Universalist Religions in Yugoslavia [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 57-74]

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53. Since the world Orthodox community shuns the Macedonian Orthodox church
as a schismatic body, Macedonian contacts with the Catholics are a source of OrthodoxCatholic tension. In June 1986, at Bari, the majority of Orthodox representatives walked
out from the meeting of the Commission for Catholic-Orthodox Theological Dialogue
in protest against a series of Catholic actions which they believed constituted the Vatican's official recognition of the autocephalous Macedonian church. "Zasto su pravoslavni
predstavnici napustili sjednicu za dijalog s katolicima?" Glas koncila, June 22, 1986,
p.4.
54. "Dienaza Reis-ul-uleme rahmetli Hadzi Sulejman ef. Kemure," Glasnik Vrhovnog islmnskog stajesinstva u SFRJ, vol. 38 (1975), nos. 3-4, pp. 110-11.
55. Husein Djozo, "Dijalog," ibid., vol. 40 (1977), no. 1, pp. 3-5, 6-7.
56. "Pitanja citalaca i nasi odgovori," ibid., vol. 38 (1975), nos. 1-2, pp. 66-67.
57. See, for example, Tomislav Jablanovic, "Dijalog s muslimanima," Bogoslovska
smotra, vol. 37 (1967), nos. 1-2, pp. 72-85. Archbishop Frane Franic of Split spoke
very fervently about the need of fostering the dialogue with the Muslims on the occasion
of the 250th anniversary of the liberation of Imotski (Dalmatia) from the Turks: "I ask
myself: What did our ancestors do with the Muslims after they took the fortress of
Imotski? I think that they did not behave well toward them. I think that there was
too much revenge... so that [Christian] fighters destroyed all mosques in Imotski,
killed many innocent Muslims, or, simply expelled them from their midst.... That
is our sin-the sin of unchristian revenge and lack of patriotic spirit for which we must
do penance even today." Frane Franic, "Muslimani i katolici," Crkva u svijetu, vol. 2
(1967), no. 5, pp. 34.
58. The declaration was written in 1970 and was dedicated to the creation of a
single Islamic community based on the Koranic order from Morocco to Indonesia. For
its text see 'The Islamic Declaration (A Programme for the Islamicisation of Moslems
and Moslem Peoples)," The South Slav Journal, vol. 6 (1983), no. 1, pp. 56-89. Izetbegovic's son Bakir rebutted the charges against his father in a letter originally intended
for the Belgrade weekly NIN. He specifically referred to the declaration's sixteenth
thesis that speaks to the position of Muslim minorities in the non-Islamic countries such
as Yugoslavia. Its salient portions state that: "The Islamic order can be realised only
in those countries in which Moslems represent the majority of the population. Without
this majority, the Islamic system is reduced only to naked power... and may turn
into tyranny.... Moslem minorities within non-Islamic communities, conditional
on a guarantee of religious freedom and a normal life and development, are loyal and
duty bound to observe every obligation to that community with the exception of those
harming Islam and Moslems." Ibid., p. 76. See Bakir Izetbegovic, "Pravedna ili nepravedna presuda?" Islam und der Westen, vol. 6 (1986), no. 1, pp. 31-32.
59. Slavoljub Kacarevic, "Moralna drama na casu fizickog," Politika, July 5, 1987,
p. 8. To these and similar charges the leadership of the Islamic community has reaffirmed
that "Islam neither knows nor recognizes the concept of nationalism." Vrhovno starjesinstvo Islamske zajednice u SFRJ, "Ko nas to obmanjuje i-deli?" NIN, March 22,
1987, p. 21.