Posted on 07/09/2008 7:28:41 PM PDT by Bokababe
It's a centuries-old tradition, but even modern-day Albania is still plagued by blood feuds. Thousands in the country don't leave their homes for fear of falling victim to revenge murders....
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
would not doubt some of the “unsolved” Murders we see here are part of this.... I am sure that in part those families that have moved here and are affect are afraid to say anything to the authorities for fear of reprisal or the fear that the authorities won’t act at all
There was even a rulebook called something like the Book of Lek or something which was sold all over the country which contained detailed rules allowed in settling the feuds.
His description of Albanian society has stuck with me to this day. I easily forget entire books quickly, but the chapter on Albania is as clear as if I read it yesterday. They are a very strange people.
Solution: Ship Albania enough Kalishnikovs for every adult and stand back and let THEM sort it out.
Thanks for the tip! I just looked up Eat the Rich and it sounds interesting, for a lot of reasons — including a painless lesson in economics, which has not been one of my stronger subjects.
The name of the Albanian rule book you are thinking of is the “Kanun of Lek”, and it is a 15th century code of behavior and punishment. It’s extremely violent by modern standards. It calls for the death penalty for anyone who “insults a man’s wife”, “abuses his hospitality”, etc.
Frankly, until Kosovo exploded, I knew very little about Albanians, other than what I read. There was a mention here and there about them and some historical event in studying Balkan history, but otherwise very little about their way of life before Enver Hoxha’s communism, other than it being described as “very primitive”. Certainly the Albanian Mafia was here in the US and there would be an occasional mention of them in the NYT in some article on Kosovo back in the 1980’s, but not much.
I did have one friend years ago, who at the time was a translator for the courts in California (he’s now a judge) and he wound up translating for a Kosovo Albanian who was in the middle of one of these Albanian blood feuds where someone was murdered. The friend, who I knew to be a fair person and not a bigot, said after working on that case, “Albanians have got to be the most violent people on the face of the earth!” He went on & on about the Kanun of Lek, and most of what he said sort of went through one ear and out the other at the time, but it kind of stunned me because I had never heard him say that about any ethnic group before.
They don't need them. Back in the 1990's when the Albanian government collapsed, Albania was flooded with AK-47s & all kinds of weaponry and munitions -- so they smuggled it across the border to Albanians in Kosovo and started a war, then they shipped the rest over to Albanians in Macedonia and started another war. And we are still cleaning up that mess.
Which goes to show that Albanians followed the Canon of Lek and aren’t Jihadis, nor Catholics, nor Orthodox Christians.
They still have that feud thing? Other civilizations have cured the problem. Albania could also.
My family is from the region- it seems like pretty much everyone in the Balkans is a little... off. But the Albanians are a pretty out there, even compared to their neighbors. Weird mountain people, I guess. One factoid that shows just how unusual they are is that there are Albanian clans that are multi-religious. Clan loyalties overcome any religious bonds. So a Muslim Albanian will happily kill another Muslim Albanian in order to avenge an Orthodox or Catholic clan member.
Correct. Which is why all the hysteria on this forum about “Jihadist Albanians” and “Jihadi Kosovo” are just ridiculous when one is actually familiar with the Albanian people. They are intensely tribal.....quite a throwback when it comes to Europe.
Centuries-old tradition? Use a centuries-old solution!
Problem solved!
What happened in Kosovo was essentially an ethnic war. Religion played a part, of course, as it always does in the Balkans. But the basis of the conflict is ethnic hatred.
Albania is about 30% Christian, IIRC, and I am not aware of any religious problems in that country.
All that being said, Albania and Kosovo are incredibly screwed up. And the various hatreds that arose during the breakup of Yugoslavia, among all the groups involved, probably won’t go away for decades. Bah, Milosevic can burn in hell for what he did.
Yes, and no, Dio.
Yes, collectively Albanians are driven by their ancient tribal codes. Yet, that does not mean that religion plays no part in the Albanian destruction of Kosovo's Serbian Orthodox churches, as you assert.
I cannot imagine "Albanian Christians" taking such delight in ripping off the crosses on churches in front a cheering crowd.
Or destroying iconography of our Lord, Jesus Christ, with such sadistic delight.
Or urinating on the remains of a burned out church and then taking photos of it.
Or kidnapping and beheading an apolitical monk.
I cannot locate them at the moment, but there are photos of the Albanian destruction of many of the nearly 200 Serbian Orthodox churches desecrated or destroyed, where the eyes in the icons of the saints have been destroyed -- a phenomena that you will see commonly in the ME and in Turkey, where this type of defacing is always done by Moslems against Christian symbolism.
Islam may not be "everything" to all Kosovo Albanians, but it isn't incidental, either, as the four Kosovo Albanian Muslims of the Fort Dix Six can attest.
Much of what was done in terms of the manner of destruction to Christian symbols in Kosovo, can accurately be described as "jihad", although I agree that tribalism is a strong component of Albanian nationalism -- yet even in this Albanian nationalism, Muslims always demand to come out at the top of the leadership hierarchy.
In Kosovo, the Albanians are nearly all Muslims. And the Serbs are all Christian. It isn't so easy to separate out "religious strife" and "ethnic hatred" in this case, because it's a large dose of both.
It is the new millenium for goodness sakes...and the ‘ancient’ albanians are practicing blood feuds...how is it that this’ancient’ group has progressed so little?
Yes, Albania is about 30% Christian. But Kosovo Albanians are nearly all muslim.
And it is the Kosovo Albanians and their muslim Gheg cousins in northern Albania who are most devoted to the Code of Lek. They are real cavemen.
....how is it that this’ancient’ group has progressed so little?....
islam.
My Ex is 100% Macedonian, let me clue you in: They’ll make “Sarma” out of the Albanians.
Could they? Sure! But not if Macedonia wants to join NATO or the EU.
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