Talk:Alija Izetbegovic

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Contents

1 Major inaccuracies about Croat-Muslim war 2 NPOV and accuracy issues 3 Rewrite 4 Are article tags still needed? 5 Reversion 6 Heavily biased page 7 Another attempt at a NPOV article 8 Rollback of Igor's inaccurate and POV version 9 Exact quote 10 Islamic activist 11 NPOV issues 12 Fascist?

Major inaccuracies about Croat-Muslim war

It was Izetbegovic who started the backstabbing war against us Croats, not the other way around. It was his goal to create an ethnically pure territory. That’s why he brought in the Mujahedeen, to drive out the Croat, Catholic population from the Central Bosnia.

Where it not for the US administration, and their strong warnings, he would have tried a break out to the Croatian Dalmatian coast in an effort to capture the strategically important port of Ploče, in an effort to gain free, unlimited access to logistical support from the Islamic world. Muslim forces in 1993 where in a far better condition that the HVO and HV forces who where fighting a two front war, in many places almost entirely encircled and against 3:1 odds. --GeneralPatton 13:05, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That's POV --Vedran 10:50, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

NPOV and accuracy issues

Igor removes "due to insufficient evidence" saying evidence was sent several times. Either your or my meaning of the word "insufficient" is wrong. --Shallot 20:12, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This article is riddled with both inaccuracy and NPOV problems. "Hardline Muslim government" - err, no. Multiethnic legitimate government of the state.

Similarly - the army of BiH was not a "Muslim" army. It was a multiethnic army of a multiethnic state.

Army of BiH was a Muslim army, 2-3 Serb and Croat offices, holding no real power, where window dressing, pure cosmetics. As the new war crimes charges will show. --GeneralPatton 02:43, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Not what I know. With many of my Croat and Serb friends figthing in Army of BiH. What new charges? --Vedran 10:50, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

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I have many NPOV and accuracy issues with this article. I'll try to list them in order of appearance (sorry, all the external references are in Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian language, I don't have the time to dig for English versions but a translation can be provided as needed):

• The term Muslim is used consistently for Bosniaks
• Mladi Muslimani was not a pro-Nazi or a pro-Ustasa organization. Please provide evidence.

External reference on Mladi muslimani [1] (http://www.mm.co.ba)

Mladi Muslimani distanced themselves from Ustasa [2] (http://www.mm.co.ba/art7_1.html)

Activities of Alija Izetbegovic during WWII included clearing rubble and hiding Muslim families from Chetniks [3] (http://www.htnet.hr/vijesti/dogadjaji/page/2003/10/19/0131006.html) [4] (http://www.startbih.info/broj/art_sex.asp?br=127)

• Mladi Muslimani did not challenge the regime. They merely refused to subdue. Izetbegovic, Sacirbegovic and others were arrested because they, through their writings in the underground "Mudzahid", critised an initiative to merge Mladi Muslimani with SKOJ (Union of Communist Youth of Jugoslavia). [5] (http://www.mm.co.ba/art19_1.html)
• It is generally believed among Bosniaks that the 1983 trial was falsified and that the communists simply couldn't allow an opposing view, as expressed in Izetbegovic's "Islamic Declaration" [6] (http://www.mm.co.ba/art18_1.html)
• Bosnian Federation (Muslim-Croat) Army - There is nothing in Bosnian Federation that is "Muslim-Croat", this is POV. A proper name with a link - Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina - should be used with no reference to ethnicities. Later on, the text has a reference to "Izetbegovic's Army" - Izetbegovic had no private army of his own!?
• The article claims contradictory that Izetbegovic was president until 1997, and later that he remained in power until 2000. This should be cleared up and ordered chronologically.
• Izetbegovic headed a Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina which existed only on paper, no longer legitimate according to some 60% of its population - notes such as this one are a POV and in contradiction with what is said in the History of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These kind of comments should be avoided, and See Also with above reference provided.
• Izetbegovic proclaimed Bosnia's independence - Again, he did nothing on his own. Again, the history of Bosnia is not a subject of this article, especially not if things claimed here are clashing with stuff in the relevant article.

Several passages in this article serve absolutely no purpose, apart from "story-telling", obviously from an anti-Izetbegovic POV. More specifically, a discussion on Fikret Abdic which wasn't deemed important enough to be a part of the Bosnian History article and the paragraph on his "elongated" presidency under three different Constitutions. Certain persons reverted several attempts of removing these (and other) passages under the claim of "vandalizing". Well some judgment on relevance of facts to the article has to be made.

- Vedran 17:45, 25 Nov 2003

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Bosnian Muslims started calling themselves Bosniaks only after 1994. Calling 1940’s Mladi Muslimani organization “Bosniak” is not accurate, they thought of themselves as Muslims, purely.--GeneralPatton 07:37, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Rewrite

This article has a lot of problems, as the previous contributors to this talk page have pointed out. I've rewritten it pretty much from scratch in an effort to expand the detail and get it into some kind of NPOV shape. Major changes that I should point out include:

• Addition of much more info about the period between his birth and 1989 - which is, after all, three quarters of his life!
• Removed the bits about Fikret Abdic; the article should be focused on Izetbegovic, and the Abdic elements are fairly incidental.
• Removed lots and lots of POV elements - as Vedran says above, the original article was very clearly written from an anti-Izetbegovic viewpoint. But I've also tried to acknowledge and represent the points made by those POV elements.
• Removed the purported photo of Osama bin Laden, but providing detail of the claim of his involvement and giving a proper attribution (to Der Spiegel). I'm suspicious of this claim and would prefer to get a bit more detail on it before bringing it into a Wikipedia article. I'll see what I can find out.

A significant part of the original article, and some of the new version, deals with Izetbegovic's involvement with Islamic fundamentalism. I think this is a topic which would be worth an article of its own - is anyone up to writing an article on Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia? -- ChrisO 21:47, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I'm generally satisfied with ChrisO's rewrite, although I believe the connection between Mladi Muslimani and Nazis / Ustasa could have been further debunked. Let me translate a part from http://www.mm.co.ba/art7_1.html - the official site of Mladi Muslimani which is arguably biased, but I doubt they could easily falsify something like this:

"One of the many tests that Mladi Muslimani successfully passed was their distancing from the Ustasa government that wanted to incorporate this organization with their (Ustasa) youth. The price for declining this offer-ultimatum was an embargo on the official registration of Mladi Muslimani on territories controlled by NDH."

--Vedran 13:10, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Are article tags still needed?

The article still has the following tags at the top of the page:

The factual accuracy of this article is disputed: see talk:Alija_Izetbegovic

The neutrality of this article is disputed.

Are these still needed? Does anyone dispute the factual accuracy or neutrality of the new version of the article? If not, can we remove the tags? -- ChrisO 12:51, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Reversion

I wasn't expecting my questions above to prompt User:Nikola Smolenski to revert the entire article to his 11 Jan version!

Nikola, I don't think reversion is the appropriate thing to do. It's wiped out a large amount of factual content and restored all the POV material that other users complained about. Could you please explain what specific aspects of my rewrite you object to? You haven't posted any explanation here and your comment that "Article was better before the rewrite" doesn't give much information on your objections. -- ChrisO 17:27, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, first of all, article itself says that it's biased: "He was well regarded in Western countries but was a controversial figure in the former Yugoslavia", but at the end all sources are Western ones. You left out details about his family, that trial, "an attempt to obtain the loyalty" I won't even comment, you left out details about forming SDA (and I don't see why would mentioning other people who formed the party be objectionable to anyone!), and I'm too tired to look further. See also my talk page. Nikola 23:36, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm very distrustful of most of the Yugoslav sources - they're so heavily contaminated by the propaganda of the 1990s that it's hard to work out what's real and what's propangandistic invention or distortion. (This is true for all sides, I might add). My main sources were a slew of contemporary (yes, Western) media accounts and a number of (again Western) histories of the Yugoslav wars and of Bosnia itself.

It is quite normal that one does not trust Yugoslav sources - but why do you trust Western sources??????? Nikola

That's a pretty good question. I don't really have a clear answer, but there are a few reasons that I can think of. The Western sources tend to list their own sources, so these are at least verifiable, but the English-language Yugoslav accounts (including your own!) tend not to give many - if any - sources. The other factor is that the Yugoslav sources are so heavily tainted by propaganda that it makes it difficult to work out what is factual. In theory, reputable Western observers may be a bit more objective given their physical and political distance. Maybe this is an assumption I shouldn't be making? -- ChrisO 00:36, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Heavily tainted by propaganda" are the Yugoslav sources? Aren't you referring to Western reports?!!

Come on ChrisO, how many Western newspaper reports have you seen listing sources? Please...I mean that's the problem with Western newspapers; they don't usually list footnotes and they don't often direct you to their sources. That doesn't show good credibility.

Alan.

I don't have a problem with using Yugoslav sources on things like forming the SDA, that trial etc. if they're factually accurate and if they can be expressed in a NPOV way. But that's true for all sources, of course. If you think that anything I've said isn't factually accurate, please let me know and I'll correct it.

I pointed to the things you left out. Nikola 19:58, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm puzzled by your assertion that I left out material about his family - I actually included a lot of information about his pre-WW2 life which you deleted. Your version had nothing on this period other than saying that he was born in Bosanski Šamac, so I felt that it needed a bit more background. But you make some fair points about the trial and the formation of the SDA. I'll address those. If you've recovered from your tiredness, I'd appreciate further comments. :-) -- ChrisO 00:36, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And I've just seen you used KLA as a source???? Nikola 23:37, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Huh? I've never touched that article and I don't think I've even read it in much detail until now. Now that I have, I will probably have to edit it a bit. :-) But what's its relevance to Bosnia? It certainly wasn't a source for my edits here. -- ChrisO 00:03, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed that there is a link to a KLA source (apparently) under the references but it wasn't me who added it... -- ChrisO 00:36, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Heavily biased page

Serbian POV. It is obvious that Serb nationalists have tried to manipulate this page to present their perspective. A great deal in this article contradicts factual evidence.

Nazam, what do you think of my earlier version at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Alija_Izetbegovic&oldid=2300548 , which I wrote in an attempt to make the article more POV? -- ChrisO 10:20, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Why did they change your version? It was very neutral. It's a scandal. -- Hamdo 00:45, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's Wikipedia for you. :-) Someone did make some subtle POV changes but I've removed these now. -- ChrisO 00:28, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Another attempt at a NPOV article

67.71.100.34, thanks for your work on this article. I've revised it to incorporate your changes, Nikola's factual points and some more things that I've addressed at Nikola's suggestion (such as Izetbegovic's 1983 trial). I've also tried to make the spelling consistent.

The http://www.ciaonet.org/ link seems to require subscription to view or something like that. That link should probably be moved in the external links section and explained for the benefit of everyone who for whatever reason can't follow it. --Shallot 00:58, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wierd - it's freely available in the Google cache. I guess they must have password-protected it after Google's last spidering of that website. -- ChrisO 09:01, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There's one point I need to mention - I don't think we should use the Alijaibinladen.jpg picture. Three reasons why:

1) Nikola has acquired permission from freesrpska.org to use the image but I'm not at all sure that that meets the requirements of the Wikipedia:Copyrights policy. The image actually comes from http://www.slobodnasrpska.org/mudzahedini/naputudzihada.html. I don't see any copyright notices or acknowledgements on that page, so it's not clear what rights they might have. Don't forget that copyright belongs to the person or group which created the image and the linked video clips. One thing we can be absolutely sure of is that the person who shot the video was not a Serbian nationalist. Unless Nikola can provide some details of the source and its copyright status, I suggest that we ask for the picture to be deleted from the database.

2) The picture is entirely conjectural; it is alleged to show bin Laden with Izetbegovic. About all we can say for certain is that it shows Izetbegovic with a man with a very long beard (not exactly uncommon among Islamists). We don't even know that it's genuine. I would hesitate to state this for sure without some more convincing evidence than a rabidly nationalist website's assertions.

3) In any case, the picture is "Completely and iredeemably POV" as Nikola puts it. Given that, it probably shouldn't be included in the article in any case.

Does anyone have a good quality public domain picture of Izetbegovic that can be included? -- ChrisO 00:36, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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I must protest at listing the NDH primarily as Greater Croatia and then listing its proper name and article in the parenthesis. There's really no point in such conjecturing right at the first mention, it reeks of an insinuation that I'd expect from the likes of Igor, not ChrisO who has a good record on keeping things straight. :| --Shallot 00:55, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

It was a somewhat clumsy way of putting it, I agree. I think it originated with the previous editor, though. -- ChrisO 09:01, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Can you please provide the sources for this statement:

• As such, while it was not officially pro-fascist in orientation, the Young Muslims generally supported the Nazi/Ustase efforts to promote a Bosniak national identity in opposition to the Chetnik and Partisan guerrillas.

I can't seem to find it in the ones listed in the article. --Vedran 12:27, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, it's based what Noel Malcolm says about it in "Bosnia: A Short History". I could dig out the specific citation, if you like.

Please do. With the evidence that Young Muslims distanced themselves from Ustasa that I provided above, I'd say that if Mr. Malcolm claimed such a thing he's probably - pardon my language - pulling it from his ass. The people of the period are still alive and, being personally acquinted with some of them, I can say with certainty that Young Muslims criticized the Fascists and Ustasa as heavily as Chetniks. --Vedran 10:50, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

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Rollback of Igor's inaccurate and POV version

Igor, I've reverted your reversion to the earlier, extremely POV version - you wiped out a lot of factual content without any explanation. If you have specific concerns, please discuss them here. Overwriting an article that tries to be NPOV with something that doesn't even attempt to be NPOV is not a good idea. -- ChrisO 08:29, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Then why are you doing it all the time? Nikola 07:53, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

He isn't. ChrisO has shown a rather commendable skill of crafting sentences in a very careful manner that generally manages to remain neutral while at the same time it doesn't become whitewashing or badmouthing. --Shallot 15:00, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's definitely hard work. I don't pretend that I get everything right first time, so if I do get something wrong it makes sense to discuss it on the talk page rather than just delete it without any explanation. Igor's list of contributions (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&hideminor=0&target=Igor&limit=500&offset=0) suggests that he only rarely contributes to talk pages, which I think is unfortunate. Nikola and I may not always agree on things but I do have to commend him for his willingness to discuss issues. -- ChrisO 01:13, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Exact quote

Can we have the exact words used in "The chef prosecutor of the Hague’s war crimes tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, has stated in early 2004, that if Izetbegovic was still alive today, he certainly would have faced major war crimes indictments, as is evidenced by the 2004 war crimes indictments of his closest deputies" rather than a restatement, please? I can't find that quote. - Mustafaa 19:03, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Islamic activist

Izetbegovic was always first and foremost an Islamic activist, there is nothing wrong with that (or any other kind of legitimate activism) and he was in fact proud of it. GeneralPatton 02:47, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Come on Patton, he was an Islamic extremist.

"Islamic Activist"? Well, in a way Islamic extremists are activists -- extreme activists, that is. Perhaps he was proud to be one -- extreme activist.

How about you ask a Bosnian Muslim, who supported Fikret Abdic and suffered from the "Army of Bosnia & Herzegovina"? And see how he/she feels about "Ali".

Alan.

NPOV issues

Shouldn't this article have a permanent notice that alerts users to the controversial nature of this personality? Do we have standard boilerplate for something like that?--iFaqeer 09:41, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Yup, it's up there now (I recall a history of disputes, too). --Joy [shallot] 10:44, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The article is pretty NPOV as it is, nobody has even touched on the rampant charges of wartime and postwar corruption. GeneralPatton 12:00, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I am copying the "controversial" notice to the main page. I believe that was the desired effect?--iFaqeer 01:46, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

No, actually. I know it sounds silly, but it's not meant to be on the main page, and the talk page is the second best option. Cf. Wikipedia talk:List of controversial issues. --Joy [shallot] 11:12, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fascist?

"As such, while it was not officially pro-fascist in orientation, the Young Muslims generally supported the Nazi/Ustase efforts to promote an Islamic identity in opposition to the Chetnik and Partisan guerrillas."

If it wasnt fascist and only agreed with the Nazi's and Ustase's in one thing, and that was religious freedom, why do you have to link Mladi Muslimani with Nazi's and Fascist's?

Because they were linked to fascists and nazis!

Alan.

Yeah right