A Muslim Diaspora in Australia: Bosnian Migration and Questions of Identity 9781350985117, 9781786720658

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For Uzma Jamil

Published in 2017 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright q 2017 Lejla Voloder The right of Lejla Voloder to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. ISBN: 978 1 78453 762 3 eISBN: 978 1 78672 065 8 ePDF: 978 1 78673 065 7 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

NOTE TO THE READER

Bosna i Hercegovina in the Bosnian language is the full and official name of a country located on the European continent. In English that country is referred to as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and Herzegovina is often abbreviated to Bosnia. Who are Bosnians? This book is concerned with the citizens of Australia for whom identification with Bosnia, and as Bosnian, holds some significance. How and why it does is the focus of the narrative to follow. This book presents an original work comprising data, notes and observations collected in the course of PhD and post-PhD research conducted in major Australian cities. I found that the similarities in the lived experiences, discourses and practices with which people were occupied were more significant than the differences between the research sites. Consequently, in this text, I do not distinguish and identify the cities in question. This decision has also been informed through consideration for protecting the anonymity of research participants. The Bosnian born population in Australia is relatively small and, in honouring the agreed upon terms for confidentially, I refrain from providing specific details about research sites. Research and writing was supported and guided by many people. I am indebted to all who, each in their own way, made a generous contribution facilitating the production of this manuscript. I affirm that all citations within the text are, to the best of my knowledge, properly acknowledged.

INTRODUCTION

‘Don’t you know where you are?’ The question was directed to Samir. Samir blushed and fidgeted with the papers strewn on the table in front of him, unsure whether to respond to the old man’s frustrated outburst. Dedo1 was approximately 80 years of age, mentally agile and seemingly looking for an argument as a way of testing his ability to provoke others and defend his own position. His question to Samir was rhetorical. As a former journalist Dedo knew that posing the question was a means of protest and that sometimes the question was more significant than the answer. And so it was that Dedo didn’t require a response: he had said enough to make his point. When it was his turn to speak, Samir stood and addressed those in attendance with the greeting, ‘Dobar dan’ [Good day] rather than ‘Eselamu alejkum’ [Peace be upon you]. It was to this that Dedo took offence. Dedo didn’t agree with Samir’s behaviour: he considered it disrespectful and sought to make this known. The old man was disturbed by what appeared to be Samir’s disaffection and insensitivity towards the behaviour and practices expected within a Bosnian Muslim context. The question ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ sought to highlight that while the community meeting was not in a mosque per se, behaviours were to be dictated by contemporaneous customs of Bosnian Muslims. The location of the meeting was a suburban community hall a few hundred metres from a mosque. In the Australian context, most

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mosques are aligned with an ethno-national community and so the meeting was held close to what was considered to be a Bosnian mosque. The mosque was understood to be a Bosnian mosque because the imam was a migrant from Bosnia and immigrants from Bosnia had fundraised in order to have it built. At this meeting, eighty people were in attendance. This, I was told, was a respectable number. People worked hard during the week, thus, it was difficult mobilizing them to spend time away from their families on the weekend for Bosnian community activities. Community service was an extracurricular activity and so it was that the group gathered was particularly motivated. Dedo stood tall as he spoke, particularly so in response to Samir. He wore a black beret, a crisp white shirt with sleeves rolled up to just under his elbows, and a dark blue vest: characteristic attire of elderly Bosnian folk. Dedo was a seasoned community leader and was looking to affirm his status as an elder to be accorded due regard. Dedo’s frustration was incited by what he perceived to be Samir’s dismissal of the community hall being a safe place for Muslims, a place removed from the broader context of hostility. Samir was considered to be agitating tensions that were being encountered outside on the suburban streets. Muslims were being victimized, blamed and shamed. Accusations of disloyalty to the nation state were experienced primarily through news broadcasts. On the streets, however, it was women who reported being harassed for wearing shawls, a contemporary symbol of Muslim religiosity. Thus, being an Australian citizen with a recognized legal status was not a safeguard against violence: their non-belonging and outsider status was being evoked and provoked. Dedo sought to safeguard the identity and traditions of Bosnian Muslims, an ethno-religious-linguistic community and this, for him, was reflected through the use of specific greetings, in this instance ‘Eselamu aljekum’. He wanted to hear ‘Eselamu aljekum’ voiced. From various social gatherings I had gotten to know Samir and surmised that his use of ‘Dobar dan’ was not a deliberate gesture of disrespect but a decision made to use what he thought was a more inclusive greeting, one that would be appreciated by religious and

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non-religious alike. ‘Dobar dan’ was intended, as a secular greeting, to invite the devout and otherwise. Samir was wrong. He had miscalculated the audience and the old man, Dedo, in particular, took offence. The importance and associated politics of greetings were not new to me. ‘Call out your Selam. Tell us you are here. Tell us who you are’, I was advised on one occasion in the early days of my research. Calling out, as it is said, ‘Selam’ means to call out ‘Peace’. Among Bosnian Muslims, ‘Eselamu alejkum’ is considered an Islamic greeting, a means through which one affirms one’s Muslim identity and solidarity. Greetings are one of the means through which the politics of identity are enacted. As will be detailed throughout, choice of words, practices and gestures can reveal with whom people identify, the authority to whom or which they decide to submit, and the customs they accept, question or decidedly challenge. During one of my visits to an Australian-Bosnian-Muslim mosque, I was told to say ‘Eselamu alejkem’ (or at least the abbreviated ‘Selam’) loudly and clearly. Doing so is understood as a way of declaring one’s presence, a way to announce one’s willingness to submit before a people and before Allah. To call out ‘Selam’ requires courage. It is about being the first to greet regardless of whether the greeting, the call to peace, is returned in kind. This is difficult when one enters a new setting. Stepping over the threshold and seeing the gazes and stares of people is intimidating. The stares are not empowering. When entering the mosque, for example, one is expected to call ‘Eselamu alejkum’. People stare. The elders want you to say the greeting that affirms your submission to Allah and deference to them. They stare and remain silent until they hear your voice and hear you utter the words they want to hear. When you do, and when I did, they would respond in kind, some smiling, others nodding in approval. Samir did not receive nods of approval – rather he was reproached for the words he voiced and the greeting he had offered. It appeared that Dedo had shamed Samir and with this Samir’s status was challenged. Samir’s belonging to this meeting, his right to partake and make a contribution, was in question. This disruption to status was achieved simply, it seemed, through the questioning of Samir’s choice of greeting.

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After this affront, Samir composed himself and continued speaking of the importance of integration for Bosnian Muslims. He spoke of his professional activities and how, as a teacher, he was eager to use his resources, networks and knowledge to assist others integrate into Australian society as successfully as he. The appeal, the need for integration was, ostensibly, the impetus behind this gathering of a group of, mostly, middle aged Bosnian Muslim men one rainy Sunday afternoon in February. These men, who considered themselves intellectuals, had gathered in earnest to identify the problems and the strategies that could be used to promote the integration of Bosnian Muslims in Australia. In fact, the problem that the men sought to address seemed to have already been identified: it was non-integration. The prevailing political and public discourse, statements made by politicians2 and polemics on various media outlets, spoke of the need for immigrants and some ethno-religious minorities, particularly Muslims, to actively integrate into society. These men, who were tertiary educated, employed, politically active and with varying levels of English proficiency, sought to promote the same among other, ostensibly less successfully integrated, Bosnian Muslims. As the meeting progressed, the problematic populations and suitable strategies were identified. The populations considered to be in need of specific help were women – elderly women in particular – and youth. Women were identified as being socially isolated and the solutions proffered included enabling women to participate in English language tuition programmes that would serve a practical purpose, i.e. enable them to find employment, and also provide opportunities for creating friendships with non-Bosnian folk. Samir relayed a personal account of his wife’s experiences: These are women who are schooled but recognition of their qualifications is limited. These women, who are similar to my wife, would benefit from a course upon which she could find employment in an office. Those kinds of things assist in integration and involvement in society.

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These ideas were considered, by most in attendance, to be Samir’s most important contribution to the meeting. He was redeemed, and as he spoke many men grunted or nodded in agreement. The problem of youth integration, however, was treated differently. As the meeting progressed the meaning of the term integration varied. No longer was it about participation and socialization beyond Australian-Bosnian-Muslim networks – in the case of youth, integration became a matter of participation and socialization within Australian-Bosnian-Muslim networks. Youth, by virtue of being educated within Australia, were expected to be able to follow the formula of becoming workers or proletarianized.3 Becoming more than workers, being cultured – well, that was considered in need of intervention, and that required participation within community organizations. ‘Why aren’t our children here?’, asked one committee member as some of the men turned to look at me. They were too busy integrating themselves, I thought, and as I was about to speak another interjected and commented that it was a language problem: the youth weren’t being taught the Bosnian language and that was the primary obstacle to their participation. A solution to the language problem was difficult to pinpoint. After some discussion and many digressions most men agreed that social events at which young people could meet prospective spouses was a sensible solution to the youth specific problem. After four hours of discussion the committee’s agenda had been exhausted but some of the men had not. They wanted to continue the discussions and with the formalities over coffee was on the menu and further intellectualization of the meanings and practices of integration was to be pursued. About fifteen of the men remained. Most of these men went to pray first before the meeting reconvened. The meeting moved from the community hall to the mosque’s dining area, where coffee could be served and more informal, yet more intense, discussions followed. As I walked from one setting to the next, tired and grumpy, looking at my watch wondering and eager for the day’s meeting to end, Abe,4 – a particularly jovial fellow – called out to me with, ‘Do you know where to go?’ I looked at him with some frustration and envy, not knowing how he was able to maintain such stamina

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following such a lengthy meeting. I did not have the energy to formulate a witty retort and instead mumbled something about the stream of men and mosque’s minaret (akin to a lighthouse), showing the way. ‘Yes, this is the right path’ he said with an arrogant smirk. ‘Hmm’ I replied, unimpressed. As we approached the steps to the mosque, he said, ‘Listen’, moving closer to me, placing his hand on my shoulder, lowering his mouth to my ear and whispering, ‘You do not know where you are. You need to know that you do not know the community. You do not know our history. I can tell you a few things. Let us talk later’, he said, repeating, ‘You do not know the community’, as he moved away from me towards a group of men who were making their way to perform ablution5 before entering the mosque. He knew the men well, joking freely with them and they appeared to reply in kind. How was it possible that I liked this fellow less with each gesture he made and each word that he spoke? The fellow’s dismissiveness of my understanding of the complexities of identities and of community dynamics was purposely patronizing. I considered whether with his gestures and statements he sought to mimic Dedo, assert his authority and impose his rightful place and his knowledge of the community over my own. Perhaps he was right for I did not know how to pray. Making the requisite prostration, i.e. bowing movements in unison with people, is not a difficult task – it is akin to a lazy person’s aerobics class. However, I decided that I was not going to pretend to know and instead moved to the dining area. Samir was already seated and beckoned me to sit with him. As I sat down and wondered how to begin asking Samir about being publicly shamed, the boisterous call of other men drew his attention. I took out my notebook and wrote. Once prayers were over, the dining area filled with men. Musky smells dominated, although some relief was gained from stale cigarette smoke. The aroma of the coffee served as a treat. A woman who worked preparing coffee and lunches in the kitchenette placed the tray with the coffee jug and cups before Uncle Mujo,6 another community elder,

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who sat opposite me. As the woman lowered the tray she asked who would do the serving. Uncle Mujo appeared to acquiesce, although hesitantly. As his hand reached for the handle of the coffee jug the woman interjected with, ‘Why doesn’t the lass?’, pointing her chin in my direction. With some relief Uncle Mujo looked at me, seeking or rather compelling me to agree. I did. I knew it was customary for women to serve coffee and this was a battle I was not prepared for, nor interested in, contesting. The contestation of identity was the theme that emerged from the various conversations that ran simultaneously around the table. A tour de force of topics was discussed: Bin Laden and a range of theories concerning the events of 11 September 2001; terrorism, or more precisely the fear of being labeled a terrorist; the importance of ethno-religious identities and practices for community cohesiveness; until the conversation came to focus upon the conditions of the Muslim communities in Australia and, more specifically, Bosnian Muslims. ‘Last Sunday we organized an open day. It was devised to allow neighbours, people from the local area, the possibility to go around the mosque and to meet us. Yes, it was for them to see that we are part of society, that we are open. Yes, it was that they see that we do not have hidden chambers and there is not anything to fear, unlike how we are shown in the media.’ This speech, by one of the Islamic Society’s committee members, was received by the men. No one interrupted and no one contested the purpose or validity of the exercise. Rather, most men confirmed that they had attended the open day and proceeded to share their impressions of the event. Some commented on the generosity of their wives in preparing ‘traditional’ delicacies with which to honour the visitors, and others on the beauty of the youth who wore traditional costumes and served as ushers guiding visitors around the complex. ‘People who arrived were very interested. They were respectful but they don’t know anything about Islam’, Uncle Mujo laughed as he relayed some of the questions that the visitors had posed. ‘One asked about our “Priest”, that’s what he said, he said, “Muslim Priest”.’

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‘As though this is a church,’ another sarcastically chimed, eager to continue the derogatory tone that Uncle Mujo was establishing. The conversation continued as men offered their interpretations of Australians and Australia and how the integration of individual and collective identities and practices could, should and should not be performed. Earlier that day the men had seemed to agree that integration was about a specific mode of economic and political participation and it was such participation that they wanted to promote amongst women. This conversation, however, was less about economic participation and instead was concerned with freedoms for the expression of various cultural practices and ethno-religious identities within Australian society. Dedo became dominant in leading this discussion. Dedo explained that he understood that Australian institutions promoted a multifaith and multi-ethnic ethos. For him, this meant that there existed a toleration for the practice and promotion of religious differences and that this even extended to a valourization of cultural difference. However, there were limits. These limits, according to Dedo, were understood in relation to an anti-Islam bias that prevailed in ‘Australia and in the West’ more generally. These limits of belonging in Australian society for Muslims were to be negotiated by abiding to practices of self-censorship and compartmentalization. ‘Whilst this is a Christian country, this is our place’, Dedo explained as he motioned with his arms, directing attention to the place in which we were gathered. He directed his statements to me. He wanted me to understand what he was saying and pointed his chin to my notebook, as though suggesting that this needed to be noted. As Dedo leaned in response to the quizzical look on my face, someone else interjected, ‘No, this is not a Christian state! This is a Catholic state!’ Some of those in attendance nodded. Others shouted out other denominations, trying to guess and pinpoint or solve the puzzle. Abe commented on the others’ lack of knowledge and explained that Catholics were in fact a minority and therefore Australia could not be a Catholic country. Then another snorted as he exclaimed, ‘These people do not know the difference between a country and a state and they want to tell you what is what!’

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Clearly the other men were excited by this discussion. They shifted and shuffled in their seats, eager to be heard and to explain to the visiting anthropologist and to each other their understanding of where we were located and what this meant for each of us individually and collectively. Dedo became visibly agitated by such interruptions but he waited for everyone to settle and then continued explaining his comprehension of self-censorship. Self-censorship meant being conscious of one’s context and the prevailing customary practices. He explained how there were differences in what one could do within and without the mosque. Without meant being conscious of the restrictions for a Muslim in a Christian country. Dedo’s interpretation of Australia as a Christian country was informed by media reportage, and the visibility of religious symbols in public domains in contrast to their limited presence in the now former Yugoslavia. Throughout Dedo’s talk, Yugoslavia’s secularism served as an important referent in his assessment of the lack of true secularism in Australia. The evening call to prayer signaled the end of the meeting and put a stop to Dedo’s explanations. I agreed to visit again so that we could continue these conversations.

Don’t You Know Where You Are?! On the drive back home, Dedo’s words kept ringing in my ears. His seemingly simple question, ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ seemed to reveal more than I had initially gathered. The question, the exclamation, could be understood as a challenge to Samir’s status and belonging. Indeed, Dedo had reacted abruptly. His words were voiced in a harsh tone, his furrowed brows accentuating the stern look on his face. Dedo had politicized Samir’s greeting. ‘Dobar dan’ was no longer treated as a simple utterance, a pleasantry spoken before the real and significant contributions were to be made. Dedo sought to make it clear to Samir, and to all those present, that each word had a purpose and each word could be evoked to demarcate – or betray – one’s identity, political orientation and lines of solidarity. Samir’s reaction,

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his flushed face, the nervous wringing of his fingers, suggested that he had been marginalized. However, one could proffer an alternative interpretation. Rather than marginalizing Samir, Dedo stressed the mode through which he and others were establishing their belonging in that place, and this entailed accepting that customary practices were to be followed and preferably internalized. In this instance, ‘Eselamu alejkum’ was to be the first utterance to reveal submission. Rather than thinking that Samir was marginalized, his shaming served as an initiation to the group. They were after all establishing the boundaries of belonging, demarcating the various lines of integration and with this sought Samir’s acquiescence. Samir was being invited to a group and being taught, in clear terms, the expectations for inclusion. Samir’s belonging was being challenged through the invitation to submit to an authority. In this instance, Dedo occupied a position of authority and was permitted to do so by the committee members. No one had objected or defended Samir because ‘Eselamu alejkum’ was not voicing an ultimate submission to Dedo’s authority but rather it was about voicing submission to an Australian-Bosnian-Muslim collective united by a submission to the authority of Allah. While Allah and Islam represented the ultimate to whom they professed acquiescence, profane concerns were not irrelevant. Dedo’s critical question spoke to more than Samir’s individual comportment, as it spoke of Dedo’s interpretation of his and many others’ understanding of how integration was to be pursued in Australia. ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ spoke of a concern central, but not limited, to the immigrant experience. The concern of knowing where one is, knowing what a setting is or purports to be, informs understandings of the people who inhabit that space, what identities are valued and denigrated, and how integration is to be performed and achieved. Knowledge, or perhaps the interpretations, of the world one occupies informs conduct. Dedo through his questioning of Samir and his subsequent explanations of Australia as a Christian country revealed that belonging was to be achieved by adhering to contextually contingent expectations of conformity. Dedo understood

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himself to be a Muslim in a Christian country. With this, he understood that he had freedoms for religious expression but also identified certain restrictions on his comportment. However, he did not read this differentiation as a permanent form of exclusion. Dedo said that as a citizen he was to submit to the national and state laws and prevailing local customs in the civil domains but that there were places in which different customs could be practiced. In the confines of the suburban community hall and grounds of the mosque, Dedo sought to demarcate and defend Bosnian Muslim customary practices. Integrating within this space was to begin with the Muslim call to peace, the greeting ‘Eselamu aljekum’, a custom, a lore that Samir had transgressed. Thus, Dedo sought to highlight to Samir, the other men and to the visiting anthropologist, the importance of practicing mindful integration. Dedo’s explanation highlighted the variance in the meanings of integration that had been voiced that afternoon. Integration is a reference to a process that is considered to lead to the result of being integrated. Integration was to be pursued through political activism, economic participation and cultural conformity. Being integrated can thus be understood as the result, the resultant state of being combined, united, undivided. The supposition tends to suggest that there is one destination to which one is to be integrated. However, as Dedo’s remarks suggested, integration was a continual project which required a conscious adherence to precepts and principles that were contextually compartmentalized. The Bosnian Muslim mosque, as all other places, provided for certain freedoms and restrictions and integration practices.

Questions of Identity That day’s events provided a nice entre´e to my research into questions of identity, a study of the questions posed, debated and answered by Bosnians – Bosnian Muslims in particular – in Australia. This research, like many other studies into the experiences of migrants, presupposed the existence of Bosnians, i.e. that there are people who identify with the ethnonym, Bosnian.

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Within the Australian context, questions about one’s ethnonational and migration background, often in the form of ‘Where are you from?’, serve as a convenient ice-breaker when meeting new people. This question, however, tends to be extrapolated to suggest that one’s ethno-national identity is the predominant identity with which people identify and that this informs their worldview. According to such logic, persons who have emigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Australia would undoubtedly identify as Bosnian or Australian-Bosnian and such is their primary form of identification. According to latest government figures, there are just under 26,000 people resident in Australia who were born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Do all these people identify as Bosnian? Labeling individuals and collectives as such is a conceptual project with political implications. Rather than presenting a holistic account of Bosnians in Australia, my study sought to explore the salience of such identification. As one would expect, the results were mixed. Some claimed that Bosnianness was their essence, a referent to their self, which was a referent to a heritage, a lineage, a deep and historicized sense of nationalist identity. For others, ethno-national identification was superseded by religious affiliation, and claiming to be Muslim was of greater importance. Did a religious identification nullify nationality and promote exclusive belonging to an umma,7 a global Islamic community? In most instances it did not, for claims to some form of nationality continue to hold salience. Australian-Bosnian-Muslim is not the only, or the most significant, identity or mode of identification for people. Indeed, as one of my research participants said when introducing himself to me, ‘I loved my town, my country, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix’, drawing my attention to the fact that he would not be reduced to an ethnonational identity alone. Thus, people draw upon non-ethnic modes of identification: they may refer to localities from Bosnia, or to other aspects of their selves deemed significant such as age, gender, race, sexuality or music and literary genres, political allegiances and professions, to define who they are and how they live. Recognition of this variance does not diminish the fact that references and

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preferences to Bosnian identification reveal that while ethno-national identification may not be peoples’ primary form of identification it is a privileged mode of declaring who one is in Australia. This privileging is informed by the ideology of multiculturalism that operates as a dominant discursive frame in Australia. When, how and why people identified as Bosnian, needs to take into account the referent to which they react. They are Bosnian in relation to whom? Thus, I heard many responses along the following lines: I am not sure what I consider myself. I have lived here almost as long [as] I had lived in Bosnia but do not quite feel that I belong here. This view may change once I go back there again, I might feel differently. If you want a short answer: I guess I am Australian, I have an Aussie passport, I vote here, I work here, I live here. Such answers reflected that identification as Bosnian was a referent to other ethno-national identities and a range of practices and sentiments that were implicated in the continual (re)creation of insider/outsider distinctions rather than it being a referent to a singular identity and a permanent experience of integration. The repetition of similar answers highlighted to me that I was posing the wrong questions. Indeed, in my initial surveying of local infrastructure, I noted that Bosnian organizations and community groups were already well established. The services and facilities available included Bosnian run community centres, cultural and musical groups, social welfare services, sporting (predominately football/soccer) clubs, Bosnian Muslim mosques, Islamic centres and Bosnian run restaurants and cafe´s. Local libraries had shelves with books in the Bosnian language. Radio and television programmes in the Bosnian language were already established. Drama troupes, solo artists and rock bands from Bosnia toured regularly and a number of such performances were organized annually in the cities of Australia. Despite this visible institutional presence, people were speaking and wanting me to hear about the struggles they were facing, i.e. about their struggles, stumbles and successes in achieving a sense of

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belonging and stability of identity in an ever changing world. Indeed, the meeting over which Dedo presided was about integration. I wondered how much more integration they wanted to achieve, and what this meant to them. Being Australian-BosnianMuslim in very specific ways was one answer.

Researching at Home I arrived home after an hour’s drive. Exhaustion sabotaged my plans to debrief and write detailed notes of the day’s events. Instead, that night through the haze of my dreams I recalled childhood experiences, experiences of calling out greetings. ‘What do I say? What do I say?’ was the question I had habitually come to ask my parents when we would go visiting. It was a game I played, leaving the question to the very final second as my father would ring the door bell of our hosts’ home. As visitors it is customary to accord the hosts their appropriate greeting. As a child, my awareness extended as far as knowing that there were differences: different hosts received different greetings. In those years, I did not know that greetings could be categorized as either secular or religious. Calling the warranted greeting was a way of displaying respect to elders. When I was a youngster, slips could be excused but now, as an adult and an insider researcher, deferring or claiming ignorance was no longer an option. This realization that I was fully embedded in the research preoccupied my thoughts. My research was atypical. I did not travel to a distant land as is common for anthropologists. I was researching questions of identity among Bosnian Muslims in Australia. Thus, as other anthropologists have commented, anthropology at home is when research is conducted in local and familiar places and where the anthropologist confronts intense intersections between their professional and personal lives (Fortier, 1996; Caputo, 2000; Pink, 2000). I identified as Bosnian, as Muslim and as Australian. I was asking research participants the questions that I had asked myself over the years in the cities and sites I had visited over the years. Researching at home means that research becomes so integrated into daily thoughts and habits that it consumes one’s life. Yet, daily life continues regardless of the research. Thus, I did

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move to live with unknown people and learn about unfamiliar practices, as did most of the anthropologists at my university. Such meant that a host family did not provide for my accommodation and meals: instead I continued to work in my part-time job in a call centre, for my bills remained as did the rent on the apartment that contained the dishes that still needed washing and the carpet that needed vacuuming. Indeed, my daily chores did not disappear when my existence as a doctoral candidate began. With this, one encounters difficulties in demarcating field sites and home sites as the people involved, the places visited and the questions posed, refuse to remain fixed and static. Instead they transgress boundaries such that the question of when and where research is to begin and end can be an all consuming and guilt inducing concern. In attempting to clarify the research process for myself, a diary became a necessity for listing events. It became a repository of notes of the mundane, through which research was to be sorted from non-research. In the early days of research, a typical entry read as follows: Woke up and had a shower (ideally). Breakfast. A pot of tea. Checked the letterbox. Read a letter from prospective research participant (postponed my reply until I could think of something sufficiently doctoral to write). Did some washing (and thought it would be nice if my new shirt dried in time so that I could wear it for the interview with Kristina). Made some phone calls (including the obligatory call to mum). Lunch. Called Kristina to confirm the interview. She had to reschedule (That was a relief as my shirt had not dried in time). Work (evening shift).

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The following day varied slightly, as it included: Went to university for classes. Borrowed some books. Visited mum. Spoke to mum about Islamic terrorism (Could that be research? What could mum know about Islamic terrorism?). My insecurity was compounded by a senior professor, who said, ‘Sitting and talking to your mum around a kitchen table does not constitute research.’ I was reprimanded and shamed. My research was not anthropology and quitting would be a relief for all, was the subtext, or so I thought and felt. Anthropology should be done in the tropics, on an island I day-dreamed while doing the obligatory readings of Malinowski, Mauss and Mead. But I could not afford such extravagance. ‘I will try harder tomorrow to make this research in Australia count as proper anthropological research’, I vowed. Following criticisms, I sought to be extra vigilant in my daily tasks. This vigilance was somewhat more fruitful. On one occasion – while leaving the local supermarket with groceries in hand – a few Bosnian/ Croatian/Serbian language speaking women happened to walk beside me and their conversation triggered the thoughts: ‘What are they talking about? Did one of them just say, Muslim? Could that be research? Should I be following them?’ As a shopper I was tired and wanted to go home, as a Bosnian I thought I had heard it all before, but as a student I was intrigued and considered following them. After a moment’s hesitation, professional protocol prevailed and reminded me that ethical conduct precluded such spying activities. However, this encounter emphasized that there were insights and oversights to emerge from my personal trajectory and status of which I needed to be more aware. My own insider/outsider positioning as a researcher was another point that needed elucidation. In the first instance, I became cognizant that the knowledge I had accumulated over the years was relevant and significant for understanding identity politics in situ. The politics of greetings were not new to me and this was a source of insight that no one else

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could replicate. My own personal experience, as anthropologists have long recognized, was to form and inform this ethnography.8 However, the attempt to demarcate research from non-research continued to preoccupy my thoughts. I sought to gain clarity between when research began and when it ended by focusing my attention toward community activities, particularly formalized community organizations. Ethnic organizations create sites of community. They are places of intense interpersonal contact and members are often intent on seeking to expand the numbers of participants and members, and with this strive to grow these community spaces. Such places bring together people who share a mutual interest. In some cases, the sites I visited were diaspora organizations, i.e. sites prefaced and oriented toward Bosnia, but there were other gatherings in which people spoke the Bosnian language but their concerns were not diasporic per se: rather, their concerns were oriented toward issues, struggles, topics related to interaction and integration politics in Australia. Consequently research concentrated on understanding the dynamics of such organizations. As time progressed, however, individual meetings and conversations with people ensued. Some individuals were interviewed according to a prepared interview schedule, although most preferred to discuss matters that were of most pressing concern to them at that point in time around issues of citizenship and identity. All the people with whom I spoke were Australian citizens and most had migrated to Australia as refugees/humanitarian entrants during the period 1992–9.9 Their ages ranged from 18 years to 75 years. A number of people became key informants and some of their stories I share in this book. We spoke primarily in the Bosnian language and these conversations I have translated into English. For all participants of this research, Bosnian identification was self-ascribed and a significant identity. However, the meaning that such held was an important point of differentiation. The internal differentiation in discussions of the salience of Muslim identification was a particular point of interest, and as my research revealed the differences in this embrace could not follow the prevailing demarcation between practicing and nominal Muslims (Akbarzadeh and Mansouri, 2007).

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Researching as an Insider ‘Are Bosnian Muslims different to other Muslims?’ I was, and continue to be, asked at various academic gatherings. ‘They are less likely to become terrorists’, a colleague interjected impatiently answering the question for me. He was a senior academic who had built his career by writing inflammatory Islamophobic texts and so I was surprised by his answer. I looked at him quizzically wondering whether he was serious in his response. ‘Yes’, he nodded, as though reading my confusion and he continued to explain to the inquirer that ‘They are European Muslims, they are more moderate. See, something like Lejla . . . They are Muslim but not really Muslim.’ It appeared that I was an Australian-Bosnian-Muslim and, in my work, was to be and to represent what and who I was researching. I was an insider, and this was continually reaffirmed throughout my research. Claiming or being identified as an insider is a statement about the closeness of the researcher to the research topic. The insider subverts the conventional approach to research which is characterized by cultural, identificational and spatial differentiation between home and research sites, and between the researcher and the researched. Insiderness can be a form of identification claimed by the researcher, an invitation extended by study participants and a label imposed by colleagues and members of the academy. In the first instance, a researcher may claim to be an insider by virtue of conducting research on a topic of personal interest, among people with whom they identify and in familiar places. Insider status can be bestowed upon the researcher by participants. Participants invite researchers into their worlds and in doing so they may seek to stress to the researcher similarities in their experiences of being an immigrant, shared affective responses to non-belonging, and shared understandings of what it means to be integrated. Being identified as Bosnian Muslim by colleagues was another way in which my status as an insider was suggested or even imposed. The latter point is potentially problematic. Although I nominally share ethno-national and

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religious identities with research participants, homogeneity in the meanings and salience of such should not be assumed. I refer my status as an insider researcher to denote that I am a native speaker of the Bosnian (or formerly Serbo-Croatian) language and that my access to the research sites and research participants was enabled by being able to speak in a very specific and identifiable regional accent. Furthermore, my own and my family’s active participation in community organizations meant that participants were able to trace and identify me in terms of kin. This meant that many participants knew at least one of my relations. Such proximity facilitated the development of trusting relationships but also created especial burdens, as participants emphasized my role and my work’s importance for representing ‘us’. Realization of the inescapability of myself within the research field meant that I needed to question and sometimes rediscover the meanings of practices and words that had assumed the status of tacit knowledge. The pursuit of such involved a critical appraisal of what I assumed were important questions in the lives of AustralianBosnians and doing so meant actively promoting a position of outsiderness. Being an outsider is often considered to be evoked through the questioning of taken-for-granted understandings of everyday experiences (Schutz, 1944). Adopting this approach helped me realize the dynamics of insiderness and outsiderness that research participants were themselves experiencing as Australian citizens.

Insiders and Outsiders Polemicization of integration by the men at the community meeting was underpinned by a broader concern about citizenship and citizenhood. All the men attendant at the community meeting were Australian citizens – indeed, the vast majority of Bosnian born residents of Australia hold Australian citizenship. In 2007, according to the then Australian Government Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 96.1 per cent of Bosnian born residents in Australia had Australian citizenship, a higher rate than the estimated rate of 75.6 per cent for all other overseas born residents in Australia. Thus, these

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men officially were members of the Australian nation. Their citizenship documents confirmed such status. In the first instance, citizenship is a designation of one’s legal status. Citizenship confers the right of residence, political and economic participation in a particular nation state. However, through their conversations, the men used the term ‘citizenship’ in broader terms. Their conversations, heated debates and angered responses, did not focus on formal aspects of citizenship. Rather, they were concerned with the informal – and perhaps unwritten – codes of citizenry practice. Through their discussions they emphasized that questions of citizenhood and identity are not simply about bureaucracy. As citizens of Australia who identified with a Muslim religiosity, they faced accusations of disloyalty. They understood that their religion in the prevailing political milieu served as an obstacle to achieving the status of good and valued citizens. These men highlighted that they were both insiders and outsiders. As citizens, they are insiders who participate in a range of economic, political and social relationships in the course of their daily lives. They are participants in the workings of organizations, of workplaces, of schools. They receive and interact with the dominant discourses of the nation state, they read newspapers, watch the news, television programmes, and the advertisements in between. They learn they are consumers, economic beings able to make decisions about their purchases, who are sometimes actively targeted by marketers. Through all these interactions they learn about the society in which they live. They are insiders. However, as political beings who identify as Muslim, they see that they are being targeted and treated as potential enemies within, and with this they are externalized, their belonging challenged. With this they feel like outsiders. In the prevailing contemporary political discourse, they are potential terrorists, belonging to sleeper cells waiting to be activated; they feel they are being treated like potential cancers of our time. In response, as my academic colleague suggested, some people participate in negating their piousness as a means of distancing themselves from being identified as real Muslims and potential terrorists. Outsiderness is not simply constituted by difference. The Australian ideology of multiculturalism celebrates difference.

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Various sources, government grants and private philanthropic donors support and provide for the creation and sustenance of ethnic, religious and subcultural community activities, festivals and organizations. The ideology seeks to promote an ethos of toleration of difference among the citizenry. Academic critique has drawn attention to the limitations of the Australian multicultural ‘unity in diversity’ ideology (Vasta, 1996; Stratton and Ang, 1998). This critique has identified that multiculturalism maintains ethnicized notions of national belonging and that hegemonic white constructions of Australian identity tend to predominate in the Australian national imagination (Hage, 1998). The suggestion is that immigrants have tended to be understood primarily in terms of cultural and racial otherness, an otherness that is considered distinct and incompatible with the mainstream. The mainstream in Australia, as is the case in Canada, the UK and the USA, has typically been identified as consisting of a male dominated, middle-class, white, Christian social sphere. White and Anglo, however, are contestable categorizations. White and whiteness are culturally constructed categories: as the course of immigration history in Australia can attest to, who is and has been labeled white has changed over time (Larbalestier, 1999; Stratton, 1999; Andreoni, 2003).10 Indeed, who is and is not part of the mainstream has also changed. While ‘Anglo’ – which is often used interchangeably with ‘Anglo Celtic’, ‘Anglo Saxon’ and ‘White’ and subsumes the potential internal ethnic and religious differentiation within this signifier – is often treated as the designation of mainstream, alternate realities exist. As my study revealed, the mainstream was understood by my research participants as multicultural, but within this multiculturalism it was Muslims who were designated not to belong. Thus, within this multicultural context, it is insufficient to claim that it is simply difference that creates outsiderness. For the men at this particular Bosnian Muslim gathering, their outsiderness was experienced as a result of being considered a threat – a threat to the prevailing order in Australia. Outsiderness can be a destabilizing experience. The experience of the marginalization about which the men spoke prompted their discussions about strategies for integration. Thus, as insiders and

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outsiders they posed questions, they inquired about and debated how Australian society was constituted in their quest for understanding their surroundings and the role they can and could occupy therein. It is this questioning of the seemingly obvious terrains of everyday life that I sought to undertake in my role as an insider researcher: I sought to place myself in a condition of outsiderness and to question what had felt like natural behaviour. However, I found that interactions with participants fostered these experiences of outsiderness in ways that I was not, in advance, able to fathom.

Cultural or Cognitive Discordance? The condition of outsiderness can be understood in a number of ways. Firstly, in the case of immigrants, the act of migrating, i.e. of moving from one cultural context to another, can place one in a position of marginality. Being new to a context means that one many not comprehend the prevailing customs. Once one accepts and adopts these customary practices one could find oneself considered an insider. Dedo and the men who had gathered to debate integration in Australia had sought and gained Australian citizenship and had embraced the duties of economic and political participation: consequently they had achieved the official status of insiders. However, despite working, paying their taxes – i.e. operating in society across and within various domains and institutions – they continued to experience marginalization. Their debates centreed on uncovering the entrance and the customs that would enable them to become insiders. Another way of understanding outsider experiences is through cognitive discordance. Outsiderness can emerge from an unwillingness to accept and participate in customary practices and through an insistence to continue questioning the need or validity of such practices. Vince Marotta (2012a) suggests that immigrants qua strangers qua cultural others are in such a condition of outsiderness because they do not accept the assumptions that create the worldviews of the mainstream, that is, that they do not

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participate in such customs because they do not understand. Marotta contends that this condition of outsiderness is experienced because the prevailing culture and language is, and remains, inaccessible. This seems to suggest that accessing and knowing the ‘code’, as Marotta terms it, is the manner through which one achieves the status of an insider. Indeed, this kind of reasoning was reflected in the meeting over which Dedo presided. This formulaic approach dismisses a crucial point: that beyond accessing, accepting the prevailing codes and practices is fundamental. Thus, the question is not, as Marotta following Schultz suggests, whether outsiders are able to comprehend the practices of the mainstream. Rather, the question is whether the immigrant/outsider is willing to acquiesce to those interpretations and to act accordingly. However, a critical point in this process is the drive: being impelled to question where one is and what this does and can mean. The results are not always pleasing, for, as Jung (1933) suggests, such questioning is when problems of consciousness emerge. Indeed, when Dedo called Samir into question, he called us all into question, impelling us – the anthropologist in particular, to reflect upon how, why and what was being questioned. When such questioning of our interactions, of our instinctual behaviour happens, we personally and individually start to question ourselves and our instincts, and a consciousness about our ability to make decisions arises. Our decisions take into account the order, the hierarchy, the rules of places and whether we accept such. This willingness for acquiescence and acceptance is the crucial point about insider/outsider conditions and belonging. Thus, as Schutz suggests, but what Marotta does not take to heart, is that immigrants as strangers question the prevailing worldviews. Thus, they do not act according to cultural codes simply because they do not know, but rather because they may not accept the prevailing views upon which those codes and practices are based. This does not mean that they have not understood the prevailing worldviews but, rather, that they elect not to validate them and embrace them as their own. Thus, cognitive discordance of the outsider is not about lack of knowledge. Problematically much of the literature and policy

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imperatives of nation states are concerned with teaching immigrants about national codes and customs. Such programmes miss the point, for immigrants can be actively involved in challenging prevailing customs and creating their own. Thus, the questions of insiderness/ outsiderness that immigrants pose and answer for themselves reveal the knowledge they have assimilated to inform their worldview. As will be detailed in a later chapter, Samir’s acquiescence to Dedo and acceptance that ‘Eselamu alejkum’ is the appropriate greeting for Bosnian Muslims to voice emerged some time later: it emerged when this greeting was reconciled with Samir’s broader worldview. My status as an insider shifted across the groups I visited based upon my ability to comprehend and willingness to embrace their conceptualizations and practices of Australian-Bosnian-Muslim identity.

Assimilating Migrants or Assimilating Knowledge? Assimilation is as an important concept in this discussion of cultural and cognitive integration. In the first instance assimilation can be understood as a policy of social engineering intended to direct the actions, behaviours and thoughts of immigrants. The intention is to create uniformity amongst the populace for the purposes of stability, peace and social cohesion. The assumption – in contrast to the adage divide and conquer that underlies such policies – is that diversity is a potential source of social disruption and an impediment to social cohesion and state control. In Australia, assimilation tends to be considered a dirty word. It evokes memories of twentieth-century policies intended to limit and ultimately erase, practices and beliefs of Australia’s indigenous peoples. In benign terms, assimilation was intended to produce equity in life opportunities between Aboriginal populations and the supposed mainstream.11 The outcome of such policies, however, has resulted less in equity and more in the eradication of Aboriginal cultural practices, lifestyles and cosmologies. Associated assimilation policies were introduced to direct the lives of immigrant populations. While not as stark and enforced as those impacting upon Aboriginal communities, immigrant assimilation policies are directly connected,

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if not descended from, the indigenous oriented policies and were ultimately intended to change migrant cultural practices and align them with a vision of an Australian mainstream.12 Assimilation was an official immigrant settlement policy from 1947 until 1964 (Castles and Miller, 2009). It was ostensibly adopted to manage the increased cultural heterogeneity within the nation state and ensure that the post-World War II cohorts of non-British European migrants were not a threat to social cohesion (Jupp, 2007; Castles and Miller, 2009). It was expected that the post-World War II non-British migrants would change their cultural practices and beliefs and that this could be assessed in terms of immediate and observable actions. The intention was to create a homogenous society based on British values and institutions, where the immigrants would, according to official rhetoric, ‘become indistinguishable from the existing Anglo-Australian population’ (Stratton and Ang, 1998:151). In order to achieve homogeneity, policies and social programmes were put in place to promote the assimilation of non-British migrants, who were expected to abandon visible signs of difference in terms of dress and behaviour, speak English in public and preferably in private, and become citizens when able to do so. Social programmes, such as the ‘Good Neighbour Council’ were in place to assist in this process and these volunteers were to encourage the use of the English language, promote the Anglicization/Christianization of names, and be involved in demonstrating how new Australians should comport themselves within the private spaces of their homes – such as how they should decorate their homes and which foods they should consume. The expectation was eventually that immigrants would come to embody, both socially and culturally, the Australian way of life, which was imagined in terms of a middle-class suburban lifestyle. Despite such attempts at homogenization, many immigrants continued to speak the languages of their homeland and to form ethnic communities (Castles and Miller, 2009) and, in the context of civil rights discourses and neo-Marxist critique in the late 1960s, assimilation was progressively delegitimized as a social policy, with the concomitant policy shift from ‘assimilation’ to ‘integration’ (Ho and Jakubowicz, 2013). In addition, during this period there was a

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growing challenge to the notion that national identity based on British origin could be sustained in the face of the increased demographic diversity (Castles and Miller, 2009). In 1973 multiculturalism entered the political lexicon and informed the policy framework. Multiculturalism was contrasted with assimilation and the expectations of Anglo conformity. The policies of multiculturalism maintained that immigrant belonging in Australia need not be premised upon cultural homogeneity and that ethnic identification, the use of non-English languages and non-British cultures were legitimate. With the official adoption of multiculturalism, there was a redefinition of citizenship to include cultural rights along with the widely accepted civil, political and social rights. Australian national identity was no longer imagined in terms of cultural homogeneity but rather in terms of ethno-cultural diversity. Despite these official bureaucratic shifts, assimilationist thinking continues to inform the dominant discourse of migrant integration (Dunn et al., 2004; Forrest and Dunn, 2010). Integration differs from assimilation in that the latter rests the notion of social cohesion upon similitude. Integration, however, is a process of creating harmonious unison from different elements, and the process and results of integration are differently conceptualized. The ideology of multiculturalism, with its focus on unity in diversity, is a clear example of an integrationist approach to migrant settlement. Tensions between assimilationist thinking and integration impulses were clear in the conversations between Dedo, Samir and the other men. They spoke of the pressures for conformity that they, and particularly their children, confronted from a dominant group which they characterized broadly as being comprised of people of middle-class standing, Anglo heritage and Christian religiosity. While perpetuating this remnant, i.e. this old view of Australia, they simultaneously challenged it by having organized a Bosnian Muslim community meeting in which they spoke the Bosnian language and identified strategies to promote the idea and institutions of a Bosnian Australian community. Thus, they were grappling with a complex contradiction: they were attempting to identify how to demonstrate similitude, and therefore gain acceptance and respect as citizens,

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whilst also attempting to identify the values that encouraged and enabled differentiation amongst the citizenry. Attempting to locate the values and practices that could unite a diverse populace involves a different process of assimilation. Whilst related to the above conceptualization, assimilation might be considered less in policy terms and more in terms of cognitive processes. Assimilation can refer to a process of synthesizing disparate ideas and information. The process is premised upon first being exposed to new information and then employing various cognitive means so that such information becomes meaningful and useful. As the following pages will detail, Dedo, Samir and other Australian-Bosnian-Muslims are occupied with debating what it means to be integrated; the extent and purity of secularism in Australia; and who constitutes the Australian mainstream and dictates the freedoms and limits on religious diversity. Doing so reflects their attempt to assimilate their experiences of cultural marginalization, of differential experiences of belonging, and of their unmet expectations of how secularism should function in a Western democracy. They do so in order to comprehend and secure for themselves, their families, their communities, strategies for living successfully in Australia. Dedo’s question, ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ was a prompt to Samir to think about where he was, to understand the requirements of assimilation that were expected of him, and to consider whether he was willing to demonstrate deference and submit to such. ‘Don’t you know where you are?’ was also a call to reveal one’s conceptualization of a place and the meanings attributed to integrating as Bosnian, particularly a Bosnian Muslim, in Australia. These discussions of integration are also discussions of power. Power in its basic guise can be defined as the capability to influence the conduct, that is, the behaviour and or thoughts of others. The ways in which power to influence manifests in matters of integration will be discussed in the following chapters in the range of interpersonal interactions, collective mobilizations, state bureaucracy, and encounters with the metaphysical. In terms of interpersonal interactions, as the introductory passage revealed, the power of an individual to impose their will upon others was made clear in the interaction between Dedo

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and Samir. In this instance, integration can be understood in terms of immediate interpersonal interactions in which people negotiate the terms of what is acceptable for inclusion and the authority they are willing to accept. The ensuing pages will detail other manifestations of power that include but also go beyond individual level interpersonal interactions and consider how groups of people unite and seek to mobilize each other into action. Another related manifestation of power relates to the workings of collectives, specifically the formation of Bosnian ethnic community organizations in Australia and how the prevailing discourses within the multicultural paradigm influenced how community infrastructure developed. With this, we come to see the role and power of the state and its bureaucratic schemata in designating valid forms of identification for individuals and collectives. Whilst the state continues to exert considerable influence on the ways individuals comport and identify themselves, another dimension of power, that for some is more potent, is the metaphysical source and expression of power. Such power cannot be easily recognized and materialized yet it occupies an important presence in people’s concerns. How notions and experiences of such an omnipresent force impacts upon thoughts and conduct of individuals particularly as it relates to Samir follows in latter sections. Integration as the capacity to connect to individuals and find a place within collectives will be considered across a number of dimensions from direct interpersonal engagement, to ethno, national and diasporic domains and religious sentiments that extend beyond state structures toward broader humanist orientations.

CHAPTER 1 CITIZENSHIP AND ETHNONATIONAL IDENTITIES

It was more than a few months until I was to meet again with Dedo, Samir and that particular collective of Bosnian Muslims. Integration was again the point of discussion. On this occasion, however, the focus was on understanding and differentiating Bosnian Muslims from other Muslims in Australia. This was a pressing concern. In fact, it appeared that all Bosnian organizations were in damage control, seeking to differentiate Bosnian Muslims from those identified as potential terror suspects.1 My colleague’s question, ‘Are Bosnian Muslims different to other Muslims?’, rang in my ears, as did his answer of their moderation. I kept wondering, How does one moderate one’s faith? Can you take your religion in moderation, as community service announcements suggest for drinking alcohol? These questions circulated and the diverse answers created a polarization in the community. In fact a lot had occurred in the interval between the meetings. In the interim, debates had also escalated concerning citizenship amendments.

Legal and Symbolic Citizenship In late 2006, the Australian government announced its intention to adopt stricter measures for citizenship eligibility and through the course of the following year implemented a series of amendments

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to the Australian Citizenship Act. The amendments sanctioned increases to residency requirements and fostered the introduction of a citizenship test, arguing that these revised citizenship requirements would address concerns over the unity of the nation by promoting migrant integration and belonging. According to the official rhetoric, the testing of prospective citizens’ knowledge of Australian history and culture, the English language, and the responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship, was part of ensuring their social and national inclusion (Department of Immigration and Citizenship, 2007). A key element of this testing procedure was to expose these new citizens to, and indoctrinate them with, officially sanctioned, though largely obtuse, ‘Australian values’. Such discussions revealed that conceptualizations of citizenship had moved beyond considerations of the legal dimensions of national membership toward the symbolic and social parameters of citizenship, parameters that were increasingly being tied to notions of Australian values. As a result, debates over national unity and belonging entailed attempts to define the cultural values that would unite the nation, with such debates being undertaken in various spheres of Australian society from the federal level to the local. At the political level, the official stance toward citizenship promulgated an anti-multicultural conception of the nation, one which increasingly positioned the civic nation in ethnic terms, thus fostering a rigid, perhaps even assimilationist, attitude. While the legislative changes to citizenship affected potential citizens, the surrounding discursive space affected the claims of existing citizens. As Fozdar (2011:35) notes, the process and rhetoric behind the introduction of the citizenship tests ‘served as a mechanism for exclusion within a discourse of social cohesion.’ The news about citizenship changes reverberated throughout Australia, with the major daily newspapers publishing sample test questions and inviting readers to test their ‘Australianness’. The locally produced Bosnian language newspaper followed suit, with sample quizzes, questions and answers, asking readers, ‘Are you a true blue Aussie?’ (Bosna Magazine, 22– 29 May 2007). Around family dinner tables the questions were read out, scrutinized, debated – and sometimes even mocked. Whilst these changes would in fact have

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limited direct impact, as the great majority of Bosnian born immigrants in Australia already held Australian citizenship,2 the questions nevertheless generated great interest. This reflected concern over how the changes would impact on their lives as migrants in Australia, as amendments to citizenship requirements suggested that the conditions for membership in the nation were being redrawn. Despite occupying a stable legal position as Australian citizens, many refugees from Bosnia expressed dismay at the discourse surrounding the legislative changes to citizenship. The changes were not considered inconsequential since they appeared to evince a retreat from multiculturalism, and hence problematized their symbolic claims to belonging. For many Bosnian immigrants in Australia, ethnic identification and community formation were considered largely positive pursuits fostering belonging within the Australian multicultural mosaic, and it was in this regard that citizenry inclusion could be claimed. While community formation has not only been pursued along broad ethno-national lines but also by translocal means (Halilovich, 2013), learning the game of ethnic belonging has been a concern of many community leaders, where staking a claim in the Australian multicultural mosaic is reliant upon fitting within the framework of ethnic community belonging. These concerns were not only made in the context of ethnic community organization but during other activities when one might not expect politics to be discussed. For example, one night, following the formal announcement that changes to citizenship requirements would be legislated, I attended an engagement party of a young couple. The Lebanese restaurant in which the party was held sought to capture a traditional ambience and was decorated with a range of handicrafts, including colourful woolen Persian rugs that adorned the walls and copper drinking cups, gold jewelry and silk scarves that were on display throughout. The similarities between these objects and traditional Bosnian items were immediately noted, and it was particularly the older guests who commented that such rugs had hung on the walls of their childhood homes in Bosnia. The familiarity of the decor and food was one of the reasons why the engagement party had been organized at a Lebanese

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restaurant. In particular, it enabled the older and less culinary adventurous guests to feel comfortable. It was during this largely relaxed and jovial event that, unexpectedly, when the night’s entertainment and dancing started, talk of citizenship also began. As two elderly women danced around the table where I was sitting, their bodies gyrating, attempting to follow the moves of the belly dancer and to move in rhythm with the music – a fusion of oriental sounds and contemporary techno beats – they attempted to coax me to join them. In a strange way, I was offended by their dance moves, as I had not witnessed older women dancing in such a free manner. While dancing was common at Bosnian functions, such dances focused more on the movement of legs and feet rather than on rotations of the hips. Their insistence and my stubborn refusal to join them prompted one of the women to call out. ‘Come on, Lejla. Join us while you can. Soon enough Howard3 will put a stop on all of this also’, she said, waving her arm in the air, motioning to the supposed foreignness of the music, dancing, and food. Such political observations were not uncommon at social events. In this particular instance, the actions of the women were directly related to current events. They danced, unrestrained, in a simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar setting. Their comments were not offhand remarks, for later in the evening the women joined others in discussing the possible ramifications of the citizenship requirements. The government’s measures were seen not only to be demarcating the requirements of citizenship but also to be challenging the status of existing citizens. Within this context of the redefinition of the bounds of citizenship particular focus was placed upon the status of Muslims. Much has already been written about the animosity toward Muslims that had been developing in the preceding decade (Poynting and Noble, 2004; Kabir, 2006; Poynting and Mason, 2007; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Qasmiyeh, 2010; Yasmeen, 2010). In various spheres of Australian society, prevailing discourse has presented Muslims as outside the national sphere, their status as Australians has been challenged, and their ability to accept Australian values questioned. Muslims of various ethnic backgrounds have been confronted with scrutiny from

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political and media commentators about the validity of their presence in Australia and within this context Muslims are continually made aware of the ‘conditionality of their citizenship’ (Humphrey, 2010:56). Within this context, some individuals were intent on proving that Australian-Bosnian-Muslims were moderate, whilst others became more forceful in identifying with a broader AustralianMuslim and global Muslim community. At this crisis meeting, in addition to the committee members I had met on the previous occasion, there were a few other people including women in attendance, women whom I had not met until that day who were able to share their thoughts about moderation and how Muslims were to comport themselves.

The Meeting of Muslim Minds Mirsada4 was the first to greet me. She embraced me warmly and once she had given me the once over, from head to toe, she smiled and said, ‘You look like a real Bosnian. I could pick you out from amongst the crowd,’ and she immediately invited me to sit with her and her daughter. ‘Do they look like real Bosnians?’, I wondered and I noted how they were both exquisitely presented. Makeup was ostentatious, whimsical, I would venture. Blue eye shadow and a faux fur coat were the markers that stood out prominently on Mirsada. The daughter’s youthful face was covered with a thick layer of foundation, the eye shadow and mascara so delicately applied that I was certain she had the nerves and precision of a surgeon. Her leather miniskirt perplexed me. ‘Is that appropriate attire for this context?’, I asked myself and was immediately struck again and amazed at how the debates of the appropriateness of Islamic dress in Western contexts had become one of my own preoccupations. In this instance, however, my reaction subverted conventional logic and I thought that these women ought to be covered up more not less. Fortunately coffee was placed before me, ridding my mind of such thoughts and with that the drinking and conversation began. Uncle Mujo chaired the meeting.

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It is with great satisfaction that I open this meeting, this meeting of Bosniak5 intellectuals. I hope that together we may find solutions for our community. I am glad that we have two young people with us and I am of hope that more will join us in future meetings. Uncle Mujo was in his fifties. He had a thin black hair, a receding hairline, and large thick-rimmed glasses dominated his face. He wore a blue suit, white shirt with a red tie. He had an ever so slight lisp as he spoke. Even though his voice was soft, he spoke with conviction and it was clear that he had thought much about these issues. ‘We Bosnian Muslims, that is, Bosniaks are different.6 We and the Saudis are not alike. We need to educate the Australian public about our culture.’ Murmurs of agreement from the people around the table gave Uncle Mujo confidence to continue. ‘Sadly we live amidst a people who are less and less tolerant. Regardless of their oaths to multiculturalism they are becoming less friendly toward Muslims and with that they are also less friendly toward Bosniaks. Not long ago, a survey conducted amongst seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds revealed that more than 50 per cent of them cannot see the difference between Muslims and terrorists. Also, 40 per cent of them consider Muslims dirty! Such sentiment can only have intensified with these recent events.’ Everyone knew what the events were, and conversation around the table turned to identifying who knew the accused. Uncle Mujo spoke over the whispers. ‘We need to ask ourselves: How is it for our children? Are they considered terrorists when at school? Are they looked at in that regard by their class mates at school? How will a young person with a Muslim name find work? Develop a professional career? Experience justice? And how will they grow into good natured and well intentioned individuals?’ Mujo gesticulated forcefully. His shoulders and arms swayed his seated body. Although his gestures were not deliberate, his

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movements and words were akin to that of a conductor as they evinced sounds, i.e. grunts, from many of the men in the audience, which appeared to signal their approval. They liked what they heard. Uncle Mujo wet his lips and continued. ‘Having brought our children to this country, it is now our responsibility to contest racism, Islamophobia, discrimination. We need to do this for them, for Australia and all her citizens.’ Uncle Mujo’s speech was stirring. He spoke with a sincerity, he was emotional and with this he evoked reactions among us all. We Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, are a nation who follow the middle path. As immigrants, or wogs as they refer to us, we need to find the middle path between the two extremes. One extreme is utter assimilation, by which I mean we would change our names, our customs, and dismiss all the values that Islam teaches. Of course, that is not what we wish because if we had wished to become Christians we need not have come to Australia. Our past reveals numerous examples when we had invitations to become Christians. The other extreme is complete isolation and integration with Arabs and other Muslim immigrants and the formation of exclusive Muslim ghettoes. In that case we would need to forgo our Bosniak culture and accept numerous tribal Arab customs that we often assume are Islamic norms. Marginalization and isolation from the dominant society produces disappointment and frustration, particularly among youth. In such cases they become easy targets for groups who promote destruction, revenge and an ‘Islamic’ [he gestured] answer to injustices committed in the past. Our view of the world does not fit with the Saudi nor Iranian models. But we are not completely satisfied with what the secular system delivers. During the war, as a nation, we Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, faced disappearing. Despite the possibility of physical annihilation, we can show the world once again that Islam is a faith of peace, tolerance, courage and generosity. Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, are a living example that defeats Huntington’s thesis of the inevitability of conflict

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between civilizations, the theory of the inescapable conflict between Islam and the West. Uncle Mujo delivered his speech like a seasoned politician. His emotional delivery was peppered with references to statistics, studies and even IR theory. This last point impressed me. Uncle Mujo worked in the construction industry and so I was surprised that he had read, or at least was familiar with, Huntington’s ever referenced thesis. By that stage, however, most people had lost interest. Although it seemed he had more to say, he was disturbed by the now boisterous conversations around the table and so finished with the following: Our vision is for Bosnian Muslims to retain their cultural values and to be successful and loyal citizens, integrated in all segments of Australian society. We can achieve this through education, financial security and national consciousness. A national consciousness gives us the confidence and courage to interact with others. When we know who we are, and have confidence in ourselves and our capabilities, then others will accord us respect. Within the multicultural system we have to have our voice heard. With the increasing anti-Muslim sentiment, we have to organize and declare our rights as citizens. He was calling for action. He was calling for the creation of distinctly Bosnian Muslim, or rather Bosniak, community infrastructure and referred to Australia’s multicultural paradigm to validate his argument. All of the other already existing Bosnian community organizations were developed according to the prevailing multicultural logic to which he made reference.

Ethnic Communities in a Multicultural Society The multicultural paradigm provides the conceptual structure through which immigrants come to understand and enact integration

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in Australia. Multiculturalism can be understood in terms of the mundane, everyday ethno-cultural difference encountered in the course of daily life. As I and others have written about elsewhere, everyday multiculturalism informs migrant understanding of the opportunities and constraints for integration and belonging (Zevallos, 2007). Interaction with people wearing various cultural and religious insignia, speaking diverse languages and consuming a variety of foods, is an inescapable reality for many Australian residents. Indeed, my own notes and observations of the streetscapes in which I conducted research were over-determined by ethnonational classificatory schemata. For example, I wrote: In a cross section of two or three streets, one can encounter Afghan kebab take-away stores, Indian clothing and sweets stores, halal7 butchers, Vietnamese bakeries, a Polish delicatessen, Serbian cafe´s, and much more. Bosnians are just starting to make their presence felt on the streetscape. Thus, even for an academic wary of hegemonic discourses, the multicultural logic had become internalized to the degree that it had come to dictate how I viewed the world around me. I wrote and noted the ethno-cultural difference around me, as a consequence dismissing the other ways in which I could have described the streetscape. Beyond being a matter of informal everyday encounters, the ‘multicultural mosaic’ as it was termed by participants, meant that institutionalized ethnic differentiation was the means by which immigrants could become integrated into Australian society. Thus, multiculturalism can also be understood in terms of the formalized infrastructure that is developed to cater for, and promote identification with, ethnic communities. The formation of ethnonational community groups is a mobilizing force that provides migrants with a platform through which they can negotiate their identity and participation in society and resist marginalization (Vasta, 1993). This sentiment I heard from a number of leaders of Bosnian community organizations.

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Sabit, a leader of one community organization, put it this way: Australian society is a society of communities. To be outside of your community is to be alone or part of another community such as the Scottish, Serbian, Indian and the like . . . We need to take heed from the established Greek and Italian organizations. They have been here longer than us and we can follow their lead in how to be Bosnians but Australian citizens as well. Sabit’s neat categorization of ethnic communities reveals an assimilation8 of the multicultural discourse which privileges ethnonational identification and suggests that in essence once cannot circumvent identifying with an ethnic community. His sentiment is consistent with what Stratton and Ang (1998: 155) suggest that the Australian multicultural paradigm fosters the creation and sustenance of distinct communities. Rather than a divisive force, for Sabit and Uncle Mujo, ethno-national community formation was a means for inclusion in multicultural society. For them integration into Australia was premised upon developing and identifying with an ethnic community and that this was the substantive means through which to demonstrate their commitment and participation. In this sense, to be a citizen is to claim belonging to a ‘recognized’ ethnic community. Uncle Mujo was advocating the creation of and recognition of a distinct Bosniak infrastructure, which was to stand in contrast to the already existing Bosnian community infrastructure in Australia. Such moves were celebrated by some and scorned by others. For all, however, such moves meant that they needed to debate who Bosnians are, were, could be, and how they were the same or different from Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Bosniaks. Such debates added additional layers of confusion and tension to a relatively young Bosnian ethno-national community in Australia.

Do You Know Who You Are? Questions of identity – i.e. the questioning of the validity of identities, their acceptance and denial, their configurations and

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mutability – means that who people are, and want to be, are contested and contestable. To conceptualize identity in singular terms is to deny the complexities that are evoked as people move across not only national boundaries but social situations within. Identity can refer to the emotions of belonging, to formal designation and to self-ascription. It can be called upon by social actors to mobilize loyalty and collective action; and is used by scholars as a category of analysis. Despite this variance, questions of identity are often posed in such a way to suggest that there is a single, true, essential source of the self. Suggestions are made that one’s singular identity is that which guides and informs peoples’ conception of who they are and how they are to comport themselves. Prevailing theorization has critiqued essentialized notions of identity, and promoted conceptualizations which speak of multiple, hybrid and situational identities. Identities have come to be considered not as fixed and unwavering but, rather, as multiple and situational. Identities are not possessive properties to be lost and found, used and removed, but are increasingly being considered in terms of processes of identification. Thus, one did not lose one’s identity as Yugoslavian but rather was involved in dialogical encounters with bureaucratic taxonomies, modes of categorization and affective responses in reflecting upon which identities became meaningful for one’s self-identification. Thus, rather than focusing on identity (in particular its singular evocation) but instead by turning the focus on identification, the processual, situational and contextual character is highlighted, allowing one to focus on the influences and struggles of self- and collective identification (Hall, 1990; Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). However, in discussing identification one must be wary of simply treating identity as a choice. Indeed, as Calhoun (2003:536) cautions, to speak of identification as choice may be to narrow the focus onto individuals as sites of analysis, such that groups, social relationships and communities are by extension ultimately viewed as the sum of the individuals who compose them. In this regard, identification cannot be reduced to an individual choice but, rather, is socially and historically constituted. Thus, the process of identification reveals an

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interplay between designation and self-ascription and a negotiation of the ways in which migrants characterize themselves, locate and situate themselves in relation to categories or as members of an ethnic, religious, national or class group. Identification, then, is about situating one’s self in relation to others, the placing of self in terms of social categories in a specific point in time and space. As Anthias (2002:500) proffers, identities reflect how we reflect and make sense of our social position in the order of things ‘while never being merely representational of this order’. The social order of things to which Anthias refers is a referent to the idea that identities tend be hierarchicized. Thus, it is necessary to consider identities as constituted within, not outside representations and discourses, where sameness and difference emerge within the play of specific modalities of power (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000). Baumann (1996, 1999) cautions against an over-determination in the treatment of the fluidity of identities, as he suggests people alternate in their approaches to national and ethnic identity, where they switch between essentialized notions of identity and processual notions of ethnic identification; indeed this will become clearer in a subsequent chapter. Recognizing the different ways people understand identities allows us to consider the different actors involved. These actors may include institutions, discourses, practices, and individuals who act as regulators and gatekeepers, all of whom are involved in outlining the possibilities for forms of identification. Thus, identification is dialogical and cannot be reduced to individual agency; identities are constituted as a result of, or in reaction to, the possibilities for identification within given contexts. The emergence of Bosnian as an ethno-national signifier emerged as a possibility out of a confluence of conditions that contributed to the formation of a global Bosnian diaspora.

Diaspora Diasporas can be defined in reference to the relationships people develop across borders, to the emotive and material connections they have with homes and with globally dispersed collectives. One of the

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features of diaspora is the existence of pan-ethnic solidarity characterized by links between peoples settled across various countries (Safran, 2007). The precursors to diaspora are often understood in terms of ruptures from ‘homelands’ and of immigrant experiences of exile, forced displacement and loss (Safran, 1991, 2007; Cohen, 1997; Vertovec, 1999). Indeed, much of the wider scholarly work on the Bosnian diaspora has emerged as a result of the refugee movements of the 1990s. In response to such displacement, academic attention has been directed to the experiences of Bosnian refugee settlement or resettlement in Australia, the USA, the UK, Germany and Scandinavian countries (Al-Ali et al., 2001; Colic-Peisker, 2005; Huttunen, 2005; Valenta and Ramet, 2011; Halilovich, 2013). This assumption of rupture serves as the basis for much of the existing literature on diasporas such that current anthropological and sociological writing offers rich accounts of the practices and active imaginaries that contribute to the sustenance of such diaspora and transnational communities and their connections with homelands and their co-ethnics (Wahlbeck, 2002; Werbner, 2002; Safran, 2007). Increasingly, attention is being directed to the causative dimensions of diaspora formation, extending the focus beyond the migratory journey (Faist, 2004; Brubaker, 2005; Kaya, 2005; So¨kefeld, 2006). As Petra (2010:34) suggests, one might consider the intersections of diaspora as a category of practice, a discourse, a script and a form of consciousness in addition to its status a social formation. However, what also needs to be explicitly stated is that the emergence of diaspora is a political enterprise. The Bosnian diaspora is an illustrative example of how other factors – i.e. the interplay of structural, institutional and discursive conditions – have inspired conceptualizations of Bosnia as a homeland and Bosnian as a valid ethno-national identifier in Australia. Structural conditions in the country of settlement are important in enabling the formation of diaspora communities. As Faist (2004) explains, multicultural policies in the host country can provide the freedoms for ethnic identification, removing constraints and enabling individual and collection participation in transnational activities and diasporic orientations. In Australia, multicultural policies provide

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immigrant communities with ample freedoms to establish ethnonational community organization. In fact, as noted earlier, ethnic organization is understood by some as the primary means by which immigrant communities are to integrate into society. Despite the existence of such freedoms, immigrants from Yugoslavia (from Bosnia and Herzegovina specifically) had not formed Bosnian diasporic organizations prior to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence. Prior to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s independence in 1992, there were little, if any, academic or informal references to the existence of a Bosnian diaspora globally. In fact, people who identify as Bosnian in ethno-national terms now did not identify and did not evoke the term in that way prior to 1992. The international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign state in 1992 heralded the emergence of Bosnian as a validated form of ethno-national identification in Australia and globally. This is not to suggest that prior to Bosnia’s independence people did not identify as Bosnians. Rather, the prevailing mode through which Bosnian had been evoked prior to independence was as a regional identifier. In Australia, these Bosnian Muslims were immigrants from Yugoslavia, who often identified as Yugoslavians (from the territory of Bosnia) and as Muslim. In pre-war Bosnia, Bosnian identity was often referred to as a regional identity. Identifying as Bosanac (masc)/Bosanka (fem) in the Bosnian language made reference to the territory and state of Bosnia, not to a Bosnian nation. Bosnia’s declaration of independence marked a move toward establishing and promoting the concept of a Bosnian nation, a Bosnian nation that was to unite the resident population based on the recognition of their historical and cultural commonalities. Bosnian was to be, and for some was received and treated as, an ethnonym, overriding Yugoslavian identification. Bosnia’s war for independence (1992–5) and resultant movement of refugees provided a strong impetus for the organization and discursive construction of a distinct Bosnian diaspora globally. Beyond such structural dimensions, therefore, as Safran (2007) suggests, ‘consciousness’ of a diaspora needs to be evoked in order for it to have meaning and significance, and this often occurs as a result of

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revolutionary struggles or tragic experiences. Indeed, in writing about the impact of war in the former Yugoslavia on Croatians settled in Canada, Daphne Winland (2007:58) notes how, for Toronto Croats, war served as a catalyst for ‘revitalizing’ identities and homeland ties, drawing attention to the significance of the war as a critical event in promoting involvement in homeland politics and fostering diasporic ties. However, the existence of politically active ethnic organizations is a crucial factor, according to Skrbisˇ (1999). They facilitate the mobilization of diaspora identities in times of conflict. Skrbisˇ (1999) writes of the involvement of Croatian diasporic organizations that held strong nationalist orientations and subversive intentions toward the state of Yugoslavia prior to 1991. That means that these organizations were diasporic in their orientation, i.e. their attention was directed toward Croatia as the homeland prior to Croatia’s independence. However, my survey of Bosnian Muslim organizations, mosques in particular, reveals that they did not hold subversive orientations toward Yugoslavia and that they held cooperative relationships with Yugoslav institutions. Thus, they were not Bosnian diasporic organizations. The mobilization of Bosnian diaspora politics did not occur prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia but upon the Bosnian state’s declaration of independence. Thus, the ‘simple fact of geography’ (Skrbisˇ, 1999:38) did play a significant role in the imagining of Bosnia as a homeland. The realization of Bosnia as a homeland emerged with its recognition as a nation state from the United Nations in 1992. It was not simply the fact of war that contributed to mobilization and diaspora formation: once a Bosnian diaspora became a discursive reality it started to be thought about, debated, discussed and sustained as a community. This means that if a diaspora community cannot be imagined it cannot be realized (Vertovec, 1997; So¨kefeld, 2006). Crucially, prior to Bosnia’s independence, Bosnia was not considered a homeland, nor were Bosnians considered an ethno-national community, and resultantly a Bosnian diaspora was neither an imagined nor material construct, nor a social form nor a referent of identification.

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Bosnian Diaspora The emergence of the independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a particularly crucial factor impacting upon the diasporization process. In 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and until 1995 engaged in war to establish its sovereignty. The war in Bosnia displaced more than half of the pre-war population of 4.3 million inhabitants, with some internally displaced and others seeking refuge in European countries such as in Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, as well as further afield such as Australia, Canada, Israel, Malaysia, and the USA. Valenta and Ramet (2011)9 posit that the people displaced from Bosnia and dispersed globally, as a result of the 1990s wars, are those who constitute the bulk of the Bosnian diaspora. Independence and dispersion world wide has contributed to the formation of discourses articulating a distinct diaspora oriented to a Bosnian homeland and to a global Bosnian community. Indeed, one of the characteristics that distinguishes an ethnic community from a diaspora is the extent to which the latter conceptualizes and is oriented toward a ‘homeland’ and to a geographically dispersed community (van Hear, 1998; Brubaker, 2005). Prior to independence, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a state of the then Yugoslavia, was not considered a national homeland. Accordingly, identifying with a Bosnian diaspora was not a conceptual possibility. It was within the context of the Bosnian war in the 1990s that Yugoslavian identification lost salience, Bosnian identification became more meaningful, and Bosnian ethnic organizations were formed by Australian citizens.10 These associations, located across Australia, responded and assisted the arrival and accommodation of Bosnian refugees. These were the first vocal declarations of allegiance and Bosnian solidarity. Many participants shared how they identified with the people of Bosnia, the victims of aggression, and felt they needed to do something. Daphne Winland (2007:55) writes how the wars in the former Yugoslavia evoked emotions of ‘suffering, victimization, and

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helplessness’ and prompted a sense of ‘commitment and urgency’ toward a Croat and Croatian diaspora identity by Croatians in Canada. Conflict can play as a key factor in the mobilization of populations into diasporic identification and action (Smith, 1991; Skrbisˇ, 1999). However, it is not simply awareness of suffering (Skrbisˇ, 1999:21) but an identification with the suffering that can impel individuals into collective action. My conversations with research participants revealed how, during these war years, affirmation of personal, cultural and historical links with Bosnia emerged. Associations provided the institutional grounding for the circulation of Bosnia diasporic imaginations and activities. Generally, associations were initiated by successful businesspeople and local politicians and their efforts were supported by residents. Rather than being marginalized individuals, these activists were quite well positioned within Australian society. The stable social and economic status of initiators played an important role in enabling the formation of transnational and diasporic networks (Al-Ali et al., 2001) and these networks continue to evolve. As time progressed, these associations have expanded to focus on a range of cultural and sporting activities and reflect the activities of other ethno-national communities in Australia. Community leaders, sometimes referred to as elites, have been pivotal in contributing to the emergence of a diaspora and Bosnian community organizations in Australia. Beyond simply being mobilizing structures, these organizations provide the space for social interaction, establishing networks and augmenting shared meanings about identities and ways of being.

Muslim Diaspora It is understood that Islam11 is the religion of Muslims. Islam is based on the teachings of the Qur’an as revealed to the Prophet Muhammed and is often positioned in relation to other religions of the book, i.e. Christianity and Judaism. Muslims are understood to be adherents of Islam. What it means to adhere to Islam and how one adheres to the doctrine of the Qur’an is, as with other religions, a matter of contestation. Thus, the practice of Muslims varies not only across

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national contexts but within societies, subcultures and families. Indeed, Muslims may identify with one of the different branches of Islam, although in this study all identified with Sunni Islam. Despite variances, for many the main principle of Islam is understood to be acquiescence and acceptance that there is only the god, Allah. Submission to the will of Allah as the supreme authority can be considered the intention, the sense, the awareness that can cohere disparate Muslims into a notion of community. The global unity of Muslims is often referred to as the umma. However, what this means and how it is practiced once again varies. To speak of the umma as a diaspora is fallacy. Umma does not make reference to a homeland: there is no single promised land, a la Jerusalem, for Muslims. Thus, the solidarity that the idea of an umma might evoke can best be considered in instrumentalist terms. For example, during the 1992–5 war in Bosnia, Karcˇic´ (2010) suggests that the first and most significant humanitarian support was provided by the Islamic republics of Iran and Saudi Arabia and range of Muslim charity organizations. He suggests that images of, ‘destroyed mosques and burned copies of the Qur’an were used in pamphlets, on TV and in fund raising activities’ to encourage Muslims around the world to help the Bosnian Muslim victims (Karcˇic´, 2010:524). In this context, it was the suffering not of Bosnia’s citizens but of Bosnia’s Muslims that was circulated and utilized to evince sympathy and mobilize action. It might be said that akin to diaspora, the notion of an umma can be mobilized, it can be used to cohere the differences between Sunni, Shiʽa, Salafi, Wahhabi and other branches of Islam that reveal the diversity within the designation Muslim. However, umma as a referent in the course of people’s daily interactions varies in significance and this is because in Australia religious identity continues to be prefaced in ethno-national terms. Commenting upon the way religions are ethnicized in Australia, Stratton (1996) writes of the problematic inclusion of Jews within Australian multiculturalism and how, without a single language and a single national origin, inclusion within the ethnic space of multiculturalism is difficult. For Muslims, however, inclusion has been pursued through the creation of ethno-religious organizations, such that within the cities of Australia one finds Bosnian mosques and

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Islamic centres, Albanian mosques and Islamic centres, Egyptian mosques and Islamic centres, Turkish mosques and Islamic centres, and so on. What this suggests is that Australia is one of the homelands to which the integration efforts of Australian citizens of Muslim religiosity are oriented, and this is done with a privileging to ethnonational identity.

Bosniak Communities Elites, intellectuals and community leaders contribute to both the material and symbolic means for community formation. Through their words they contribute to shaping the discourses that seek to enable or constrain modes of identification, and they act as regulators on modes of behaviour deemed appropriate within communities. At that gathering of Bosnian Muslims, Uncle Mujo was seeking to occupy the position of a leader shaping a discourse and sought to solicit the participation of all us present at the meeting. Uncle Mujo was intent on promoting the idea of a Bosniak identity and with this to create Bosniak organizations. A range of Bosnian organizations existed, from the formal ethno-community halls to various sporting clubs, pensioner/elderly social groups, and mosques funded by and lead by Bosnian speaking imams.12 However, Bosniak organizations were to differ: they were to be ethnically Bosnian Muslim, i.e. Bosniak, rather than religiously Bosnian Muslim. The distinctions between such are a matter of debate. It is what the debates reveal, rather than the essence of the definition of these terms, that is of most significance. In this instance, Uncle Mujo was evoking a Bosniak identity in order to distinguish Bosniaks from other Muslims. It was a political strategy evoked in response to raids and accusations of terrorism, and of the blight that this was putting on the Bosnian community. By differentiating Bosniak from other Muslims, Uncle Mujo sought to protect the community from Islamophobia ironically, however, by contributing to its perpetuation. Whilst Uncle Mujo’s usage of Bosniak was motivated by local concerns, questions of Bosniak identity emerge from the politics of

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identity within Bosnia and Herzegovina itself. Bosnia and Herzegovina recognizes three constituent ethnicities within the federal entity: Bosniak, Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb. These three ethnicities are often, although not exclusively, differentiated by religion. The Bosniak people are considered to identify with Islam, Bosnian Croats with Catholicism, and Bosnian Serbs with Orthodox Christianity. The meanings and significance of such designations have been subject to historical interpretation.13 Official designations do not necessarily translate into the forms of identification people adopt in their everyday lives. Indeed, the distinctions and utility and willingness for people to embrace such, continue to be contested. As one participant relayed, ‘I said to my friend, you cannot be Bosnian-Croat. How can you be Bosnian-Croat and I Bosniak when we both grew up in the same place, speaking the same language, celebrating the same festivals? We are both Bosnian. It is that you are Catholic if you want to be and I am Muslim. And that is the end of the story.’ ‘How did he respond?’ I inquired. ‘Well, what could he say? He accepted it. Of course, I am correct.’ In contrast to the privileging of Bosnian identification, Uncle Mujo was not willing to accept the predominance of Bosnian institutions in Australia, institutions that were generally ‘too secular’ and so he emotively called for the creation of Bosniak institutions. Uncle Mujo explained:. ‘Bosniak is a valid ethnic identity. Prior to 1992 the majority of our Muslims did not recognize the absurdity of their ethno-national designation. As intellectuals it is our burden, our contribution to articulate and promote the Bosniak identity. This is of course an historical and time demanding process but it is of necessity. And it is our purpose, our legacy to our children.’ This particular meeting of self-identified Bosniak intellectuals, led by Uncle Mujo, took a more informal tone as side conversations became more vocal. It was then that I met Abe again, who had greeted me at the first meeting. ‘Are you Bosnian or Bosniak?’ he quizzed, questioning my purpose and loyalty.

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Before I could answer, he asked his next question, ‘What role will you take in future meetings?’ These questions were rhetorical. He had a point he wanted to make and glared at me as he said: I think it is unethical to write about your own community and yet to remain outside of all its happenings and the concerns that people confront. But maybe this meeting was a bit too loud for a young academic like you. You must forgive them, they are not as bad they appear. You need to know that Bosniaks are a Slav people and Islam serves as a moral compass. We are fortunate to be in Australia, a country that officially celebrates multiculturalism. Bosniaks have a lot to contribute to Australian society. We have: our language, our oral traditions, our customs, rich cultural heritage but most of all, our people. Bosniaks and their children can make a contribution to ensure that Australia remains what it is: a prosperous and free country for all people. Abe continued, listing the positive characteristics of Australia and the positive aspects of Bosniak peoples. He sought to be a gatekeeper, ensure that what I wrote was to be beneficial for the community. Of course, I could understand it was a difficult time, people were being accused and people wanted to protect themselves and each other from further negativity. Even though I understood his anxiety, his words made me dizzy; I felt I was listening to an election campaign. ‘Good, good, friend. Yes, yes, you are right. Bosniaks are the greatest people and Australia is the greatest democracy’ Mirsada said, as she grabbed me under the arm and pulled me away. Abe objected and said that he wanted to drive me to the train station. Mirsada somehow gently yet convincingly told him that she would. ‘After all, we women have our own things to talk about’, she said, trying to further diffuse the situation that had become much too intense. Driving to the train station, Mirsada used the privacy of her car to share her impressions of the meeting.

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‘They are extremists’ she began, flicking her head back to the direction of the community hall, indicating, it appeared with relief, that we were out of that company. ‘They are not for moderation. You see how they force the Bosniak identity? Most people do not understand the difference between Bosnian and Bosniak. But they are extremists, they focus too much on Islam. They talk about integrating but they are the ones who are not flexible.’ The ride to the station did not take long, but long enough for Mirsada to share these initial impressions and for us to organize to meet again the following day.

Interpreting Meetings, Interpreting Identities The interview the next day with Mirsada did not clarify much for me – rather it created greater confusion. It revealed that we held different interpretations of the Bosniak meeting we had both attended. Mirsada, it seemed, was able to continue her diatribe exactly where it had ended the day before. She spoke to me of the lack of moderation Uncle Mujo and many of the other men had in the expression of Muslim identities: Those people are extremists. Yes, we are Muslim but we are not as the Arab. We are European Muslims. I had thought that was exactly what Uncle Mujo had been saying, what was it that I had not understood and that Mirsada was trying to clarify? My quizzical face provided Mirsada the prompt to elucidate. ‘European Muslims have a different approach to life than other Muslims. We are more flexible. You see how I am dressed? Do you see that there is not any difference between me and some Australian woman?’ ‘I think their intention is to be modest in attire’, I responded. ‘Yes, modesty. Yes, to be Muslim is to be modest. But when I see those Bosnian women who dress like Arabs, I think they like to draw attention to themselves. They want attention, like Lady Gaga they want to say, “Look at me. I am a freak.” For a Muslim we must

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behave normally, do what the others do. I dress how others dress. I try to be normal.’ Mirsada was once again elaborately dressed. That day she wore a cream coloured de´colletage blouse, leggings and knee-high boots. Her makeup once again made a statement. That statement as far as I could gather was that appearances were important. I was not sure to which type of Australian woman she referred but she was certainly noticeable on the street. The tensions between normality, expectations and not wanting to cause problems relate to at least two key broader debates, i.e. accepting prevailing customs and provoking customs in order to uphold the underlying principles. I understood that the attire of women in the jilbab was confrontiational for many people. Seeing women in a jilbab, and their faces covered with a niqab, is an unusual aesthetic on Australian city streets – especially in the summer when there is a preponderance of bare skin. I understood that in this context, the modesty that these women sought to uphold could be considered a transgression, for they looked ostentatious in situ. However, their attire, which may be considered confrontational, appealed to the multicultural ethos, the embrace of diversity, and it appeared that this was a principle of utmost importance for the lives of immigrants, of ethnic minorities in Australia. Hence, I could not embrace Mirsada’s view as my own. Mirsada’s emphasis on the importance of ‘normality’14 is a concern that reflects a preoccupation with discourses that have characterized people from East Europe, the Balkans and the former Yugoslav republics as barbaric in contrast to the West (Todorova, 1994; Sells, 1996; Volcˇic´, 2005). Such accusations became particularly potent during and in the aftermath of the 1990s wars, as perpetrators and victims were portrayed as ‘those people in the Balkans who seem to like to slaughter each other as opposed to the civilized Americans, French and British’ (Mesˇtrovic´, 1994:viii; italics in original). Appearances, images and impressions were Mirsada’s concern. As she spoke, it became clearer to me the anxieties to which she was reacting:

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The imam has adopted a different approach to Bosnian integration than those men. The imam organized forums for the wider public. He always invited Australians and that is important. He invited politicians, the mayor, officials from the various refugee and migration associations and Australian people for them to see that Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, as they would say [she said with a sneer] that they, that we, are not threats. That they want to work and pay taxes. They do not force themselves onto others. That they are interested in this country. That they want to learn English. Yes, we do want to hold onto our culture but we will adapt. ‘Maybe we need to understand the position they were taking. Is their stance not a reaction, as Muslims, to discrimination they experience? To the discrimination that they witness’, I asked. Don’t get me wrong, certainly there is discrimination and the fact is that it is because Muslim women look different. But that is all the media’s fault. To whom am I a bother? I pay taxes, take my children to school, I do not do anything extreme. I behave normally. You see, people have always felt sorry for Bosnians. I do not feel discrimination as a Bosnian but I do see the discrimination against Muslims. ‘Aren’t they making a statement about Muslim solidarity in response to such discrimination? Much has been said about the role that Muslim dominant states took in bringing about an end to the war in Bosnia.’ ‘Muslim solidarity does not exist. Did the Saudis help us when Sarajevo was being bombed? No, they did not. I feel for the poor Palestinians. Did you see that child who was killed the other day? Will they ever live in peace?’ Mirsada was not looking for an answer to her question. She stared out the window. Mention of the war had disrupted her confidence. We sat in silence for a moment before Mirsada redirected the conversation and spoke again of her impressions of the meeting.

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She spoke and relayed that her primary concern was about the impression that Uncle Mujo and the men were leaving. She felt, it seemed, that they – through their insistence on Bosniak identity – were emphasizing religion, i.e privileging the role of Islam to the Bosnian community’s detriment. Being flexible, as Mirsada repeated to me, was about not being ostentatiously Muslim, about selective expressions of one’s religious identification. The idea of the selective and even strategic expression of identities was something that fit neatly with the prevailing theories of identity. As mentioned earlier, identities are commonly understood as multiple, shifting and contextually conditioned. Mirsada, however, was drawing attention to the performativity of identity, i.e. what Dedo had alluded to earlier about the compartmentalization of identities.

CHAPTER 2 MUSLIMNESS OF AUSTRALIANBOSNIAN MUSLIMS

‘Does it look OK?’, Mirsada asked, as she tried to maneuver the 3 metre long scarf around her head. I didn’t reply. I was caught up in my own struggle, trying to subdue both my hair and scarf, which were flailing recklessly in the strong southerly wind. It was the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide and we were attending a commemorative event at a Bosnian Islamic Centre. We were standing beside Mirsada’s car in the car park trying to arrange our headscarves before entering the mosque. Since neither of us wore headscarves ordinarily, we were experiencing a bit of trouble but we knew that, as women, to enter with our hair uncovered was not an option. While we stood vainly trying to catch glimpses of ourselves in the reflection of the car windows another car pulled up. Mirsada’s cousin stepped out, laughing, a witness to our episode of ineptitude. ‘Why didn’t you get ready at home, you know, like normal people?’ Sena mused. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t want my neighbours to see’ Mirsada replied, gesturing to her headscarf. With our scarf dilemma resolved, we entered the mosque through the women’s entrance. We both called out ‘Eselamu alejkum’. The women who were already present and seated responded with ‘Alejkumu selam, child’. They were mostly older women and later

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I was to find out that most had some kind of kinship affiliation with the people and places in and around Srebrenica. We spent about half an hour in the mosque as the imam spoke and lead the prayers for the souls of the dead. We cried. It was inevitable. It is said that such commemorative events function to strengthen communities, as people remember the lives lost, the injustices perpetrated and the resilience of survivors. Indeed, in the imam’s brief address he spoke of the strength of Bosnians and that despite genocidal policies directed toward ‘us’, ‘we existed’. He emphasized that we were fortunate to be in Australia, a democratic and safe country. I experienced mixed emotions of sadness, pride and gratitude. Following the prayers, more speeches and socializing were held in the adjacent community hall. I had heard that guest speakers had been organized, ‘outsiders’, i.e., non-Bosnians who also recognized the injustices were to express their sorrow and solidarity with Bosnian Muslims. The presence of these outsiders was interpreted as an affirming experience: it demonstrated that this tragedy although it impacted upon Bosnian Muslims directly, was also a concern for others. It was, as international justice organizations have recognized, a crime against humanity. Thus, perhaps such commemorative events do not simply strengthen ethno-national communities but create broader communities of people who share the pain of others and seek redress for crimes. The relatives of victims and survivors had prepared cakes and other delicacies with which to honour these guests. We were all invited to the community hall. As we made our way out of the mosque and headed in the direction of the hall, Mirsada stopped to speak to some people she knew. I milled around waiting and greeted some of the elderly folk who knew of my family. They were happy I was there. While I waited I could see that the conversations between Mirsada and others were becoming heated. With a flushed face, she nodded her head in the direction of the car park. We were leaving. ‘Too many of these old women gossip. They have nothing better to do with their time.’ We left without having tried the coffee or the cake. I figured that such occasions were not necessarily community strengthening events after all.

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Later that evening, back at Mirsada’s home as we sat in the lounge watching television, the news started. I had been visiting Mirsada for a few months now and knew that in her household they were not simply watching TV and the news, they were reading it. On this edition, the news broadcaster was an attractive woman, possibly in her thirties. She had shoulder length blonde hair and wore a green blouse. The top two buttons of her blouse were undone revealing a pendant she wore on her necklace. ‘Look’, exclaimed Mirsada. Sedin, her brother-in-law, obviously and amazingly on the same wavelength, automatically replied in a sarcastic tone, ‘Hmmp, and that’s appropriate for a news host?’ They referred to the pendant, a crucifix which hung off the host’s chain. Just then Jasmina, Mirsada’s sister, walked into the lounge. ‘Look at that’, Sedin said, nodding at the TV. Jasmina, seemingly indifferent, quipped, ‘So what? It’s their country.’ Jasmina, Mirsada and Sedin drew my attention to the pendant and offered an interpretation that I was yet to develop independently. Up until that time, my eyes simply did not notice such things. From that point on, however, I also started to pay attention. That evening, this family invited me to an ongoing conversation, a conversation that they had been conducting for a number of years. This conversation concerned the place of religion, or the place of religious expression, in Australian society. In these discussions, they debated public displays of religion, i.e. the visibility of religion in public spaces and through them relayed their understanding of what is, or should be, appropriate religious expression in a secular Australia. Sitting in the lounge with both Mirsada and Sedin, I felt the intensity of their reactions to seeing the crucifix on the newsreader’s necklace. In contrast to my own observations, they noticed it immediately and were certainly surprised by the display of a religious symbol on a news programme. Sedin’s rhetorical question, ‘And that’s appropriate for a news host?’, reflected the expectation that the news should be impartial and objective. They commented that news

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programmes should be representative of society and representative of the state. Their expectation was that a secular ethos should be upheld in state institutions and that the media, a state apparatus in nationbuilding, should reflect such values. Their understanding of Australia as secular meant that religion should be treated as a private matter and reserved for private places. Their understanding was that religion could be freely practiced, without discrimination, but that there were limitations. These limitations meant that religion be kept in private, where private referred to ‘home’, but also to mosques and religious institutions, places established to house religion. In extension, this meant that affirmations of religious identities were to be kept out of public institutions, which included state-run educational institutions, healthcare providers and industry, including privately run enterprises. This meant that the news broadcaster’s crucifix disrupted their expectations of Australian secularism. In characterizing a set of norms of religiosity, Australian academic Professor Gary Bouma (2006:35) has suggested that a general expectation in Australia is that public expression of religion should not be exuberant and that individuals, ‘who must be noisy about their religion and spirituality are encouraged to do so within enclosed areas and to think many times before making a public display of prayer, eating norms or religious insignia and distinctive clothing’. While it appeared that Mirsada and household members had assimilated such expectations, their daily interactions revealed a more complex understanding, an understanding that revealed that power dynamics between individuals and communities was an important consideration in their assessment of the appropriate sites for religion in secular society. Indeed, I wondered whether the day’s events had contributed to their emotive reaction that evening. It was the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Mirsada and I had attended the commemorative event, an annual event in the cycle of Bosnian Australian activities. Halilovich (2013) has described the emotional significance that 11 July holds and that those particularly of the Srebrenica region gather annually to mark the event and attend the funeral proceedings as more bodies, having

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been exhumed from mass graves and identified via DNA testing, are laid in individually marked graves in the memorial cemetery in Potocˇari, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Srebrenica is often evoked as a synonym of the tragedies that occurred during the wars conducted across the years 1992 – 5. No mention of the commemorative community event was made on the news. No mention was made of the commemorative activities held elsewhere or the mass funerals held in Bosnia. Perhaps the nonrecognition of such an event intensified their anger. I was not to know definitively but noted that conversations about religious diversity continued beyond that particular day. Mirsada resided in one of Australia’s most multicultural municipalities and the ethno-national and religious diversity was evident in the local shopping strip. As we walked through the strip, we would encounter ‘everyday multiculturalism’. We would pass the old Indian man, who sold dried fruit and nuts and see a picture of Vishnu hanging behind his cash register; the husband and wife team who ran the local Vietnamese restaurant had statues of Buddha in the front window, clearly visible to passersby; and the local baker, originally from Italy wore a gold crucifix on his necklace. The pendant worn by the baker was a cross with the figure of Jesus crucified upon it. Pendants such as these tend to be considered indicators of the bearer’s devotion, while crosses, much like the newsreader, are often worn as jewelry and are not necessarily indicative of one’s religiosity. The meaning of the cross or crucifix to the bearer is not the point at issue here, since the meanings they attribute do not undermine my informants’ reactions to them and that is what is of issue here. Indeed, Mirsada’s reactions to these ‘public’ expressions of religion differed from her reaction to the newsreader’s cross. The religious symbol worn by a news broadcaster was considered to invade a public space. It was treated as an offence to the viewing public. The interactions of diversity on the streets were not offensive – rather they were treated as constructing the multicultural experience, reinforcing an ethos of toleration. Differences in power dynamics are crucial here. The news broadcaster was considered an Australian, a Christian in a position

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of authority who reflected the dominant sector of society. Mirsada’s and others’ objections to the broadcaster’s crucifix constituted an objection to hegemonic constructions of Christianity as normative in Australian society which consequently marginalized other religions. Street local interactions of religious diversity were a challenge to Christian normativity and did not marginalize Mirsada. These interactions were not considered problematic because they did not impinge upon, but rather enhanced, her ability to claim to be integrated. The local street offered an alternative to the rigid interpretation of what was acceptable and how private/public spaces or inside/outside were to be defined. This reveals that the distinctions between public and private spaces are not so easily delineated, that public and private are contextually constituted and can be found in each other’s realms, i.e. that private spaces can be constituted in public spaces – for example, through whispering – and that public spaces can be constituted in private spaces – for example, who is permitted into one’s lounge room varies from who is permitted into one’s bedroom. The ostensibly private space of the house can display different areas and degrees of private/public.1 In this discussion of public displays of religious devotion, what was deemed public and appropriate was interpreted through the prism of threat, i.e. public displays of religion were appropriate as long as they were not considered threatening.

Muslims in Public Places Being integrated or not, or being an insider/outsider, is not a permanent condition. One can move voluntarily or be forced to move and occupy different statuses and identities. Islam and Muslims in Australia occupy a precarious position. They are at once integrated, insiders but also considered by some as outsiders and even perpetual outsiders. Islam is integrated into the Australian multicultural mosaic in a number of ways. It is estimated that people who identify as Muslim account for 2.2 per cent of the Australian population and Bosnian

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Muslims account for 2 per cent of this Australian Muslim population (Hassan, 2011: 47). In Australian cities, a dynamic and vibrant Muslim presence can be felt at various mosques, religious centres, community organizations and Islamic schools. Beyond these designated religious sites, a Muslim presence is visible in the streetscape, in terms of the growth of clothing shops catering to clients of modest attire and food stores which specialize in providing customers with halal certified goods. In the commercial sector the expansion of halal commodities globally reveals how Muslims are an object of increasing commercial interest. Despite such integration across the economic and social spectrum, an anti-Islam sentiment attempts to marginalize Muslims, i.e. position and treat them as outsiders. Fear of being considered outsiders and threats to the prevailing order means that some such as Mirsada are wary of public expressions of Muslim identity. Whilst Mirsada was an advocate for the free expression of Muslim identity she feared that doing so could be problematic. Indeed, Mirsada’s insistence that she not wear her headscarf in view of her neighbours was revealing. Her neighbour, whom Mirsada described as ‘Australian’, was potentially to be offended or threatened by such outward displays. Mirsada’s negotiation of religious expression reveals her engagement with contemporary discourses that position Muslims as problematic citizens in Australian society. Such discourses suggest that being a Muslim was a possible affront to Australia and Australians as though Muslim Australians did not have a stake or claim in the way Australianness was to be practiced and defined. The prevalence of such a discourse is noted by Poynting and Noble (2004:11), who suggest that the presentation of the hijab as an affront in a ‘Christian country’ or civilized society has been circulating in the popular media for the last few years. The rhetoric that this increased visibility is problematic to Australian belonging has been assimilated by Mirsada and reflected in her attempt to censure her religious expression. Whilst she performed in such ways, she was always frustrated by her acquiesce to such pressure. Her frustration that public expressions of Islam have been isolated from other religious symbols and distanced from belonging is

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expressed in the following statement regarding the news broadcaster’s crucifix: ‘Why are they able to wear that but they create a fuss about girls wearing the hijab to school? I mean isn’t religion meant to be a private thing anyway? Don’t we live in a secular society?’ While accepting that the hijab is a marker of difference, she is frustrated by this. Thus, Mirsada’s use of questions appears to indicate her uncertainty about her interpretation of acceptable modes of comportment in Australia as a secular country. She reads the public expression of Christianity as an indication of her potential marginalization. Sedin’s wife, Jasmina, however, reacted differently to the news event. To her the symbol reaffirmed what she already knew: that Australia is ‘their country’, a country belonging to the Christian nation, a nation to which she could not belong. The conversations that ensued challenged both Jasmina’s and Mirsada’s ideas about Australia. Jasmina drew on her experiences in Yugoslavia to contrast and to challenge Australia’s status as secular. She cited the greater visibility of religious expression in various social spheres in Australia, such as on the street, on television and in the political realm. We spoke about the designation of Easter and Christmas as public holidays; the inclusion of associated activities in public primary schools; the screening of Christian prayers and programmes on both state2 and commercial television stations. ‘Well, if Muhamed won’t go to church, then the church will come to Muhamed’, I ventured, trying to diffuse a tense conversation. Mirsada smiled wryly. She was not impressed. Dedo had made similar observations about the presence of Christian religious symbols in public spaces. Christmas trees, he said, that had never been seen in public institutions in Yugoslavia were inescapable decorations in Australia in summer in December. With this, Jasmina, Dedo and others argued against Australia’s secularity, declaring that ‘While Australia may be constitutionally secular, in essence this is a Christian country’. Jasmina did not voice any optimism for change, whilst Mirsada and Sedin were frustrated by the contradictions they noticed and by

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which they lived their lives. Indeed, Sedin relayed how he even interpreted a public park differently on different occasions. The public celebration of Eid3 in a local park he embraced as an appropriate event and yet on another occasion he questioned the appropriateness of Muslims praying in a park. ‘When I see people praying in the park, I don’t know. I don’t like it. I wonder what the Australians who are there, I wonder what they think.’ Tensions in his understandings about what it meant to be an Australian citizen in an Australian secular society meant that Sedin spoke of the compartmentalization that was required, which was premised upon when and where religious and secular expression was considered appropriate. Sedin’s oscillation between public and private displays was clearly informed by the Australian context in which there was a greater sense of religious expression that allowed for contained public expression of religious identification. These tensions are not easily reconciled. Being too boisterous, as Bouma (2006) suggested, was uncharacteristic of religious life in Australia. Thus, displays of religiosity in public were considered potentially confrontational for others, and perhaps even a provocation. The response by some has been to be cautious about such displays. Behloul’s (2007:32) findings suggest a similar concern among Bosnian Muslims in Switzerland. Behloul (2007:32) states, ‘By presenting themselves as moderates and assimilated European Muslims, Bosnians hope to expand their channels of communication with the Swiss and promote better inclusion in their social systems.’ It is unclear whether Behloul means that Bosnians actively and strategically ‘present themselves as moderates’ when this is not ‘really’ the case or whether they draw upon their ‘intrinsic’ Europeanness as a means through which they integrate into Swiss society. Regardless, what remains is the concern that those who are actively practicing and vocal and visible about their Muslim identities are subject to marginalization. Awareness of this potential to be treated as outsiders means that some advocate forms of strategic assimilation. What such suggestions infer is that there is a flexibility that one can adopt in relation to one’s religious identity.

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Designating Muslims and Muslim Names Such compartmentalization can be understood through the example of naming. I had many conversations with people about names, personal names and pseudonyms used by individuals. Names can often be signifiers of a range of identifications. Names have the potential to express information about one’s identification in terms of gender, kinship, class, ethnicity and religion and more (Bodenhorn and vom Bruck, 2006:4– 5, 9). The cultural practices of naming, especially naming children, can take into account the connections or relationships that names reflect or shape. The awareness of the potential for names to reveal such affiliations meant that I listened to many heated discussions about concerns and practices of naming, i.e. in naming children and grandchildren, in adopting pseudonyms, and what prospective names represented and to whom. I was told, even though I already knew this from personal experience, that Bosnians tend to identify each other’s ethnicity or religion according to personal names, as some names recognized by insiders can reflect a Bosniak, Serb or Croat ethnicity, or Muslim and Christian/Catholic religiosity, although some names are used by all three ethnic groups and are indicative of a common cultural history (Bringa, 1995). The possibility for names to reveal one’s ethnic or religious identity has meant that some people give their children ‘neutral’ names. Bringa (1995) notes that, during the Yugoslav period, giving such neutral names was common for those who identified with communism and a Yugoslavian nationality. In Australia, additional concerns inform the way people adopt and use names. Some people use a number of names. For example, Jasna explained how she varied in the usage of her given name and her adopted name, Jenny. Jenny, as she said, ‘an Australian name’, was used outside Bosnian circles in which she sought to establish a form of comfort and inclusion – for example, in places such as at her work place. In her interactions with me, and others of Bosnian background, she was comfortable using her personal name. Such negotiations are well known. The negotiation of migrant identity through the adoption of pseudonyms is a recognized practice.

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Individuals may officially change or Anglicize/Christianize their personal and/or surnames, or might vary them informally and maintain their given names for use within their own ethnic circles. Aceto (2002) urges that such practices cannot simply be explained as assimilation attempts and cites the case of Ashkenazi Jews in Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who adopted alternative names as a means of cultural maintenance through strategies of concealment. These names function in the form of pseudonyms, and differ from nicknames as they are chosen consciously by the individual and are utilized as a public identity (Aceto, 2002:583–4). Whilst this practice is not new, it is interesting to consider the reasons people adopt it. Looking at the reasons can offer insight into how individuals are viewed within a particular social world, or how these individuals prefer to be viewed according to perceptions of values, identities, role and expectations of a particular social space (Aceto, 2002:577–8; Bloch, 2006; Sue and Telles, 2007). People often cited ‘convenience’ and ‘practicality’ as reasons for the adoption of English or Anglicized names. What informed such convenience and for whom it was practical revealed the processes of assimilation that were taking place. ‘Everyone does it!’ was one explanation, drawing attention to a common cultural practice of name changing. Some interpreted this as their gesture, their demonstration, their performance to society that they were flexible, as Mirsada said, that they were willing to integrate by assimilating. Jasna offered a different interpretation: At work all these people carry names – Sarah, John, Mark – but they are not their real names. Even my GP uses a different name than the one written on the diploma on her wall. I think she is Indian. This means that even she feels a need, a pressure, to use an English name . . . It looks like it’s something people do as a way of making life easier for themselves and for others. Indeed, Jasna’s own personal narrative reveals how she identified her name as an obstacle to inclusion. She relayed that after many failed

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attempts in securing employment, she changed her name to Jenny on her job applications and only then she experienced success. Jenny thus used her own experience to interpret and impose meanings and reasons for why others did the same. The suggestion was that assimilative naming practices were adopted as strategic and pragmatic devices for dealing with, or alleviating, discrimination. This was confirmed by many others. Michael or Muhamed was another who adopted a different name in work situations in order to negotiate around a stigmatized identity. Such assimilative acts are pursued for the purposes of seeking empowerment, or at least in mitigating or circumventing disempowered locations. What this reveals is that such populations, targeted by pressure to assimilate, feel at a loss to change the discourses and practices which determine how one is to be integrated. By acquiescing, they participate in perpetuating these same discourses and practices and their own marginal position. Thus, Muhamed, by changing his name with the intent of hiding his Muslim identity in order to negate discrimination, may be involved in further entrenching his and other Muslims’ exclusion and marginalization (Gendera et al., 2012).

Perpetuating Marginality The idea of the flexibility, of the contextually contingent evocation of a potentiality of a multiplicity of identities, troubled me. I asked Mirsada to explain. We were sitting in the kitchen of Mirsada’s home. I sat at the kitchen table while she was at the bench chopping carrots in preparation for dinner. She had invited me to spend the day with her as she went around doing chores. I agreed, for some reason, as though I did not know what it meant to visit local stores and purchase groceries. It was a nice day all the same. Mirsada appeared to like my companionship. Her children were too busy to talk, she said. I brought up the question of flexibility: How can one be flexible when it comes to identity? ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’, Mirsada replied without hesitation in response to my question.

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‘Is that not a betrayal to yourself? To say you are one thing in one setting and then purport to be another thing in another setting?’ ‘I am Bosnian. I speak Bosnian when in my house. No one can tell me what language to speak when I cross this threshold. But of course I speak English when I am out. How are people to understand me?’ ‘Of course those things are practical considerations. I mean something more like being religious in one place and then not being religious in another.’ Mirsada turned around. She was in a miniskirt again that day, but now her legs were covered, mostly, by the apron she wore. She waved the knife as she spoke, either agitated or excited by the discussion. ‘I know I am Muslim. I do not need to wear a shawl to prove that to someone, that I am Muslim. Even Muslims debate whether a shawl needs to be worn. Simply look at the differences between what they wear in Iran and what they wear in Saudi Arabia. And then look at how we are as Muslims. I think it is unnecessary to be thinking about those rules too much. You know that all that is all subjective. People interpret rules to suit themselves. I know that I need to put on a shawl when I pray and when I go to the mosque. Otherwise it is important to live practically. I wear these clothes because I like how they make me feel and they are the clothes worn in a modern country. We are European Muslims. Why should I wear clothes from the Middle Ages? Why should I abide by their rules?’ I interrupted. I wanted Mirsada to clarify who ‘they’ were. She criticized the deference some Bosnian Muslims accorded to Arab Muslims4, ‘That just because they speak Arabic that they are proper Muslims and that how they live is the proper way. I do not agree,’ she said adamantly. Somehow we turned to discussing the view of Muslim identity advocated by Uncle Mujo and that Bosniak group. ‘Oh, yes, they have rules also. They want all women to wear the shawl.’ I had not heard the men say that – perhaps I had missed it or perhaps Mirsada was reacting to something else. They had a longer history of association and I suspected that she was drawing upon some background knowledge to which I was not privy.

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‘Do you see how they look at me? They do not want me there. But I go. I need to know what is happening in my community. They will not tell me how to be Muslim. I listen to the imam. Anyway, I know that I am Muslim in my heart. That is what matters.’ ‘Tell me what you mean by European Muslims?’ I wanted to know whether Mirsada subscribed to the view, or to a strategy some suggest, that the evocation of Europeanness (and possibly whiteness) would facilitate the acceptance of Bosnian Muslims by Australians. Mirsada offered an alternative to what I had expected. ‘European means that we have a European culture, but Islam is in our heart. We are a unique combination of East and West.’ Mirsada’s children were entering the kitchen, asking when dinner would be ready, and the conversation shifted. For the rest of the evening we spoke about other things, mostly about who to support on the musical talent show that aired that evening. ‘I am Muslim in my heart’ are words I had heard from Mirsada and from many others. Mirsada was Muslim but that was not that which guided her interactions with others. It was one mode of identification that she shared. She did not defer to the doctrines. She was not betraying herself by wearing a shawl to the mosque in the morning and a miniskirt in the afternoon. Rather, she displayed an ease in moving across different social settings, not wanting to agitate or offend anyone, rather, living her life according to what she knew. Mirsada stated she was Muslim in her heart. I had adopted a somewhat romantic view of Mirsada’s words, of being Muslim in her heart, and I held that view until she was to explain another salient point to me: the importance of religion being a private matter.

Islam is in My Heart, Not on My Sleeve Religion is a private matter I was continually told. However, how this translated in practice varied. For some this meant modifying their names according to context; for others it meant being mindful of when to wear the shawl and when and where praying in public

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was permissible; and for others it meant actively fostering areligious community spaces. Mirsada introduced me to Uncle Halid,5 ‘a real Bosnian’, she said, who organized a ‘real Bosnian club.’ My preparation for meeting with Uncle Halid had been minimal other than diligently and silently agonizing over which greeting to call. I did note that Uncle Halid’s was an identifiably Muslim name. His name, however, did not provide any answers. With a scholarly diligence I feared that by calling out the incorrect words, I might be labeled an agitator, communist, traitor, or even the worst accusation of all: a ‘nationalist’. I had come to learn that nationalist was a common derogatory epithet among Bosnians. It was a reference to the war and ethnic chauvinism. To be called a nationalist was even worse than being labeled a communist, for to be communist was an indication that one was living in the past and was yet to recognize the falsity of such ideology. I spoke with Uncle Halid on the phone, where fortunately ‘Hello’ served as a practical and neutral greeting. I suspected that, having been pleased with what he heard in the course of our conversation, Uncle Halid extended an invitation for me to attend their next gathering. The social club was organized in much the same manner as the other community gatherings I had attended. It was held in a local community hall and men were the principal organizers. As I was ushered in to sit with Uncle Halid, his wife and their friends, I noticed a departure from other clubs in that men rather than women occupied the kitchen and took responsibility for cooking and serving the drinks and meals. Sitting at this table of approximately twenty or so people, I was offered juice, coffee or beer. The preponderance of the latter, beer, drew my gaze, as both empty and unopened bottles stood on the table just as prominently in front of the women as they did in front of the men. This unrestricted consumption of alcohol, where women as much as the men consumed beer and whiskey-cola, stood in contrast with what occurred in most other Bosnian settings, where if alcohol was consumed at all, it was primarily consumed by the men. These patterns of consumption highlighted to me how the promotion of a form of gender equality intertwined with the multi-ethnicity that was being

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fostered in this particular Bosnian club, suggestive of a kind of continuing atheistic Yugolsavism. After the obligatory dinner of cˇevapi, Uncle Halid took me aside to a separate table so that we could conduct a formal interview. He spoke to me of the social dimensions of the club, that it comprised people of various ethnicities, religions and that it sought to be apolitical. He stressed how many of the regulars were from the same region of Bosnia, they spoke the same dialect and shared many social networks. Despite his claims to the contrary, the political dimensions of the club were apparent, and revealed in the following utterance: Everyone [from all Bosnian ethnic groups] is welcome here. We don’t allow any religious symbols or greetings within our club. We don’t celebrate any religious festivals and do not acknowledge them during our meetings. We keep that for our homes and other times when we visit friends and family privately for these festivities. In one single paragraph, Uncle Halid characterized this club both as inclusive and as fostering an exclusivity. Uncle Halid explained how a secular ethos was actively prompted in the club and this meant that there was to be a regulated exclusion of religious expression. I asked why there was such a strict attitude and he explained that vocal expressions of religious difference were potential sources of antagonism that were best to be avoided: I read the other day, that the main cause of human intolerance and wars throughout history has been religion, I mean the incorrect interpretation of religion. Not proper interpretations but incorrect interpretations. People can be lead down the wrong path through religion and I think that it is easiest to lose your way through religion. It has been like that the last fifteen years in our region. Instead of people being guided into recognizing their similarities, that they’re all brothers, they are creating divisions. Religion creates

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divisions. Politicians manipulate it for their own ends. I mean we are all the same people . . . He trailed off, shaking his head. ‘That is why this club is so dear to me, because in Australia, and particularly now in Bosnia, people who had never been religious are now unwavering in their claim that they need to go to mosque or to one church or another. I know there are people like me here and in Bosnia who do not want to side with one group or another.’ While Uncle Halid was claiming neutrality, in fact, he was siding with a group that was intolerant toward those who openly expressed their religious devotion. Even though I did not agree with them, I sought to understand Uncle Halid’s perspective. His words appeared to reflect Yugoslav-era communist doctrines favouring atheism and discourses emergent during the war which equated religious differentiation with chauvinist nationalism. Uncle Halid’s perspective is one example that reflected the Yugoslav practice of secularism and the view that religious differences antagonize cohesion in communities. Uncle Halid began his explanation of how his club functioned, by stating that religious celebrations, greetings and other symbols were not to be displayed by members. He and they acknowledged that they held affinities with religious traditions but one should reserve such expressions for other places, primarily the privacy of one’s home. Thus, secular practice of the club was informed by the Yugoslav practice of demarcation between private and public sites. In this instance, the club was constituted as a public place which should be free of religious expression. This practice stood in contrast to Dedo’s perspective. Dedo made distinctions between the privacy accorded to the community centre, the centre in which ‘Selam’ was to be voiced loudly, and other civic sites which were ‘Christian’. It is interesting that these two men, both socialized in Yugoslavia, held different interpretations of whether community halls were private/public spaces and if/how religious identities could be practiced and voiced. The important difference is that Uncle Halid was promoting an a-religious Bosnian community whilst Dedo was promoting community around a Bosnian

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identification which privileged Muslimness. Both were occupied with assessing whether Australia was a secular country. They were perplexed by the differences in the practice of secularism between Australia and Yugoslavia.

Comparing Secularisms Dedo and Uncle Mujo were not so positive in their assessments of Australian secularism and about the freedoms it provided and unity it fostered. In subsequent meetings I attended both men spoke of the differences between Yugoslav secularism and Australian secularism, often suggesting that the former was a purer form of secularism as it fostered a neutrality toward all religions. As indicators of such neutrality, they cited the absence of institutionalized religious holidays as state celebrations. For example, they spoke of how the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Eid were not recognized by the state and were not designated public holidays. The state reserved public holidays for the New Year, International Worker’s Day (1 May), Day of the Combatant, and Day of the Republic. They noted how, in contrast, Easter and Christmas are designated public holidays in Australia while the celebrations of other religions are rarely – if at all – acknowledged. ‘What this means’, Dedo reiterated, ‘is that this is a Christian country!’

Australia, a Christian County Australia’s status as a secular country is enshrined in the constitution. Section 116 of the Australian Constitution formalizes the separation of church and state: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

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This declaration provides for the free exercise of religion and enables people of various faiths to declare and practice their beliefs without obstacle. This statement, however, does not declare that religious views shall not and do not inform state institutions. Indeed, this is quite clear when we consider that both federal and state parliamentary sessions begin with a recital of the Lord’s Prayer, a Christian prayer, and that most members of parliament are sworn in by taking their oaths with one hand placed on a bible of their choosing. Ed Husic, was the first Muslim to be sworn into the Federal Parliament, and he took the oath when being appointed to the position of Parliamentary Secretary in 2013, with his hand on the Qur’an. This, however, is a single case within a broader context where identification with the Christian faith dominates. Although Australia does not have an official state religion, this does not mean that religion is absent from public life; and indeed the dominance of Christian-based practices and symbols in public places is what Dedo and Uncle Mujo say diminishes Australia’s status as a secular country. Their (Dedo’s and Uncle Mujo’s) preference and Uncle Halid’s is for the absence of all religious symbols in the public arena. This, however, might be an impossibility for, as Hefner (1998b) states, secularism should not be understood as the inevitable and universal process of religious privatization and decline but rather should be understood as a process whereby ‘social activity and human experience previously organized around religious norms are “desacralized”’ (1998b:148). According to this understanding of secularization and secularism, public life does not become devoid of religion, but rather religious symbols and values are generalized into the civic culture. In Western countries, while there has been a decline in the church’s influence in the fields of politics, public ethics and the arts, religion continues to exercise influence on civil society and has not been relegated to the private realm (Hefner, 1998a). Rather, religious influence has moved from direct impact on institutional workings into normative understandings of public culture and nationhood. As David Gellner (2001:338) suggests, ‘modern national identities are built on the secularized version of some religious worldview.’

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Indeed, in a survey of debates concerning public displays of religious identities, Keyman (2007) suggests that there is a Christian bias and a clear connection between religion, secularism and multiculturalism in many European states, notably, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Asad (2003) stresses that the imaginary of Europeanness is grounded in Christianity and this directly impacts on the supposed invisibility of Christianity in European secularity. As Kymlicka (1995) argues, despite official rhetoric all nations are to some extent ethnic nations, having institutions and norms that comply with a particular ethnocultural-religious bias. This is most clearly evident in recent debates concerning the presence of religious symbols in public, as they have been largely oriented towards ‘other’ religions, predominantly Islam.6 The ‘hijab affair’, which represents Islam as an obstacle to national secularism, has also been raised in Australia.7 The visibility of Muslims has been identified as problematic and in response some ministers echoing the sentiments expressed in France8 have advocated the banning of headscarves in Australian state schools. While such statements have tended to present Islam as a particular problem for secularism, and have been made in a context largely hostile to Muslims, they have not only raised the issue of the appropriate place for religion in Australian society but also sought to define or redefine the national character, whereby Australia is neutral toward religion or whether it is openly aligned with a particular religious tradition. In response, leading politicians have declared openly that Australia is built upon Judeo-Christian tradition. They have done so to suggest that a ‘Christian core culture’ or ‘Judeo-Christian culture’ informs the values of Australian society and some have suggested that in fact Australia is a Christian country. Whether such statements are a challenge to Muslims and members of other faiths is a matter of contestation. Public reaction has tended to focus on the exclusionary inferences of such statements. Hartmann et al. (2005:230) argue the term Judeo-Christian is not simply an affirmation of faith but rather a rhetorical device used to identify core social values, and compare their compatibility with

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particular groups. This is how it was received by columnist Mili Plecic´, as he commented on such in a locally produced Bosnian language newspaper: . . . no one is disputing how Australia was founded and that the Judeo-Christian tradition is part of its heritage, but contemporary Australia is a modern country with an official multicultural policy and all of Australia’s religious, ethnic and cultural groups are responsible for her prosperity and are a part of her heritage. It is contradictory and counterproductive to ask of someone to adapt, assimilate and be loyal while at the same time treating them differently and not recognizing them equally (Bosna Magazine, 22– 9 May 2007: my translation). Plecic´’s comments represent the ambiguity and tension surrounding the status of religion in contemporary Australia. While adopting the rhetoric of Judeo-Christianity shaping contemporary Australian society, Plecic´ argues in favour of equal recognition and inclusion of all religions practiced in the country into the historical narrative of Australian identity. His argument is not to call for the exclusion of religion from the public sphere, in terms of ideas of a pure secular state, but rather he calls for the inclusion of all religions into the multicultural paradigm. According to Plecic´ perpetuation of the idea that Australia is dominated and united by Anglo-Australian Christian values disrupts the equality that a secular multiculturalism is expected to promote. Whilst many experience such tensions or contradictions between their everyday realities of living amongst people of diverse religious and ethno-national identities and the limited although slowly expanding representations within Australian institutions, scholars suggest that multiculturalism was never intended to shift the prevailing culture of Australian institutions. As Vasta (1993:211) explains, policies of multiculturalism were intended to provide support to immigrants and encourage them to maintain their cultural and linguistic traditions, while ‘the culture of the established society, its political/administrative institutions [would] retain its primacy.’

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Whether Australian institutions are willing to change to embrace diversity or whether in the contemporary climate, as religious expression tends to increase in Western countries, Christianity comes to take a more dominant role, will be revealed over time.

An A-Religious Bosnian Muslim Community Uncle Halid’s insistence upon an a-religious stance was informed by his assimilation of discourses which equated religious expression with nationalism. This was clear to me from the numerous times in our conversation that he spoke of the nationalistic movements within Yugoslavia which drew upon religious symbols to mobilize people for action. He spoke of the Islamic revival in Bosnia in the 1980s and how Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism were used as the bases for Serbian and Croatian nationalism respectively. Hence, the freedom of religious expression equated by some with the rise of nationalism, suggested that religion leads to nationalism, which leads to war. Uncle Halid explicitly blamed religion for the war in Bosnia, stating that the divisiveness of religion created tensions among the ethnic and religious groups in Bosnia. Such a sentiment is reflected in Herbert’s (2003) observations that people with continuing communist sympathies consider that religion cannot provide positive contributions and the possibility of its manipulation by politicians is testimony to its futility in society. For many of the informants, outward public displays of religious identity quickly become equated with nationalism and hence provocation. Thus, such people are mindful to avoid speaking of religion and religious difference in order to avoid confrontation or conflict. Secularism as the relegation of religion into private spaces is considered the appropriate way for people of different faiths to live together. Uncle Halid was an advocate of such a view. Uncle Halid was not simply reacting to the past: the formation of this social club was informed by an emergent assimilation of Australian discourses of secular multiculturalism which he accepted as the foundation of national stability. Accordingly, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious community was to be cohered through refrain from

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ostentatious expressions of religious difference. Thus, difference was allowed within limits, and these limits were circumscribed by being private and quiet about one’s faith and faith-based practices. The thought of my sister with her shawl and how she would not be welcomed to this club upset me. I told Uncle Halid I was perplexed and perhaps troubled that he had advocated that the social club not be a place in which religion was acknowledged. ‘I am not against religion entirely’, he explained. ‘When I was a child, for each Eid9 my father and I would visit all of the elder aunts. Now I am an old man and do not have any aunts here, but I continue with this tradition and visit the old people for Eid. I also congratulate all of my Christian friends when it is Christmas and they visit my house for my wife’s baklava at Eid. You see, it is not that we do not recognize religion. I know my heritage, I am Muslim. But I also know what can be done in the name of religion. So we follow the Australians’ lead and keep politics and religion out of our conversations. That way we can all be accepted.’ He urged me to return again in a week, when he would arrange other interviewees for me who would clarify the perspective they shared. With that, the band that had been organized to perform that evening started with their high tempo, jovial rendition of Moj Dilbere, and that signaled the end of our conversation for that evening. As I parted, Uncle Halid said, ‘See you next week, God willing.’ With that, I left confused. Uncle Halid’s parting words evoked god. God willing, ‘ako-Bog-da’, is the literal translation into the Bosnian/ Serbo-Croat languages of the Arabic ‘insha’Allah’. Even those who proclaimed that secular life should be devoid of faith and who offered me friendly advice to stay away from politics and religion, would preface and conclude every plan or discussion about future events with an invocation and deference to God’s will.

Muslim but A-Religious ‘Eselamu alejkum, Lejla’, Uncle Halid greeted me at the entrance. The men behind Uncle Halid smirked. It was clear I had been

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the topic of their conversation. I was not sure whether Uncle Halid’s words were meant as provocation, but he smiled gently and shook my hand firmly and invited me back to their community gathering. ‘Where did we end last time?’, he asked, signaling that he wanted me to declare my interest. ‘What does Muslim mean?’, I asked, reasoning that his greeting would segue to the topic we both wanted to discuss. ‘Ah, maybe you are in need of a history lesson’, Uncle Halid teased. Abe’s words, ‘You need to know that you do not know the community. You do not know our history’ came back to me, creating a sense of anxiety. Uncle Halid continued: As you know Muslim is not Muslim. Allow me to correct myself, Muslim meant different things in Yugoslavia. We are a product of that system. We used the word Muslim but in a different way. For us, Muslim refers to our culture, not our religion. I knew about the policies and official designations to which Uncle Halid made reference but such explanations always made me feel dizzy – I continued to be confounded by the confusion of the ethnonational designations created by the state apparatus of SFR Yugoslavia. ‘How did you identify?’, I asked, looking for some way to break through the confusion. ‘I am Muslim. On my birth certificate I am Muslim and my children are Muslim. But I was always Yugoslavian first, that was my nationality, that was what united us. Now I am Bosnian. I am an Australian citizen. I am Muslim not because of religion but because of my heritage.’ This use (or as some suggest misuse) of the Muslim designation by Bosnians, former Yugoslavians, needs to be understood in reference to official designations of the Yugoslav population between the years 1945 – 91 – these designations reveal how bureaucratic categories are assimilated by people, that is, these

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categories enter normative discourse and impact upon how people come to identify themselves and each other.

A-Religious Muslims in Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia, also referred to as Yugoslavia) was formed as a multinational federation of six republics – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia – and five nations: Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, and Slovenians. These nations were defined along ethnic lines and each nation was to identify their homeland in their respectively identified republic. According to this reasoning, the Croatian nation had a homeland in Croatia, the Macedonians in Macedonia and so on. It was recognized that within each republic there were ethnic groups and minorities who had their national home outside of the republic or outside of Yugoslavia, as in the case of Albanians for example. Within this schema, Bosnia and Herzegovina was an anomaly, Bosnians were not designated as a distinct nation. The result was that to whom the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a homeland was articulated differently over time – these shifts can be traced when we consider the designations of the Yugoslavian/Bosnian populace offered by the state’s official mode of classification via the census. In the immediate post-war period, and in the first census conducted in the SFR Yugoslavia in 1948, Croats and Serbs were the only recognized national groups resident in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This meant that Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks effectively declared themselves as Serb Muslim, Croat Muslim, or as ‘nationally undetermined’ Muslims, i.e. Muslims without a national identity. According to this logic, Muslim was defined as a religious designator (Irwin, 1983:442). Figures reveal that the majority of Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina marked the ‘undetermined’ category, while a little over one-tenth marked the Croat or Serb designation. Muslims in Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia identified themselves almost unproblematically with the respective republic’s nationality, i.e. 70 per cent of Muslims in Croatia declared Croat nationality,

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95 per cent of Muslims in Macedonia declared Macedonian nationality and 83 per cent of Muslims in Serbia declared Serb nationality (Friedman, 1996:151). Dyker (1972) suggests that there was pressure placed upon Muslims within Bosnia and Herzegovina to adopt either the Croat or Serb designation with the view that such identification would solidify over time. Although censuses are designations by the state, they are informed by, or can translate into, meaningful modes of identification of individuals. Indeed, census categories are one example of the state’s powers to ‘produce and impose (especially through the school system) categories of thought’ (Bourdieu, 1994:1). During the time of significant changes in these statist designations, Dyker (1972) wrote of the pressures of socialization into, and identification with, ethno-national groups that was exerted by teachers upon children. Indeed, many elderly informants when speaking with me recalled occasions when their teachers had required the Muslim pupils to identify with the teacher’s own nationality. A few even declared with pride how they had resisted such pressure and sought to proclaim a national Yugoslavian identity before that had become an official option. In the 1953 census, Yugoslavian was introduced as a recognized and viable identity, while the category of Muslim was removed. Such moves reflected the state’s campaign to promote Yugoslavian as a supra-national form of identification that would unite the citizenry. This sustained effort to assimilate members of all national groups into the overarching Yugoslavian nation was particularly directed to the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were to become, it has been suggested, the first representatives of Yugoslavian national identity (Bringa, 1995; Friedman, 1996; Huisman and HondagneuSotelo, 2005). Reflecting on those times, an interlocutor revealed that she felt that the Bosnian people would have disappeared had the war not occurred. ‘We somehow did not value our culture back in those times. We were not taught Bosnian history and Bosnians were not recognized as a separate nation. Back then we [Bosnians] were the real Yugoslavians.’

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The complicated maneuverings around ethno-national-religious designations continued into the following decade. In the 1961 census, the category of Muslim was reintroduced. On this occasion, however, the category Muslim was not considered a religious identity: instead it was considered an ethnic designation. In the following census, i.e. in 1971, Muslim was once again redefined, this time suggesting that Muslim could be defined as a nation rather than simply an ethnic group. Yugoslavian official terminology shifted from designating musliman (Muslim) an ethno-religious identity to Musliman (Muslim) as a national identity. The latter, i.e. Musliman (with the capitalized letter M), referred to a secular, a-religious identity. The significance of designating Muslims a nation established their link to a specific territory. In the Yugoslav discourse of national belonging, nations were defined by the historical relationship between a people and a territory within Yugoslavia. The recognition of Bosnian Muslims as a nation solidified their claim to Bosnia and Herzegovina as their homeland. As Professor Smajlovic´ (1980:133), of the Theological Faculty in Sarajevo, wrote: ‘In Yugoslavia we do not speak of religious minorities, but of peoples and nationalities . . . and all nationalities have equal rights’ and with this Muslims were to be accorded rights as a national group. Banac (1993:146) observes the peculiarity of the terminology by stating that, according to the logic, ‘one can be a Muslim by nationality and a Jehovah’s Witness by religion.’ Censuses were not simply isolated events, as the categories created therein informed other interactions. For example, parents were to designate with which nation they and their children identified when completing birth certificates and other state documentation. Questions over what Muslim meant in Yugoslavia and what it should have meant and should mean continue to be points of heated debate among Australian-Bosnians such debates demonstrating that people are involved in challenging ideas that had come to be considered and treated as natural and normal schema of thought. Uncle Halid was continuing to appropriate the Yugoslav discourse which designated Muslim as a national identity rather than a religious identity.

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As our conversations continued, I realized that the ambiguities of the designation were not the problem rather, the reasoning for their appropriation was the puzzle that needed to be solved.

Was Religion a Private Matter? The establishment of the SFR Yugoslavia in 1945 was followed immediately by nation and state building projects, which, as with many other nation states, involved a range of industrialization, modernization and secularization projects (Lockwood, 1975; Djilas, 1991; Ramet, 1992). Nation building efforts which sought to develop a unified political consciousness included emphasizing to the diverse populace their ethnic and linguistic similarities, their shared wartime struggle against fascist forces, and the mutual benefits to be received from the development of a socialist society (Djilas, 1991). One of the ideologies of a socialist society is a modernist secularism. Modernization and secularization are held as associated processes. The dominant secularization thesis suggests that, as modernity progresses, the salience of religions and religious identity declines, and possibly even disappears (Hefner, 1998a; Casanova, 2001). As secularization was pursued as part of the modernist nationalizing project, religion occupied an ambiguous status in the SFR Yugoslavia and its treatment shifted over the course of the existence of the SFR Yugoslavia. In the state’s attempt to establish authority over society, the post-war period (1945 – 53) was one of rigid repression of religious groups. Religious organizations were banned, religious leaders imprisoned, religious presses and educational establishments were closed, as the state sought to control public space (Cockburn, 1998; Herbert, 2003). Ramet (1992:132 – 74) outlines how, during this period, the religious press shriveled; Catholic hospitals, orphanages and homes for the aged were seized and closed, and religious education was obstructed. In 1945, some 173,367 hectares of land belonging to religious organizations were seized by the state (Ramet, 1992:154). Dervish orders and other cultural associations were banned. The vakuf, Islamic charitable foundations stemming

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from the sixteenth century, were dissolved (Herbert, 2003:236). The Muslim practice of wearing the feredzˇa, a veil covering the face, was officially prohibited after World War II. While the hijab, headscarf, was legally permitted, many women decided not to wear it out in public, but rather waited until they were inside the mosque before putting it on (Huisman and Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2005). Herbert (2003: 231) suggests that Islamic practices were particularly discouraged because, ‘as well as being a religion it was associated in Marxist-Leninist ideology with “Oriental backwardness”’ and hence a disruption to a modernizing, secular society. Religious instruction was not permitted in the state education system and education curricula included courses in atheism and Marxism. As Bringa (1995) notes, the educational system was a powerful agent of Yugoslav state communism, where the state also guaranteed that no child could be forced by their parents to attend religious instruction. Despite these actions, the regime was not intent on destroying religious institutions. While separation of ‘church and state’ as per dominant secularization models was sought, the state nevertheless wanted to maintain control over religious institutions, particularly as they were considered tools for maintaining contacts with other states. The Orthodox Church was seen as a useful vehicle in maintaining relations with other communist countries in which there were prominent Orthodox Churches, such as the Soviet Union and Romania (Ramet, 1992). The Muslim religious establishment became useful for Yugoslavia’s policy of non-alignment and for Tito’s10 relationships with leaders from Egypt, Indonesia and India (Petrovich, 1972; Herbert, 2003). In 1953 legislation on the Legal Status of Religious Communities was passed which eased the situation somewhat by guaranteeing freedom of religious belief (Ramet, 1992: 132). By this law, religious institutions in Yugoslavia were allowed to conduct worship, offer religious instruction, own property, publish books and periodicals, and have ties with international religious institutions (Petrovich, 1972; Herbert, 2003). While these allowances were made with certain provisos, Yugoslavia was considerably

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more open in allowing religious freedom than other communist countries (Petrovich, 1972). The mid to late 1960s saw a general liberalization in Yugoslavia. This extended to the religious realm, but the degree of open religious activity by the three dominant faiths – Catholicism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity – varied, particularly in urban areas. In 1966, the state guaranteed the Catholic Church ‘free conduct of religious affairs and rites’ and permitted the re-establishment of youth programmes and a religious newspaper (Ramet, 1992:133). The Catholic Church was permitted to resume relations with the Vatican, which included approval of the Vatican’s authority over Catholic clergy in Yugoslavia. However, the Catholic Church continued to complain that believers were treated as second-class citizens arguing that Catholics faced discrimination in employment and that military personnel were not permitted to attend church services in uniform (ibid: 35). Despite the official state policy of limiting religious expression, particularly relegating it to ‘private’ realms, both the Catholic and Orthodox churches were active in holding ‘public’ commemorations and celebrations of saints and holy places (see: Petrovich, 1972). As Ramet (1992) observes, by the early 1990s both Christian Churches were able to celebrate Christmas quite openly. The Catholic Church had the largest membership and was the most politically active. The Catholic Church used its newspaper to openly offer opinions on political and social issues. It was not until 1981 that the Orthodox Christian newspaper became active in the same regard (Ramet, 1992). These forums enabled the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches to engage in public debate and to state their opposition to abortion, their desire to have Christmas proclaimed an official holiday, and voice their demands for time on radio and television (Petrovich, 1972). Although possessing a developed institutional base, Islam had a lower public profile than either the Roman Catholic or Serbian Orthodox churches. In comparison with the leading Catholic and Orthodox newspapers, the Muslim papers touched rarely, if at all, on political issues. Islamic leaders were not confidently assured

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that they were permitted such expression in the media, as Muslims were more likely to be attacked in the press and have their newspapers subjected to pressure (Ramet, 1992:170). Being Muslim also had political ramifications. Imamovic´ (1996) reports a popularly held belief that being identified as Muslim was not politically advantageous in Yugoslavia since Islamic identification would be construed as a threat to one’s loyalty and commitment to the secular state. In the 1980s, authorities adopted harsh attitudes toward the public expression of Islam, particularly toward panIslamic sentiments (Bringa, 1995). As a result, Muslims in urban areas were coerced into adopting more ‘secular’ practices than adherents of other religions. Writing in 1979, Balic (1979:30) remarked: ‘Islam as religious consciousness is in a kind of agony where the younger generation is concerned. The impact-basis of Islamic tradition gets narrower with every day.’ From a study conducted in a Yugoslav village prior to the war, Bringa (1995) found that stigma was attached to being Muslim. Muslim identification, or portrayals of Muslimness through dress, religious expression and speech, was often portrayed as primitive (ibid.). The voluminous ankle-length pants worn by women (dimije), were often evoked as a sign of outdated dress. The dimije came to be markers of Muslim/Bosniak identity, although they had previously been worn by both Muslims and Christians in Bosnia in distinct colours that differentiated between these ethno-religious groups (Lockwood, 1975). Post World War II, with attempts to modernize Yugoslavia, dimije were considered old-fashioned and, in time, became symbols of backwardness and primitivism, a sign of the wearer’s reluctance or inability to modernize. In the case of men’s dress, Bringa observes that only a few older men wore the fez, as younger men considered it old-fashioned. My informants expressed similar sentiments: ‘Being seen as religious, particularly being Muslim, was seen to be backward. So, it was best to keep your religion private.’ As a result of such sentiment, some Muslims in Bosnia felt pressured to relegate religion to ‘private’ spaces. Despite his insistence that, for the sake of cohesion, religion should be kept private, I asked Uncle Halid about the differential

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value accorded to religious identities. Uncle Halid was immediately dismissive of such suggestions. I realized that there was nothing to be gained by such reasoning and instead asked a question that was left unanswered in such political discourse: ‘If being Muslim is heritage, a reference to your ancestors, what is the basis of your morality?’ Abe’s words came back to me again, perhaps that fellow did have something meaningful to say? Uncle Halid disrupted my digression: ‘Ah, this man will tell you about morality and what it means to be a dignified human’, he said and he extended his arm in the direction of Ðibrail. Ðibrail walked toward us. He had been organized to be my interviewee for that evening.

Humanity not Religious Identities Ðibrail, shook my hand and said, ‘I am a Bosniak, a Muslim by nationality.’ He then suggested we talk in the office, as the people’s conversations and intermittent music would be a distraction to my recording device. We sat there in the office, boxes of vodka and soft drinks on my right, a mountain of tablecloths waiting to be washed on my left. The office was crowded with stuff and mess and yet Ðibrail gave me an articulate and carefully considered narrative of some of his life’s events. The story, he told, was to summarize his view of people, of life, of his family, and the love he had for his wife, humanity, and Australia. He had a nervous energy when he spoke. He held a pen and intermittently would stop talking and look down at the paper in front to him to draw a line or a crucifix on the sheet. He apologized for this and explained that these were effects of being interned in the Omarska concentration camp during the war. Ðibrail introduced his biography. He started by giving an account of his and his wife’s educational and professional background, when and where he was born, and of his migration. He spoke of his wife’s illness, his own illness and his daughter’s successes. His migration to Australia, he said, began with his internment at Omarska. He was placed on a UN list and from the camp was sent to Germany. His wife and children joined him in Germany

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shortly thereafter. They lived in Germany for eight years, until Germany started cancelling residency permits and sending people back to Bosnia. He then applied for relocation to Australia but his first application was rejected. He applied again. His second application resulted in an interview and at this interview an official asked him why he was so interested in migrating to Australia when he could easily apply for the USA as he had relatives who were there and could offer support. He responded, ‘You probably dream of winning the lottery. I dream of going to Australia, the land of my dreams.’ This application was approved and migration was easy, he said: I arrived here in my early 40s and had nothing and had to begin from zero. I realized it was important to establish myself again and for the sake of my children enrolled in school to learn the language. You know, when you know the language then you can understand the mentality of the people. We rented an apartment, it was our nest. We were satisfied. And then one day my daughter came home from school and said she would like if we had our own home. That night I stared at the ceiling. My daughter’s words broke my heart. She wanted the stability of our own home. I decided then that I needed to work. I worked on a farm while my wife continued to learn English. Within a year we bought a house and that is the house we live in today. We have renovated it. Later I applied to work in manufacturing. The manager who interviewed me asked, ‘where are you from?’ Since most Australians are not familiar with the geography or occurrences I simply said, ‘Yugoslavia’. He then asked, ‘Where exactly are you from?’ I replied, ‘From Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was better in Yugoslavia, now there are too many countries.’ Once I was given the job I understood why he had asked. Most of the other workers were Serb, of Orthodox religion. Some were Macedonian and some were Greek.

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When I started working there, they maintained a distance from me but I worked. I was diligent and they recognized this. A little while later I spoke to the same manager and asked that my wife be employed. On account of their satisfaction with me, they gave her a job. It went on like this a few years until I started to feel unwell. I went to the doctor for an examination, the months passed and in time I was diagnosed with cancer. My son was at the doctor’s office with me being my interpreter. Because of him I tried not to show any emotion. But as you know the mere mention of the word cancer has a devastating effect. When I was in Omarska, I came close to death and saw many horrific things. When a pistol was held to my head I had my life flash before me. It was a similar sensation when the doctor told me of the cancer diagnosis. The following day, I went into work and spoke with the manager and explained my predicament and requested discretion. Time passed and my situation worsened. I was not able to go to work. I had to have an operation. This was my lowest point. My wife was of immense support. She worked, she would come home prepare dinner, look after the house and look after me. She showed me immense strength during a stressful time. It was a low point for me but I thought I have my children and they still may need me. As Ðibrail spoke, we both shed tears. It was a powerful story. The support of my wife and relatives was really important during this time. As was the support I received from my manager at work and from work colleagues from whom I did not expect anything. It was the Serb workers who lobbied for support for me. While I was on my recovery, my wife was diagnosed with cancer.11 She had been my support and this made me get up to help her. She is better now and back at work.

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Ðibrail continued to speak about how life in Australia had progressed. He spoke of his daughter’s academic achievements and how she was a good humanitarian giving to charity and looking beyond self-interest. He concluded with: This is the story I wanted to tell you. There are plenty of negative stories but I think it is important to tell and make known these positive stories of morality and humanity. When I have time to myself, I am alone and I withdraw into myself and think, I get flushed with embarrassment. I am ashamed of that generation, my generation and what happened. I witnessed horrific things with my own eyes during the war. But it was the Serbs who helped me during this difficult time in Australia. I do not blame an entire nation but I do not condone what happened during the war. I do not know why I became ill and I do not know why they acted in the manner they did and offered their support to me. Australia is a land of challenges and dreams. I say if you do not love this country, you are a bloody idiot. This is a democratic country with many admirable people and of such people we need to speak and write. Australians are not interested in what happened over there and no one who was not there can understand what happened. I recommend that you write about humanity and morality. Ðibrail was not interested in answering any further questions. He had told me the story he wanted me to hear. I heard that he wanted me to know and to share that it was Serbs, as he identified them, who helped him, who supported him during a time of suffering and that that experience shaped his view of Australia. His personal narrative of illness was not related to the metaphysical. Neither Allah nor another god entered into the narrative. Rather, the political prism and redemption in the multicultural space though an empathy toward the suffering of an individual was that which was shared. Humanity rather than religion, as though the two occupied diametrically opposed positions, was given preference. As we left the

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office, he said, ‘One does not live in isolation but in community. You never know when and where you will need others for help.’ I understood why Uncle Halid had wanted me to hear Ðibrail’s story. It was evocative, it spoke of the horrors of war, of migration passages, of obligations and sacrifices that people make for family and of the empathy and support people can show each other. While the story was devoid of references to the metaphysical, it was not devoid of religion and ethno-national identities. Such identities, the story revealed, continued to matter.

CHAPTER 3 MARGINALIZATION AND FEAR

Citizenship can be experienced like an empty gesture. The acquisition of citizenship by immigrants is an indication of their political integration. Through citizenship an individual’s relationship with the state is institutionalized. Thus, citizens are insiders who have been accorded the legal standing of inclusion. Since citizenship proffers a stable legal status, this is considered to produce stability in residence. Access to infrastructure and services pertaining to education, health care, housing, political representation and welfare are considered to be the material advantages privileged to citizens. However, discrimination of citizens occurs and as such citizenship can be experienced variably. Such variation reveals the disjuncture between institutionalized and substantive statuses of citizenship. The results of such disjuncture include, but are not limited to, sensations of uncertainty, instability and cynicism toward the institution of citizenship and its ability to validate identities, accord rights to the community and promote esteem of selves. Australian-Bosnian-Muslims have experienced the dualisms of citizenship in terms of a validation of their status and in terms of denigratory sensations. It is the latter that has become particularly potent. Shaming via accusations of incompatibility and infidelity is one way their selves have been reduced. Thus, despite their institutional recognition they have been challenged or even provoked to prove their citizenry mettle. The result has been that they have come to experience citizenship from a condition of outsiderness.

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The politicization of Muslim identities has meant that religious affiliation has come to be privileged as a determinant of one’s status and one’s access or denial to resources and respect. Although Australian-Bosnians have come to occupy a status as a bona fide ethnic community within the Australian multicultural framework, shifts in the discursive field of citizenship have meant that religious identification is potentially a disruption to individual and collective statuses.1 Where once, religion was ethnicized as a means through which ethno-religious communities were to be included in the multicultural condition, religion – Islam in particular – is being deethnicized and thus considered problematic. For Australian-BosnianMuslims, Bosnianness is no longer the central identifier in an ethnicized multicultural context, and for some Islam is not only more prominent but the essence of their identity. This shift can be attributed to an interplay between changes brought about in political contexts and changes in personal life journeys. Citizens who identify with and practice Islam have experienced an unsettling shift to their status in this emergent post-secular context (Jakubowicz, 2007; Poynting and Perry, 2007; Yasmeen, 2010; Mansouri and Lobo, 2011). Habermas (2006) defines post-secular not as a society in which religion has (re)emerged in the public sphere, but rather as a call for debate and recognition of claims made by the religious and secular citizens. This call, however, is occurring in a context in which greater attention is being directed to the way religious doctrine informs political orientations and religious identities are being targeted and used as reasons for marginalization. The postsecular is then recognition of the prominence of religious practices, identities, beliefs in politics. Prevailing discourse with its hostile intimations has meant that Muslims have been the subject to accusations of disloyalty and Islam treated as a veritable source of political extremism and violence. This discourse has permeated life in the suburbs, resulting in increases in experiences of vilification and discrimination among Australians of Arabic speaking and Muslim backgrounds. Indeed, studies have noted how such discourses have adversely impacted upon the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of Muslims. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity

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Commission (HREOC) reported increases in discrimination experienced by Arab and Muslim Australians and associated ramifications of insecurity, fear and alienation noted by study participants in the early years of the twenty-first century. Within this context, Australian Muslim claims to full citizenship have become problematized as they experience anxiety about their place in Australian society.

Fear in the Suburbs ‘They’re coming for us!’, Aunt2 Huria joked half-heartedly. I knew this was Aunt Huria’s attempt at deflecting anxiety. We had spoken about the sounds of helicopters before. We were sitting in the lounge of her townhouse. The townhouse was typical for the suburb. It had two bedrooms. Huria lived alone and so only used one of them, she sometimes joked that perhaps I could rent a room from her and help her with her house chores. The townhouse received good light during the day but Huria preferred to keep the window blinds closed. She preferred a darker ambience in keeping with her somber demeanor. The townhouse was the rear house of a row of three, set back from the noise of the road. Tonight, the sounds were coming from above. As we sat watching the evening news, we heard the sounds of the helicopter. Actually, Aunt Huria heard them first and directed my attention to them. As I began to focus where she directed my sensory attention, I heard the loud rotations of the blades and felt the vibrations that shook the plaster walls as the helicopter hovered, what seemed to be directly above Huria’s home. Dogs in the neighbourhood barked. All of this evoked a feeling of unease in Huria. I felt it, too. As the helicopter’s presence seemed to draw closer and stronger, they evoked visceral reactions. Huria become visibly disturbed. Her eyes widened. She fidgeted and could not sit still. Despite these sounds being a regular occurrence, since this suburb suffered from a higher than average crime rate and so police air surveillance was common, such reactions from Huria retained their potency. Each occasion would produce a physical and emotional reaction. I suspected that the sounds evoked memories, memories of

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war and past traumas. I thought that there was a direct correlation between sounds, emotions and memories of war. Who was coming for us? Who was ‘us’? Huria was reluctant to answer. With some cajoling Huria said she feared that I would not take her seriously, that I would consider her a senile old woman, out of touch with reality and paranoid. In fact, I did think Huria was paranoid. I questioned whether she was out of touch with reality, and whether she was in a condition of senile psychosis. I determined that she was not a threat to herself, to others or to me and that my role was not to judge her reality but my role was to try to understand it, at least a little. Aunt Huria spoke of the problematic condition for Muslims in Australia. She said that the problems affecting Bosnian Muslims were those that impacted on Muslims generally but for Bosnian Muslims it was worse – they had had similar experiences in Yugoslavia. Huria told me about the denial of freedoms, the victimization and the genocide enacted upon them. ‘Is this something you experienced during the war?’, I asked. ‘For months we watched the news and heard them say vicious things about Muslims. That we are fundamentalists, that we are dirty. We even watched the Serbian armies on the hill above our town. We were told not to worry, that they were simply training regimes of the Yugoslav army. Oh, we were naive. We believed all this until the shelling began.’ Huria shook her head and told me the story of departure from her Bosnia. Similar experiences to hundreds of thousands of others: getting the family together, packing up what they could, and leaving overnight, driving to the nearest border, which for Huria and her family was Serbia. From Serbia they sought asylum in Germany.3 They stayed in Germany until travel documents, health checks and visas were secured for travel on to Australia. ‘I wanted to kiss the ground when we came. I thought this was the promised country. For a while it was the promised country. We were received well. Various church groups helped us settle. We received social security. Later a pension. We bought this house.’ Huria trailed off . . . talking about the townhouse brought back memories of her

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late husband. ‘In recent years, things have changed. They look at us Muslims differently.’ Conversations with others revealed that there was a fear that the persecution of Muslims that had occurred during the wars in the former Yugoslav republics could eventuate in Australia. Representations of Muslims in the mainstream media outlets were often cited as examples of an increasing animosity. Sˇefika was another informant who commented directly about this: ‘Look at how they show Islam on the news. When it’s Eid4, they display how Muslims pray and then immediately after they display explosions and speak about extremists. How is that not going to have an effect? Yes, the media is partial to showing negative images of Muslims. When I see how Muslims are represented, I am scared. I am scared of what will happen. God forbid that things escalate the way they did over there.’ A number of others shared such fear and foreboding. A participant who sought not to be named even with a pseudonym, relayed how when retiring for the evening she didn’t wear pyjamas but a tracksuit instead, so that she could be ready to flee if required. That is how she lived during the wars years in Bosnia. Another spoke of stocking pantries full of food – for example, with more flour and sugar than necessary, ‘just in case’. Preparation for potential shortages was a direct referent to experiences of living weeks without food and other supplies during the war years in Bosnia. Diligence in maintaining one’s travel documents and possessing a valid passport were made in reference to war narratives, through questions such as: ‘Who knows when you might have to flee?’ and ‘You never know when a war may break out.’ Thus, various experiences from the war years continue to inform the ways people relate to ideas about impending insecurity and indeterminacy of status. ‘When I go to the physician I make sure to take off my necklace with the crescent moon and star. I feel safer if they don’t know who I am, what I am. Religion is a private thing. With all these images of Muslims on the news, in the media, I don’t know how people think.’ Sˇefika shared about here vigilance in her public displays of Muslim identification. With that she then started to tell me about the ways in

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which Muslims were denigrated in the years preceding the breakup of the SFR Yugoslavia and the implementation of policies and actions of genocide throughout Bosnia.

Politicization of Religious Identities According to the constitution of SFR Yugoslavia, religion was declared a ‘private matter’ (Flere, 1991: 147) and, as noted earlier, the stigma that some felt was associated with Islam meant that they were particularly conscious of keeping their Muslim identities private. ‘Private’ meant a number of things. For some, this meant reserving celebrations of Eid for the home or for the local neighbourhood. For others, it meant adopting and giving their children non-identifiably Muslim, or as mentioned earlier, neutral names – names considered not associated with a single religious and ethnic group. Some other others sought to forgo Muslim identities altogether, relegating such to the past, to the time of their grandparents. This is not necessarily a unique experience, for as Asad comments (2003:185), secularism moves the experience of religion into private spaces, which leads to the ‘formation of subjects who will eventually inhabit a particular public culture.’ The public culture that Yugoslavia’s Muslims in Bosnia inhabited was that of a strong awareness of (1) the association of religious identification with backwardness and (2) the necessity to reserve religious symbols and expression of religious identities for ‘private’. These experiences certainly inform the ways Australian-Bosnian-Muslims pose and answer questions about identity, and this is clear from the workings of Uncle Halid’s social club and Mirsada’s reaction to the news broadcaster’s jewelry. However, as Uncle Halid’s explanation revealed, other factors, i.e. wartime discourses, also impacted upon articulations and repressions of religious identities in Australia. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, new forms of religious freedoms were being expressed in Yugoslavia: Marxism classes were being replaced by religious instruction, Christmas was being celebrated in the streets; religion entered the public sphere to a degree unprecedented in the history of the SFR Yugoslavia.

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The problem however, was not in the free expressions of religion but rather their politicization. Dominant discourses preceding and during the wars in Yugoslavia revealed a dominant trend in politicizing religious differences. Thus, it was not difference per se that was problematic but rather the treatment of religious differences as a threat – a threat to identity, a threat to the purity of religious and communities, and a threat to the continuation of long held, or so it was assumed, traditions. Serbian nationalist propaganda was particularly well organized in promoting such sentiment. Ethno-nationalist leaders capitalized on the emergence of religion into public – and particularly political – spaces to polarize society and mobilize popular support for their campaigns. From the mid-1980s, the Serbian ultra nationalist monopoly over Serbian state television, also watched by Bosnians, contributed to what seemed to be hysterical attitudes embraced by the public. Serbian ultra nationalist propaganda roused fears of ‘Ustasˇa hordes’ and ‘Muslim fanatics’ in efforts to mobilize antagonistic sentiment among the Serb populations. The demonization of Muslims was particularly pursued. A continual discourse of rape and genocide roused fears of domination, oppression and demographic shrinkage. Biljana Plavsˇic´, Professor of Biology at Sarajevo University, before she became a Bosnian-Serb leader, and later an indicted war criminal sentenced to 11 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, wrote, ‘rape is the war strategy of Muslims and Croats against Serbs. Islam considers this something normal’ (Cohen, in Oberschall, 2000:991). People came to assimilate elite discourse. Visiting Yugoslavia in 1989, Ramet offered the following account: I found myself at a Belgrade cafe´, as two local journalists drew and redrew maps of the Balkans, showing a menacingly large arrow projecting northward from Istanbul through Serbia, while they told me of their fears of a Muslim threat to European civilization. ‘Albanian Muslims and Bosnian Muslims are in this together’, they told me, deadly earnest. ‘They have big families in order to swamp Serbia and Yugoslavia with Muslims, and turn

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Yugoslavia into a Muslim republic. They want to see a Khomeini in charge here. But Belgrade is not their final goal. They will continue to advance until they have taken Vienna, Berlin, Paris, London – all the great cities of Europe. Unless they are stopped . . . (Ramet, 1992:165) Images of extremists with plans for the creation of an Islamic fundamentalist Bosnia were the most potent in Serbian propaganda and were used as justifications for the genocidal policies directed to non-Serb populations. In their preparation for war and the pursuit of nationalist dreams of a Greater Serbia, Serb leaders systematically propagated notions that past atrocities inflicted on the Serbian nation by Croatians qua Germans qua Nazis, Muslims qua Turks qua Ottomans were to be repeated. The means by which these threats and fears were aroused was through the news media, popular culture, education, literature, history, the arts and through the clergy (Cornell and Hartmann, 1998; Mostov, 2000; Oberschall, 2000). During the war, images of Orthodox Christian clergy blessing Serbian soldiers were frequently broadcast. Creating links between national and religious identities was pursued by all nationalist leaders as they exaggerated the threats facing their nations, such as extinction, assimilation, domination by another group, and the loss of property and rights. Religious differentiation was used by nationalist leaders in the years preceding the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in order to mobilize public support for their political parties and for wartime efforts. Serbian ultra nationalists mobilized populations around Orthodox identity, Croatians mobilized around a Catholic identity, while Bosniaks mobilized around Muslim identity. The hostile Serbian ultra nationalist discourse advocated the sentiment that the ‘Muslimness’ of Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks was a threat to multiethnic unity in Bosnia. It was not simply religious expression, but a chauvinistic approach to religion which discriminated against other religions in the region. Religious symbols were often used to rally support but were also often targets of campaigns: churches, mosques and buildings from the

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Ottoman period, for example, which were considered to reflect Bosnian Muslim culture, were purposely destroyed in attempts to ‘cleanse’ cities of ‘polluting’ influences (Sells, 1996). In such campaigns, Bosnian Muslims were particularly targeted. The mass killings in Srebrenica are just one example of genocidal policies perpetrated upon Muslims in Bosnia. Either direct experience of, or exposure to, discourses concerning the practice of secularism in Yugoslavia, the politicization of religious identities in the lead up and during the war, and the role of religious identities in fostering community cohesion or contributing to its demise, impact upon the ways Bosnian Muslims experience their integration in Australia. Divergent assimilation of such knowledge impacted upon different expectations and practices of identity.

Disruptions to Citizenship The politicization of religion in Yugoslavia is a dominant discourse for interpreting recent events in Australia, as it is for Aunt Huria, Sˇefika and others who arrived in Australia as refugees. The narrative of the lead up to ‘the war’, the politicization of religious difference and the persecution of ethnic and religious others in Bosnia, serve as an important referent for Australian-Bosnian-Muslims in Australia and for some Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia. Herbert (2003) observed in a study of NGOs in Bosnia that: young women who have chosen to adopt Muslim hijab may be criticized, insulted or discriminated against by other Muslims. For example, a women respondent who runs a secular NGO told of critical comments on her attire from her boss, and even in the canteen at Sarajevo University it was evident that her dress aroused suspicion (Herbert, 2003:254). Similarly, Cockburn (1998) explained how a sensitivity toward religious expression meant that people were anxious that religion ‘know its place’ (Cockburn, 1998:193) often meaning that it should

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at least remain invisible although preferably is should be completely absent (the difference between invisible and absent will be explained in a subsequent section) within state institutions and public places. Despite their stable legal status, Australian-Bosnian-Muslims, particularly those of refugee background, have confronted disruptions to their status as citizens. Most immigrants from Yugoslavia and Bosnia arrived in Australia at a time in which political and public affirmations of multicultural citizenship were expressed, albeit to varying degrees. However, over the course of the last decade there has been a significant shift in the political landscape in which there has been a move away from multiculturalism and an embrace of conservative messages of national belonging. Coupled with this has been the objectification of asylum seekers and refugees as potential threats to the nation and an increase in expressions of Islamophobia. Muslim refugees and Muslim migrants have been particularly targeted. Consequently, while many informants stated that they had felt a warm reception on their arrival in Australia, and that their acquisition of Australian citizenship was relatively straightforward, they have witnessed disruptions to their claims for rights, recognition and protection. Tensions have emerged as they grapple with the some of the similarities between contemporary discourses in Australia and the discourses in Yugoslavia in which the initial antiMuslim propaganda eventually escalated into the persecution and genocidal policies perpetrated against Muslims. The increased anti-Islam rhetoric in Australia serves as a reminder for many of the anti-Muslim rhetoric promulgated in the lead up to the war in Yugoslavia and associated events which resulted in their forced migration. Events in Australia serve to prompt recollections of previous experiences of discrimination, subjugation and victimization. The forced migration emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia and Bosnia’s war for independence. The lead-up to the war was marked by extreme politicization of religion, in which Muslims were particularly targeted. Ostensibly, those who experienced this extreme vilification of Islam by politicians and the media are highly conscious of the potential politicization of religious difference. Religious identification occupies

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an important though debated presence within Bosnian formations of identity; Bosnian can refer to adherents of Islam, Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity but is mostly embraced by Bosnian Muslims (Eastmond, 1998). With the attempted genocide of Bosnian Muslims it is said that Islamic identity and religious revival have appeared in the post-war context.5 As a result, many Bosnian Muslims are grappling with the increasing debate over the position of Muslims in Australia. While they engage with questions about the place of Islam and Muslim identification within their own lives, as with other Muslims, they confront the need to minimize circumstances of threat, to prove their loyalty and confront various encounters of exclusion (Yasmeen, 2010). Though some are developing strategies to deal with actual and/or perceived exclusion by the wider communities, others suffer emotionally in this environment (Yasmeen, 2010). For AustralianBosnians this results in many people being particularly vigilant about their public displays of Muslim identification. Such reactions reveal the tenuous position they occupy as Australian citizens. While their legal status is secure, they feel the ‘conditionality’ of their citizenship, and experience anxiety over which conditions will lead to their rights and protection from the state becoming exhausted. With the anti-Muslim discourse promoted by both media and politics, protection of and access to rights from the state appear distant. Avenues for protection, rights and active participation in a democratic society appear tenuous, and this is what emerges as particularly troubling. The ‘policing of the nation’s citizens’ (Stephenson, 2009:482) emerges with the symbolic and discursive attempt to legitimize some identities as commensurate with Australian citizenship while delegitimizing alternate claims. As Aly (2010) has noted, Muslims in Australia experience various fears, such as fear of physical harm, fear of political manipulation, fear of losing civil liberties, and general feelings of insecurity. While Aly (2010) contends that Muslims are complicit in promoting fear, i.e. they perpetuate the fear by giving too much weight to media representations and the media’s authority in shaping public opinion, refugees from Bosnia have been direct targets of

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genocidal policies in which both the media and state were complicit and so have expressed fear about the potential for present circumstances to escalate into conflict. The recognition of fear does not aim to pathologize the refugee experience (Malkki, 1995; Eastmond, 1998), fear and anxiety are not the domain of refugees. Rather, the intention is to draw attention to the intersections in the discourses, and how the anti-Muslim discourses at the end of Yugoslavia resonate with some of the extreme cases of nationalist rhetoric in the Australian context. Indeed, in these circumstances the status of refugee-hood never appears far behind. As noted earlier, while all the Australian-BosnianMuslims with whom I spoke were Australian citizens and had been so for ten years on average, they continually expressed sentiment that their status as permanent residents with rights was tentative. As an informant relayed, ‘I arrived as a refugee. They gave me citizenship but they can just as easily take it away.’ While according to the 1951 Geneva Conventions Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is defined in terms of ‘fear of being persecuted’, as Long (2010) notes, the absence of protection from the state is also a significant experience of refugees, and for these Australian citizens, the protection from the state appears to be in question. Citizenship is the means through which an individual, the citizen, is accorded rights and protection. This is of particular importance to refugees, who may have experienced statelessness, displacement (Malkki, 1995), or have been victims of the state’s failure to protect either through incapacity or through acts of active hostility (Long, 2011:235). The lack of permanent status, particularly citizenship, can create anxiety and be a source of concern, of insecurity and create impediments to economic, social and political participation and to health and psychological well-being (Al-Ali et al., 2001; Koser, 2007; da Lomba, 2010; Strang and Ager, 2010; Vrecer, 2010). Beyond these material advantages, citizenship also has strong symbolic value. While citizenship refers to membership to a broader political community, it also refers to an identity, shared understandings and practices that constitute this community (Joppke, 1999:632; Kymlicka and Norman, 2000). These shared under-

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standings, however, can be underpinned by a range of social, cultural and religious mores and practices, which can result in differential expectations and experiences of the bonds that cohere a national community within the state’s boundaries. As such, citizenship is constituted not only by the legal definition but by broader projects of government policies, political discourses, dominant representations and by daily encounters, all of which contribute to drawing both the legal and symbolic bounds of membership (Hage, 2002; Ong, 2006). When the legal and symbolic bounds of citizenship shift, disruptions to status eventuate.

Sensing Fear Towards the Census Population censuses are the means by which governments track and designate and create impressions of the demographic profiles of the population. As documented earlier, the designations made available by census categories inform the way the population assimilates messages about valid and invalid forms of identification. I had heated conversations with Aunt Huria, amongst others, about the impending censuses in Australia. Much of their concern was directed toward the question on religion and how they would respond. Huria ultimately decided that she would not answer the question and she said she would feign senility if anyone came to ask her about it. Other responses included: ‘You have to accept that there is no balance. This is a Christian country and we can never be equal with them. But we can make known that we are here and I will tick the box and let them know I am Muslim.’ Another responded provocatively with, ‘I will write I am Muslim, even though I am not religious. I will declare what I am. You know, fuck you, I am Muslim, what are you going to do about it?’ Hesitant responses were expressed in lines such as the following, ‘Well, that is why they killed and chased us out for being Muslim. It is dangerous. I am not saying, God forbid, that there will be a war but if you give your details and sign it, they have it in black and white that you are Muslim, so I am not going to give my religion.’

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Such conversations appear to reveal a correlation, a strong similarity in experiences, a habitus (Bourdieu, 1977), if you will, that informed reactions in Australia. Indeed, such conversations prompted me to suggest that what Australian-Bosnian-Muslims were experiencing was a disruption to citizenship, i.e. a disruption not to the legal claims to citizenship but to the emotive and substantive experiences of citizenship, and I meditated that disruptions to their status as Australian citizens emerged from an intersection of three key factors: the current geopolitical context where Muslims have become a marked other; shifts in Australian discourses of citizenship; and emergent (perceived) similarities between the contemporary anti-Muslim rhetoric and the circumstances that preceded their forced migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aunt Huria’s Fears I meditated on these intersections and was confident that there was a direct correlation between sounds, memories and emotions. Further conversations with Aunt Huria revealed I was wrong. Her reactions were not, and could not be, simplified in terms of consequences of macro-level geopolitical maneuverings. Her experiences of insecurity and risk interweaved with personal concerns and intimate metaphysical considerations. Aunt Huria was an isolated individual. She liked my company, or perhaps liked having someone who would listen to her and her complaints about life. She complained about her children, who did not visit, the lack of friends and how life in an impoverished suburb was not how she anticipated life in Australia, for Australia was considered to be a place of the ‘developed West’. We spent some time walking, getting a feel for the suburb in which she had spent a decade of her life. On these walks, we would pass a series of stores and houses, many in dilapidated form with overgrown grass, cobwebs and all sorts of household contents such as old mattresses, broken furniture and children’s toys – littering the front yard. As we walked, I noticed that many houses had curtains. These were not sheer and decorative curtains that would allow

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passersby a slight view or hint into the houses of the residents. Rather, they were thick curtains, too long for the window frame, clearly hanging too long onto the floors of the interior. These houses seemed to suggest that the inhabitants didn’t want outsiders looking in. I wondered whether the insiders looked out. I noticed this because Huria had similarly thick curtains. One day, as we walked through the area, we passed beneath a rail overpass and at that moment a commuter train rushed overhead. I reacted to the sounds, Huria’s words of warning still present with me. I looked over, expecting her to have been similarly disturbed. She was not. I looked at her puzzled. I did not understand how it was that this noise, these intense sounds so close to us, did not evoke the same kind of fear that was produced by the helicopter sounds and of which she had spoken so intently. I mumbled and stuttered and sought Huria’s reaction. She was not interested in that discussion and refused to answer. Conversations with Huria revealed that she was more than simply isolated, and that she cultivated an outsider status for herself. She was an Australian citizen of at least fifteen years and held the status of an Australian pensioner. In preceding years she had been active as a volunteer for many Australian-Bosnian-Muslim organizations and events. I imagined she would have had much to say at the meetings chaired by Dedo and regretted that I had not known her then and seen her performances. In recent years she had withdrawn from most community activities. At that time we met, she liked to watch television and her viewing was over-determined by her interpretations of the world as continually in a state of crusade, that there was in the present context a continuation of battles between Christendom and Islam. She would swear at the television and at the range of injustices she viewed. Through recognition of and reaction to injustices she sought to create a sense of dignity for herself. By identifying the processes of victimization and the range of roles occupied by aggressors she sought to distinguish herself from other dispassionate impartial observers. ‘For whom are you working?’, Huria questioned me one time. This question came as a surprise for we had known each other for more than a year and I felt that all of a sudden that she had started to view me with suspicion.

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‘Are you simply doing this research for your own benefit? Do you have opinions? Or are you one of those people who sweeps everything under the carpet, someone who does not want to offend anyone? What injustices will your work uncover and how will it make life better for us Muslims? Or are you documenting how many Muslims there are and how they can control us?’ With this she sought to identify my role and position in relation to victim, perpetrator and bystander within the discourse of Muslims as threats, and Muslims as victims of discourses of terrorism. These discourses of terrorism and of victimization, suited Aunt Huria. It gave her an outlet for her frustrations with life. This is not to deny that victimization does occur but in this instance such discourses provided a neat justification for some of the failures, as Huria saw them, for some of life’s disappointments. Interestingly, such victimization also provided Huria with a cause, as she told me she would visit local halal food places and critique them on their level of halal-ness. She would inspect the food they sold, their cleanliness and would enter into arguments with the owners, managers and staff of such places, trying to convince them they needed to elevate their levels of cleanliness, the healthiness of the food on offer, if they wanted to be halal beyond what the certificate on the walls suggested. The fear, the deep sense of unease that she displayed in reaction to the helicopter sounds, were difficult to understand. I had suspected that these sounds were evoking memories of war, that past traumas were resurfacing evoked by these sounds. I was wrong. She so clearly wanted to cultivate an outsider status and yet came to fear this status, increasingly so in the months before she died. In the months before her passing I noticed that her agitation grew. She became more paranoid. Theories of being victimized, of being the target of phone tapping, of surveillance6 became more intense and with this she withdrew further from social contact. Even our walks throughout her suburb ceased. Instead, we watched television together – mostly football matches. I had attempted to understand Huria and her experiences and narratives in terms of traumas relived in a new context. As a Bosnian Muslim, she identified with people who were denigrated and

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targeted, victims of genocide and genocidal policies. I had suggested that perhaps she was reliving the victimization of Muslims. While some attribute such paranoid behaviour to war traumas and post-traumatic obsessive behaviour, trends in the wider population suggest that while those theories do hold some merit they cannot be considered the sole determinant. For example, trends of hoarding, of preparing for doomsday and a Third World War are not limited to ethnicity, religion or national profile but instead are driven by other demographic features. Such trends in the United States are a prime example of how some populations are active in looking toward, and preparing for, apocalyptic demise. While theories that the war in former Yugoslavia serves as a dominant discourse for explaining contemporary experiences may hold some merit, on closer inspection this summary is too neat an explanation for a complex existence. Huria’s circumstances speak less of a national case of fear of genocide and speak to a more generalized human experience of loneliness, of unrealized dreams and ambitions, of disrupted expectations and of the difficulties of living in impoverished urban spaces. The ‘West’, as Huria often exclaimed, was to be a place of promise, of dreams, where one could ‘dream big, think big’ and achieve fame and fortune. The reality was harder, grittier, missing romance and excitement. Perhaps narratives of terrorism provided that excitement. Conversations with Samir later prompted me to rethink these experiences and consider that perhaps Huria had over-assimilated the ideas of Muslims as threat, and that she internalized them as a judgement upon herself. Helicopters were not interpreted as surveillance for the purpose of keeping her safe, but rather as keeping others safe from her. This account reveals a complexity that cannot be reduced to a pathological reaction. Aunt Huria’s encounter speaks of a distress that cannot be attributed solely to her experience of forced migration, exile and nostalgia, as is the common characterization of refugee experiences. In response to the pathologization of refugee experiences, an emergent trend in medical sociology is interested in shifting the medical discourse to understand suffering and coping within social and political contexts (Kokanovic and Stone, 2010).

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However, political determinism, i.e. the role of the society of settlement, also cannot offer a causative explanation. Instead, we are left with ruminations about the complexities in lived experience and in the difficulties encountered by those who sense victimization and feel disempowered to react and change their circumstances. I did not make it to the hospital when Aunt Huria died. Her family called me to tell me when the funeral would be held. The funeral was well attended I was told. I did not know what constituted well attended but thought she would have been pleased with the level of sadness in the crowd. One old woman wailed loudly and screamed when Aunt Huria’s body was wheeled to the hearse. The other women calmed her through shaming, saying that wailing is inappropriate at a Bosnian Muslim funeral. Aunt Huria’s gravestone details when she was born in a Bosnian town and the date she died in an Australian city. Below these details is a verse from the Qur’an in Arabic script, al fatiha. Each year, at the time of Eid,7 when I visit the cemetery, I find a mix of black crows, white cockatoos and brown pigeons gathered nearby. Each year I realize that the Muslim section of this multireligious cemetery has had more bodies interred. Each year more Bosnian Muslims have decided that Australia is the country in which they will die. Each year I wonder whether this is an alternative way for understanding homeland.

CHAPTER 4 TRANSITIONS TO PEACE

Conversations with Aunt Huria, her insistence of the politicization of religion, the marginalization of Muslims and the fear she experienced of life and beyond, alerted me to the preponderance of references to Islam as a political ideology. In the prevailing context in which Islam as a political doctrine receives overwhelming coverage, the role of Islam in providing the moral foundation upon which people base their lives and make decisions seems to have been displaced. As research continued, vandalism of Islamic centres, opposition against the construction of mosques and attacks on Muslims intensified. The polemicization of what it means to be Muslim, and questions concerning how one can be Muslim in a hostile environment, was a question debated in scholarly work, in the media, and amongst the people with whom I spoke. The literature about Muslim minorities has often been critiqued for its privileging of Muslim identities. As Shirin Shahrokni (2016) has recently written, such literature ‘predominantly assumes that religion has worked as Muslim migrants’ principal source of identity, the one through which they and, even more acutely so, their descendants, have forged a sense of comfort and community.’ Such critique appears to want to defend Muslims, i.e. to argue in favour of recognising their complexity as people, and does so by advocating that they cannot and should not be reduced to one identity. The attempt is to challenge the over-determination of claims to the

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Muslimness of Muslims. Such critique is characteristic of the postmodern perspective that privileges the conceptualization of identities as fluid and multiple, as I noted earlier. Accordingly, critics such as Shahrokni suggest that it is near impossible for a person to privilege one identity over others. To dismiss such possibilities in people’s embrace of identity is to deny understanding how people do essentialize who they are and how they live. Understanding such is perhaps particularly crucial in circumstances when people’s essentialization of identities occurs within contexts when specific identities are politicized. Identifying as Muslim for some is a referent to their cultural heritage, their lineage, their ethno-national identity. For others, Muslimness includes the above and is a referent to a cosmology, a worldview. It is this approach that is particularly significant. Being Muslim, and acting according to the decrees of Islam, is what binds the disparate roles that people occupy and identities with which they identify. Being Muslim coheres these potentially divergent and contradictory roles and identities, and imbues them with meaning. For Muslims, it is their Muslimness that disrupts the postmodern view of a fragmentary self and life. For many Muslims, their Muslimness is that which guides all their interactions. It is their essential identity, their foundation. Despite people adopting an essentialist understanding of identity, their claims are nevertheless relational, thus, their identities are constituted in reference to other modes of being. What and who these others are is an important consideration. Conversations with a different groups brought this to my attention.

With Peace Months had elapsed since I had last attended a meeting with Dedo and Uncle Mujo. Their meetings had become less frequent and my research travels took me to other sites and cities, so it seemed it was difficult to synchronize our schedules. I was starting to think that perhaps they had forgotten about me, and my interest in both their individual and collective pursuits, and so it was with some surprise that I received a call from Samir.

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Samir called one afternoon. He said he wanted to speak to me, he wanted to be interviewed and his ideas recorded. Although the call was unexpected, I agreed almost instantantly and suggested we meet at a local cafe´, as cafe´s had come to be my most frequented places for conducting interviews. Samir refused without explanation, although the reason became clear to me during the interview. He suggested that instead we meet at a suburban beach. Fortunately it was a sunny day when we met. We sat on a bench for hours, talking, and looking out to the ocean. The bench was located out of earshot from the glistening bodies of the sunbathers and, with the wind being slight, it would not carry our voices in their direction, Samir observed. Samir’s awareness was certainly heightened. He had much to say and wanted to tell me quickly. I did not take nor follow the questions from my interview schedule as from the conversation on the phone it was clear that he already had in mind what he wanted to tell me. ‘Do you know why so many of our people turned to Islam?’, he began. I shrugged, unable to anticipate what Samir had in mind. ‘They say that we were punished,’ he said. ‘Punished?’ ‘We were not good Muslims. We forgot who we are.’ I remembered that I had and did continue to hear variants of this explanation numerous times. ‘We were becoming Yugoslavians at the expense of our own identities’, ‘We did not know who we were’ often such statements referred to both the assimilative trends promoted by the Yugoslav state as well as an internalization of stigma associated with Muslim identification. Secularism in Yugoslavia discouraged religious practice and within that context Islam and Muslims occupied an ambiguous status. People relayed to me their sense that being religiously Muslim in Yugoslavia was often a stigmatized identity associated with backwardness. Muslim identity was considered a hindrance to belonging to a modernizing secular state, and, in order to secure more favourable forms of identification, some Muslims were intent upon privileging their neutrality toward religious practice and identity. Indeed, some academics and social commentators made similar observations in the years preceding

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Bosnia’s independence and the start of war. Dedic (1987), for one, has written about the devaluing of Muslim practices in Yugoslavia and the shame some experienced for their Muslim heritage. Thus, as Samir said, ‘If the war had not happened, we would have melted. We would have disappeared in ten to twenty years had things continued the way they had. Somehow we did not value our culture. The process of assimilation was strong. Have a look at the education system, the lifestyle – even Bosnian history was not taught in schools. In those days I was Yugoslavian and did not consider that to be a problem. Now I see that we were really naive.’ The war, people said, served as punishment and a reminder that they had forgotten Islam, that they had neglected their identities, their past, their heritage. My colleagues conducting research in Indonesia relayed that, following the tsunami, some Achenese expressed a similar sentiment, that the devastation of the tsunami was a call for them to return to Islam. The war, despite all its devastation, was interpreted by some Bosnian Muslims as a call to reversion. For some this was a call to Islam, for others it was a call for an awareness of one’s cultural heritage in which Muslim identities occupy a prominent place. With distance from the physical devastation of war, and with the lapse of time, Samir commented that the war could be interpreted as a God send. ‘We were punished not only for not valuing our history but also for not being Muslims. We were not proper Muslims’, Samir stressed. ‘Many people will say being Muslim is about our culture. They will say, we take our shoes off before entering their house because that is what Muslims do. As Muslims we like to keep our houses clean.’ Samir’s sarcastic tone was being lost on me. ‘Listen, when I was Yugoslavian, saying that I was Muslim was too much of a reference to religion. It was not a cultural identity, it was all about religion. Now I understand that it is not about religion, it is about faith.’ Samir was evoking a sentiment that I was yet to encounter. For the rest of the afternoon he explained how he had only recently realized

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what it was to truly be Muslim. For him that meant that an awareness and deference to Allah informed his actions.

A Muslim Reversion ‘We all were punished with the war. That was meant to be a wakeup call but for some it was not enough. It certainly was not enough for me’, he said, with a kind of smirk. ‘Now I have had my own punishment and I realize what it is to be Muslim.’ Samir spoke of a period of personal anguish that he experienced between the times we met at the Bosniak meetings until recently. He spoke of punishment, or as he later said, a ‘personal jihad,’ he waged with himself. ‘Collective punishment is one thing. I have been thinking about my own personal history, the wrongs that I have committed and how I might rectify them.’ ‘Something like the steps of the AA, Alcoholics Anonymous programme?’ I blurted, thinking, well, that might be an overstatement, perhaps hoping rather than reasoning that this comment might lighten the mood. Samir was not receptive to my joke. I almost jeopardized the interview. ‘Sorry’, I appealed. He nodded, forgiving what he considered to be my lack of judgement and continued. ‘It is more than simply apologizing for hurt I have caused but it is about repaying debts. It is about repaying debts.’ ‘How is this punishment? Seems like, as some people say, karma.’ ‘It is punishment. It is not the external punishment of natural disaster or the disaster of a war but it is a punishment.’ ‘A Dostoyevskian guilt?’, I ventured. Samir nodded, ‘The punishment that I experienced was a burden. It was a burden that I carried within me. My mind was preoccupied with the guilt of a range of small and big wrongs that I committed, from the candy I stole as a child, to fibs I told my parents, to the office supplies I took from work. All I could notice was what was wrong. I kept wanting to apologize, to fix these mistakes until I realized that it would take me a lifetime to do so. I felt it was too much of a burden. I felt that it might be easier to take my own life than to

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cause more pain to other people. But I did not. Listen, I did not and I will not’, Samir appealed, sensing my anxiety. I had not anticipated that this was where the conversation was going. ‘That is not what Muslims do,’ he stressed, with a gentle reassuring look on his face. ‘Then other things started happening. I had the feeling that I was being followed, that I was always being watched. I thought that people knew what I had done or that I was being accused. I felt that people were provoking me, that they wanted to aggravate me, that they were purposely offending me as a Muslim to get my reaction’ ‘Baiting you? Trying to get you to react? Overreact?’ ‘It was as though I was being tested. That people were watching me. That they were watching my every move and even wanting me to overreact so that they could accuse me of being a terrorist.’ Samir’s voice faltered. I could sense his fear. My mind started racing and my heart palpitating. I was feeling unsafe and insecure. Samir was talking about things I could not fathom. He was talking about being outside himself and it provoked what I thought could be similar sensations. My mind quickly searched for some literature, a reference to something familiar that I could use in order to grasp what he was saying. I recalled pop songs with references to ‘private eyes’,1 ‘every step you take I am watching you’2 and of ‘seeing the light’. I recalled poetry written by sociologists about surveillance. I recalled some academic texts I had read about psychosis and about people feeling that they were under police surveillance or that they had secretly been recruited to act as undercover agents themselves. I figured that since Samir was a politically active Muslim man, in the contemporary climate it might not simply be a case of paranoia, that his telephone was actually tapped and his mail was being intercepted.3 ‘Who did you think was watching you?’, I ventured. Samir laughed, a nervous laugh. Nevertheless, he continued: ‘I had different sensations but I think it was my grandfather (may he rest in peace) watching me’, Samir continued.

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During the interview I did not completely understand what Samir was saying but he continued to generously speak about his experiences and share his thoughts about his personal struggles. All I could do then was ask the occasional question, although mostly I nodded so that he knew I was listening if not fully comprehending. Below are segments of the interview. ‘I felt that the souls of the past had been disturbed and my grandfather was overseeing all of my actions. It was not simply that he was watching – he was judging. I went through various phases of confessing, apologizing, seeking to repay people money and favours. I do not know exactly when but this guilt ceased, and I had different experiences.’ ‘I was fearful that I would commit all wrongs and withdrew from people. I even stopped going to the Bosniak events. This fear then metamorphosed into anger. I was full of anger. Anger toward the injustices in the world. I felt that every decision was a life or death decision. That one incorrect choice meant that I was bringing my death closer. I felt trapped and did not trust myself. I looked for external stimuli for assistance.’ ‘The first thing I did was visit my grandfather’s grave. I was seeing his double. People I passed on the street reminded me of him. He had been awakened and needed to be put in peace. It was as though it was a reminder for me to respect my heritage. And it was true I could not remember the last time I had visited his grave.’ ‘Following this, I came to be more at peace with myself. I realized that it was not my grandfather who was watching me but that it was Allah.’ ‘I started reading more. Praying five times a day. And with that I have realized that this is the correct path for me. All that I went through was for me to realize that I am Muslim. Do you know what my name means?’ ‘No’, I said, confused and dizzy by all that Samir had said to me. ‘Say it slowly’, he suggested. ‘Samir. Saamirrr.’ ‘Listen. Samir. Sa mir. Do you understand?’ ‘Sa mir. Ohhh!’, I said.

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Samir, a given personal name, is considered a Muslim name in the Bosnian context and is not considered to have any inherent meaning in the Bosnian language. When it is divided into syllables, i.e. ‘Sa Mir’, those two syllables represent words. ‘Sa’, translated into English means ‘with’. ‘Mir’, translated into English means ‘peace’. Samir wanted me to accept that the inherent meaning of his name was, ‘With peace’.4 I could not accept what he was saying. I responded, ‘Hold on a minute. You are not going to tell me that all words have a hidden meaning? What about the meaning of Bosnia? “Boos naa”.5 We are not barefoot?’, I joked. Samir smiled politely and continued his narration. He spoke how the end to his personal anguish came when he discovered this meaning to his name and in extension his essence, and how with all this he came to learn of his insignificance vis-a`-vis the world. Through this Samir claimed an essence to his identity. This essence was constituted through a deference to Allah, and a submission to his faith in Islam. I understood that what Samir experienced others refer to in the Christian faith as a re-birth. However, the concept akin to a born again Christian, i.e. a born again Muslim, does not exist. Instead, some Muslims refer to this experience as reversion. I asked Samir about other references to peace within Islam and he spoke about the already well known narrative of Islam being a religion of peace and of the greeting ‘Eselamu alejkem’ being a call to peace. His mention of the greeting triggered my memory and prompted me to ask him about the confrontation with Dedo at the Bosniak meeting, which seemed so long ago. ‘To be honest I was angry. I felt it was unnecessary to make that comment. Why should it matter what greeting I used when it was clear that only we Bosniaks were there and we gathered for the purpose of strengthening our community. Now I see that ‘Selam’ is the greeting we should use. ‘Selam’ is peace. We should always call peace – that should be our purpose in all our dealings with the world.’ As my gaze turned to my watch, the ever so attentive Samir interpreted that as an indication that I wanted to leave. ‘I am sure that a young person such as yourself has more interesting things to do than listen to me all day’, he said and with

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that, despite my protestations, the interview ended. Samir, however, said, he would arrange for me to speak with his wife and some other people who shared his ‘view of the world’. During my train journey home, I occupied myself with imaginings of Samir’s story of disturbed and awakened spirits. I understood that he meant a spiritual awakening, unlike the tired narratives of zombie movies. In Samir’s version, the spirits of the dead emerged to seek reparations for past injustices. While these imaginings of awakened spirits were interesting and a fanciful diversion, I realized I was getting carried away. I was not creating a script for a film, a dissertation needed to be written and the focus was to be redirected to what Samir’s experience revealed about Australian-Bosnian-Muslim identities. Samir’s experiences of fear, of sensations of surveillance and foreboding, were mentioned by other participants who had turned to Islam while in Australia, for them being Muslim was not produced out of rebellion and spite from the circumstances of war. Islam was also in their hearts, as many said, but the experiences were not always peace evoking. Samir’s narrative reveals an experience in which Islam and Muslim identification becomes the primary determinant in one’s view of self and one which informs their interaction with other living beings. Samir was revealing an insistence upon the essentialization of identity (Baumann, 1996; 1999). Being Muslim was how he constituted himself. According to Samir, his embrace of Muslim identity emerged in response to internal reflection about metaphysical matters. The prevailing political context, with its heightened focus on Muslims, their ability and willingness to integrate into Western societies and their status as potential threats, did not feature in his narrative.

Essential Identities Samir’s discussion of his name prompted me to consider whether there was an inherent meaning to my own name. Lejla in the Arabic is Laila and can be translated as, night. I wondered whether that

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meant I was inherently dark, morose and possibly pessimistic. I was not convinced. Some suggested that this name derived from or was a reference to the auspicious and mysterious night during the month of Ramadan, the Lailat al-Kadr.6 During this night, some say, one’s deepest wishes are to be voiced and those wishes will be granted. Samir’s statement about not trusting himself impacted upon me and I thought that, although I liked the idea of wishes, I came to think I could not trust that I knew enough and could determine what was right in order to voice a wish. Samir became mesmerized, it seemed, by looking for the inherent meaning to things, to words specifically. I thought of Wittgenstein’s (1958) warning that one should not get mesmerized by such things and instead one should focus on what the words do rather than a magic that they are thought to possess. Samir was a name, a personal name. ‘Eselamu alejkum’ was a greeting, an opening to a conversation, an invitation to open lines of communication. Dedo’s intervention was not simply about demarcating lines of belonging, it was demarcating lines of authority. Thus, knowing where one is is not about knowing what string of words to use, but knowing who has the authority to impose a will over what string of words can be uttered. Samir’s acceptance that ‘Selam’ was the greeting Muslims should use came through an acquiescence that he was a Muslim who deferred to Allah and the Qur’an. His identity as Muslim was not relational in the regard that he stood in opposition to Christians, Hindus, Jews. Rather it was relational in the regard that he positioned himself toward a metaphysical entity that was beyond his comprehension and beyond his will. He acknowledged Allah as the authority, and his worldview and practices were determined by this submission. He explained these ideas at subsequent meetings.

Inflexible Muslims People do essentialize identities. People do claim that there is an essence which defines who they are, and so Muslim identification can be experienced in this manner. It is not a decision, but a directive for

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how one lives.7 It is no longer a question of fluidity and flexibility but it considered an essential identity that imbues them with purpose, confidence and, as Shahronki wrote, ‘a sense of comfort and community.’ However, it need not be so. Being Muslim can also be considered the point of departure for discomfort. To be Muslim one needs to live like a Muslim and as one of Samir’s friends, Abla8 said: Being Muslim is not like choosing something from a menu. Today I will be Muslim, and I will wear the hijab and experience discrimination. Then I will know how it is to be Muslim. No! Being Muslim is about your thoughts, your actions. It is in everything. Similar sentiment was relayed to me by other friends of Samir and a distinct theme was emerging, one that pointed to the transformative impulses of religious thought and practice. Bosnian identification was auxiliary, subordinate to the primacy of Muslim identity. Discourses perpetuating fear of Muslims in the West are often driven by accusations that Muslims place a primacy on their religious identity and that such people choose loyalty to their religion over loyalty to the nation state and the people with whom they share citizenship. Muslims are increasingly asked and placed in positions to prove their loyalty, their fidelity to the nation state, and with this are pressed to answer for the deeds of other Muslims. The primacy of Islam for Muslims is undeniable, for that is a question of the metaphysical and this cannot be equated with and connected to questions of loyalty to other humans. I asked Samir about fear, the fears that some people such as the late Aunt Huria experienced. He once again generously shared his experience and with this put Aunt Huria’s experiences into a new perspective of understanding for me. Unfortunately, by then, these new avenues in conversation I was unable to pursue with Aunt Huria. ‘Is it an awareness?’, I asked, as I thought I was getting the feel for what people were explaining. Clearly, however, the terminology

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Samir and I were appropriating to explain this experience was not the same. ‘What do you mean?’, he asked. ‘Awareness is like being aware of how you comport yourself. For example, when fasting during the month of Ramadan9 I recognize that I behave differently. I am more aware of my actions, how I might . . . ’ I stumbled thinking of an example, I was going to say that I felt a need to be kinder. It seemed that this was a well known experience, for Samir interrupted with, ‘Yes! But it is not just about being kind and generous. That is what too many people say. They say, Islam is peace. No, it is not simply about peace, it is also about a fear. A fear of being . . . ’ I interrupted with, ‘the police?’ ‘No, I do not fear humans. You know, I told you of the fears I experienced, so these questions about fearing losing my citizenship cannot equate with the fears of one’s existence. You are an academic, a scholar, think about the forms of authority to which you answer. To whom do you answer when you write your book? Well, yes, see there are guidelines you need to follow to be successful. That is so in all. Islam is a guide for life, for living a life of discipline. It is about being disciplined. Look at body builders, wrestlers, professional athletes’. His gaze was direct and intense. I seemed to remember that Samir had gentle eyes yet this time he looked at me with an intense stare. His eyes were wide and he did not blink when he spoke. He waved his arms about as he spoke, directing my attention to the window. The sky was blue, the sun was shining brightly, I had hoped that we would sit outside again in the fresh air but Samir said it was more comfortable in the lounge, where the air conditioning cooled the room. As my gaze strayed too long on the sun’s rays that fell gently on the pot plant next to the tv cabinet (apparently that species of plant absorbed the radiation emitted by the television), Samir cleared his throat, wanting me to refocus on him and his explanation. I looked again at Samir. Since the last time we met he had grown a short and neat beard. His beard was black with a few stray grey hairs.

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‘Look’, Samir said pointing to an image of an athletic and yet to be shamed Tiger Woods. ‘Do you remember the advert in which he was training in the rain?’ I nodded. I did know. Sometimes I would think of it, it served as motivation when I was feeling too lazy to attend aikido training. ‘All these people have a discipline. They have developed a high degree of discipline into their daily lives. While most of us are sleeping, they are working out, building their endurance, their muscles, and perfecting their techniques. That discipline is why they are successful in their chosen fields. Being Muslim requires discipline. Praying five times a day requires being aware of the time and organizing yourself so that you factor in prayers. Imagine waking up before dawn, in winter, when the bed is so cozy and leaving the warmth of the bed, stepping over cold tiles in order to pray.’ ‘Well, when it is Ramadan, I do try. I umm . . . ’, I mumbled, not knowing why I felt a compulsion to justify and prove myself. ‘No! This is every day! Every day!’ ‘Well, umm, yes, that requires a, [I was going to say commitment but stopped myself and opted for] dedication.’ ‘It is not, simply dedication, as you say.’ Samir’s contrarian attitude was beginning to annoy me. ‘Being Muslim is about an attitude to yourself and to the world. For example, if I was to stop praying I could no longer call myself Muslim. This is not only because it is written in the Qur’an but because it means I have stopped being disciplined, that I do not live every moment of everyday thinking and acting in the Islamic way.’ ‘I thought the Islamic way was about peace. Is not the definition of ‘Selam’, peace? That everything you do is about creating peace for yourself and the world?’ ‘Peace is important. Yes, peace is important.’ Samir squinted, his intense eyes, thinking how to best formulate his thoughts. ‘Being Muslim is about trying to connect with Allah.’ Just then the phone rang. ‘Ah, you see, what I say is the truth.’ The idea of connecting to Allah, how one connects and what this meant for Samir and his friends intrigued me.

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‘What is the opening verse of the Qur’an?’ Samir asked as he walked back to the lounge room in which I sat. ‘Al-fatiha?’ ‘Yes. What are the words?’ ‘Bismillahi r-rahmani r-raheem. Al hamdu lilaahi rabbi l alameen . . . . ‘I stopped. ‘How far do you want me to go, I said embarrassed that I hadn’t memorized more than a few lines. Five-year-old children can recite more verses than I’, I thought. ‘What do those words you have spoken mean?’ ‘In the name of Allah, the infinitely beneficent and merciful. All the praises and thanks goes to Allah, the Lord of all that exists . . . ’ ‘That is precisely the point. In the Qur’an it says Allah is there. But do we know him? Are we conscious of him? ‘How can you be conscious of something like Allah? ‘Are you a believer?’ I did not like the direction the interview was taking. I noticed some ‘How to pray’, ‘What is the meaning of Islam’ educational pamphlets on the side table. They were not there last time, I thought. Well, I could not remember them being there. I feared that this was a reversion attempt and that Samir was trying to score some points with Allah, or ‘sevab’10 as Bosnian Muslims would say, by bringing the Muslim back to Islam, i.e. to revert me. ‘Is consciousness of Allah something akin to those wrist bands Christian youth wear these days, WWJD?’, I asked. Initially, this comparison made Samir uncomfortable. Initially, he rejected the thought that his practices were similar to those of Christians. Initially, he grimaced at my suggestion and waved his hand to dismiss the idea as nonsense. Once this objection, and I might even venture to say, hostility, subsided he explained that that could be a useful comparison, but that it was not the same experience. ‘From what I understand, those wristbands with the words What Would Jesus Do are intended to remind the wearer of the need to be generous, forgiving and kind to people. It is intended to remind them that they need to think of more than themselves. I think that real Christians, those who believe, are similar to Muslims. I am not

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talking about those who think about Jesus as God, because a person cannot be God, that is not the same thing. I am talking about those who believe in God. Believing in that might that is around us. That is about what I am talking!’ ‘What happens when you believe in that might?’ ‘I must act accordingly. I must act respectfully and with each thought and action acknowledge Allah.’ ‘How is that achieved?’ ‘It is all written in the Qur’an. There are prayers that are to be recited before certain actions. Let us say when I am cooking, I begin cooking with “Bismillah”. There are specific prayers to be recited before sleeping and even before sexual relations.’ Samir’s explanations of recitation spoke of the ritualization of daily activities. These activities ceased to be mundane chores. Through the ritualization of recitation, Samir reminded himself of the metaphysical presence. His presence of mind meant that each activity was meaningful, imbued with a significance and sacred, for if the sacred is always present then each thought and action consequently can be considered imbued with a sacredness. Allah was present for Samir. How he felt it, I could not know and he was not able to formulate it in words for me. However, through his actions, he practiced an awareness of Allah and with this explained that no action was secular. ‘There is something the Australian Aboriginal people do. They have a connection to the land and we do not have that. Now I realize I have a connection to the sky, that means wherever I am on this land, I belong, I have a connection to the planet earth that does not know national boundaries. Allah is everywhere. Where Allah is I am at home.’ He urged, ‘You are an investigator. Think, feel, get to know the world around you and then you will understand.’

Emotions of Islam In his experience of finding himself as a Muslim, Samir experienced a range of sensations. The fear of being watched lead to sensations

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of distrust. He felt he was being watched but was uncertain who was watching. This meant that, at one stage, he was almost suspicious of everyone. Such distrust impacted detrimentally upon his social relationships. He started to question the sincerity of his friends – he thought that they were involved in a conspiracy against him. At one stage, he said he could not trust himself and the validity of his decisions, he questioned his knowledge and his life’s decisions. From fear a contentment emerged for Samir. He spoke about an intensity of contentment and feared that he would lose these sensations. He spoke about friends who had also turned to Islam with a passion, and how their resolve, their intensity, over time was lost. These people, he said with some disappointment, had at some stage spoken so energetically and with so much conviction of the righteousness of their faith. He feared that that would happen to him. We spoke, trying to identify possible reasons for the loss of emotion. ‘I think they became too concerned with everyday things’, Samir ventured. Sensing – as opposed to practicing – Islam was the distinction that Samir was making. Samir revealed that for Abla those emotions no longer existed but she continued to maintain a loyalty to her identity as Muslim and did so through its practice. Practicing Islam meant doing the requisite activities specified in the Qur’an and Hadith.11 Abla prayed, although not so diligently, Samir gossiped. Praying needed to fit around all the other tasks that daily life required. She said the correct things, abstained from what was haram and sought to interact with the world in peaceful means. Faith and belief were no longer the domain of the sensuous. Rather they became the domain of reason. Indeed, on our first meeting, Abla lectured me on the advancements in science and how they confirmed what was written in the holy book. ‘Do you know why pig meat is haram?’, she quizzed me. ‘Scientists reveal that it contains the highest proportion of bacteria that can lead to salmonella poisoning. It is the most unhealthy form of meat for man to consume’, she claimed. This sentence seemed to encapsulate Abla’s approach to religion, or this was the extent that

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she was prepared to reveal to me, a stranger who asked inquisitive questions. Although I was ostensibly a stranger in Abla’s life, conversations with many others with whom closer and trusting relationships had been developed also revealed a preference for discussions of the practice of Islam rather than the sensations that produced Muslim identity. ‘Do this and do not do that’ was the initial and dominant mode of discussion around Islam. ‘You need to eat with your right hand!’ I would hear younger people scold their elders. ‘You did not say “Elhamdulilah”, you must say “Elhamdulilah” after each meal’ I would be advised. ‘The month of Ramadan is soon. Will you be fasting? It is one’s duty to fast’ people would, intentionally or not, pressure and guilt each other. Indeed, in these instances, being Muslim was presented as being a practical matter of identity. Samir’s wife explained how for her wearing the shawl was not about a declaration intended for other people about her own identification with Islam and with Muslims. Some women explained that they wore the shawl as a statement of solidarity, an expression of identity. Others said they did so for feminist reasons explaining that they wanted to challenge the objectification of women and in explaining this sentiment would say, ‘Judge me for my ideas and not for my looks.’ Rather than it being a communicative device, Samir’s wife spoke of the shawl as a reminder for her to keep the emotions of her faith in Allah. ‘Wearing the shawl is about a fear. A fear of Allah, who is all seeing and all knowing. I started to wear the shawl for protection. I experienced a fear similar to Samir’, she said, looking at her husband, in what seemed to be an appeal, seeking confirmation that it was safe to share this with me. ‘I wore it because I felt exposed. I felt looked at and revealed. That feeling subsided but now I wear it to remind me that I need to hold on to those sensations of fear and of the presence of Allah.’ The shawl, thus, is not referential to other people, it is not for identity. For Samir’s wife, it is protection, it is submission, not to and from other people, but to Allah.

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I asked Samir about this, for he had spoken to me about the discipline of being a Muslim and I was curious how this fit with the idea of a sensuous experience with faith. In speaking about his friends, he said, ‘They got stuck in the machine and forgot to see the divine. I see the divine.’ He uttered those words and I felt that he held and wanted to guard those sensations with a jealousy and that if he lost those sensations he would have lost himself again. These experiences spoke of the personal aspects of being Muslim: individual qualities of feeling Muslim as an emotional condition and of being Muslim as a life purpose. Doing so evoked a sense of foreboding of impending death (Freud, 1919) but also it seemed to produce a form of a liberation that came with the realization of the limits of human existence and inspired awe for the metaphysical presence.

Rationalizing Islam Abla’s appeal to scientific discourse as a way of justifying her adherence to religion was one way that people reasoned that belief was reasonable. However, it was not simply a belief in a metaphysical presence but an intense emotionality associated with that which Samir had conveyed. I suggested that perhaps his turning to Islam offered a rationalization for the irrational of the irrational. The irrationality of the fears he experienced, the sensations of being followed and watched, and the anguish and ultimate awe he experienced of the world could be explained through an embrace of Islam. The Qur’an spoke of the omnipresence of the unknowable and it was this that he had experienced. The Qur’an offered conceptualizations and put into words, the sensations that Samir had experienced. Rather than an appeal to a medicalized discourse of psychosis, or political discourses of racism and marginalization, the discourse of religion resonated with him. Medicalized discourses are often used to account for the experiences Samir underwent. Jung (1933) has suggested that such shifts occur as part of the life cycle, that such experiences reflect cases of mental depression and these have come to be understood colloquially as mid-

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life crises. Jung writes of individuals progressing through phases, i.e. living life driven by instinct to coming to live a life of control and reason. He suggests this happens as people begin to question what is deemed a natural and normal mode of behaviour. Tensions or even crises arise as people confront conflicts between instinctive behaviour and reasoned behaviour. Rather than understanding such conflicts as inherent tensions, it might be useful to consider this in terms of another term that Jung (1933) uses: consciousness. Although Jung utilizes the term consciousness to refer to one’s movement from nature to culture, i.e. from sensuously driven behaviour to reasoned behaviour, consciousness might be considered as a conflict when one realizes and is disrupted by an awareness of competing discourses that attempt to explain the world. For example, the limits of normality can be assessed and explained through competing discourses. Medicalized discourses compete with geopolitical discourses to explain the behaviour of individuals and collectives. Whilst Jung writes of individuals as progressing through phases of instinctively driven to rational behaviour, geopolitical discourses characterize entire nations as civilized and others as barbaric. With this, some local discourses such as the emergent war discourses in Bosnia characterize those who identify with a religion or with an ethno-national identity as people driven by instinct and hence irrational and abnormal (in contrast to those who engage in controlled and restrained behaviour).12 Geopolitical discourses reveal that some populations are characterized as inherently instinctive, passionate and potentially barbaric, as opposed to others who are rational, restrained and refined (Herzfeld, 1987). Awareness of such alternative and competing discourses, their possibilities for producing alternative articulations through which to view self, others, the world, can be a painful experience. In these instances, an anguish is experienced as one opposes oneself in order to come to a new consciousness of the world. This experience might be akin to the condition of outsiderness. Outsiders are, in terms of the immigrant experience, sometimes referred to as foreigners. In the Bosnian language, ‘stranci’ (foreigners) is evoked and often used interchangeably with ‘migranti’ [migrants]

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and thus is a referent made in relation to the Australian born, principally those of Anglo heritage. The use of such terms is an indication of the assimilation of a discourse that demarcates the lines between migrants/ethnics/foreigners/outsiders and locally born/ autochthonous/Australians. In these instances, it is accepted that an outsider/migrant/foreigner is one who behaves awkwardly, requires lessons in linguistics, whose elocution and enunciation is experienced as frustratingly incorrect and whose etiquette is often incomprehensible and misunderstood. It is considered that time, as well as an effort toward acculturation, will teach what is permissible and what is not, what may cause offence, and that with this one day they will cease being and experiencing life as a migrant from a position of foreignerness. Samir had acculturated. He spoke English well with a distinctly English accent and had integrated his life’s activities into various economic and social domains. He, one could argue, ceased to be an outsider. However, he reached a critical juncture in his life when all his activities and pursuits seemed strange to him, his actions a burden upon himself and others and with this he came to question his life and worldview. He occupied a status of outsiderness and once again sought to find stability to his life. The cognitive discordance that Samir experienced was not about not knowing but rather about not accepting prevailing ways of understanding and interacting with the world. Samir questioned his job, his activities, and questioned the ‘natural attitude’ (Marotta, 2012a) or supposed essentialized notions of how one should behave in a certain context. Samir came to un-know and question the world that had become familiar. Jung (1933) writes about this in terms of questioning our instincts and challenging natural instincts. Instead, we might consider this not as a challenge to natural instincts but rather a challenge to what has come to be considered a natural instinct. The distinction here is important because, as Bourdieu (2003) has written, common sense is imbued with a range of assumptions and connotations and rests upon the dominance of discourses which have become internalized. This can also be referred to as hegemony. The questioning of common sense is unsettling, for it questions the

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bases of assumed knowledge and disrupts one’s prevailing worldview. The awareness of the ability to transgress, diverge and question the supposed order of things in the world we occupy creates anxieties, and Jung (1933) posits that it creates feelings of foreboding. The act of questioning, i.e. of seeking a consciousness for existence as it is, Jung suggests is the source of problems. It is not simply questioning that disrupts one’s life. The condition of experiencing a cognitive discordance with the familiar, of being an outsider to what was known, is confounding. Without an alternative grounding, without an alternative view of the world, one’s sense and purpose of being is in a precarious state. For Samir, Islam provided an alternative and to him acceptable rationalization. As he came to question where he was and who he was and what it meant to be here and now and to be Samir, he reached a different consciousness about the world. Through Islam and a belief in Allah he was able to account for the strange occurrences in his life, for the awe and helplessness he felt and immense range of sensations he experienced. He did not appeal to discourses of Islamophobia as Aunt Huria had to explain his sensations of fear. In hearing about Samir’s experience of Islam, i.e. of seeing the world from a new wonder, I recalled the dictum, ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’ but now understood it from a different perspective and a new significance because, for Samir, Islam allowed for and prompted a new consciousness, an awareness of knowing where he was, that imbued him with an ease. In explaining similar experiences, Jung suggests that changes to morality occur: some values are dismissed, others are hardened. Jung wrote that one’s moral principles ‘begin to harden and grow increasingly rigid until, somewhere towards the age of fifty, a period of intolerance and fanaticism is reached’ (Jung, 1933:120). He goes on to write, ‘It is then as if the existence of these principles was endangered, and it were therefore necessary to emphasize them all the more.’ The suggestion is that oftentimes a fanaticism or even fundamentalism emerges in response to a perceived threat to values. Jung writes about this in term of personality shifts. However,

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similar logic is applied to explanations in the emergence of political fundamentalism. The current trope suggests that globalization presents a disruption to culture and stability resulting in an emergent ‘hardening’ of principles. In Samir’s case whilst his faith was strengthened, his political ideology was not. Samir had achieved a sense of belongingness to the world and this sense supplanted concerns about integration to society.13 Submission for Samir was an experience of freedom, for it was a freedom from ego. By recognizing an authority beyond himself, Samir found an experience of peace. The awe and wonder of the metaphysical inspired and simultaneously dulled, for it awakened him spiritually but subdued the anger, fear and tensions with material matters that had been a source of bother. The quietude of submission was attainment of a sense of belonging in and to the world.

CHAPTER 5 ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AND LINES OF AUTHORITY

The notion of belonging appears frequently in anthropological accounts of migratory and settlement experiences. Used to refer to a range of attachments, from those migrants maintain with homelands, to those they establish in new places of settlement, belonging can activate loyalty to multiple communities. Belonging captures the various experiences of social inclusion. Different contexts may evoke different imaginings and a range of identifications such as ethnicity, religion; or class may work to delineate the possibilities and parameters of belonging. That the varied experiences of belonging are predominately understood with reference to sensuality is clear from the oft-used phrase, ‘sense of belonging’. This sense cannot and should not be denied, for it is through an emotional response that belonging is experienced. Benedict Anderson (2006:141–6) has contended that such emotionality compels individuals to sacrifice themselves for the national community. This focus on emotions, while of critical importance, has tended to overshadow the practices involved. Beyond the sensual resonance of connection with a community, ‘practices and experiences’ (Anthias, 2006:21) are ways through which belonging is created and maintained. Practicing belonging was encountered continually throughout the research process. Belonging was not simply about feeling acceptance from the collective with whom one interacted, it also entailed performing in order to achieve acceptance.

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Samir’s and my own use of greetings was just one example of the way words could be used to affirm or deny one’s right to be in a particular collective. The performativity of belonging, thus, involves learning and then actively enacting contextually appropriate modes of being, whether this means using the correct greeting, requesting the right coffee or demonstrating a sufficient knowledge of Bosnian geography and appreciation of landscapes. Belonging can be understood by considering participatory acts as the means through which individuals define themselves as one among others and establish sentiments of belonging. While belonging is about an articulation of social membership, there are nuances to its presupposition that should be considered. To belong can be understood to mean: 1. to be connected to a group, to have close association to a group; 2. to be accepted as part of a group and to be a member of a group. These two definitions evoke the notion of an active association. Another, and perhaps more interesting, aspect to belonging/s is its reference to ownership. A belonging is a reference that something is the property of someone, i.e. to belong can be considered in terms of ownership and possessiveness. When understood in these terms belonging is about being positioned as an object often considered in terms of one’s natural state. In this way, belonging can be considered through the grammar of materiality and possession/s. Such a definition of belonging proffers that one is owned. This may be a confronting proposition, since the postmodern concern with agency imbues the individual with liberalist freedoms and the potentiality in claiming and living through a multiplicity of identities. Even within this postmodern context, as with all contexts, authorities exist, and so it is for one to determine whose authority one accepts or is unable to challenge. Samir’s experience of religion was more than cerebral. For Samir, it was more than about what he believed, it was also about what he practiced. The practice of Islam was a means through which he recognized and interacted with a power. In Bosnian Muslim terminology, he became a slave to Allah. Allah was the power, the

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authority to whom Samir submitted, and whose object he became. Samir’s cosmological outlook was no longer dictated nor limited by the tangible. He spoke of other sensations and explanations that evoked and sought to realize engagement with a force that surrounded him. This sacred forced meant that, for the time being at least, the profane ceased to exist. The force according to Samir was Allah, and as he said, he belonged to Allah. Samir’s embrace of this status began with his pursuit to find the essential meaning to his name as a means of finding the essential meaning and purpose of his existence. Samir practiced belonging to Allah by following the doctrine of the Qur’an and Hadith and with this achieved a status of quietude. Whilst Samir deferred to Allah, he did not dismiss his obligations and duties as a citizen. For other Australian-Bosnian-Muslims it was the state, and their obligations as citizens to which they deferred in the first instance. Being a citizen took precedence: thus, they were objectified through the primacy of their resignation to the authority of the nation state. These ideas became clear at the last series of Australian-Bosnian-Muslim events I attended.

Eid Celebration The next time I met with Dedo and Samir was for Eid, Ramazanski Bajram, the festival celebrating the end of the month of Ramadan. A special event had been organized at the mosque at which Samir was an active participant. He invited me especially to attend. He said it would be an Eid unlike any other. It was. The mosque was full, as it always was for Eid. However, what was different were the activities that were organized for the afternoon festivities. A formal programme had been scheduled: visitors, speakers and performances had been booked months in advance. The event, I was to find, was not simply a celebration, it was a political statement. In previous years, I had attended the events organized during the month of Ramadan and Eid, especially Eid al-Fitr at the various mosques. During the month of Ramadan there is a greater sense of excitement at the mosque particularly in the evening prayers after

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the iftar.1 During Eid, prayers, some songs in veneration of Allah, followed by socializing with cakes and coffee was, I had come to know, the standard and yet familiar and comforting programme. The programme did not make any political overtures, no ostentatious declaration of allegiance to anyone other than Allah, and the language spoken and the songs sung in the Bosnian language worked to create a sense of communal Australian-BosnianMuslim identity. The Eid celebration on this occasion differed in that this was a well considered multicultural event. Albanian, Lebanese, Macedonian and Turkish speakers and performers were listed on the programme. Muslims of various ethnicities participated. Speeches were in English and prayers in Arabic. There was an attempt at creating a sense of unity, a new take on multiculturalism in Australia, one in which religion was not treated as a supra ethnic form of identification – religion was to unite and bring together people of various ethnonational backgrounds. Turkish songs in veneration of Allah were performed, speakers spoke of the unity of Muslims regardless of ethnicity, and references were made to the shared circumstances in which we found ourselves. The Bosnian mosque had for that moment been transformed into a multicultural Muslim space with appeals and evocations to a nonethnic Muslim identity. It was clear that the event had been organized and people brought together due to the dominance of discourses about exclusion and accusations of the non-integration of Muslims. This was an appeal to Muslims to recognize their similarities and participate in collective action. Local level politicians, guests to the mosque, spoke of our shared belonging to a broader Muslim community, an umma, i.e. people united in their belief of Allah and their identification as Muslim. They conveyed a notion of shared identification, of belonging, solidarity with people that spanned and transgressed the bounds of nation states. They sought to suggest that citizenry belonging was not, and could not be, limited by legal frameworks. As a legal-judicial status, being a citizen of an umma does not exist. However, in the minds and hearts of Muslims, they suggested that it

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could be a reality – the paper, that was to bind, them/ us, was not a citizenship certificate but rather the holy pages of the Qur’an. An appeal to a localized umma was made and some had responded to this call. Intimations to the cosmopolitanism of a Muslim umma emerged with notions that the umma could transcend national identities, transgress and challenge the prevailing political institutions and identities associated with the nation state. The umma could be considered a supra national form of identification. Citizenship to an umma was to be performed through expressions of solidarity and the speakers suggested that this could be pursued through: emotional and material support for the Palestinian cause, enrolling children in Islamic schools (this point emphasized by a guest speaker who was a principal of such a school), participating in Australian civic life through visible and vocal expressions of Muslim identity (this point made by a local level politician), and the organization of events in the future similar to the one at which we were present. The vested interest of the speakers was clear and despite the appeal to notions of shared interest and shared identity, differences between the guests and the local Australian-Bosnian-Muslim dzematlije2 persisted. In this instance, the multicultural paradigm with its privileging of ethno-national identification prevailed as the means through which people differentiated amongst themselves. People and groups continued to be named in relation to their ethnonational heritage and the language of their ancestors. Indeed, after this event, no other active participation emerged from this mosque, or from Dedo or other members who suggested that an umma awareness was significant. Muslim identities continued to reference ethno-national modes of identification. Rather, what emerged was a realization about the way political mobilization cohered around the victimization of Muslims.

Mobilizing Multicultural Muslims The event may be interpreted as an instance in which some sought to mobilize people through the treatment of Muslim as a political identity. The instrumentalism of the meeting was clear, echoing

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Ðibrail’s words, ‘One does not live in isolation but in community. You never know when and where you will need others for help’ and in this instance, Muslims were being brought together in what seemed to be an appeal for cooperation. As I suggested earlier, identities are relational, they are constituted in contexts for various purposes and in reference to other collectives. Collective identification and mobilization of identities is often pursued for the purpose of creating a critical mass that may evoke change, or at least vocalize dissatisfaction with contemporaneous conditions. Political movements are continually created and sustained in light of contemporaneous concerns. The coming together of Muslims is less, as Moghissi (2006) suggests, about an unproblematic sharing of vales but rather an urgent reaction to contemporary grievances, responses to perceived threats to a dignified sense of self. Indeed, acts of exclusion within society are a strong impetus for the creation of diasporic movements (Faist, 2004; So¨kefeld, 2006). From this perspective, the instrumentalism of a collective, multicultural Muslim identity emerged clearly in relation to the prevailing discourses of discrimination and Islamophobia. Beyond a generic appeal to community and connectedness, there was not a clear agenda nor plan for action ventured by the speakers. If their intention was to evince change, the change they wanted was not voiced. Indeed, if considering whether this gathering was intended to mobilize Muslims for action, I could not hear, see nor identify the changes sought by the speakers for any kind of change to institutional structures and/or informal power relations in the Australian national political system as is the dominant procedure in the organization of political movements (Kurzman, 1996; Goodwin and Jasper, 2003). For a political movement to be effective, conflicting actors, their perspectives and interests in the conflict, need to be identified (Touraine, 1985). Whilst the conditions and sentiment within the community may have been ready and receptive for action, no direct course was suggested. Specific grievances beyond the call to an end to the victimization of Muslims were not extended. The presenters spoke of the predicament of Palestinians as an appeal to the shared suffering and victimization of Muslims. In this

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instance, references to a generic West, a generic Muslim community, were ineffectual in clarifying the lines of contention and in evoking the emotion of a diverse yet unified Muslim community with mutual interests. The metaphysical aspect that is to unite Muslims was strikingly absent in this gathering held at a mosque. Rather, identity and ideology were treated as the primary concerns of Muslims. Indeed this occurs in scholarly work (Akbarzadeh and Mansouri, 2007) where those who are categorized as practicing Muslims are considered to be ideologically Islamist.3 The difference might be less about how Islam is felt and more about how and for what purposes it is used. Thus, at this gathering, an emotive connection to community was missing. I did not feel it amongst the people around me – their chatter and their talk afterward confirmed my own sentiment. The significance of the sensuous, and emotions of community, are often absent in structurally deterministic explanations of the causes of group political mobilization. Indeed, explanations offered to account for actions committed in the name of a collective privilege the long view of structural configurations and reconfigurations of states and their nations. Often instabilities of states and permutations in statist designations of populations is the dominant trope through which wars are explained and indeed this occurs in analyses of the causes for the 1992– 5 was in Bosnia (Friedman 1996; Hoare, 2014). The fear, hysteria, pride, vengeance that impel people to action, however, are not captured by such analytic approaches. Emotions are significant in mobilizing people, invoking solidarity and impelling political action (McAdam et al., 1996). I contrasted the lack of affinity the audience at the mosque felt with the emotions that had been evoked only weeks earlier at another function, an event at which I had shared a moment of intense nationalistic pride with people who I experienced as fellow-Bosnians.

Emotions of Ethno-National Identity The emotion of community I had felt at an ethno-cultural event, a spectacle of singing and dancing, was held in a university auditorium

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weeks earlier. The event was well attended, all the seats were occupied and there was an air of excitement amongst the audience. The opening performance of the night was a theatrical interpretation of a classic Bosnian ballad of love and tragedy and it certainly captured the audience’s full attention. This performance served as a preamble to the form and themes the organizers sought to capture. Throughout the evening the choice of performances indicated that a deliberate attempt had been made to appeal to the diversity that Bosnian identification evoked, particularly in its Australian location. Thus the evening’s performances included poetry recitals, theatrical pieces, and both adult and children’s choirs, operatic pieces, French and Italian ballads and a gypsy-style dance, which was a way of acknowledging Gypsy/Roma communities who are often denigrated in Bosnia and in other parts of Europe. The choice of pieces was not only creatively inspired but also served to express the values of multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism and a sense of integratedness of the community. The opening performance was mesmerizing. Even though a few lines were mumbled and the actors’ hand and body gestures were somewhat awkward, the amateurness of the performance was eclipsed by the sentiment it evoked. The stage backdrop, props and costumes worked to propel the audience into the setting of an imaginary and yet familiar notion of an Ottoman era Bosnian township. The women were dressed in the traditional attire of the period with dimije (voluminous, ankle length pants worn by women) and shawls adorned with gold coins – signs of the family’s wealth and economic standing. The men’s costumes were less elaborate: they each wore a white shirt, black trousers and vest and a burgundy fez. The dialogue incorporated words and phrases rarely, although increasingly (re)introduced in the contemporary voicing of the Bosnian language; this appeared to be appreciated by the audience. However, it was the heroine’s performance that was most intriguing of all. The first surprise was her voice. Her petite stature gave no hint of her powerful voice, which reverberated throughout the auditorium. The second surprise was style. The heroine’s solo rendition of the tragic fate which was to befall her was performed in an amalgamated style – the sevdalinka4 was performed in the manner of an operatic style aria.

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The audience was visibly moved. The emotional connection achieved with the audience was palpable. The setting evoked nostalgic sentiment in many audience members, the familiarity hitting home, with some whispering how the costumes reminded them of their great grandparents, aunts and uncles. I, too, felt swept away, academic inquisitiveness to one side; the performance spoke of a history, a personal history I sought to know. Nationalistic projects often rely on the arousal of a sense of pride in a shared history between members of the community. I, much like many of the audience members, felt a sense of connection to this version of Bosnian cultural history, as family histories are often traced back to ancestors, wealthy landowners or urban elite. The event tapped into an emergent process in the current milieu and that was the reinterpretation and revaluation of the Ottoman legacies in Bosnia; it spoke to a need, an inquisitiveness, and was able to activate these emotions in the audience. Once the performances had ended, we all left joyed by the affirmation of Bosnian identity, Australian integratedness and the freedoms of multiculturalism we had enjoyed that evening. At the Eid event, by contrast, whilst ethnonational diversity was present, the emotion of community, that is, the appeal to sentiments and practices of an umma was absent.

Deference to the State Although an arousal of emotions had not been achieved amongst the attendees to the Eid event, the imam was furious. He was upset with the organizers and with the fact that despite his clear directives about what was permissible in the mosque, they had transgressed the boundaries and broken promises. The gathering, he said, was too political. ‘It has been said before, and that is taken from the Qur’an, Muslims are to adhere to the laws of the country in which they live’, Dedo said. The festivities had ended. It was early evening and some people remained to clean up the grounds of the mosque, attend to the dishes and litter, whilst others had gathered in the dining hall for what appeared to be a crisis meeting.

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‘What are you talking about? No laws were broken!’, one said. ‘Well, I do not know, I do not know how appropriate it is to have dancing at a mosque. Ilhaije5 are acceptable but folkloric dances should be kept for the community dance events, not here’, another elderly man ventured. He spoke of the dances that were held not within the actual mosque but in the grounds of the mosque. These points of objection would have been considered of high importance at any other meeting but not at this particular meeting. On this occasion, attention was directed to the appropriateness of the words spoken by the visiting speakers. ‘What were they trying to do? Call for a Muslim revolution? The imam said the gathering should not be political. Why did we need those people here? Why did we not have simply the ilahje groups? Why did we need the politicians?’ The atmosphere was tense. Men yelled out their frustrations. They did not listen or provide answers to each other. Instead they voiced the concerns they had. Their concerns were mostly about the potentially negative impact such events could have on the AustralianBosnian-Muslim community. They feared that a political collective that sought to rally Muslims could be considered disruptive and subversive and was not a wise move in a hostile environment. ‘We are citizens of this country and it is to this country we should be loyal. End of story’, Dedo exclaimed. ‘What does loyalty mean?’, I ventured. This was a critical question. It was the question that was increasingly being posed to Muslims. The supposed inflexibility that Muslims have toward their faith is said to be problematic for nation states. Acquiescence to Allah as the supreme authority is often treated as the source of potential disloyalty of Muslims to Australia. Muslims are feared to be subversive, for they profess their acceptance of Allah as supreme authority and thus are considered potentially disloyal citizens. It was in response to accusations of disloyalty that this Eid celebration had been organized. ‘Tell us, what is your area of study?’ ‘Citizenship.’

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‘Precisely, citizenship. That is the point here.’ ‘What is citizenship?’ ‘Citizenship is a legal relationship between an individual and a state, which determines rights and obligations of the parties involved. It is a kind of entente’, I said as though reciting a mantra. ‘Yes. It is of rights and obligations. To be loyal means we need to fulfil all of our obligations to the state and our fellow-citizens and seek rights.’ ‘That means we do adhere to the law. We work. We pay our taxes. We live like normal people.’ ‘Yes, we should not create problems. Australia is a . . . ’ ‘Yes, gentlemen, and that means we need to abide by the precepts of Australia. We need to be aware of her written rules. Australia has provided us with a freedom we have not known. We are free to be Muslim. No one says you cannot be Muslim. But we need to know her limits and activities such as today and the provocations are worrying.’ A number of side conversations ensued as people confirmed the appreciation they had for being given asylum and ultimately citizenship in Australia. They recounted stories of freedoms for affirming Muslim identities and once again, the theme of naming emerged as important. One man voiced how their and their children’s Australian citizenship was not constrained by their religiosity and that his grandchildren were given identifiably Muslim names without bureaucratic restriction. The multicultural post-secular context of Australia was praised as rectifying the process of assimilation and demise that Muslims in Yugoslavia were considered to have experienced. Nermin explained: ‘People, they think it will make it easier for them to find a job but it will not. It does not make a difference. Any employer would have to be racist not to give someone a job because their name is not Michael. Of course, there is racism in Australia but not to that degree. Some people say that it is purely out of practicality [adopting English/Anglicized names] but I do not know, maybe there are underlying elements. When one considers what happened in Yugoslavia we recognize that through these name changes there was

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generational change. There was assimilation in Yugoslavia. People said that they changed their names there also out of practicality but there was more to it and ultimately it lead to further changes, such as children having no sense of their identity. I have given my children Muslim names so that they know their identity.’ Nermin expressed an optimism that suggested that inclusion for Muslims was not reliant upon their invisibility in Australia but rather was reliant upon the vocal expression of their presence. The dualities and politics about what constituted visibility was a subtext to the discussion. The claim was that Muslims should be, and were permitted to be, visible but there were limits. While visibility in its most basic form refers to a sense, i.e. the corporeal experience of sight, of seeing, what one actually sees is a matter of interpretation. It can be argued that seeing is relational and contextual, for it refers to how objects in sight are comprehended (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). As Brighenti (2007) notes, knowledge of what things are, impacts upon whether and how we see them, whether we notice them in the first instance and by which discursive frame they are catalogued. How we look at the world is informed by the ideologies we embrace and the politics we enact. The politics of visibility are often encountered by immigrants, for to be considered invisible is to be considered voiceless, as one is not considered a party to be considered seriously in discussions and debates over the constitution of society. Invisibility of minorities often signifies their disempowerment. As noted earlier the dualities in the visibility of Christian imagery in Australia and the invisibility of other celebrations means that there is a differential validation accorded to religious diversity. However, invisibility can also be empowering. The Christian underpinnings of Australian secularism and the normalization of associated rituals results in the Christian presence being both visible and invisible. It is invisible in the sense that it is an unmarked presence, it is not seen and interpreted as a threat to Australian secularism. This can be contrasted to the treatment of Muslims as highly visible, marked and hence threating to secularism. It seems they have transgressed the thresholds of visibility and become hyper-visible, creating

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greater anxiety for some in the community than if they had remained invisible in the Australian multicultural mosaic. Visibility can result in surveillance and make one feel trapped (Foucault, 1982). Thus, as Brighenti (2007: 333) observes, control over one’s visibility is a demonstration of engagement with the power of determining what and who can be seen. Dedo was one who expressed caution in transgressing the precepts determining the limits of religious visibility. He was clearly agitated. The hall was full of men and humid and the heated conversation was making Dedo anxious, beads of perspiration glistening on his brow and chin. Despite the physical disturbance, he once again spoke about the importance of self-regulation. He maintained that although there were freedoms for Muslims to advocate and affirm their identities in Australia, there were limits. ‘This is the greatest place on earth. This is a democracy where we can be Muslim. But we cannot be aggressive. We need to be flexible, we do not want to be considered Islamist nationalists.’ Another chimed in, echoing Dedo’s sentiment: ‘This is a fantasy land for Bosnians. We are an industrious people and for us it is a fantasy. One can work as hard and earn as much as they wish. If one loses their job then social welfare provides. Education is provided, one can pursue to educate themselves as they wish. As far as infrastructure is concerned, it is very stable. It is an ordered country. Everything is clear and functions. Why jeopardize our place?’ ‘Yes, this is a promised land!’ The majority of men cheered, others shook their heads in disagreement. In the intense atmosphere, I felt stifled. I got up and headed outside for some fresh air. As I reached the door, Abe saw me and followed. We stood outside. It was already dark and under the floodlights of the car park, Abe asked for my impressions of the meeting. Of course, he did not wait for my response and shared his own, and said that it was important for Australian-Bosnian-Muslims to be the best citizens. This he said meant excelling in all that ‘we’ do. His use of ‘we’ troubled me, for in the next sentence he qualified it, by telling me of the important work Bosniaks needed to do and that was clarify that Australian-BosnianMuslims were not followers of Wahhabism.6

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‘They are the real threat to the Bosnians, we need to rid the community of them’, he said in utmost sincerity. It seemed that the day’s Eid event and appeal to umma had also been lost on Abe. It seemed that, instead, he had assimilated the appeal that many Western leaders were making to Muslim community groups7 and that was for them to identify and monitor their constituencies for subversive citizens who were embodied, for Abe, by adherents to Wahhabism. For Abe, the problems of the state had been internalized as his own – he embraced and sought solutions to social problems as they were defined by the state.8 I remembered Abe’s words from an earlier interaction, ‘You do not know the community.’ It was true. I realized we had different understandings and expectations of how community should function. Abe was an advocate for the differentiation of Australian-BosnianMuslims from other Australian-Muslims as he considered this to be a practical strategy in response to discourses of threat. His citizenship was oriented toward being a person of the state, for the state rather than a citizenship expressing a unity with the people. It was through this practice of differentiation that he sought to develop the sentiment of belonging. I considered responding to him by saying something about the umma being an evocation of global citizenship and that the idea of the umma was akin to multiculturalism for it could be evoked as a means of embracing the diversity within Islam. At that moment I did not have the energy to formulate my ideas clearly. It was then the men started to leave the hall. Their voices indicated that conversations had turned to other topics, discussions of politics were over and they headed to their homes.

The Trouble with Citizens and Muslim Identity Evocation of ideas of Australia being the ‘promised land’ and suggestions that Muslims should be the best citizens through adherence to the law and acceptance of duties of citizenship suggested that a deference to the nation state was that which was being advocated by a majority of Muslims at this gathering. The

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promise of Australia meant there was no need to turn to another homeland, they were willing to embrace this as their own and they wanted Australia to belong to them as much as they wanted to belong to Australia. In belonging to Australia they spoke about not what loyalty meant, but rather about how loyalty could be performed. In doing so they advocated a belonging that was to be prefaced by and practiced through the duties of citizenship. The suggestion was that in being visible as Muslims they could dispel accusations of being part of invisible sleeper terrorist cells while simultaneously being conscious of not being too visible in their claims to difference in a multicultural society. Their statements can be understood as reactions to the appeals made by Australian politicians for Muslims to prove their loyalty to Australia. This has resulted in leaders of various Islamic community organizations professing and calling communities to peace. With this, many have advocated that Muslims adhere to the letter of Australian law. Dedo and the men advocated such, they expressly stated that Muslims were to adhere to the various duties. The practice of belonging was centered and enthusiastically embraced in terms of proletarianized wage-worker participation while active political participation was approached with apprehension. I was troubled by their approach as the duties of citizenship are not to submit passively to authority but rather to participate actively – and this may mean being contentious. Active citizenship can be understood as participation beyond the requisite obligation to pay taxes and vote. Active participation can be understood in terms of contention, dissention and the duty to object, to voice and protest about what happens amongst the citizenry. Disjuncture between legal and substantive belonging stems from the varied interpretations of what citizens are to embody. Citizens are those who are considered to protect the values of the community. They embrace and safeguard the values that unite.9 Community formation, and especially community change, is pursued through the activation of ideas of shared understandings and practices. The opportunity and possibility for citizens to voice their objections and partake in modifying the values and practices that unite is a measure of inclusivity.

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The purpose of active Australian citizenship might be best understood as a call to promote the principles that foster diversity. If a post-secular multiculturalism is that which has provided the freedoms for Muslims of Bosnian heritage to re-evaluate identifications, reinterpret histories and participate in varied articulations of Muslim identity, then the duty for such Australian citizens would be to actively promote such an ethos. To what degree are Muslims, Australian-Bosnian-Muslims in this instance, active in protecting the values of Australian citizenship? Dedo and Abe, and many men, advocated resignation to the laws and obligations of citizenship; thus, they advocated a stance that privileged the status quo. Resignation, or in the Bosnian language ‘sabur’,10 was evoked as a way of deferring to the authority of the nation state and invoking people to patience, with a hope that their conditions would improve. Foucault’s (1982) writing about power, the omnipresence of power, is concerned with state power through surveillance. His interpretation of Bentham’s writing on the panopticon is an example of how state institutions are treated as the authorities to whom one submits. In the case of Dedo and these men it appeared that selfregulation emerged as a result of the expectation of being surveyed and watched regardless of whether the keepers were in the watch tower. It privileged and perpetuated the idea of the extent of state power. It privileged state power for obedience was enacted in relation to it and perpetuated the state’s power by adhering to the behavioural and cognitive order sanctioned by it and its representatives.11 Such perspectives suggested that Dedo and the men privileged their status as Australian citizens over any other authority. With this they deferred to the state and considered that they would be protected by the authority of the state. While it could be suggested that they resigned to their fate as marginalized citizens we could also consider that rather than passivity their active citizenship was reflected through their deference to the state. They participated in reciprocity, through which they authorized and respected the state from which in turn they expected dignified treatment. Rather than directly protesting prevailing conditions, their intent was to uphold the precepts of equality in citizenship and freedom for diversity that are advocated in Australia.

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Belonging and integration are premised upon knowing a place. Knowing a place includes being conscious of the power dynamics within it and the authorities to whom one defers or is to challenge. Samir defers to Allah, Dedo defers to the state. Although Dedo, Uncle Mujo and Aunt Huria revealed that they were not satisfied with the practice of secularism in Australia and identified the limits, they were limited in their intention to make their voices of dissent heard. Whilst they were active in terms of their engagement, they confronted and accepted the limits to their participation. There were tensions in the way they seemed to yield to a collective recognition of their marginalization. Thus, they were insiders and outsiders and the degree of their insiderness can be considered based upon the level of empowerment to shift the lines of belonging and to negotiate a place. Citizens are insiders, however, the degree of their insiderness is revealed in the terms of the role they can play in challenging the conditionality and the precepts which determine the practices and performances for belonging.

CONCLUSION

Australian-Bosnian-Muslim identities are articulated in varied ways and these can be understood in terms of the differential pressures for conformity exerted by an intersection of nation state based macro politics, ethno-national community mobilizations of identity, and individual strategies and performances of self-actualization. In terms of nation state politics, intersections between the dismemberment of the SFR Yugoslavia, the establishment of the independent nation state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ideology of secularism and policies of multiculturalism in Australia have enabled migration and formation of ethno-national organizations in Australia.

The State of Nations The war in the region of what was known as Yugoslavia was a significant regional geopolitical event that reverberated throughout the West. In typical Eurocentric fashion it was considered and treated as more significant than the almost concomitant devastation in Rwanda. The nullification of the state of Yugoslavia meant that people who had been Yugoslav citizens had become stateless. It impacted upon those in the region and upon emigrants from Yugoslavia in the West. The independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina prompted a discursive shift in the embrace and contestation of the meanings and practice of ethno-national identification. The ensuing war through

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which the Bosnian state sought to defend its sovereignty resulted in the migration of displaced people, who sought asylum, settled and resettled in various countries including Australia. In Australia, the multicultural paradigm informs the way ethnonational identities were articulated, and the articulation of such was facilitated through the establishment of community organizations. The manner in which these organizations justify their emergence relies on an assimilation of the dominant discourse of multiculturalism. This discourse at once validates diversity and requires its compartmentalization within society, as people self-regulate their degrees of difference. In participating in self-censorship, people reveal the manner in which they have assimilated understandings of both the freedoms and limits that multicultural practice requires.

Organizing Communities Transitions in identification and the embrace of a Bosnian diasporic identity was facilitated by the emergence of a discursive field that validated and propagated the idea of Bosnian as a national identity and Bosnia as a homeland. This process was facilitated by elite mobilization of discourses of diaspora. Ethno-national community organizations have provided the institutional structures for individuals to operate, to advocate specific ways of performing Australian-Bosnian-Muslim identities. Elites, intellectuals, self-nominated and community validated leaders, engaged in activities to propagate the concept and practice of Bosnian, Bosnian Muslim and Bosniak identification. As projects of social engineering, these efforts varied in success. An Australian-Bosnian identity has become validated as a bona fide ethnic identity within the multicultural framework in Australia. Australian Bosniak identification has experienced less success but efforts continue. Marginalization of Muslim identities has provided the impetus for action amongst Australian-Bosnian-Muslims to react to accusations of non-integration. Some have sought to validate their claim to Australian citizenship through assimilative measures of conformity, whilst others have used the opportunity to voice dissent

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through affirmations of the principle of multiculturalism. The idea of an umma, a global community of Muslims, is evoked in the Qur’an and this means that the discursive opportunity for an articulation of solidarity that transgresses ethno-national identities exists, however, the performance of a non-ethnic Muslim identity is limited. Mosques continue to function as sites of ethnicized religious practice. Thus, in the Australian context, the umma, remains rooted in a nation state citizenry framework. Within these institutional spaces, individuals have drawn upon their own personal trajectories and understanding of morality to shape the ways in which they interact within and without ethnonational community spaces.

Defining Muslim Identities The status and acquisition of citizenship reflects an individual’s relationship to the state, a relationship that signifies mutual rights and obligations and a potential opportunity to belong to the communal nation in which one would have parity of status and inclusion among the citizenry. The supposed stability of a citizen’s status can be challenged when their integration and loyalty is questioned. Australian-Bosnian-Muslims have experienced anguish, fear and tensions in relation to perceived disruptions to their status as Australian citizens. These disruptions emerge from an intersection of three key factors: prevailing discourses in which Muslims have come to occupy the position of the marked other; comparisons of practices of secularism between Yugoslavia and Australia; and shifts in Australian discourses of citizenship. In addition, personal narratives, journeys and trials impact upon the way people articulate ideas of what it means to be Muslim. The very specific way Muslim was designated in Yugoslavia impacted upon the articulation of Muslim identity in Australia. As some, such as Uncle Halid, explained, Muslim identification signaled religious affiliation and such identities were to be avoided or at least delicately expressed within a secular context. The positive significance of Muslim identification for Uncle Halid emerged through

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its ethno-cultural references to heritage and ancestry. This related to the confusing and yet official Yugoslav conceptualization which suggested that the Muslim designation did not necessarily indicate one’s religious affiliation. According to this logic, one could be a Bosnian Muslim of Catholic religiosity. The wish not to be thought of as a religious Muslim had many potential sources, though the dominant trope was of an orientalist orientation that aligned Muslim religious identification with backwardness. The most common view advocated was one which spoke of an inescapable relationship between religion and culture. Accordingly, Australian-Bosnian-Muslims were considered a unique community. Muslim was evoked to signify an enmeshed religious and cultural identity, whereby Islam provided the moral basis and informed ritual that cohered disparate individuals into a community. Experiences in Bosnia, as part of secular Yugoslavia, served as reference points for assessing Australia’s secular status and the freedoms of affirmation of Muslim identity. Reconciling expectations of the neutrality toward religion in a secular society, the visibility of Christian symbols in the public arena and displays of religious diversity in everyday encounters means that lively debates and disparate performances ensue in the separation of public and private expressions of religiosity. Indeed, this is what Dedo was seeking to emphasize to the men at the meeting: that one needs to be conscious of one’s performance of identities. Whilst this may suggest that identities are multiple and situational, it may also be understood as meaning not that identities themselves varied, but that it was their degree of performance that varied. A minority advocated a non-ethnic identity. For some such as Samir, Muslim was not an identity. Rather being Muslim was a referent to their cosmology, their worldview. It was a statement that: Muslim is not who I am, it is what I am. Thus, it emerged as an essential statement of self. Questions of identity – i.e. the questioning of the validity of identities, their acceptance and denial, their configurations and mutability – means that who people are and want to be are contested and contestable. By referring to identity in singular terms, one denies

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the complexities that are evoked as people move across, not only national boundaries but social situations within. Contemporary scholarship’s theorization has critiqued essentialized notions of identity, and promoted a reconceptualization which speaks of multiple, hybrid and situational identities. The postmodern preoccupation with the multiplicity of identities cannot account for the way people essentialize their own identity. Whilst views such as those expressed by Samir, which advocate the primacy of being Muslim, are prone to being interpreted as statements of the exclusivity of communities of Muslims as believers, this need not be so. Samir’s view points to the potential for a broader community of believers. Rather than evoking Muslim identity through the deterministic victimization discourse of Islamophobia, attention may be redirected to a focus on the universality and inescapability of metaphysical concerns that are matters of concern beyond the purview of one religious group.

Individuals within Communities Whilst power underpins much of the discussion of citizenship and integration, that is, the appeal to community is an appeal to collective identity and simultaneous recognition of hierarchies of authority, the dynamics within collectives reveal alternate demonstrations of power. The first meeting I attended at which Dedo challenged Samir, revealed that they were engaging with different sources of authority and understandings of power and practices that empowered and/or disempowered self and others. At that meeting, Dedo was looking to affirm his status, protect the community and impose his will. Samir was intent on asserting his presence and the value his contribution could make to the community. Individual demonstrations of power can be considered in relation to the broader dynamics they reference. Dedo’s appeals for the compartmentalization of identities were made in reference to the state, the institutions of the state as those who possessed authority to create and dictate the practices that should be followed and to survey and conduct surveillance of populations. The state is conceived of

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bureaucratically, legally and politically, the authority which requires obedience and loyalty from its citizens. Samir’s experience was different: he spoke of a metaphysical authority, one which surveyed and conducted surveillance and it was this to whom one was to defer. Appealing and adhering to different lines of authority produce different articulations of reality. Through appeals to the principles of multiculturalism, Australian-Bosnian-Muslims challenge discourses of Islamophobia and pursue freedoms through which to foster renewed respect for their religion and culture. Through this an active citizenship is demonstrated, a citizenship which means participating politically through the promotion of difference. By challenging limitations to difference, they dissent and appeal for change. As active citizens the intent is not to settle and acquiesce to forces that repress but rather to belong through deference to an authority that provides the space for the actualization of dignified identities. The diversity of experiences in Australian-Bosnian-Muslims identification in Australia reveals the complex appraisals through which people participate in conceptualizing and functionalizing self and community. They articulate their identity in relation to immediate and local interpersonal encounters, nationally framed discourses, qua ethnic relations, appeals to transnationalism and diasporic belonging and global Muslim communities.

NOTES

Introduction 1. The name Dedo is employed as an honorific. Although in the Bosnian language the literal translation of Dedo is ‘grandfather’, this term can be used to signal respect toward elderly men. 2. Mr Peter Costello is one such former federal minister, Member of the Australian House of Representatives, who made such statements. During his time as Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia between 1993 and 2007, he has been much cited for his comments concerning the need for Muslims to integrate (Fozdar, 2011; Gaita, 2011; Johns, 2015): . . . if you want to go into a Mosque, you will be asked to take your shoes off as a respect for the mosque and if you don’t want to take your shoes off don’t go into a Mosque. If you want to come into Australia you will be asked to show respect for its values. If you don’t have respect for those values, don’t ask to come into Australia. And this is what we ask of people. We have to preserve a way of life which makes us the greatest country in the world (See Peter Costello Interview with Jessica Rowe Today Show, Friday, 24 February 2006 7.15 am, transcript available at: http://ministers.treasury.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc¼ transcripts/ 2006/014.htm&pageID ¼ &min ¼ phc&Year ¼ 2006&DocType ¼ 2, accessed 18 February 2016). 3. In writing about the Lebanese diaspora, Michael Humphrey (1998) points to the role of participation in the labour market, particularly as wage workers, for facilitating particular modes of integration for immigrants. 4. An honorific of Turkish origin (ag˘abey) that does not signify a kin relationship. However, Abe can be translated into the English language as, ‘elder brother’. 5. Ablutions are necessary as preparation for prayer. In Arabic ablution is referred to as wazu, in Persian as abdast and in Bosnian as abdest. In mosques there are

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6. 7. 8. 9.

10.

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12.

NOTES TO PAGES 6 –25 dedicated fountains or wet areas which supply water for the purposes of purification before prayer. During ablution the worshipper recites specific prayers. Ablution is performed as follows: One washes their hands three times. Then rinses their mouth three times, putting water into their mouth with their right hand. After this, one with their right hand throws water up into their nostrils, snuffing it up at the same time and then blowing it out. Next one washes their face three times, using both hands. Then one washes their right hand and arm as high as the elbow, making sure to let the water flow directly onto these parts of the arm. One washes the left arm in the same manner. Following this, the wetted right hand is drawn over the upper part of one’s head. Then one washes their ears. Then one wipes their neck with their fingers ensuring fingers of both hands meet at the back of the neck and then drawing the fingers forward. Lastly one washes their feet, making sure their fingers pass between the toes and allowing the water to run as high as the ankles. Uncle is an honorific used to refer to men of my father’s generation and older and does not suggest a kin or bloodline relationship between Mujo and myself. Umma (ummah) from the Arabic and Hebrew can be translated to refer to a people, a nation and a sect. I thank Dr John Bradley and Dr Pal Ahluwalia for emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the impact of one’s biography upon research and writing. This study focused on the experiences of Bosnian Muslims and refugees from Bosnia and not refugees from the SFR Yugoslavia who immigrated to Australia in the immediate aftermath of World War II (see: Skrbisˇ, 1999 for an overview of such migrations.) Since Federation, Australia in large part has had a racist immigration programme. This was most notably enshrined in the Immigration Restriction Act (1901– 58), which restricted entry to white immigrants. With Australia’s economic boom and industrial intensification post 1945, the criteria of whiteness was expanded to allow entry to other immigrant groups. The category of white continued to be expanded until this policy was eventually abandoned. The demand for labour was the primary motivator and Poynting and Mason (2007:66) suggest that once demand could not be filled from ‘white, European, Christian countries of origin’ the mass immigration programme turned to Turkey and Lebanon, as well as Latin America and other nonEuropean countries. Such sentiment is clear from a statement made by Federal Minister Hasluck in 1961: ‘The policy of assimilation means in the view of all Australian governments that all aborigines and part-aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians’ (Hasluck, 1961: 1). I thank Dr James Barry for his contribution to the development of my ideas in this discussion.

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Chapter 1 Citizenship and Ethno-National Identities 1. Between the time of research and 2016, such debates have intensified. Raids of houses of people of Bosnian heritage and raids of community centres frequented by people of Bosnian heritage suspected of involvement in terrorist planning activities received wide coverage from all major media outlets in Australia. Some coverage of these raids in Australia was reported in media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2. Many of my informants revealed that they had obtained citizenship as soon as they were eligible. Halilovich (2013) observes, for many Bosnian refugees, obtaining Australian citizenship served various practical purposes, such as gaining passports with associated freedom to travel, gaining access to various education and employment services, and facilitating political participation. These practical measures of citizenship were complemented by other emotional needs, such as the stability and safety associated with citizenship. 3. Reference to the then prime minister, John Howard, who was a vocal opponent of multicultural policy and actively promoted an image of Australian identity based on Anglo-Celtic and Christian references (see: Maddox, 2005; Johnson, 2007). 4. Mirsada has been in Australia since 1997. She lived in Germany for 5 years. She was a teacher in Bosnia and taught the Bosnian language to children at a community centre before the Bosnian language was received by the Board of Education as a secondary language that could be taught on the weekends. 5. Bosniak is a term that on occasion is used interchangeably with Bosnian Muslim. The distinctions between the two are a matter of debate and are elaborated in a later section. 6. Unlike Coughlan’s (2011) findings, which revealed how differential political allegiances amongst Bosniaks in the United States created tensions within the community, the focus here is on the political tensions across Muslim groups that can cohere and disrupt community identification among AustralianBosnian-Muslims. 7. Halal is a Qur’anic concept and in Arabic literally means lawful or permissible. Muslims, like followers of other religions, are prohibited from consuming certain items, and halal, in the context of food, refers to that which is permissible, lawful and unobjectionable to consume. Much of the focus of halal concerns meat, i.e. meat slaughtered according to Islamic law. Halal is contrasted to haram, that is, forbidden items which may mean alcohol, blood and swine flesh (see: Chand, 1995). 8. As explained in the introduction, assimilation can be understood as a cognitive process. 9. Valenta and Ramet (2011:1) suggest that 1.4 million Bosnians live outside Bosnia. 10. At the height of the 1992– 5 in which the Bosnian state sought to defend its sovereignty, people confronted conflicting sentiments about what and with

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whom they identified. Critically appraising what Yugoslavian meant was relayed in terms such as the following: I did not have anything against anyone but all changed with the war. The Serbian-dominated-Yugoslav army and Croatian military forces bombarded innocent civilians, people who are like me, who share my name, my religion. Was I there, I would have been a target. How could I continue to call myself Yugoslavian?

11. 12.

13.

14.

Such appraisals reveal that change of identification was not about loss of self or a loss of identity as Colic-Peisker (2002) suggests. Rather the war prompted reflection about who the self is, what it represents and what values it upholds. It involved an appraisal of what one considers of value, what they are willing to give up and what they want to defend. For many, the Yugoslavian identity was betrayed through the nationalization processes of its composite federal entities. Former Yugoslavian citizens had decisions to make about what they thought about the war and whose side to take. Islam can be translated as resignation to the will of Allah. Organizations that provide: welfare and support for the refugees, the aged and disabled; humanitarian and charity groups working in Australia and internationally, social and sporting groups; community awareness campaigns against domestic violence, anti-smoking, maternity and women’s health groups existed within the Bosnian network. Uncle Mujo did not want these groups to be Bosnian groups; he wanted them to be Bosniak. For example, during the Ottoman period, the term Bosniak could be used to refer to Bosnia’s Muslim population exclusively, and also to the entire Bosnian population encompassing Muslims and non-Muslims alike (Imamovic´, 1996). During the period of Austro-Hungarian rule over the Bosnia, the Austrian administrator, Benjamin Kallay, sought to use the term in attempts to create a Bosnian nation incorporating all religious groups (Lopasic, 1996). During the Socialist Yugoslav period, ‘Muslim’ stood as the official ethnonym for Bosnian Muslim. However, intellectuals, and especially those exiled from Yugoslavia in western European countries, used the term ‘Bosniak’ even during the Yugoslav period (Balic, 1979; Zulfikarpasˇic´, 1998). Appeals to the want of a normal life have been observed by Stefansson (2004a) during research in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Stefansson has interpreted this as a reference to disenchantments with life in post-war Sarajevo.

Chapter 2

Muslimness of Australian-Bosnian Muslims

1. I thank Dr Matthew Tomlinson for drawing my attention to this. For further reading see Gal (2002). 2. Whilst Mirsada, Sedin and others often referred to ‘state television’ such a reference does not capture the arrangements in Australian television funding

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4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

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and designation. It might be more appropriate to distinguish between commercial and publically funded television channels in Australia. Publically funded channels, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) for example receives Federal government funding but this does not mean it is ‘state television’ for it does have autonomy in determining content and is not the direct apparatus of government. The Islamic festivals of Eid are known in the Bosnian language as Bajram. There are two Eid festivals in any one year: Eid al-Azha (in the Bosnian language known as Kurban Bajram) and Eid al-Fitr (in the Bosnian language known as (Ramazanski Bajram). Eid al-Azha is the major festival and is sometimes referred to as the festival of sacrifice. Many Bosnian Muslims in explaining Eid to nonMuslims equate it with Christmas and suggest that it is a time of family gatherings, festivities and sharing of food and gifts. The origin of the Eid al-Azha in its referencing of sacrifice is less like Christmas than it is to Easter – however – the sacrifice in question is a referent to the parable of Ibrahim/ Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah/God. Eid al-Fitr, the minor festival of the two, is the festival of the breaking of the fast and follows the month of Ramadan. Rather than deference to ‘Arabs’, Bosnian Muslims recognize the importance of the Arabic language to Islam. Many relay that Arabic is the sacred language because it is the original language of the Qur’an. As a result, many accord respect to those proficient in Arabic as they equate language proficiency with the expectation the individual will be better informed and versed in matters of the Qur’an and Islam. Uncle is an honorific used to refer to men of my father’s generation and does not suggest a kin, bloodline relationship between Halid and myself. As this text was being finalized, debates in Bosnia and Herzegovina emerged over the potential banning of the wearing of the shawl in government institutions. While Turkey, with its intention of entering the EU, is liberalizing its approach to secularism, i.e., allowing greater freedoms for women who wear the shawl, Bosnia is considering imposing limitations on such freedoms. Liberal federal backbencher, Bronwyn Bishop, and Victorian state Liberal minister, Sophie Panopoulos, have echoed the sentiments expressed in France, by calling for the banning of headscarves in Australian state schools. The hijab/headscarf affair, which can be traced to 1989 has continued to be a topical issue in France. In 2004 legislation was passed banning ‘conspicuous’ religious symbols in schools. Although the bans refer to all forms of religious dress, commentators argue that the law targets students wearing Islamic headscarves. Thomas (2005) argues that secularism in France is a Christian secularism. He argues this by noting that secular education in French public schools, while initiated to remove education from the influence of the Catholic Church, continues to make concessions to Catholicism through the appointment of chaplains in schools; the early dismissal of classes on

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Wednesdays to enable students to go to catechism class; and the alignment of school holidays with Catholic celebrations. Thus, in the case of France, secularism in informed by a Catholic basis. As a result, Catholicism in the state becomes an unmarked presence, while the visibility of other religions within the state becomes marked and thus problematic. 9. Eid celebrations often entail the following: At sunrise, mostly men attend the mosque to perform prayers. Following prayers the men congratulate – shake hands or embrace and kiss – each other in honour of the festival. Then men or families as a whole will visit each others’ homes to share their greetings and good wishes. It tends to be women who prepare sweets, commonly baklava, with which they honour guests who visit their homes. Children are gifted money or toys. It is common practice for people to be dressed in new or to be in their best clothes for the occasion. 10. Josip Broz also known as Tito was the first president of SFR Yugoslavia and remained so until his death in 1980. 11. With cancer impacting so many of the people I came to speak with, I wondered whether the stresses of war had had an impact, and whether there was a higher proportion of Bosnians with cancer compared with populations who had not been exposed to bombs, shelling and associated chemical contaminants.

Chapter 3 Marginalization and Fear 1. This highlights the significance of the historical and discursive context in which citizenship changes take place. As Kymlicka (2003) notes in relation to changes to citizenship policy in the UK: adopting a historical perspective allows one to observe how recent changes implemented in the UK reflected moves toward an increasingly exclusionary, assimilationist and racially biased conception of citizenship. The changes to the Australian citizenship legislation with its supporting discourse suggested that citizenship was not stable and for ‘problematic’ citizens could be varied, denied and even revoked. These changes were interpreted by informants to be part of the government’s broader project of challenging the way multiculturalism was conceptualized, practiced and claimed. A consequence of this is that it stresses and undermines the attachments that refugees establish with the national community and proffers the sentiment that full belonging is an impossibility. These stresses were further compounded as anti Islam rhetoric emerged in various political and public domains. 2. I use the word aunt in a manner typical according to Bosnian custom as a way of according respect to an elder. Huria was almost three times my age and when speaking with and about her I used the Bosnian term, ‘Teta’ of which an equivalent in English is ‘aunt’. No blood-line kin relationship exists between Aunt Huria and myself.

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3. ‘We left out village and spent nine days on the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. They did not allow us through. We wanted to go via Serbia but we were not allowed admittance. We spent nine days in buses and while we waited the Red Cross processed our papers that permitted our passage. We took a train through Serbia to Belgrade and then took a train through to Hungary. We spent fifteen days in Budapest and then went to Germany because my [Huria’s] husband had relatives there who we expected could house us.’ Similar trials were experienced by others. Some went from Hungary to Sweden, some sought asylum immediately and were permitted to stay, others were required to leave if they had not applied for asylum within twenty-four hours of arrival. Some went to Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. 4. Eid al-Azha does receive television coverage each year on broadcast news programmes. This is because Eid al-Azha coincides with the annual Hajj pilgrimage – the visuals of the sheer volume of worshippers in Mecca is evocative and with this, newsworthy. 5. It appears common practice to repeat that religion and spirituality are in the process of revitalization. Indeed, even in 1933, in the preface of Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul, it is written: Within the last decade there have been many references from varied sources to the fact the western world stands on the verge of a spiritual rebirth, that is, a fundamental change in the attitude toward the values of life. After a long period of outward expansion, we are beginning to look within ourselves once more. 6. Although a number of changes have been made to Australian legislation enabling security forces to engage in various forms of surveillance of the Australian population, the fears that Samir and Huria relayed about surveillance did not reference changes to national security legislation such as amendments to the Anti terrorism Act; Surveillance Devices Act 2004; National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004; Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, that were covered in the media. However, they did make mention of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. 7. The days of Eid, Eid al-Fitr is three days in length, Eid al-Azha four days in length, involves visiting family and friends with whom one shares in the festivities. The days also involve visiting graves of relatives and friends.

Chapter 4

Transitions to Peace

1. ‘Private Eyes’ refers to the song performed by Daryl Hall and John Oates recorded in 1981 by RCA Records. 2. This is a reference to the song, Every Breath You Take written by Sting and performed by The Police, released in 1983 by A&M Records. 3. I contemplated whether there were similarities in experiences between the discussions of threat and surveillance of Muslims in Australia with the internal

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4.

5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

NOTES TO PAGES 113 –126 surveillance of threats to the state that were conducted in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A later discussion with Samir revealed that there was not anything particularly distinctive about the internal surveillance in Yugoslavia and that it could be compared to that conducted in the West at that time of the Cold War, that is, McCarthyism in the USA and similar sentiment of fears of ‘Reds under the bed’ in Australia. The names of Bosnian Muslims, although not exclusively, tend to have an Arabic or Qur’anic origin. I am uncertain about the origin of the Bosnian name Samir. It could draw from the Arabic word As-Sami which means, The Hearer, and is a reference to one of the attributes of Allah. It could also derive from the Arabic As-Samiri, a Qur’anic reference to Moses and the tribe of the Samaritans. Bos in the Bosnian language translated into English means barefoot. Lailat al-Kadr is translated from the Arabic as, the night of power. It is said to be in the last ten days of Ramadan, generally understood to be on the twentyseventh night of the fasting month. It is understood that on this night the will of Allah is felt and this sensation humbles all earthy beings. I thank Dr Ghassan Hage for this insight. An honorific of Turkish origin that does not signify a kin relationship. However, Abla can be translated into the English language as ‘older sister’. Ramadan (in the Bosnian language is known as Ramazan) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. During Ramadan, a fast from dawn to sunset is observed each day of the month. The observance of the fast is one of the five pillars of practice for Muslims. According to Islamic teachings, the fasts must be kept by every Muslim although provisions for exemption are provided to the ill, pregnant women, women who are nursing their children and children who have not yet reached puberty. Travellers on a journey of more than three days are exempt and the expectation is that they will observe another month’s fast when they are able to do so. The fast can be especially difficult during the summer months when the days are long and hot as the fast prohibits the drinking of a drop of water. The performance of the fast is a matter of discipline and deprivation and I have heard many comment that it produces feelings of empathy toward those who go without. Indeed, Eid al-Fitr, the festival that follows Ramadan is known as the feast of alms giving (sadaqatu in Arabic and sadaka in Bosnian). Alms in the form of donations of money are distributed to the poor. Sawab in Arabic means recompense and in the Qur’an is used to refer to a reward from Allah. Some Bosnian Muslims consider reverting or converting others to Islam is a deed worthy of sevab/sawab. Hadith refers to texts which are considered the teachings of the Prophet Muhammed. These discourses were noted earlier in relation to Mirsada’s appeal to normality. See also Stefansson (2004) for examples of how these divisions between instinct and controlled behaviour are used by diaspora returnees in Sarajevo.

NOTES TO PAGES 129 –144

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13. I thank Dr Penelope Graham, Dr Ivan Inderbitzin, Dr Michael Janover and Dr Michael Stevenson for discussions during which they prompted me to clarify the distinctions between subjective belonging and subjective integration.

Chapter 5

Active Citizenship and Lines of Authority

1. Iftar is the evening meal during Ramadan, it is the meal that signals the end of the day’s fast. During Ramadan and after iftar, additional prayers held at the mosque are the tarawih in Arabic (teravija in Bosnian). The atmosphere after these prayers was especially jovial. After a long day of fasting, I would socialize with the women at the mosque, mostly we would chat about mundane matters, always the atmosphere was friendly and inviting. 2. Dzematlije is a word in the Bosnian language the refers to people who are members of a mosque community. They are the regulars at the mosque and come to constitute their own community. 3. An alternative, and I would venture more interesting, point to consider is how some Muslims read democracy through Islam and Islam through democratic ideology (See: Copper et al., 2009). 4. Sevdalinka is a genre of music often described by Bosnians as ‘Bosnian Blues’. The songs are primarily ballads of love and longing. Sevdah is considered to be an emotion evoked and expressed by the songs, the emotion is a painful and yet desired one that captures the mixed feelings of sadness and longing that can accompany the appeals to devotion and love. 5. Ilahije are songs in veneration of Allah and the Prophet Muhammed. 6. Followers of Wahhabism are often targeted as potential terror suspects. They are considered extremists, ultra conservatives and fundamentalists who seek to introduce sharia law to the West, Australia in this instance. 7. This speaks to the role of intermediaries that ethnic and religious community organizations do sometimes adopt between individuals and law enforcement institutions of the state (see: Silvestri, 2012 for examples of Muslim organizations in the Italy and UK). 8. In Bourdieu’s (1994:2) words, ‘It is in the realm of symbolic production that the grip of the state is felt most powerfully. State bureaucracies and their representatives are great producers of “social problems” . . .’. Through his sentiment and words it can be said that Abe occupies the role of an unofficial yet de facto state representative - he treats adherents of certain Muslim sects as national/social problems. 9. In late 2014, anti-Muslim groups forged anti-halal campaigns in reaction to the increasing presence and visibility of Muslims as consumers within the Australian marketplace. Anti-halal proponents suggest that halal certification bodies fund extremist groups and are part of a campaign to introduce sharia law into Australia. Supporters of such campaigns argue that they are defending Australian identity and the principles that unite the citizenry. However, what

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NOTES TO PAGES 144 –145

they are instead seeking is that ethnic minorities assimilate into a dated mid-twentieth-century conceptualization of Australian nationhood. The population’s ethnic and religious diversity, if diversity is to be understood on these terms, nullifies their appeals. 10. Sabur, from the Arabic ¸sabr, can be translated as impelling one to patience or resignation. 11. Bourdieu (1994) writes that it is not only state bureaucracies and state representatives who promote the idea and structures of the state, but scholars’, intellectuals’, peoples’ internalization and adoption of ideas and especially ideas of universals promoted by and through the state that perpetuates state power.

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INDEX

acquiescence relationship to authority, 10, 23, 46, 60, 117, 139, 152 relationship to belonging, 10, 23, 24 resignation, 156n11 submission, 129, 132 active citizenship participation as a component of, 8, 11, 20, 144, 146 agency individual, 40, 131 Akbarzadeh, Shahram, 17 Albanian, 47, 78, 96, 133 alcohol gendered division in consumption patterns, 68 prohibition, haram, 123, 155n7 Anderson, Benedict, 130 Ang, Ien, 38 Anthias, Floya, 40, 130 Arab deference to, 66 differentiating from, 50 racism against, 92 relationship to Muslim identity, 46, 50, 66, 76, 133

Arabic language knowledge of and its significance for Muslim identification, 66, 107, 124, 133 a-religious, 75 – 78 Asad, Talal, 73, 95 Assange, Julian, 159n6 assimilation change in cultural practices, 24, 35, 62, 64, 97, 111, 140, 141 cognitive process rather than a sociological process, 27, 38, 57, 75, 96, 98, 102, 106, 110, 127, 143, 148, 155n8 Good Neighbour Council, 25 government policy, 24, 154n11, 158n1 integration, comparison with, 25–26 knowledge, 24 political discourse, in, 30, 75 similitude, 26 asylum seekers, 93, 99, 140, 148, 159n3 Australia Constitution, 71 immigration policy, 21, 25 – 26, 154n10 promised land, a, 142, 143 religion, 71

INDEX values, 30, 32, 73, 74, 128, 137, 144, 145 authority, 3, 6, 10, 59, 100, 117, 119, 131 spiritual, 10, 46, 117, 129, 132, 139, 152 state, 81, 83, 144– 145, 151 Bajram see Eid Balkanism, 51, 126 Banac, Ivo, 80 Baumann, Gerd, 40, 116 believer, 83, 121, 151 belonging conditional, 33, 100, 146 emotion, 39, 130 objectification, 132 passive, 131 performance and practices, 130 Bishop, Bronwyn, 157n7 borders, 40, 93, 159n3 born again, 115 Bosnia and Herzegovina independence, 42 – 44, 111, 147 war, 44, 148, 155n10 Bosnian identity Bosniak, 34 – 36, 38, 47, 48 – 50, 52, 63, 78, 84, 97, 112, 115, 142, 148, 155n5 Croat, 38, 48, 63, 78 pre-independence, 42 Serb, 48, 63, 78 Bouma, Gary, 57, 62 Bourdieu, Pierre, 79, 103, 127, 161n8, 162n11 Bringa, Tone, 63, 82, 84 Calhoun, Craig, 39 cancer illness, 87, 158n11 metaphor, 20 Catholic relationship to Bosnian identity, 48, 63, 100, 150

179

relationship to Croatian identity, 75, 97 cemetery, 58, 107 census implications of categories and terminology used in SFRY, 78, 79, 80 reactions to the taking of the census in Australia, 102 charity, 46, 88, 93, 156n12, 160n9 Christian, 8, 21, 26, 35, 58, 70, 76, 115, 117, 121, 141, 150, 154n10, 155n3 identifying Australia as a Christian country, 8–11, 60, 61, 71–75, 102 Christian Orthodox, 83, 84 relationship to Serbian identity, 48, 97, Christmas, 157n3 public holiday, 61, 71, 76, 83, 95 church, 8, 61, 70, 71, 72, 82, 83, 93, 97, 157n8 citizens debates concerning the obligations of the individual, 132, 140, 144, 145, 149 taxes, 22, 52, 140, 144 citizenship, 143 active, definition of, 144 adoption rates of Australian citizenship by emigrants from Bosnia, 19 adoption rates of Australian citizenship by immigrants, 19 changes to eligibility for Australian, 29 emotional reactions to, 91, 155n2 ethnic, 26 legal status, 30 status, disruptions to, 90, 92, 98, 149 symbolic measures of, 29, 31 class, 21, 25, 26, 144, 153n3 cleanse, 98

180

A MUSLIM DIASPORA IN AUSTRALIA

clothing dimije, 84, 137 fez, 84, 137 headscarf/hijab/shawl/veil, 2, 54, 60, 61, 66, 67, 73, 76, 82, 98, 118, 124, 137, 157n6&n8 jilbab, 51 miniskirt, 33, 66, 67 niqab, 51 cognitive discordance, 22, 127, 128 Colic-Peisker, Val, 156n10 communist, 68, 70, 75, 82, 83, 160n3 community diasporization, 44 ethnic organization, 13, 28, 36, 37, 38 leaders, 2, 6, 45, 47, 83, 96, 138, 148 umma, 12, 46, 133, 134, 138, 143, 149, 154n7 compartmentalization, 8, 11, 53, 62, 63, 148, 151 conversion reversion, 111, 112, 115, 121, 160n10 Costello, Peter, 153n2 Croatia, 44, 75, 78 diaspora, 43, 45 cross, crucifix, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 85 crusade, 104 cultural discord, 22 death, 87, 105, 114, 125 Dedic, Abdullah, 111 deference, 3, 14, 27, 66, 67, 76, 112, 115, 117, 132, 138, 143, 145, 146, 152, 157n4 diaspora, definition of, 40 –41 ethno-national, 44, 47 religious, 45 diasporization, 44 discrimination, 35, 52, 57, 65, 83, 90 – 92, 97 – 99, 118, 135 displacement, 41, 44, 101, 108, 148

diversity, 24, 26, 51, 58, 145, 148, 162n9 ethnic, 21, 137 religious, 46, 58, 141, 143, 150 Dyker, David, 79 East, 51, 67 Easter, 61, 71, 157n3 education, 20, 34, 52, 60, 61, 73, 79, 81, 82, 86, 90, 111, 134, 142, 157n7 Egypt, 47, 82 Eid, 62, 71, 76, 94, 95, 107, 132, 157n3, 158n9, 159n4&n7, 160n9 elites, 45, 47, 96, 138, 148 emotions/emotional reactions, 49, 51, 55, 77, 92, 114, 122, 129, 136, 142 calm, 115, 123, 129 distress, 106, 127– 128 fear, 7, 60, 90, 92, 102, 139, 149, 159n6 guilt, 15, 112, 114, 124 pride, 79, 138 shame, 2, 3, 6, 88, 16, 111, 120 essential/essentialism, 39, 109, 116–118, 127, 132, 150 ethnicization, 46, 80, 91, 149 ethnic, 37 ethnic community, 33, 36 organization, 13, 28, 36, 37, 38, 91 religious/secular positions, 8, 9, 68, 69, 134 Europe, 25, 51, 73, 96 – 97, 156n13 European identity, 18, 50, 66, 67 whiteness as a marker of, 67, 154n10 exile, 41, 106, 156n13 fasting see Ramadan fear see emotions fieldwork, at home, 14, 18, 56 food, 25, 31, 94 correct way of consuming, use of right hand, 124

INDEX halal, 60, 105, 155n7 multiculturalism, reflected through, 37 Foucault, Michele, 145 Fozdar, Farida, 30 France, debates concering secularism, 73, 157n7, 157n8 freedom, 8, 27, 41, 42, 71, 75, 82, 95, 129, 131, 138, 140, 145, 150 limitations on, 11, 93, 142, 148 fundamentalist, 93, 97, 128– 129, 161n6 genocide, 54, 57, 93, 95, 106 Germany, 73, 85, 93, 155n4, 159n3 greetings, 1, 14, 68 politics/politicization of, 3, 9, 16, 70, 117, 131 Selam, Selam alejkum, 2 –3, 10, 11, 24, 76, 115 guilt see emotions halal, 60, 105, 155n7, 161n9 Halilovich, Hariz, 57, 155n2 haram, 123, 155n7 headscarf see clothing hegemony, 21, 37, 127 helicopters, sounds and fear of, 92, 104, 105, 106 Hendrix, Jimi, 12 Herbert, David, 75, 98 Herzfeld, Michael, 126 hierarchy, 23, 40, 151 ‘hijab affair’, 73, 157n8 home, 15, 18, 25, 40, 56, 57, 69, 86, 92, 122 research at, 14 homeland, 25, 41, 43, 44, 46, 78, 80, 107, 130, 144, 148 homogeneity, 19, 25, 26 Howard, John (Prime Minister of Australia), 32, 155n3 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), 91 – 92 humanism, 28, 85

181

Huntington, Samuel, 35, 36 Husic, Ed, 72 ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), 96 identity actualization, 147, 152 compartmentalized, 8, 11, 53, 62, 63, 148, 151 crisis (mid-life crisis), 125– 126, 156n10 designated, 21, 63, 78, 80 dignified, 85, 104, 135 essential, 39, 40, 109, 116, 127, 132, 150, 151 identification, 12, 13, 37, 39 – 40 (definition of), 45, 67, 72, 148 imposed, 27, 48, 79 multiple, 39, 53, 109, 150 politicization, 96 self-ascribed, 17, 40, 44 imagination, 21, 25, 41, 43, 73 imam, 2, 47, 52, 55, 67, 138, 139 immigrant characterizing shared experience, 10, 18, 23, 41 outsiders, 21, 22, 35, 126 restrictions in Australian immigration policy, 21, 25, 154n10 visibility, 141 immigrant incorporation assimilation, 24 integration, 25, 30, 36 – 37, 90 political, 20 strategies for integration, 21, 26 workers, 2, 4, 13, 20, 22, 34, 52, 63, 64, 86, 140, 144, 161n3 independence Bosnia and Herzegovina, 42 –44, 111, 147 India/Indian, 37, 38, 58, 64, 82 Indonesia, 82, 111 initiation, 10 insider researcher, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19

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intellectuals, 4, 34, 47, 48, 148, 156n13, 162n11 internalize, 37, 106, 127, 143 invisible, 99, 141, 142, 144 Iran/Iranian, 35, 46, 66, 97 Islam, definitions of, 45, 46, 115, 156n11 basis of ethical engagement, 49, 138 Islamic customs, 35 Islamic doctrine, 45, 67, 91, 132 Islamist, 136, 142 Islamophobia, 99 Jehovah’s Witness, 80 Jesus, 58, 121 jihad, 112 Judaism, Jew, 45, 46, 64, 117 Judeo-Christian, 73, 74 Jung, Carl Gustav, 23, 125– 128 knowing, 9 – 10, 20, 23, 77, 117, 121, 122, 127– 128, 141, 146 Kymlicka, Will, 73, 158n1 Lady Gaga, 50 Laila/Lailat al-Kadr, 116– 117, 160n6 language, 26, 37 Bosnian, 5, 13, 17, 19, 66, 133, 137 English, 4, 25, 30, 86 law, 82, 138, 139, 140, 144, 145, 161n6 loyalty, 39, 48, 84, 100, 118, 123, 130, 139, 140, 144 disloyal, 2, 20, 91, 139, 149 mainstream, 21 – 25 Malkki, Lisa, 101 Mansouri, Fethi, 17 marginalization, 10, 21, 22, 27, 35, 45, 59, 60 – 62, 65, 90 Marotta, Vince, 22 – 23, 127 media, 7, 20, 52, 57, 94, 100 newspapers, 30, 83

role in war, 97 television, 13, 20, 56, 157n2 moderate Muslims, 18, 33, 62 morality, 49, 85, 88, 108, 128, 149, 150 Moses, 160n4 mosque, 1, 3, 13, 43, 46, 54, 55, 57, 60, 66, 67, 70, 82, 97, 108, 132, 138, 149 Muhamed/Muhammed, 45, 65, 160n11, 161n5 multiculturalism ethnicized identities, 21, 36, 37, 46, 91, 149 everyday, 58, 74 state policy, 26 music, 12, 13, 32, 159n1&n2 sevdah, 137, 161n4 musliman/Musliman, 80 names/naming, 25, 34, 63 – 65, 94, 132, 140, 160n4 honorifics, 153n1, 153n4, 154n6, 157n5, 160n8 nation civic/ethnic, 30 national identity, 47, 78, 80, 108, 126, 136, 148 national security see threat national security legislation, 159n6 nationalism/nationalist, 12, 43, 68, 75, 96, 97, 101, 136, 138, 142 networks, 4, 45, 69 neutral/neutrality, 68, 110 names, 63, 95 secularism, toward religion, 70, 71, 73, 150 Noble, Greg, 60 normal, 51, 52, 126, 140 objectification, 60, 130–131, 141 Omarska, 85, 87 outsiderness, 19 – 24, 90, 126, 127 otherness, 21, 104

INDEX Ottoman Empire, 97, 98, 137, 138, 156n13 Panopoulos, Sophie, 157n7 participation, 5, 20, 22, 37, 41, 100, 101, 134, 144, 153n3, 155n2 passport, 13 safety and security in possessing an Australian, 94, 155n2 pathologize, 101, 106 patience, 145 sabur, 162n10 peace, 1, 3, 11, 24, 35, 52, 108, 109, 110, 114– 115, 144 performance, 13, 132, 137 belonging, 53, 64, 131, 146, 150 speech craft, 36, 104 Plavsˇic´, Biljana, 96 power, 3, 40, 58, 87, 131, 135, 142, 151, 160n6 definition of, 27 disempower, 65, 107, 141 individual power, 57 state power, 79, 82, 145, 161n8, 162n11 Poynting, Scott, 60, 154n10 pray/prayers/praying, 5, 9, 55, 57, 61, 62, 66, 67, 72, 94, 114, 120– 123, 132, 133, 158n9, 161n1 preparations for praying (ablutions), 153n5 priests (clergy), 7, 83, 97 pride, 79, 138 private home spaces, 57, 69, 70, 95 religion, 67, 81 promised land, 46, 93, 142, 143 protection, 100, 101 pseudonyms, 63, 64, 94 public, 25, 59, 70, 81 religion, 56 –62, 82, 94, 100 public holidays in Australia, 61 in SFRY, 71 punishment, 111, 112

183

qualifications, 4, 5 quietude see submission Qur’an, 45, 46, 72, 107, 117, 120, 121, 123, 125, 132, 138, 149, 155n7, 157n4, 160n4, 160n10 race, 67, 154n10 racism, 35, 125, 140, 154n10 Ramadan, 117, 119, 120, 124, 132, 157n3, 160n6, 160n9, 161n1 Ramet, Sabrina, 81, 83, 96 rational, 125, 126, 128 refugees, 17, 31, 41, 42, 44, 52, 98, 99, 101, 106, 154n9, 156n12, 158n1 religious festivals Christmas, 61, 71, 76, 83, 95 Easter, 61, 71, 157n3 Eid, 62, 71, 76, 94, 95, 107, 132, 157n3, 158n9, 159n4&n7, 160n9 Ramadan, 117, 119, 120, 124, 132, 157n3, 160n6, 160n9, 161n1 religious institutions ethnicized, 2, 47, 80, 91, 149 political role of, 82, 83, 97 research participants, 17 respect, 1, 7, 36, 91, 114, 122, 153n1, 153n2, 157n4, 158n2 deference, 3, 14, 27, 66, 67, 76, 112, 115, 117, 132, 138, 143, 145, 146, 152, dignity, 85, 104, 135, 152 sacred, 122, 132, 157n4 sadaka/sadaqatu, 160n9 see charity for the work of charity organizations Salafi, 46 Saudi Arabia, 46, 66 school see education secular, 9, 27, 70, 141, 146 Christian bias, 8, 9, 60, 71, 73, 102, 157n8 community activities conceptualized as, 68 – 70

184

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expectations of secularism on television, 56, 57 post-secular, 91, 140, 145 secularization, 72, 81, 82 sedvah see music Serbia, 78, 93, 156n10, 159n3 Serbian ultra nationalism, 96, 97 sevab, 121, 160n10 SFRY see Yugoslavia shame see emotions shawl see clothing Shiʽa, 46 Skrbisˇ, Zlatko, 43, 45, 154n9 Slovenia, 78 social inclusion, 130– 131; see also immigrant incorporation sounds helicopter, 92, 104, 105, 106 music, 12, 13, 32, 137, 159n1&n2 Srebrenica, 55, 58, 98 genocide commemoration, 54, 57 state agent of the, 82, 113 deference to the, 138 significance for diaspora formation, 42 stigma, 65, 84, 95, 110 Sting/The Police, 159n2 strategy, 4, 21, 62, 64, 65, 96, 143 Stratton, Jon, 25, 38, 46 submission, 3, 10, 27, 46, 115, 124, 129, 132, 144, 145 suburbs, 2, 25, 91, 92, 105, 110 ethnic diversity in, 37 impoverished, 103 suicide, thoughts of, 112– 113 Sunni, 46 surveillance, 92, 105, 113, 151–152, 159n6, 160n3 Foucault, 142, 145 sensations of being watched, 116 television, 13, 20 expectations about content, 61, 83

practices of watching, 56, 104 state ownership, 96, 156n2 terrorism/terrorist, 18, 105, 106, 161n6 accusations, 7, 29, 34, 47, 113, 144 legislation and legislative amendments, 159n6 raids, 155n1 threat, 21, 25, 84, 93, 96, 97, 99, 106, 116, 135 transnationalism, 41, 43 Turkish, 133, 153n4, 160n8 umma/ummah, 12, 46, 133–134, 138, 143, 149 translation from Arabic, 154n7 urban, 84, 138 USA, 21, 44, 86, 106, 155n6 Valenta, Marko, 44, 155n9 Vasta, Ellie, 74 Vatican, 83 veil see clothing victim/victimization, 2, 44, 46, 55, 93, 99, 101, 104, 105, 134, 151 visibility, 9, 56, 60 – 61, 73, 141– 142, 144 volunteers, 2, 25, 104 Wahhabi, Wahhabism, 46, 142, 143, 161n6 war, 69, 70, 75, 79, 93, 94, 105, 111, 112, 126 Bosnia, 35, 42, 44, 46, 52, 68 criminal, 96 significance for diaspora formation, 43 – 45 trauma, 93, 105 Yugoslavia, 43, 51, 78, 81, 96, 99 West, 27, 33, 36, 51, 67, 72, 103, 106, 116, 118, 136, 143 WikiLeaks, 159n6

INDEX Winland, Daphne, 43, 44 Woods, Tiger, 120 work, 5, 13, 15, 20, 104, 142, 144, 153n3 significance for citizenship, 20, 22, 34, 52, 140

185

Yugoslavia census categories, 78 – 80 identity transition, 39, 42, 44, 77, 79 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), 44, 78, 81, 82