travel. When I was there, I saw even signs in Arabic for for example. And I wonder then that are Sarajevos Muslims feeling as though they are now connected to the broader global Ummah, or are they contesting their religious national identity in midst of the fact that some of their co nationalists like the Serbs and the Croats are seeing themselves as primarily part of their religious national identity?
- [29:56]
Harris Tigani
Yeah, I mean just the fact that if you walk into Sarajevo, I'm sure you saw this, one of the main bridges in Sarajevo, you have a massive banner about Palestine. Palestine is nowhere near Bosnia. There are very little connections with Palestinians and Bosnians. Historically there is, but today you couldn't find that connection. But there is in this small little city Enclosed by mountains. The idea of a Ummah is still there after so many hundreds of years of trying to. Trying to destroy that very thing. So, yeah, I think that the idea of Ummah is very much still there. And as seen with their advocacy for the Palestinian cause, for the Syrian cause, as well, for the causes of most places in the Ummah. So, yeah, they do see themselves as part of a larger. Larger Muslim Ummah.
- [30:43]
Claudia Radvin
In terms of how Bosnia maintains that connection, we've seen sort of in our discussions, in other episodes, how events like the killing of George Floyd led to kind of that worldwide outcry in places where, you know, there's. There's very little relationship to how black communities are treated in America, to, let's say, protests that took place in. In East Asia or in Europe about this. This one incident, it became this unifying factor. Do you feel that there's kind of more awareness now about the Bosnian genocide in terms of. You know, I was. I was quite young when it happened, but as such a horrifying event, something that was, you know, bad enough to actually be recognized by the un, which is a topic that we'd need a whole other podcast to discuss in terms of genocide recognition. But I feel from my experience that people seem to be talking about this more and more.
- [31:50]
Harris Tigani
Did you.
- [31:50]
Claudia Radvin
Did you find that sort of before your journey, during your journey, or do you think that that's a product of kind of globalization, social media just bringing this particular event more to the public's attention? What do you think sparked that?
- [32:05]
Harris Tigani
Yeah, part of it is globalization, without a doubt. I first went to Bosnia about four years ago. When I came back to the uk I had people saying, why were you there? Were you there to fight? Like, they didn't understand that somebody could take a plane from London Gatwick Airport and go to Sarajevo. They kind of saw it as this backwaters place that was just out of conflict and war. But, yeah, without a doubt, globalization has helped to make Sarajevo trending. It's a viral city. I think it's Europe's most famous city now because, I mean, if you look at other cases of genocide, the Uyghur example is a good one. Without social media, we would not know what's happening in those camps. Without footage, without these videos, without these accounts that are, you know, displaying the brutality of these camps, we would not know about it. So social media has definitely assisted in bringing to attention what happened in Bosnia, but also, I think what actually happened in Bosnia, the fact that it was medieval Barbary brutality that took place in the 20th century, the scale of it, the destruction. And naturally, I think a lot of people, you know, people who aren't really accustomed to the historical knowledge, they go to Bosnia wanting to see the pretty mosques and the beautiful rivers and the mountains, and they come out of it actually learning more about the genocide. One of my very good mates, he came with me on my second trip to Bosnia. He had no idea about the tunnel of Sarajevo in which, you know, everybody was besieged and they use this tunnel. And I took him to these places. And that's the focus of my page on Instagram, is to show people visual history. Because if you tell them like the history of Bosnia in a lecture or in a podcast, for example, they're not going to really connect it. It's not a personal, it's not related to them. But until you go there and you see those mass graves, you see Sreb Benica, those, you know, thousands of little tombstones, only then can you understand the gravity of it and that it's a real thing. So, yeah, people visiting Bosnia really does help to bring more awareness to it.
- [34:15]
Saeed Khan
You mentioned, Harris, that Sarajevo is arguably now Europe's most famous city. And there's so many cities that are almost singularly defined by suffering and by tragedy. I mean, you hear the word Dresden, Srebrenica, as you've said, Dunkirk, I think about Dallas, which is now the ninth largest city in the United States, but it will forever be known as the city where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And here you have Sarajevo, the site of an unspeakable genocide very recently. And then of course, the city where arguably World War I began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Can Sarajevo have an identity that transcends tragedy? And I guess maybe a follow up question to that is, should Sarajevo have an identity that transcends tragedy?
- [35:13]
Harris Tigani
Yeah, well, it's almost prone. The Balkans are almost prone to violence and genocide on these scales. Otomov Van Bismarck actually said that World War I will come out from a damned place in the Balkans, and it did. That's just because of the nature of it. So many empires have come through there. So many empires have passed through their civilizations. It's a melting pot of cultures, but it's also on one of the most contentious geopolitical fault lines that there is the connection between east and West, Muslim, Christian past, present. So Sarajevo has rebuilt itself many times. In the 1600s, it was completely torched. Not a single mosque remained after the Habsburg came and destroyed everything that moved in the city. But it rebuilt itself to the point where in the 1980s it was honored with having the Winter Olympics. So to answer your question, does it deserve to. Absolutely. Because it's the. I believe Istanbul isn't the center of the world, or at least the point in which cultures meet. I think it's Bosnia. That's the closest point you can get to that. So many international events have happened, of course, like you mentioned the commencement of the First World War and so many other international events. For example, the first mosque in the whole world to have electricity was Ghazi Huzraf Beg Mosque. So, yeah, it deserves to have the attention because it has everything.
- [36:40]
Saeed Khan
Well, having that kind of, I suppose, appeal and attraction is always a good thing when it comes to recognizing and appreciating culture and this very vibrant history and even the diversity. But Sarajevo and Bosnia are now also under a different eye, which is about energy and about artificial intelligence and investments that are starting to emerge there. Do you see that as something that each of the respective communities of Bosnia can embrace, or do you see this perhaps as just another external force which may disrupt an already delicate balance that's existing there?
- [37:30]
Harris Tigani
Well, I mean, Sarajevo itself is becoming more multicultural. More Serbs are actually. They don't have a problem with moving from the villages into. Into Sarajevo. It's more cosmopolitan. You walk through Sarajevo, you don't just hear Bosnian, you also hear Italian, you hear Spanish. People from the whole of Europe are coming to there, a lot of investment. So I think there's a lot of potential. But once again, the only thing which is holding it back is, is like you mentioned, the, the, the spectre of war, the past, the tensions. But I'd say in the major cities itself, you see a lot less of the religious tension and the animosity. You see that more so in Republika Srpska, in which genocide denial is actually encouraged and is celebrated, in Sarajevo, you don't have that. So in the place in which genocide denial is encouraged, of course you're going to see backwardness, you're going to see low development.
- [38:32]
Claudia Radvin
I think that was something I had the opportunity to go in 2024. That was something that you really noticed. We took a bus ride, a big group of us, from Sarajevo to Srebrenica. And that transition, I mean, you spoke about it in your journeys in sort of like Western Europe, how you see all these stark transitions. This was in the same country, albeit in differently controlled regions of it. But that journey leaving Sarajevo from the city into this lush greenery, the minute that you entered Republika Srpska, the changes the kind of, the images of infamous chetniks on buildings and the statements that accompanied it, the hostility with these tour buses being stopped by local police because they know where they've been, they know where they're coming from, where they're going to, and the fact, you know, just little things like being told, you know, make sure that you've attended to all facilities before you leave, because we don't stop from here. We do not stop this bus. Even sort of, you know, some of the changes as well, not seeing mosques, but seeing these ornate orthodox places of worship, it was visually, you know, it was visceral. You felt that immense transition from one governed region to the next. And some of it naturally, you know, the architecture, the landscape is beautiful, but some of these aspects were quite distressing. And it sort of, it makes you imagine what day to day life must be like if you have to navigate those structures, so to speak. But moving sort of towards the end of our conversation, sadly, we do always try to sort of, I guess, look, look at a positive note to finish off these conversations. So I think it would be wonderful for our listeners to hear sort of the main highlights of the trip, the moments of unbridled joy and solidarity, if you like. What were your favorite parts of that journey?
- [40:41]
Harris Tigani
Yeah, just even thinking about that really brings tears to my eyes.
- [40:44]
Claudia Radvin
Too many.
- [40:45]
Harris Tigani
So many people. Too many. There are too many. It was genuinely the journey of like none other, in which I could travel across different countries, but experienced a home which is of course, in these mosques, in these communities. As a Muslim, you know, I, I felt alone when there weren't mosques, when there weren't communities of people around me. And one particular story brings tears to my eyes almost every single time I remember it. And that was in, in France. I was on my way to Paris and there are no mosques. You know, I'm driving like crazy in, in the Yaris, which is, is an oxymoron because the Yaris only does like 60 miles per hour max. But I'm, I'm there like foot on the clutch, trying to, foot on the accelerator, trying to make it for, for Jummah prayer Friday prayers in this mosque that I've mapped out. And I reached there and I Alhamdulillah, I managed to pray my, my Jummah prayer. And afterwards I'm like, Allah, I'm so hungry. But there's no halal restaurants in the area. There's nothing. The Muslims only make their own food, right? They don't buy from takeaways. And so like Allah, I'M so hungry. When I come out of this mosque, please, like, I just hope there's some food waiting somewhere. And I go into my car. I was defeated, and someone knocked on my window, and they said, couscous. That's the only word they said. They didn't say, come and have couscous. They just knocked on the window and said, couscous. So I'm like, there he is. That's my prayers accepted. But that wasn't the best part of this story. I go out and I see on the floor two Syrian refugees. They had called me to eat. So they're pretty old, a man and a woman, maybe in their 50s, and they didn't look too well off as well. And they were sitting on the floor and they had a big bowl of couscous, and they were inviting every single person that walked past them to come and eat. And I'll never forget what he said. He said, baraka fil jamaa. There's more blessings when you eat together. So this small bowl, right, Even though I was starving, I had one spoon, and maybe it didn't fill me up, but just that act of, you know, I don't know who you are, right? You're. You're a stranger. You've come in a UK car. You know, the very fact that he. We can share a meal, and he's a refugee, you know, he told me he had to flee from one country to another from Syria. And that beauty. Like, I. In that moment, I realized that although, you know, the Ummah, as you say, that the Muslim community is so defeated when it comes to what's happening in Gaza and how Muslims are actually helping that genocide and across the Ummah. Although how defeated the Ummah is, although how weak the Ummah is, it is also equally as beautiful and as strong. And that moment defined that principle.
- [43:23]
Saeed Khan
So the other character in this wonderful story, Harris, is, of course, your Yaris, your car. And we're wondering, now that you have brought so much of the beauty and the complexity of Sarajevo and Bosnia to us, where's your next journey? Where would you like to.
- [43:42]
Harris Tigani
Next journey?
- [43:43]
Saeed Khan
Take the.
- [43:43]
Harris Tigani
Yeah. Yaris is back in home turf, and I plan to drive it all the way back to Bosnia and focus a little bit more in the Balkan region. And then the idea was just to drive it to the ends of the roads until this thing gave up. And I know that even if it gave up, I'll end up spending, like, £3,000 fixing it. So I really. I really want to take this car to, like, Mongolia or China and to map, you know, even the Silk Road Muslim communities along the way. Of course, my, my work focuses on Muslim communities across the world. So I think that'll be a perfect ending for the, for the Yaris to have it, you know, wither away in some Mongolian flame, you know, well, all
- [44:21]
Saeed Khan
ends, all things ending in the East.
- [44:24]
Harris Tigani
There you go.
- [44:25]
Claudia Radvin
The funny thing is I just watched kind of a mini documentary about Mongolians using Toyotas, I think specifically Priuses for herding because, you know, if there's a lack of access to horses or motorbikes. So I think that would be perfect. That sounds like the ideal retirement for the plucky little Yaris. Sadly, we need to wrap up, but I feel like we could have discussed the Yaris future and its past journeys in much more detail. So all that's left to say is thank you so much, Harris, for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Raz, for listening in. And we hope that you'll join us on another episode of Radio Reorient.
- [45:13]
Saeed Khan
Welcome back, listeners. Hope you enjoyed this really stimulating conversation going through so much of Europe. But of course, a focus on Bosnia brought to you in conversation with Harris Targary, myself, Saikhan, and of course, Claudia Radovin. And given that this is part of our forgotten Ummah series, it really then evokes an inquiry into the idea of forgotten history or even forgetting history, and what are the perils of forgetting history because it allows others to then fill in the blanks either with myth distortion or lies. Agency becomes so crucial in this and in the rather tragic history of Bosnia, particularly more recently, we see this playing itself out. Amina, how did you find this episode as Horace takes us in his Yaras across Europe and really through so much of a continent which has been influenced certainly in a positive way with Islam and with Muslims.
- [46:30]
Amina Isaat Das
For me, it really got me thinking about, I guess, the way in which Harris spoke about some of the violence and the denial of that violence against Muslimness or against Muslims within the European context and how that in many ways is part of the erasure of the European Muslim identity. And I guess I'd use that in quotes because that in itself is an incredibly complex idea as well. But I guess erasing the Muslimness from Europe then, or having to accept it conversely, I guess on the other hand would force Europe to question or to challenge some of the preconceptions it has in the national myth or the European continental myth that it has about itself as being this, you know, we hear this term quite a lot And I'd use it in quotes. Judeo Christian Europe, right. And recognizing the Muslim history in Bosnia, or indeed the Muslim history in the Iberian Peninsula, is something that's quite unsettling. And so what we see in the Balkans is this idea of just erasing the violence and denying the violence that happened, or the assumption that Muslimness is an importation, that it is not indigenous to the area. Whereas I think Harris's work and this interview and indeed his social media presence really invites us to question some of those ideas, to question this myth of a Judeo Christian Europe, and to begin to incorporate Muslimness within that conceptualization of Europe. And again, I think that's unsettling for a lot of the power structures that we see, but also the rationalization or the pseudo justification that we see for the regulation and control and disciplining of Muslimness, because Muslimness is always perceived or positioned as an outsider. If we start to recognize this history of indigenous European Muslims, then those narratives or those devices start to become increasingly problematic. Of course, they should be problematic from the outset, just as a sort of basic conceptualization of humans and that sort of basic freedoms and liberties that we as civilized societies purport to adhere to. And I think this is a really interesting way, and I think it's brilliant that it ties into this forgotten Ummah and the forgotten Muslim history aspect of what we do here at Radio Reorient as well.
- [49:02]
Saeed Khan
Well, I mean, the term Judeo Christian civilization for Europe is of course problematic, notwithstanding centuries long expulsions of Jewish communities from European countries, their reintroduction, antisemitism being more systemic and institutionalized, and then of course culminating with the Holocaust. It's such a strange way to then define a civilization, but in some ways, perhaps it's an ironically honest way. Claudia, One of the things that Amina said that really struck me, especially when we were speaking to Harris, was this idea of erasing history but also denying history. History is also used to rationalize, justify and legitimize that violent history. And I was wondering how you saw that when we had our discussion with them.
- [50:01]
Claudia Radvin
Absolutely. And you know, I echo every syllable of what Amina said. It was really well put and it's drawing on that kind of eradication of history. I thought, um, Harris really, really excellently put how, or rather he really well connected how various genocidal projects throughout history have sought to eradicate and rewrite that history through what he referred to as cultural genocide. And I know for a lot of people that's sometimes a problematic term, or people see it as kind of minimizing the act of genocide. But I think the way it's used here is really crucial, especially when we link it to other genocidal projects that also deny their existence. And we can look at the Uyghur genocide in terms of cultural eradication of mosques and other sites of Muslim culture. We can look at the ongoing scholasticide happening in Gaza, the destruction of universities and schools. When you look at any kind of regime that has engaged in, for example, book burning, that very kind of iconic act of destruction, when you kind of destroy that knowledge, you are destroying a group's history at the same time. But I think Bosnia is such a definitive example of genocide denial. And the story that really struck me was the one he mentioned about the large number of Muslims that were purged. I think it was in Visigrad. They were thrown into the River Drina. One survived and the Serbians made sure, however many decades later, to come back for that one survivor. And sadly they succeeded. And it's those very distinct acts of eradication that I thought really stood out. In that conversation with Harris, I mean, the whole exchange was gripping. The fact that he managed to see so much along that journey, especially in relation to what Amina's talking about in terms of forgotten histories. He doesn't just look at Bosnia, he goes much further. But I think the way that he engaged with genocide denial and drew upon other examples was just so brilliantly done.
- [52:29]
Saeed Khan
Well, this whole idea about the blood feud going back decades later to settle the score and get that one individual, it really reminded me of how these lines of demarcations are made in the so called modern era compared to the pre modern era. That blood feuds were somehow or the other primitive. They were pre modern, they were anti modern people settling scores, Whether it's on the level of family or community, or it was seen as something more recently as the exclusive province of the so called darker communities. Even within Europe, blood feuds were the domain of the Sicilians and vendetta occurring. But here we see that it's really not confined either temporally or spatially anywhere. And it also seems to then play into this idea of expansion, that a community is not satisfied just within its own borders, but looking to expand and with that erasing those who are already there, those who can claim the same level of indigeneity, eating the same foods as he said, cevabi and burek and all of the other wonderful fare and cuisine of the region. Cela, you were hearing his conversation with the whole project of Greater Serbia and when you see this, not only does it appear to be colonialistic in its measure, but of course, it's undeniable and indisputable how it connects into other such projects that are underway.
- [54:06]
Tell Award
Yeah, I was really struck by that. I was really struck by the connection he made between Greater Serbia as a project and Greater Israel as a project. And I think we could add other greater projects. I mean, I would speak of, at the moment, a project of Greater America, too, or the greater United States. I mean, I think, you know, we are seeing the resurgence of a number of these projects that, yes, are, of course, about occupation of territory. But I think, as Claudia said, I think Claudia made this point really well that we need to always see these genocidal projects as also historicidal projects. And he proud to use the term cultural genocide. I would use, I think, the term historicide, because the point I would want to make is that, you know, these genocidal projects, these greater occupation projects, are a destruction of a people or a racialized group in the present, but they're also a destruction of the idea that that racialist, racialized group has a history, you know, and the perfect case for that. I mean, we could think of the United States of America, for example, as somewhere that is built on the absolute destruction not just of indigenous Americans in the present, but also of the history of those people's claim to a land. But that's exactly, you know, the logic of. Of colonial Zionism, too, that, you know, Zionism is a project not just of destroying Palestinians. It's not just a kind of Islamophobic, genocidal project. It's also a project of destroying the idea of the Palestinian past. Right, of the idea of a Palestinian claim to that land. And we know that because Israeli ministers often say it explicitly. I'm thinking of the comments that the Israeli minister Idit Sliman made when she was standing in the ancient site, archaeological site of Sebastia, which had been occupied, colonized by IOF soldiers. And she was standing in that site, and she said, there's no such thing as a Palestinian people, so there can be no such thing as a Palestinian site. So this question of historicide is also about, you know, deleting the very possibility, you know, for. For those people to exist. So I think that brings up the really important relation between what is imaginable in the past and what is imaginable in the future. Right. History is not just a question of establishing the facts of what happened. History is also about how we imagine the kind of world we live in and how we imagine the possibilities for the kind of world that might be possible. And that's actually in that question of what history can do in the world is actually, I think, what I love most about this interview with, with Harris, and he says this very interesting thing right at the beginning of the interview. He says his project is a project of mainstreaming history. And I'm quoting him there on that term, mainstreaming history. And he also, in his Instagram bio, he refers to himself as a field historian. And what I love about this project of historiography, really, that he's engaged in, because it's a project of rewriting what we know about history. What I love about that project is that it goes against the grain of so much of the shameful behavior of many professional historians in this moment. I mean, you know, Saeed, because you're also in the world of professional historians like I am, you know, you know, how cowardly many, many professional historians, and not just the historians themselves, but also organizations, disciplinary organizations that represent historians who have engaged in genocide denial, who have not been able to call out or stand against the genocide of the Palestinian people, who, even worse than all of that, who see history as something that should be apolitical. And I'm so sick of hearing this repetition of the idea that history is or should be apolitical, because everything about the way that we think and construct past is absolutely political. And as Harris's work makes so abundantly clear, we would not wish for history to be apolitical because for it to be apolitical, we would mean that it has no purchase on the world in which we live. Right? If you say history is apolitical, then you cannot imagine a different future. That's impossible. You lock yourself into this racial, colonial, ethno, nationalist world order in which we live. And I think as a historian, I think on the part of other professional historians, that is unforgivable. I really think it's truly, truly disgusting. And I think it will spell the end of history in short order. So that's why I'm so glad to see that these projects of, as Harris calls it, mainstreaming history, or in other words, showing us precisely how historiography is crucial. Writing a new history of the world is crucial for political change. I think those projects are so important.
- [58:45]
Saeed Khan
Well, an end of history meaning more of a demise of history, as opposed to Hegel's end of history meaning sort of an end to the dialectic and approaching some kind of a synthesis. I was really struck by, by what you said, Chella regarding the erasure of peoples and their histories, because in the case of Israel, part of that erasure is actually also of indigenous Jewish communities. That the way that you have the new narrative erases people who were Jewish by some other ethnicity. But also like with Serbia, you have Bosnians who were converts from the Ottoman period. They were then something else. So you're erasing actually part of your own history. Even if you don't claim them religiously, you're also erasing some of who you are ethnically. And I think that Harris's explanation of that process and the consequences of these kinds of genocides, these orientations of national and sub national identity, the fact that there is a Herzegovina, the fact that there's a Republic of Srpska and that there's a Bosnia, all living in this very delicate tension that 30 years on is still there, is fascinating and certainly hopefully does evoke more of an interest in not only the topic, but even for people to travel to again this tragically beautiful place. Well, again, we hope that you've enjoyed this episode. We hope that you will not only join us for future episodes of Reorient, but also that you will follow both Harris H A R R I S T O R Y Harris story and also us at CMSreorient. One word.
- [60:50]
Harris Tigani
Thank you.
- [60:51]
Tell Award
This is Radio Reorient exploring the Islamosphere and navigating the post Western.
- [61:15]
Harris Tigani
Sam.