Carl Bildt throws his hat into the ring for Dhimmi of the Year. From KUNA, with thanks to Sparta:
SARAJEVO, March 12 (KUNA) — UN Commissioner to the Balkans Carl Bildt on Saturday called for recognizing Islam as part of the European culture, asserting that Muslims in Balkan formed a unique and positive factor in European affairs.
In a statement on the Balkan Convention for Development and Cooperation, which took place in Macedonia, Bildt told KUNA that Muslims in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, proved that they are characterized with tolerance and cooperation with other societies, noting that they were victims of the others, not visa versa.
Here’s some evidence of that wonderful tolerance. You can read more about this in my book Onward Muslim Soldiers. Here is a letter from Bosnia, written in 1860 by the acting British Consul in Sarajevo, James Zohrab:
The hatred of the Christians toward the Bosniak Mussulmans is intense. During a period of nearly 300 years they were subjected to much oppression and cruelty. For them no other law but the caprice of their masters existed….Oppression cannot now be carried on as openly as formerly, but it must not be supposed that, because the Government employés do not generally appear as the oppressors, the Christians are well treated and protected. (Quoted in Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, p. 423.)
The KUNA article continues:
Bildt, who is the former UN commissioner for Bosnia and former Sweden’s prime minister, said the war in Bosnia proved that Muslims were victims and did not practice revenge based upon religion or ethnicity, which reinforces the fundamentals of their religious culture that prevents such practices.
But what happened to the churches?
The official expressed dissatisfaction at the thoughts promoting doubts toward European Muslims or the thoughts that Islam is an abnormal religion in Europe, stressing that cultural and religious pluralisms are the main components of all European societies and there is no single European country occupied by the followers of only one religion or ethnicity.
This is beside the point. The question is not ethnicity or even solely religion. It is about the ultimate goals of Muslims in Europe vis-a-vis Sharia.