By Milo Haskour —
At Eurovision in May, the Croatian all-female band Lelek performed with henna tattoos of crosses, an emblem from their history. Catholic Christians applied tattoos to themselves to help identify the bodies in case they were kidnapped, raped and killed by Ottoman Muslims.
Of course, Leftists called them Islamophobes. Because, of course.
“Imagine telling blacks in America, don’t sing, don’t write, don’t make movies about slavery because it makes whites look bad,” says historian Raymond Ibrahim. “Or (imagine) telling Jews, don’t talk about the Holocaust, don’t talk about persecution because it makes Germans look bad.
“Can you even imagine that ever happening? No,” he adds. “So why is it when white Christians talk about their historical real suffering, persecution, slavery, abduction, rape, outright slaughter, the Janissaries abducting boys and from their parents, turning them into Muslims and forcing them to become jihadis, you can’t talk about that?”
When the Ottomans attacked and conquered portions of the Balkans, they oppressed the people, including Croatians. One of the most hated and feared practice was the Janissaries’ “child levy,” the taking of Christian boys into their jihadi armies. The practice was called devşirme, and the boys were forced to convert.
Croatians were never fully conquered by the Ottomans, who repeatedly invaded Croatian territory during the 15th and 16th centuries. Settlements were destroyed or abandoned, inhabitants were killed, displaced or captured and agricultural regions became depopulated.
Lelek’s song “Andromeda” celebrates Croatian defiance against the Ottomans while remembering their suffering. Eurovision organizers didn’t silence the group, and they finished 15th in the competition.
Turkey objected to their performance, saying it was “anti-Turkish.” Croatian YouTube commentator Psyhodelik called it an “anti-Islam” song. There were rumblings of disqualifying the group from Eurovision, but nothing came of it.
The Ottomans crushed Kosovo, Constantinople, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Mohacs until their westward advance was halted at Vienna.
