Each Yugoslav party claimed a civilizational mission and victimhood identity

Evidence

“Karadzic,” one Western diplomat said of the Bosnian Serb leader, “sees this as the anti-imperialist war in Europe. He talks about having a mission to eradicate the last traces of the Ottoman Turkish empire in Europe.” The Bosnian Muslims, in turn, identified themselves as the victims of genocide, ignored by the West because of their religion, and hence deserving of support from the Muslim world. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 751

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Huntington’s point that identities are not discovered but deployed — each side simultaneously claims victimhood and crusading mission — is a deep insight into how conflict parties fashion self-serving civilizational narratives.
• XREF: connects to: Warfare in ethnically mixed Yugoslav regions took either conventional or genocidal forms. — Sandra Penic, Guy Elcheroth, and Dario Spini, When Is Collective Exposure to War…, 43; Elite party entrepreneurs manufacture a victimhood narrative to mobilize ethnic solidarity — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 166