News Right Now: Allies of One Another

Welcome to today's episode, ‘ Allies of one Another’

On the morning of the 12th July 1995, under the command of Ratco Mladic, Serb units gathered thousands of Bosnian muslims, at the Dutch base of Potocar. Separating the women and children from the men and teenage boys. The Serb forces unleashed devastating attacks upon the Muslims; slitting the throats of babies and raping countless women and girls. The men were gathered in old factories and warehouses, some were killed instantly, and some moved in trucks to meet their death at other locations.

Around 15,000 men managed to leave the enclave at night and began the infamous ‘death march’. A miles long walk to the town of Tuzla, which was violently intercepted by Serb forces. Hundreds who fled to take cover in the woods were hounded out, their possessions burned, they were beaten to death. Thousands more wandering the hills were re-captured and shot in cold blood over the next seventy two hours.

This massacre of two generations of Muslim men was part of the wider genocide against Muslims by Serbian forces who sought to dominate the diverse Yugoslav region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, made up of Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. When Ratko Miladic entered the town, he made his hatred toward Islam clear on a live broadcast - saying that he intended revenge for the ‘rebellion of the Dahija’s’ - a Serbian uprising dating back to 1804 in the same area which had been suppressed by the Ottoman rulers of the time.

The 1995 Bosnian Muslim genocide of Srebrenica, was the worst mass killing on European soil since World War ll - in which at least 8,000 Muslim men were brutally massacred by the Serbian military, and that a staggering 91 mass graves are testament to. The ‘elimination process’ itself left 40,000 people missing from their homes, and almost all are thought to have disappeared as a direct result of the Serbian incursion led by General Radko Miladic, whose intention was to expel Muslims from the area by way of ethnic cleansing and to establish a Serbian majority population.

Despite this threat and a thirty mile safe zone around the town of Srebrenica, UN forces not only utterly failed to keep peace, but facilitated the massacres by denying safe haven to 20,000 men, abandoning them to the Serbian death squads. Likewise the ‘peace keepers’ halted air strikes on Serbian military posts when a few Dutch hostages were taken, and the same Dutch armed forces also conceded to Serbian demands to hand over 5,000 male refugees from their bases, in full knowledge that they would be killed.

The hatred of the European nations has long been established via the draconian laws enacted upon it’s Muslim populations. European nations have been at the forefront of the war on terror, at least since 9/11 - building narratives against Muslims who support the core values of Islamic nationhood and brotherhood. The narratives progressed to the out and out mocking of our beloved Rasool Allah saws, and the belittling of the suffering of Muslims affected by NATO led wars and the widespread consequences of these. Refugees within Europe are continually maligned as being troublemakers and deviants, and used as political fodder by insincere politicians - whilst kept downtrodden and with few rights.

Likewise the hijab and niqab have been banned, vilified or both, in most parts of Europe, in an attempt to limit the influence of Islamic practice - and to demonise any idea about the implementation of Islam in the Muslim world as uncivilised and barbaric, and ultimately at odds with European modernity and its secular, liberal framework. And the disproportionate surveillance that Muslims face is a mere cog in the wheel of unlawful detentions and extraordinary renditions that despite the rhetoric of human rights, Europe fully subscribes to.

Allah swt makes clear the enmity of the disbelievers when He swt say

(الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بَعْضُهُمْ أَوْلِيَاءُ بَعْضٍ)

“And those who disbelieved are allies of one another” [Al-Anfal: 73].

And the Qur’an spoke about their hostility to Islam and Muslims; the Almighty said

قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاءُ ‏مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ)

“Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, and what their breasts conceal is greater” [Al-i-Imran: 118].

Allah (swt) says

(وَلَا تَرْكَنُٓوا اِلَى الَّذ۪ينَ ظَلَمُوا فَتَمَسَّكُمُ النَّارُ)

And lean not toward those who do wrong, lest the Fire should touch you”

The Srebrenica genocide proved the western nations’ intention of keeping every Muslim land subjugated, without autonomy, and wholly dependent on NATO. There was no political will on the part of the UN, given NATO’s overriding influence and typical lack of regard for human life. The member nations of NATO are only driven by mutual rivalry. Like a pack of hyenas, they banded together for common interests, nourishing themselves on the misery of different regions and peoples around the world - and over the last 20 years, whether in Afghanistan or Libya, one can only find a trail of destruction and misery in the wake of NATO’s involvement. This inaction is ever more present today and proven in Burma, Yemen and with the Uighur Muslims. NATO is surely the army of crusaders!, as Allah swt says,

“The blame is only against the ones who wrong the people and tyrannise upon the earth without right. Those will have a painful punishment”. Surah Ash Shuara v 42

Jazak Allahu Khayran for Joining Us

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