[ALBSA-Info] FW: Could you distribute

[Besnik Pula]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Isa Blumi <ngapeja at rocketmail.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:07:23 -0800 (PST)

Assalam allaykum,

I am an Muslim Kosovar Albanian, an American citizen
and extremely upset.  My native Balkans has been
witness to genocide conducted in the name of a
national/fascist ideology that has used the symbolism
of the Serb orthodox church as its central cultural
vehicle.  The Chetnik-era use of the extended first
three fingers on the right-hand are well-known to us
in the Balkans who have faced Serb fascism, it is
equivalent to the NAZI straight-arm that is banned
from the world's acceptable behavior.  Why, I ask
rhetorically, are Serb nationalist symbols, the very
gestures used when millions of the Balkans Muslims
were cleansed from their homes in an orgy of genocide
during the 1990s, permitted to be used with impunity
in one of the US's major cultural/business exports,
the NBA?  I am refering to two Serb players who
constantly flash this demeaning and offensive symbol
on global television link-ups.  I am conducting
research in Istanbul and follow the behavior of the
two players in Sacramento, Vlade Divac and "Peja"
Stojakovic, who consistantly flash this symbol of
Muslim murder, if I can see it, millions around the
world see it.

My trouble is that this is a perfect example of how
incapable we Muslims are in organizing to protect our
interests.  How can the abuse of these symbols of hate
against Muslim be permitted to continue?  Simply, we
do not have the influence our size and collective
economic power warrents.  If an NBA player, on the
international stage as I watch it on television, would
display anti-Jewish or Nazi-era symbols, there would
be immediate uproar.  Our community, however, has
failed to make the world sensitive to anti-Muslim
behavior and its many manifestations.  Serb fascism is
a demonic force that persists, two central
perpretrators of this symbolism are playing for a
professional league that has many mMslims playing for
it.  These Serbs get away with these gestures of hate
and even our brothers playing on the same court are
not aware of it.  I am pleading with this organization
to at least reach out to the NBA and its Muslim
players, to make them aware of this.  I constantly see
"highlights" of these two individuals flaunt their
hatred and our community must demonstrate an ability
to resist this!

I suggest contacting the media and the NBA would have
a dramatic effect.  Publicizing this may seem small,
but it is, in my mind, an important gesture.  It
demonstrates that anti-muslim symbolism is not
permitted and this will have an international effect.
We are forced to fight with weapons around the world
because the murder of Chechens, Albanians, Kashmiris
and others is permissiable in a series of journalistic
tropes.  Once we make it politically and economically
impossible to display Muslims in a negative manner,
around the world, Russians, Serbs, Indians cannot kill
us and we will not be forced to take up arms, which is
putting us in this never-ending circle of violence
that gives us all a bad image.  Please look at a
letter I sent to numerous newspapers covering the
"Sacremento Kings."  As to be expected, I have
received no response.  Until we Muslims in American
can make it impossible for Serb professional
basketball players to flaunt their fascist symbols,
even after more than 10 years of genocide, we will be
second-class citizens and always vulnerable to murder,
rape and forced migration.  Newspapers and the NBA
should not be allowed to ignore us and our concerns.

With much respect,

Isa Blumi

#######################


Dear Madame/Sir,

I am writing you to attract your attention to the use
of offensive gestures by one of the more popular
figures of Sacramento civic life.  Vlade Divac, the
Serb-born starting center for the National Basketball
Association Sacramento franchise, the ?Kings,? has
throughout the 1990s proven to be very popular among
those who attend the matches in which he participates
and among his teammates.  Unfortunately, contrary to
his easy-going demeanor and the never-ending
self-marketing of his charitable side, such popularity
distorts his offensive on and off-court behavior.
While I am currently living in Istanbul Turkey and
have little desire to follow such seemingly
unimportant activities as a NBA basketball players
activities, I have always been curious about how the
NBA handles such figures as Divac.  Mr. Divac is a
national icon in Serbia and throughout the wars in
Croatia, Bosnia and later in Kosova he regularly
played for the Serbian national team.  The fact that
he actively participated for the national team that
had clear political ties to the Milosevic regime and
its policies of ethnic cleansing and wide scale murder
and rape  is not a question I wish you to consider.
Although I do not accept the rather pathetic claims of
sports and politics not mixing.  Of course it does,
that is why Serbia?s political machinery constantly
used its successes on the Soccer field and Basketball
court to promote their agenda.  How can anyone forget
Hitler?s stewardship of the 1936 Olympics?
I am writing to draw your attention to the public
expression of Divac?s unbending nationalism.  For most
people in the Balkans it is today?s manifestation of
Fascism.  That a man can actively and consciously
display the three finger symbol of Serb fascism after
all that has happened is unambiguously offensive, and
Divac intends it to be.  Whether or not he supports
Slobadan Milosevic or promotes genocide is also not
relevant here, it is the fact that he has consistently
used the Ultra-Right hand gesture of extending the
first three fingers of the right hand that all victims
of Serb fascism find vulgar and unbecoming.  I am
responding tonight because while watching some
highlights from a recent match his team played in
Boston, to my disgust, I found that Divac, after
scoring a basket openly flashed the Serb nationalist
gesture (its closest equivalent in a sociocultural
context is the Nazi straight arm of the 1930s and
1940s.).  Not only was Divac openly parading around
the basketball court flashing a fascist symbol, but he
even got his team-mates to do it.  To see
Afro-Americans and even a Turk-national flash this
symbol of mass graves, rape and ethnic hatred strikes
me as scandalous.  That Divac flaunts his disgusting
nationalism on the court is nothing new, he has done
it for years, but the fact that the league and in
fact, the country as a whole does not take Divac to
task is an outrage.  I am sure by his flashing this
symbols of a nation?s chauvanism Albanian Kosovars,
Croats and Bosnians see this.  For them it must bring
such pain and disgust to their hearts.  I implore that
you or a colleague address this issue.  It is not an
issue for the sports desk but a social issue that
affects all citizens in the US.  The NBA would never
tolerate a Nazi or supporter of a White extremist to
flaunt their feelings like this.  One need only look
some recent footage of Serb soldiers and politicians,
how they arrogantly flash their three fingers
(representing the trinity of the Serb orthodox church)
before the hundreds of thousands of dead in the
Balkans.  This is a scandal waiting to be exposed and
this is an opportunity to show the world how inept the
NBA and its minders are.  The NBA is truly an
international league now, I am sure the several Croat
and Slovene nationals in the league do not appreciate
Divac and his Serb compatriots showing their racism on
their sleeves.  I am also sure the Afro-American
players who so ignorantly flash this symbol of murder
and hate now, would think twice if they were to learn
what it represented.  I am asking you, as a journalist
to at least draw to someone?s attention this offensive
activity.  It drives deep into how our society is
infested with gestures of hatred that most people not
directly affected just do not realize.  I am sure once
this is exposed, the league and the fans of the NBA
would not want to see Mr. Divac publicly display this
gesture that is the 1990s version of the Nazi
straight-arm.

I appreciate your attention and again ask you to
consider this with at least professional curiosity and
hopefully, a moral sense of duty as well.

Please feel free to contact me,

Yours truly,

Isa Blumi
Ph.D. Candidate
Departments of History and Middle Eastern Studies
New York University


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