The Muslim Resolutions

Book excerpt: On April 6, 1941, the Axis powers attacked Yugoslavia. Within days, the Yugoslav army had surrendered, and Yugoslavia was officially under occupation. Serbia was ruled by a puppet government under German occupation. In Croatia, the Ustashas had established a puppet state called "The Independent State of Croatia" (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska or NDH), led by Ante Pavelic. In the NDH, the Ustashas introduced Nazi-style laws against Serbs, Jews, and Roma and established concentration camps, where they incarcerated and murdered members of those peoples. Bosniaks (then referred to as Muslims) found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Without proper political representation or institutions, they were split as a nation on all sides. Some joined the Independent State of Croatia, others sided with the Serb royalists (chetniks), and yet others made nice with Nazi Germany, hoping for greater autonomy for Bosnia in return. While the Ustasha regime did not target Bosniaks en masse, many members of their elites disagreed with the new regime's policies. The persecution of Serbs, Jews, and Roma provoked the public condemnation of these crimes. Under-represented, unprotected, and generally labeled enemies or collaborators, the Bosniak elites were pragmatic in their condemnation of the regime's policies: using it as an opportunity for seeking Bosnia's autonomy, hoping in this way to improve the country's position and the security of their people. They did so through the resolutions included in this book, which were initiated and signed by members of the Bosniak establishment, which is to say of the clergy and the judicial and economic elites, who sought to distance themselves from the Ustasha regime. In fact, most of the people to actually sign these resolutions were members of El-Hidaje, the Association of Muslim Clergy. The resolutions played a large role, not only during the war but in the post-war era too, as the struggle for Muslim identity and nationhood got underway. They are one of the few cases in the region, perhaps the only, of such atrocities being condemned and criticized by the elite of a "people without a state."