THE TRIANGLE OF FEAR, IGNORANCE AND PRECONCEPTIONS

Nihad Krupic, author

Bosanska Dubica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Vancouver, Canada

February 2, 2017

“From my personal experiences I could say that fear is for ordinary people, ignorance for the poorly educated and blind preconceptions are left for high percentage of intellectuals.”

In today’s day and age where the world is connected in a way our ancestors never imagined, its fact that we are all closer than we have ever been before, yet it could easily be said that we live in a world divided by the various and obvious differences between us, where each side contains its own version of the truth, questions to be asked and answers to be sought. Fear, ignorance and preconceptions embedded so deeply in the hearts of men that stereotyping has become the most common way of perceiving things we see happening around us.
Bosanska Krupa, Bosnia and Herzegovina...Muslim, Roman Catholics and Orthodox temple in one neighborhood

My beloved homeland Bosnia and Herzegovina is shared by Muslims, Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, and it has been this way for centuries. We all speak the same language and share the same values, but this didn’t help in avoiding the genocide on Bosnian Muslims from Orthodox Christians (Serbs) side that took place from 1992 to 1995. None of these similarities and common beliefs mattered when the conflict broke out. The sort of feeling it takes to drive a man against another in such a vicious manner is something that cannot be controlled by outside influences. Once such feelings erupt it soon becomes clear that it is already too late.

It is these types of feelings and emotions that have shaped the world as it is today, thousands of years of warfare can only lead us to such a conclusion. Leaders, politicians and religious figures are put in places of power so that a nation would have a sense of direction, a sense of wrong and right, or if they choose their own path if it be an objectionable one then it is up to these ‘leaders’ to step in.

Bosnia and Herzegovina today has a high level of intellectuals coming from all different backgrounds, but their influence at times is quiet to say the least and tends to fail. Reason being that these people (especially the Serb intellectuals) tend to remain stuck in this newly revived state of mind which includes the triangle I speak of, and I say newly revived because it’s apparent that these feelings and emotions they have displayed throughout the war and post war give anyone looking at it from the outside a sense that these are feelings deeply embedded within them, as if it be a form of nationalism, and if it is some sick form of nationalism then it is without honor.

From my personal experiences I could say that fear is for ordinary people, ignorance for the poorly educated and blind preconceptions are left for high percentage of intellectuals.

These observations also apply today to the world powers trying to maintain their stature on the world stage, some stuck in their own beliefs of superiority over others to the likes of the Roman Empire before the Barbarian invasions forced its utter collapse. There exist however some differences in the manifestation of this nationalistic status.

In today’s world a different type of triangle is forming right in front of us, and though the idea might not be new given the past of the Crusades a thousand years ago, nonetheless Muslims, Christians and Jews are forming their own sides as if oblivious to the fact that our immediate future depends on their co-operation.

We know well that we live in very unstable world where we as a civilized society should not allow any more mistakes like the Holocaust, the Genocide in Bosnia, and the ongoing disputes happening today such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and various others in Africa such as Darfur. To prevent the collapse of today’s society we must choose a path that would absorb all the common things we share with one another and have them serve as a basis for us to share this world together peacefully, and our common belief in God’s existence should bring us together more than any other similarity.

We all believe in monotheism, we consider the same lands holy, and these facts are just the beginning. Jerusalem has been a place for many centuries where East and West met, not all of them peaceful meetings and it continues that way to this day, a thousand years after a Crusade was called to reclaim the Holy City, it is still a center of conflict. Constantinople as it has been known historically, today known as Istanbul has always been a meeting point between East and West geographically speaking, a true barrier between the East and West and it’s this fact that has made this great city a battleground for powerful Empires over the centuries.

If you look at Bosnia as a whole, and more specifically its great capital city of Sarajevo if closer examined, these places serve as the last remnants of ancient conflicts between East and West, it is the last place in Europe where you may find the greatest influence left by an Islamic world. Europe has always prided itself as a Christian power, but never has an entity such as Bosnia and Herzegovina existed in a way that it does today within the boundaries of Europe, inside the borders of the Western world. As the last Muslims left in Europe, the place to bridge this ongoing gap between East and West is there and it is right now. It is my opinion that there is no better place than Sarajevo, in the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina to start a new era of acceptance and freedom of unfounded fears, raw ignorance and baseless preconceptions.

We can continue idealizing everything, from our religion, society, our political or social stature and all the things that separate us and make us different from others around us, but in all of these differences between us we all share similar goals. I think that you would agree with me when I say that we as a society cannot allow any more failures? We must question our nature and demeanor in order to reach our final destination, there are various methods in achieving this but again I point to open dialog.

My reasoning behind speaking so freely in regards to these issues is simple; my credibility in these past 25 years speaks for itself. Surviving from the midst of a war zone where I’ve experienced destruction and pain, and through it all faith and hope I never lost, instincts I’ve developed that I cannot explain, this anger I carry inside stems from the knowledge that the world community failed us horrendously. People all over the world including my own fellow Bosniaks are expected to be protected by the world community from genocide, especially in a place such as middle Europe, this failure further raises questions if that expectation is not met.

In the Holy Koran a verse that pertains to the subject at hand states:

“I am ( God/Allah) not going to change status of one nation until they realized that they must change themselves and start to do it so”

Our will for change is stated here:

“What does the foreigner try to make us understand? Surely that we are brothers, not in likeness, but in acknowledgment, acknowledging, accepting ourselves trough others” 

Reb Jabes, a Foreigner, 87

“Faith comes at the end of reasoning” stated Reb Nahum “You get there by instinct-or pushed by failure” (Jabes, Book of Questions, 71)

The search for answers of the essence of our journey is stated here as well:

I will search for the Friend with all my passion

And all my energy, until I learn

That I don’t need to search

The real truth of existence is sealed,

Until many twists and turns of the road

As in the algebraical method of “two errors”,

The correct answer comes only after two substitutions,

after two mistakes. Then the seeker says,

“If I had known the real way it was,

I would have stopped all the looking around.”

But that knowing depends

On the time spent looking”.

          Rumi (Barks, 207)

In my first book  „A Frame for my picture of Bosnia“ I quote a short introduction to one of its chapters:

Every man has two paths.

The first leads him to others,

The second leads unto himself.

The first illuminates his face,

The second recognizes his soul

Unfortunately we live in a time where even a simple hallmark such as justice demands and states that the truth can only exist if it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Difficulties like these only make the path to the real truth a hard one, but with effort, knowledge and the credibility of those who seek it, justice must always not only see the light of day, but prevail and stand above all.