A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days: Mea Culpa

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Mea Culpa

Posted by Pejman Yousefzadeh on Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 05:10:15 PM EST

I wrote here that the use of the word "Bosniac" or "Bosniak" was an error on the part of Senator Biden. In fact, alas, the error was mine; "Bosniak" is a term that is interchangeable with "Bosnian Muslim" although from what I have read, it can be used to encompass more than just Bosnian Muslims.

Senator Biden certainly made other gaffes during the debate; claiming that he had always supported clean coal, when in fact, he had previously said that it was the position of the Obama-Biden ticket that there should be no clean coal plants in America. And he said that the Vice President can preside over the Senate "only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote," when in fact, the Vice President can preside any time he wants and can only vote when there is a tie. Biden prides himself on his previous chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee so it is funny to see him get a basic civics fact so wrong.

But that doesn't change the fact that he was right to use the term "Bosniac" or "Bosniak" and I was wrong to deride him for it. My apologies.

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Mea Culpa | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)

Bosniak (none / 0) (#1)
by robspe on Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 11:16:07 AM EST

I just read the Wikipedia article on "Bosniak". It confirms my thinking that to use "Bosniak" to refer to all the inhabitants of Bosnia IS an error. The term is generally applied to Bosnian Muslims only. However many other Bosnians may be comprehended by the word in a technical sense, it certainly doesn't look like it should be used for all Bosnians.

It is all the worse error because there was, shall we say, a bit of unpleasantness in Bosnia during the '90s when Biden's political party injected the US military into a civil war there. So he should have been familiar with the importance of distinguishing between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Serbs and Croats. Also, it strikes me that Biden's use of the term is like the use by soi-disant intellectuals of "pa-ree" for Paris, "Koo-bah" for Cuba and "chee-lay" for Chile. In other words, it reflects the arrogant, lazy one-up-manship that pretends to know better and so often falls into the many traps that lie waiting for the stupid and unread.

Mea Culpa | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)