Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, last week Congressman Trent Franks and I had an important meeting with Reis Emeritus Dr. Mustafa Ceric, the former Grand Mufti of the Islamic community of Bosnia- Herzegovina. Dr. Ceric is internationally recognized and renowned as a man of peace, a leader in interreligious dialogue. For example, in 2008, he led the Muslim delegation to the Catholic-Islamic Forum, and he did that kind of work on many, many occasions. Last week, we talked about Bosnia since the conflict and the genocide of the 1990s, about where Bosnia is today and where it needs to go. {time} 2045 I would like to share with my colleagues what Reis Ceric had to say. Dr. Ceric briefed and updated us on Bosnia's struggle to hold itself together, build its economy, and integrate into NATO and the European Union. He talked about a country where, 19 years after Srebrenica and the horrific genocide that occurred there and the Dayton Peace Accords, ethnic divisions remain strong and, in many ways, have hardened as a generation has grown up in a system that classifies people into one of three ethnic communities--Bosniak, Serb, or Croat--and in a system that diminishes the rights of anyone that doesn't belong to one of those communities, including Jews and Roma. In Bosnia today, only ethnic Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats can be elected to the legislature--the House of Peoples--or to the Presidency.…”