[ALBSA-Info] Fwd: [Prishtina-E] Info: Anti-Muslim/Anti-Albanian Symbols in NBA!

[Asti Pilika]

--- Mentor Cana <mentor at alb-net.com> wrote:
> From: Mentor Cana <mentor at alb-net.com>
> To: <alb-muslimusa at egroups.com>,
> <alb-muslimstudents at egroups.com>,
>    <alb-muslimnews at egroups.com>,
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> CC: <cair1 at ix.netcom.com>, <cair at cair-net.org>,
> <newyork at cair-net.org>
> Organization: "http://www.alb-net.com/"
> Subject: [Prishtina-E] Info:
> Anti-Muslim/Anti-Albanian Symbols in MBA!
> Reply-to: prishtina-e at alb-net.com
> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 14:35:43 -0500 (EST)
> 
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> 
> ------ Forwarded Message
> From: Isa Blumi <ngapeja at rocketmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 01:07:23 -0800 (PST)
> 
> By Isa Blumi
> Ph.D. Candidate
> Departments of History and Middle Eastern Studies
> New York University
> 
> 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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