Several friends of mine always wait for the Nobel announcements to finish each year before they then tote up the “scores” for various nationalities and religions. Although these awards are for individual (and for the Peace Nobel, sometimes institutional) achievement, my friends can’t help themselves: they want to know, first of all, “how many Americans won?” (“we got eight this year,” a friend told me yesterday, as if he and I had had something to do with it). Another friend, though not Jewish, always wants to know how many Jewish Nobels there are, for he has long been impressed with how many there have been, and he can’t figure out why (“an unusual year,” he told me yesterday, “only two Jewish winners this year”). Still another acquaintance, a Moroccan barber I know, told me today that this year “we got a Nobel – the Peace one. That’s the best.” By “we,” he meant the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims. He was referring to the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who had a Muslim father and a Christian mother. But I didn’t want to puncture his pride by pointing that out; still less was I inclined to note that while Ahmed’s prize could be considered a “one-half Nobel” for “the Muslims,” Ahmed’s behavior suggests his Christian side dominates. I can find nothing in the public record that suggests he is now a practicing Muslim or, indeed, if he ever was one.
Which brings me to the two Nobels in Literature that were awarded. One was to the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, another to the Austrian Peter Handke. The first has an important positive link to Jews; the second has been almost alone in his denunciation of the Muslims in Bosnia, and his expressing over the decades his sympathy for, and solidarity with, the Serbs who have been painted as irredeemably wicked, murdering innocent Muslims.
Olga Tokarczuk’s most ambitious work, The Books of Jacob, centers on the historical figure of Jakub Frank, a Jewish-born 18th-century religious leader. Frank, believed to have been born with the name Jakub Leibowicz, oversaw a messianic sect that incorporated significant portions of Christian practice into Judaism; he led mass baptisms of his followers. According to the critic Ruth Franklin, “the book delivers a picture of the many intricate and unpredictable ways in which the story of Poland is tied to the story of its Jews.” “There’s no Polish culture without Jewish culture,” Tokarczuk told Franklin.
Tokarczuk has repeatedly described her own country, Poland, as one that had “committed horrendous acts as colonizers, as a national majority that suppressed the minority [Jews], as slaveowners, and as the murderers of Jews.”
In recent years, she has spent many of her public appearances on denouncing antisemitism in Poland, which has won her enemies among some elements of the nationalist right. It will likely be one of the main subjects of her Nobel speech. She is not merely against antisemitism, but is positively philosemitic, as were two previous Polish Nobels in Literature, the poets Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska.
Peter Handke, a writer, scriptwriter, and journalist, is – outside of his writing – known most for his defense of the Serbs in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. He was virtually alone among non-Serbs in attempting to understand their fears and to stand up for them when no one else would. Handke thought the outside world was too quick to condemn the Serbs, not just for the atrocities they did commit, but for others that, he claimed, they did not commit, and furthermore, was willing to overlook many Muslim atrocities committed against the Serbs. For the world had already made up its mind. The Muslims were only innocent victims, the Serbs only cruel victimizers.
Handke was also mindful of Balkan history (his own mother was Slovenian, another people, like the Serbs, brutalized by the Ottomans). He understood the Serbian anxiety about Muslim behavior, reflecting such things as the Serbs’ historic memory of the devshirme, which was the forced levy of Christian children by the Ottomans, who took the young Christians back to Istanbul, had them converted, and trained them to serve the Ottoman state as Janissaries. He spoke and wrote frequently about the Serbs, asking for an understanding of their history and consequent fears. And he asked that Muslim atrocities not be given a pass. In some ways he was vindicated. In 2018, for example, the Bosnian Muslim wartime commander Atif Dudakovic and 16 senior members of his unit were charged with carrying out atrocities against Serbs in western Bosnia during the 1992-95 war. Handke was concerned both with the failure of the West to look into Muslim misdeeds. He also wanted the people of Europe to learn more about Serbian history that he thought would make them more understanding of Serbian fears.
His 1996 travelogue, “A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia,” caused a storm, and in 1999 he returned Germany’s prestigious Buechner prize in protest at NATO’s bombing of Belgrade.
Peter Handke attended the Serb leader Radovan Milosevic’s war crimes trial at The Hague and even delivered a eulogy at his funeral. In an interview in 2006, he said of Milosevic: “I think he was a rather tragic man. Not a hero, but a tragic human being. I am a writer and not a judge.”
In the same interview, he said he did not expect the Nobel Prize because of the controversy. “When I was younger I cared,” he said. “Now I think it’s finished for me after my expressions about Yugoslavia.”
Peter Handke clearly finds the long history of Muslim mistreatment of Christians — especially of Serbians – in the Balkans, as explaining and, to some extent, justifying Serbian behavior. Needless to say, there has been fury in the Arab and Muslim media — see Al Jazeera — over this Nobel award to Handke. In this country members of PEN huffed and puffed about Handke’s being given the prize. One would love to interrogate some of the offended to find out what they know about the history of Muslim rule in the Balkans, about the Bosnian SS divisions, about the plan of Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic for Islamic rule.
In Europe, the award should cause some to look again at the evidence of Muslim Bosniak and Kosovar atrocities against Serbs in the 1990s, and possibly to develop a modicum of sympathy, given not just recent history, but the centuries of Ottoman Muslim oppression, for the maligned Serbs.
The two Nobels in literature this year were thus, in their political views, to be welcomed. Olga Tokarczuk has been a stout defender of Jews, attacking antisemites — denouncing those Poles who were “murderers of Jews” — with her accustomed ferocity, and bravely declaring, in a country where antisemitism is again in fashion, that “there is no Polish culture without Jewish culture.”
As Olga Tokarczuk has gone on the offensive against antisemites in Poland, Peter Handke was for a long time, and almost alone, on the offensive against the Muslims in the Balkans. He discovered evidence of their atrocities, until recently ignored in the West. He reminded the public of how the Ottoman Muslims, too, had treated the Serbs, which explained their fear of the Muslim Bosniaks. He took every occasion to stand with the Serbs; even attending Slobodan Milosevic’s trial for war crimes, and speaking at his funeral. He considered Milosevich not a sinister villain, but a “tragic figure” with a deep anxiety about his threatened people. He attacked the Bosnian leader Alija Izegtbegovic, who during World War II had supported the Muslim Waffen-SS Handschar Division, but was given a pass by the West. Handke reminded people of Izetbegovic’s published plan to set up a Muslim state, a prospect which terrified the Serbs – this plan, too, like Izetbegovic’s support for a Muslim SS Division, was ignored by the West. Yet it turned out that there was enough evidence to put Izetbegovic on trial as a war criminal; the investigation of his atrocities ended only because he died.
Handke has not commented publicly in recent years on the growing Muslim presence in Western Europe. But everything he has said in the past about the cruelties of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, and the Muslim Bosniak and Kosovar threat to Serbs in the 1990s, suggest that he is a well-informed critic of Islam and of those Muslims who take the Qur’anic verses commanding violent Jihad to heart. This is one aspect of his life and work that we should keep gratefully in mind, just as we should be grateful for Olga Tokarczyk’s philosemitism. And perhaps, when he makes his Nobel acceptance speech, he will return to this subject. It could be a salutary breach in the wall of media disinformation about Islam, if Handke asks, and answers, what those tens of millions of Muslims now in Western Europe mean for its future.
mortimer says
The Ottoman treatment of the Balkans should be fully explored in film as the Hitlerian holocaust has been explored. The Ottoman Muslims turned the Balkans into a torture chamber for the Christian population as well as for the relatively small Jewish population of under 100,000 thousand. Balkan Christians all moved their villages up to the hills away from the main roads, since Ottoman troops would feel free to drop in frequently for 3 days free room and board at the expense of every Christian family.
Imagine that picture … troops that hate your religion arrive frequently at your door and demand you and your family sleep on the floor for three days and then feed them in addition. That was only one of the indescribable horrors under Islamic rule in the Balkans. It went on for 500 years. Every family has stories of how they were persecuted and tortured.
Jon Sobieski says
Milosevic Being Prescient at this Trial 2004
During his own defense presentation, Milosevic used the overhead projector to display image os fhe slaughter of Serbs during the Serb-Muslim conflict when Muslims crossed the Save River and slaughtered any Serb they could find.
After requesting the court to put these images on the overhead projector, Milosevic interacted with the Court:
The ACCUSED: [Interpretation] All right. All right. You don’t want to show this. You don’t want tto show these to the public.
JUDGE MAY: Mr. Milosevic, it is on our screen.
THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] It’s not on the screens that the public sees. Right. I see it on this screen now. But this is a internal screen only. So he is holding a head, the head of a Serb that he cut off. So those are the 20,000 Mujahedin that were brought to the European theatre of war through Clinton’s policy, and most of them remained there and some went to America and to other countries, and they went all around Erurope. And when they start beheading your own people in wars to come, then you will know that is is all about.
Tony Naim says
The main entrance of All churches built in Mount Lebanon during the 18th and 19th centuries, under Ottoman occupation, where made 5ft high to prevent the Turkish cavalry from getting into the churches in their persecution of Christians.
Diane Harvey says
“a Moroccan barber I know, told me today that this year ‘we got a Nobel – the Peace one. That’s the best'”
Ha! The “Peace” one is the best! Quite the opposite. Obviously the stupid Muslim side of his lineage came out with that one.
mortimer says
Agree with DH. Yes, any Forrest Gump can receive a peace prize. There are very few Muslims who won prizes for advanced scientific work and a number of those shared the prize with a collaborator. Muslims are the recipients of 50 generations of intensive inbreeding through first-cousin and uncle-niece marriages.
Ray Jarman says
To add a little to your statement, think about the likes of Jimmy Carter receiving one as well as the American Muslim, President Hussein Obama. It is almost all about politics today.
Ole Pederson says
In the past, the Nobel Peace Prize is a pretty accurate indicator of the world’s major thugs and war criminals. Exceptions such as the Pakistani school girl Malala notwithstanding.
Infidel says
That prize is now worthless, and I just yawn over it every year
mortimer says
I find this one of H. Fitzgerald’s most interesting articles. It is obvious this a topic that he likes. The winner Tokarczuk is surely not popular in the present political climate in Poland which seeks to minimize Polish participation in the Holocaust. I haven’t read her, but it’s important to balance any criticism of Polish anti-Semitism with the recognition that many Poles risked their lives to save Jewish neighbors. Poles significantly are counted the highest in recognition for their compassion towards Jews, the ‘Righteous Among the Gentiles’.
Surrounded on all sides by ferocious enemies, little Poland fought Nazism heroically. They did what they could. It was a Pole who had been in Auschwitz who escaped from the camp and travelled to London to inform the High Command about his eyewitness observations of the Holocaust. Sadly, Poland also had some traitors who sold out. Before WWII, there were many secular, non-practicing Jews in Poland who considered themselves Polish first and Jewish second. Almost 3 million Polish Christians were killed by Hitler and 3 million Jewish Poles. Pole Christians were also part of the Holocaust. It is truly difficult to simplify this topic, but I appreciate Tokarczuk is presenting her valid point of view.
Roland says
Now only does Tokarczuk take a heartening philo-semitic view, she, according to accounts, mines an interesting historical subject, the 18th century Frankist heresy among the Jews of Poland and Ukraine. It contained many messianic and antinomian expressions. Historian Gerschom Scholem wrote about it. I look forward to reading her “The Books of Jacob”.
J.J. says
I object to praising Olga Tokarczuk on this website. Her “murderers of Jews and colonizers” is the same kind of denigrating your nation’s history and traditions as what’s happening with respect to dealing with migrations and minorities (“it is all the West’s fault”, white guilt, and all that crap). Holocaust was of nazi design and execution, for logistical reasons mostly took place in nazi occupied Poland (the largest concentration of Jewish population in Europe – 3.5 mln, 10% of pre-war population). True, there were some traitors, not everybody knew how to behave under the brutal occupation, but there was no organized collaboration (unlike, e.g. in France-Vichy). I refer you to Danusha Goska’s writings on the FrontPage Magazine on the subject. I am very curious what she has to say re Tokarczuk’s statements.
David says
Tokarczuk should definitely counted with the about 8,000 “Righteous Among the Gentiles” (out of about 20,000 total officially recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem official Holocaust remembrance organization) but that’s because over half of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust were murdered in Poland. So Poles certainly do not stand out as people who had a relatively high number of Righteous.
While we should all stand speechless and salute to the Righteous (nay, Saint, and the Catholic church is being dishonest by not officially recognizing them as such) Poles that put their and their families’ lives on the line by hiding Jews from the Nazis (and mainly from Polish murderers and snitches), your statements “Sadly, Poland also had some traitors” and “Poles significantly are counted the highest in recognition for their compassion towards Jews” are misleading – nay, COMPLETELY FALSE.
Witness the over 200,000 Jews murdered by the Poles in Poland AFTER Germany was defeated and long after the Germans were cleared out of Poland, most of the victims being Holocaust survivors who returned to Poland in search of the remnants of their families and property, the latter being marauded and plundered by Poles (the plunderers were likely also the murderers).
Many, many Jews of Polish descent will tell you that they heard of their Holocaust survivor grandparents that, like the late Prime Minister Shamir (a former Polish Jew), said – “the Poles imbibe anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk”. Many of them will also tell you of the horror stories about how most of the Jewish Polish Holocaust victims were sent to their death because they were snitched on by their Polish neighbors.
While we must all salute and even kneel before the courage of the 8,000 Polish Righteous, they were too few and far between to exonerate the Polish nation from its national scale complicity in the mass murder of the Jews. Contemporary attempts by Poland to rewrite history taken these days are shameful. Sadly, Tokarczuk should be seen as one of the few bright stars in a very dark sky.
Ruben says
So what was Handke’s explanation for the destruction by Serbs of he catholic churches in Croatia and Kosovo?
About their destruction of Dubrovnik, one of the gems of European civilization?
Since Handke is from Slovenia, he is aware that Slovenians took up the arms to fight for independence against the Milosevic’s regime?
How about the open hate against Protestants and Jews in Serbia, until they lost Kosovo in 1999 and they decided to try to win by lobbying what they lost by war. And as good anti-Semites, who think “the Jews control the media and Washington”, they made a volte face. Only those who became experts up after 9/11 fell for it.
Son of a Nazi soldier, Handke is an old anti-American leftie who never stopped hating America. His hate became stronger when USSR collapsed. No wonder he went to defend Milosevic, the last communist dictator left in Europe after the end of the Cold War.
Ole Pederson says
You are entirely misinformed. During the Balkan wars 1992 to 1999 it was Serbia proper which was the most diverse region in the country with at least a dozen ethnic minorities including Muslims, gypsies, Hungarians, Albanians. No report ever mentioned they were “ethnicallly cleansed” in Serbia proper which pulls off the mask of propaganda lies.
Nietzsche says
So, Handke is the son of a Nazi soldier, eh? The Nazis used to call that “Sippenhaft”, you know.
Ole Pederson says
Finally Peter Handke gets a little compensation after the bad treatment he received – not for defendeing the Serbs but for his doubts of the official propaganda which declared the Serbs the bad guys and their leader Slobodan Milosevic as the new Hitler (not Radovan, that was the Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic).
The anti-Serb, anti-Socialist propaganda of the time (remember Yugoslavia was the only Socialist country of the time where the citizens were free to leave, most returned after working in other countries such as Germany) was as bad as the pro-migration propaganda today, and the only thing in common is the pro-Muslim stance. Little is it known that the US and Saudi-Arabia smuggled thousands of Afghan terrorists including Osama Bin Laden (!) into Bosnia to support the Bosnian Muslims, where they committed the vilest atrocities. Just google “Bosnia jihad” pictures.
Incredibly exaggerated accounts of Serb atrocities including the fake Srebrenica massacre later were used to justify the West’s, in particular NATO’s bombing of Serbia. Sometimes civilians were targeted by design (out of protest some Spanish NATO pilots rebeled). Already then mass migration was used as a weapon (check out Kelly M. Greenhill)
Handke has written very thoughtful essays about his questions to the world, including the ones he put forward to Milosevic.It takes great courage to question the official government lies, especially if the majority believes them.
For once, the Nobel committee made a good choice!
somehistory says
These “prizes” are not something of much interest to me as they are handed out by a bunch of strangers who have made big mistakes in the past, but the information you have provided here is quite the opposite. Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Rarely says
I had occasion in the early 90’s to spend 3 hours alone with a survivor of WWII’s concentration camp symbol.
He pointed out that ‘by far’ the most vicious guards at those camps were the Bosnian muslim volunteers. It is not much of a stretch to imagine the nature of the enemy the Serbs were facing in the Balkan War.
Rarely says
Not “symbol” but “system”.
That the Bosnian muslims are utterly barbaric doesn’t mean that the Serbs were shoo ins for sainthood either.
Quazgaa says
The Nobel stopped being noble to me after Obama got it just for being a black president.
abad says
Well better that Abiy Ahmed received it than that little teenaged actress from Sweden with her hot air.
But I agree it was his Christian heritage that enabled him to establish peace in Ethiopia. He is very well educated, younger than me, while he may have a “traditional” Moslem name, he is an Evangelical Pentecostal Christian. But it is ridiculous for the Islamic world to claim a Moslem as this years’s Nobel Peace winner.
Nietzsche says
Another Austrian, Elfriede Jelinek, won the Nobel for literature in 2005, and the media reatcion coudn’t have been more different from 2019. Peter Handke is maligned, left wing nut and Austria-hater Jelinek was adored and celebrated, although her books are almost unreadable rants against Austrians in general and people to the right of chairman Mao in particular. The media bias has become so bad that some days I just want to puke.
MS MADELEINE DUNN says
Thanks for this article. Very interesting.
jca reid says
Muslims have done the literally the square root of ZERO in areas of Science & Medicine. The only way to get one is for a kid to survive a Kalashnikov bullet to the head from close range! Before Islam ARAB Universities & personnel were at the forefront of Learning, along with Greeks, East Indians & Chinese. Then along came this perverted Desert Bandit ideology. In the Sciences/Medicine, in over 100years, only 2 & a half Nobels from 1.5BILLION Muslims. The Jews are now around 150 from a population of no more than 14-15MILLION. Ergop, the Jews are approximately 100 times better!
Jean (old) says
Concerning Ms. Tokarczuk: It is quite possible to praise the substantial Jewish contribution to Polish culture without denigrating non-Jewish Polish culture.
Ms. Tokarczuk’s statement that Polish culture is nothing in itself sounds uncomfortably like the former Prime Minister of Sweden, Mona Sahlin, who infamously in a 2005 speech in a mosque (!) stated the following:
“Many Swedes are envious of immigrants because they have a culture, a history, something that binds them together. Swedes have only Midsummer Night and such silly things.”
She denied the very existence of a Swedish culture and history! Nothing paves the way better for islamization that such self-erasion.
Coupled with Ms. Tokarczuk’s claim that non-Jewish Poles’ sole contribution to the world is to have “committed horrendous acts as colonizers, as a national majority that suppressed the minority [Jews], as slaveowners, and as the murderers of Jews”, this sounds like yet another effort to cow Europeans into submission before multiculturalism. As any readers of this site will know, this move is NOT in the best interest of European Jews (or any other non-muslim Europeans), since the practical result of said ideology is islamization.
I suspect that politically speaking, it was a clever move on the part of the multiculturalists to pick Ms. Tokarczuk. The strategy of misusing the suffering of European Jews to wedge in even more muslim immigrants has been overwhelmingly effective in Western Europe. The new Nobel laureate may be expected to campaign for a similar development in Poland. But this is the last thing Poland needs.
The Jews should not be afraid of indigenous European peoples taking pride in their cultures again. They should be afraid when they see the civilized Europeans bow to muslim barbaric demands for child marriage, gender segregation, FGM, wife beating, etc. in a misguided attempt to atone for their own past. In a way, European self-hatred is the greatest danger to the continent at present. It completely disarms the governments facing the current hijra tsunami.
LR says
Jean – Interesting take…
I agree…”They should be afraid when they see the civilized Europeans bow to muslim barbaric demands for child marriage, gender segregation, FGM, wife beating, etc. in a misguided attempt to atone for their own past. In a way, European self-hatred is the greatest danger to the continent at present. It completely disarms the governments facing the current hijra tsunami.”.
I just don’t understand, ‘European self-hatred’ and the lack of will to stand up against the destructiveness of cultural rot….Europe went through so much hell, and finally came through to the brighter places in the last half of the 20th century…There is no reason for cultural self-flagellation, they went through enough hell already.
There is that old saying, ‘You are your own worst enemy’…I sure wish Europe would find it’s better sensibilities again.
Karen Ferrer says
Abiy Ahmed isn’t Muslim at all but a practicing Christian. So no, the Muslims haven’t won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Not that that will stop them from claiming it.
Linde Barrera says
I am very grateful for this article. It is good to know that a non-Serb has uttered truth about what Islamists have done to Serbs who were defending themselves. It is also good to know about a Polish person who defends a Jewish person and how Judaism has enriched Poland. Both these writers deserve their awards, especially in today’s atmosphere where writers and journalists are encouraged to design and communicate their opinions as truthful facts.
Angemon says
Barack “10x more drone strikes than Bush” Obama also got one – just goes to show how “good” the NPP is…