prijava
SARAJEVO, September 23 (FENA) - President of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) Bakir Izetbegović is in visit to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, where an exhibition of photographs of SDA founder and first BiH President Alija Izetbegović was opened.
On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, Izetbegović addressed the audience, expressing his gratitude to the organizers and everyone who came to the exhibition.
“I believe Alija Izetbegović deserves this. He certainly belongs to the group of chosen and courageous people who made great personal sacrifices in fighting for freedom and principles upon which the civilized world is based,” said Bakir Izetbegović.
He recalled that his father was born in Bosnia, a country that has been the meeting place of East and West, the Orient and Europe for hundreds of years.
“With more or less unchanged borders, Bosnia has existed for more than a thousand years, and it has always been a cradle of spontaneously created mixture of cultures, religions and identities. A strong component of Bosnian society were the Jews who found refuge in the Ottoman Empire from the persecution of the Inquisition, and called Sarajevo "Little Jerusalem". Sarajevo deserves that name. Churches, mosques, synagogues literally lean on each other in the old part of the town,” said Izetbegović.
Bakir Izetbegović believes that precisely this multiethnic environment in which he grew up and turbulent time in which he was educated, determined the life philosophy and path of Alija Izetbegović.
“That path was a struggle for survival and affirmation of his religion, people and country, for which he said: "Bosnia is more than just a piece of land in the hilly Balkans, it is the idea that different faiths and cultures can live together." On this way he was awaited by Communist secret services, prisons, armies and much more. They did not scare him, stop him, or defeat him,” the SDA president pointed out.
He added that Alija Izetbegović grew up in a time of dramatic social change, disorder and collapse of established order and relations, a time of revolutions, aggressive atheism, a riot of fascism and communism and, as he said, ideology without God and against God.
“Islam as a religion and an idea was losing its influence, finding itself on the margins in the world context. The countries and peoples who relied on it, who guarded and inherited it, were scientifically, technologically, organizationally and politically at the periphery of historical processes. Muslims became the part of history, they were not important, they obeyed, at best they were imitating technologically and ideologically those who ruled. The twilight of Islam and enthusiasm of communism in the early years swayed Izetbegović. Proclaimed equality of people, social justice, fight against the wealthy capitalists who ruled over human destinies, all this was acceptable to a young man brought up on Islamic principles. But aggressive atheism, trying to replace the party with God, disrespecting the real truth, collectivism that dominated the freedom of the individual, were unacceptable to him. The hesitation and re-examination of religion seem to have been a very important stage in the formation of the future Islamic thinker and political leader Alija Izetbegović,” said Bakir Izetbegović, SDA stated.
This is precisely why Alija Izetbegović devoted the first part of his life to defending and reviving Islam and Muslims, seeking their place and role in a changing and growing world like never before.
He also recalled the fact that because of his ideas, Izetbegović was imprisoned twice, first as a 20-year-old, immediately after the end of World War II and second as a retiree in 1983.
(FENA) A. B.
