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How Kosovo Created its Own Liberal Islam
Standpoint ^ | July 2008 | MICHAEL J. TOTTEN

Posted on 06/29/2008 5:50:12 AM PDT by forkinsocket

On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. Some are concerned about what NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union have nurtured there since the military and humanitarian intervention in 1999. James Jatras, a U.S.-based advocate for the Serbian Orthodox Community, put it bluntly last year when he said Kosovo was a “a beachhead into the rest of Europe” for “radical Muslims” and “terrorist elements.” It’s an assertion without evidence. “We’ve been here for so long,” said United States Army Sergeant Zachary Gore in Eastern Kosovo, “and not seen any evidence of it, that we’ve reached the assumption that it is not a viable threat.”

Nine in 10 of Kosovo’s citizens are ethnic Albanians, and more than 90 per cent of them are at least nominal Muslims. Most are so thoroughly modern and secularised that moderate doesn’t quite say it. The only word that can fairly describe Islam as practiced by the majority of Albanian Muslims is liberal. No nation can be entirely free of extremists, but Kosovo is one of the least religiously extreme Muslim-majority countries on Earth. Radical Islamists aren’t there in significant numbers now, and they aren’t likely to be in the future. Some places may be fertile ground for radicalism in the future, but Kosovo isn’t one of them for many of the same reasons that Christian theocracy isn’t coming to Western Europe.

I arrived here shortly after the declaration of independence, and the first thing I looked for – as always when I visit a Muslim-majority country – was the treatment and status of women.

Women who dress with their hair, ankles, and sometimes even faces showing in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan are often beaten or worse.

In Kosovo, by contrast, almost all women, even in small villages, dress like women in the rest of Europe. Streets, cafés, restaurants, and bars are not all-male affairs as they are in much of the Islamic world, where women spend almost all their lives behind walls. If it weren’t for the occasional mosque minaret on the skyline, there is little visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim-majority country at all. Kosovo looks, feels, and is European.

A small number of well-heeled Islamic extremists from the Gulf states have moved into Kosovo to rebuild damaged mosques and transform liberal Balkan Islam into the more severe version found in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. They’ve had a small amount of success with a similar project in nearby Bosnia, but they’re meeting stiffer resistance from Kosovo’s religious community as well as from secular citizens.

“We are working very hard to stop these kinds of movements,” said Professor Xhabir Hamiti, of the Islamic studies department at the University of Pristina. “These kinds of movements are dangerous for all nations, for all faiths, for all religions. We are Muslims, but we think the European way. I am a Muslim, I am a scholar, I know how to deal with Islam in my country. There is no need for Arabs to come here. I have no need for their suggestions, no need for their explanations. We created our Islam ourselves here, and we can continue our Islam with our own minds.”

It would be wrong to suggest Kosovo has no Islamists at all, but in the last election in late 2007, the country’s single Islamic party gained only 1.7 per cent of the vote. Kosovo is not the Middle East, and Albanians are not Arabs. The majority converted to Islam relatively recently under Turkish Ottoman rule, and Albanian culture was first solidly Christian. “We Albanians,” Dom Lush Gjergji recently wrote, “descendants of the Illyrians, are Christians from the time of the Apostles… Without Christianity there would be no Albanian people, language, culture, or traditions… Albanians consider Christianity their patrimony, their spiritual and cultural inheritance.” Gjergji is a Catholic priest, but I heard similar comments from many who self-identify as Muslims. “Albanian people are not very religious,” said Agron Rezniqi, of the Friendship Association between Kosovo and Israel “We come from Catholicism, and for that, we are not such strong Muslims.”

Perhaps the best evidence available that Albanian Muslims, in both Kosovo and Albania proper, differ radically from their Arab world counterparts is their relationship with Jews and with Israel. Jews in Albania had an almost 100 per cent survival rate during the Nazi occupation. The country was known as a safe haven where Jews could find protection under the noses of the German authorities. According to Dan Michman, chief historian at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, there were three times as many Jews in Albania at the end of the Second World War as there were at the beginning.

Both Albania and Kosovo have excellent relations with Israel, and Israelis are more than welcome to travel and even live among Albanians. An Israeli from Tel Aviv named Shachar Caspi opened a bakery and a bistro bar in Pristina. “Nobody has given me any problems or been against Israel,” he told me. “[Kosovars] had good relations with Jewish people even back in the old days. And nobody here is radical. On the contrary, people are very warm, they are very nice, they have taken Islam to a beautiful place, not to a violent place. When they hear I am Israeli, the way they react, they react very warmly.”

Much of the angst about Kosovo’s alleged radicalism centres on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an organisation that no longer even exists.

It was a short-lived guerrilla movement that rose up against Slobodan Milosevic’s régime, first to fight for independence from an apartheid-like system, and later as a defence against mass murder and ethnic-cleansing. The KLA was always thoroughly secular and in no way resembled a Balkan Hamas or Hezbollah.

Its leaders also distinguished themselves from their Bosnian counterparts when they flatly refused assistance from Arabic mujahideen who wanted to fight a holy war there against Serbs. Albanians don’t fight religious wars, not against themselves, and not against others.

There has been no fighting or even tension between Muslim and Christian Albanians, only between Serbs and Albanians.

The danger in Kosovo isn’t that international peace keepers are nurturing a jihad state. Rather, a premature withdrawal may lead to a resumption of the fighting between Serbs and Albanians that they moved in to stop in the first place.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: albania; antichristian; appeasement; balkans; dhimmwit; horsesass; islam; islamofascists; israel; jihad; kosovo; mohammedanism; serbia
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To: dennisw

Dennisw, don’t give me that crap. Anything muslim (and they’re not all muslim), you hate. Don’t try to sugarcoat it. That’s sick


221 posted on 07/02/2008 7:32:23 PM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...Doesn't have the stomach or heart to fight.)
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone
"They were farmers, they didn’t even know how to read, let alone know about the Nazi ideology or what was going on 6500 km away. To judge them based on what we know now is stupid. They only wanted their land back. Once the Nazis told them (Albanians) to fight they said no...

What a crock!


222 posted on 07/02/2008 7:36:13 PM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: MarMema
#1 - LIE

#2 - LIE

#3 - True, but not the way you portray it... It was to defend against Serbian slaughters on Albanians... You would accept help from nearly anyone if you were being slaugtered.

4. Yes, but again you twist it, as only a true propogandist does... Not a jihad, you casually forget... the Serbs started the slaughter.

5. True - the KLA was scum and a terrorist organization... Thankfully, they no longer exist

223 posted on 07/02/2008 7:36:54 PM PDT by NYC Republican (John McCain- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...Doesn't have the stomach or heart to fight.)
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To: Bokababe
Hi Obama Girl, why did they last only a few months? Why did Albanians desert? read from sources other than Karl Savich who called Mladic a hero.

These are your HEROES, imagine if I posted about Nedic, Zbor etc.


Chetniks with their buddies.

"The Chetnicks began their activities soon after Yugoslavia succumbed to Germany in April 1941. They participated in the Yugoslav revolt against the Germans in the summer of that year, and even cooperated with the partisans under the leadership of Tito. However, after the revolt was brutally suppressed, the Chetnicks decided that there was no point in fighting the Germans, because the struggle was hopeless and unattainable. Their most important conclusion was that the real enemy was not Germany, but rather the pro-Communist partisans, who would attempt to take over Yugoslavia after the war. Therefore, the Chetnicks turned on the partisans. They even collaborated with their former enemies, the Germans and Italians, against the partisans. When the Chetnicks began cooperating with the occupying forces, any Jews among their ranks left. There were even instances where the Chetnicks killed Jews or surrendered them to the Germans."

http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205916.pdf
224 posted on 07/02/2008 7:45:08 PM PDT by Santino Sonny Corleone
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To: Bokababe
"Serbs gave it their best shot"

Their best shot was against Balkans armies and FOR the Turks. There they won


The Turks are coming, let's run.


"Murdered and like many hogs they had their throats slit by the Albanians."

No wonder serbs will not dare to attack an armed Kosovo, they'll be wiped out faster than the Mamluks Muhammad Ali of Egypt. If not for Russia, Albanians were going to wipe out the Sultan as well. You only start trouble if you have others on your side (Mother Russia) or when you have one of Europe's largest army and others are scrambling to get AKs. The definition of a coward.

ON KLA and terrorists: Washington Times is hardly credible. The Serbian propaganda site that FR's Obama Girl advertises is more credible.

"New soldiers are then assigned to the infantry, artillery or anti-tank units. Some are sent straight to the front to fight. The KLA claims that it has turned away hundreds of other volunteers because it is sticking to its strict policy of only allowing Albanians to join the army.

More than 300 non-Albanians, many of whom are British-based Muslims or former British servicemen, have asked if they can fight in Kosovo. They have been turned away because the KLA does not want to be accused by Serb propogandists of running an Islamic movement or an army of foreigners."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1999/04/11/nkos611.html
225 posted on 07/02/2008 8:04:42 PM PDT by Santino Sonny Corleone
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone

Bosnians are Muslim collaborators by definition, Bonly boy.

Go learn something.


226 posted on 07/02/2008 8:48:38 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: NYC Republican
This article must really be killing you guys...

No, we're quite used to seeing Dhimmi nitwits get sucked in by Jihadist propaganda. We just feel sorry for the mentally deficient types who buy into it.

Gee, that must eat you up....LOL!

227 posted on 07/02/2008 8:50:25 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: NYC Republican

You need a time-out, child.


228 posted on 07/02/2008 8:52:19 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: NYC Republican
The KLA no longer exists, so that’s a moot point.

They only changed their name. Only a fool would believe what you've posted.

229 posted on 07/02/2008 8:53:16 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: NYC Republican

Choke on the Smoky Backroom!


230 posted on 07/02/2008 8:55:00 PM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: NYC Republican

how’s your country doing on bringing that 6’9 monster


What another lynch mob here? You don’t know what happened so stop playing the hangman.


231 posted on 07/02/2008 9:15:00 PM PDT by eleni121 (EN TOUTO NIKA!! +)
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To: NYC Republican

Madrid bombings...bombs made by Albanian Muslims moving in and out of Kosovo ...

THAT is clearly what happened...you are being naive and by being that endangering all.

The Kosovo debacle is one of the greatest tragedies in the 20th century...the US sided with the enemy on that one.


232 posted on 07/02/2008 9:30:48 PM PDT by eleni121 (EN TOUTO NIKA!! +)
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To: NYC Republican

This is Free Republic... nearly every person here can distinguish the Albanians,...from the true jihadist scum in the Arab countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.


Nope-—you are delusional on that. Irrational too. Don’t let me forget retarded.

More and more FR posters are realizing ——in fact probably most -— the terrible mistake of historic proportions the US committed in maintaining the actions of the Rapist in Chief Clinton in the 90s and recognizing kosovo.

And they agree that another islamic state is the last creature we need in Europe.


233 posted on 07/02/2008 9:38:55 PM PDT by eleni121 (EN TOUTO NIKA!! +)
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To: eleni121

“Madrid bombings...bombs made by Albanian Muslims moving in and out of Kosovo ...”

eleni121, how about a link. This is another lie by Serbian propagandists. Provide a reputable link since the “Orthodox brotherhood” has zero credibility.

Did you get a chance to ask your church about why they cooperated with the Sultan? Thank god the Albanian Arvanites didn’t listen to them and started ‘your’ revolution anyway.

If you are in Greece: say hello to Luan Shabani for me, aka Leonidas Sabanis. Shabani, as a name, is as Muslim as it can get, yet he is your hero. He became “good” as soon as he accepted (for $$) the Greek Orthodox Church, right?


234 posted on 07/02/2008 9:43:04 PM PDT by Santino Sonny Corleone
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone

The malaka mafioso is back.

So much rhetoric, so little thought.

“An oi anthropi dipsoun,as pane na pioun stin pigi tou Ellinismou”


235 posted on 07/02/2008 9:48:46 PM PDT by eleni121 (EN TOUTO NIKA!! +)
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To: BabaYaga
Sinan Pasha was bad to everyone, he just hated people. He happened to be an Albanian and good at his job, that's why he was selected 5 times as Grand Vizier. Albanians don't really see him as a hero, but then all the kings and conquerors had to kill and do bad things. This includes the Romans, Alexander the Great and so on. A Serb led the attack at Vienna as well. Granted many more Albanian devşirme became Grand Viziers but that was a meritocracy. Sinan Pasha cared about wealth and power and left plenty of gold and property when he died.

About Skenderbeg, I am laughing. You can do better than a geocities page. You should write a paper and see if it's published in reputable history journals. Looks like everyone has gotten it wrong, but you. At least FYROM had the nerve to send the Pope something in behalf of "Mother Teresa, daughter of Macedonia" before being ridiculed. I know he is Albanian because he won. You're stuck with Lazar. For all your propaganda you suck as fighters. You just do.

In his own words:
"Moreover, you scorned our people, and compared the Albanese to sheep, and according to your custom think of us with insults. Nor have you shown yourself to have any knowledge of my race. My elders were from Epirus, where this Pirro came from, whose force could scarcely support the Romans. This Pirro, who Taranto and many other places of Italy held back with armies.

I do not have to speak for the Epiroti. They are very much stronger men than your Tarantini, a species of wet men who are born only to fish. If you want to say that Albania is part of Macedonia I would concede that a lot more of our ancestors were nobles who went as far as India under Alexander the Great and defeated all those peoples with incredible difficulty. From those men come these who you called sheep. But the nature of things is not changed. Why do your men run away in the faces of sheep?"
Of course, he kicked his @ss and left 2000 Albanian knights in Italy to insure his friend's safety. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh

Serbs came from Iran. They stopped in Russia /swamps of Belarus and then were invited to serve as cannon fodder for the Avars. A mix of blood happened with the Avars, but Serbs are still SLAVS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axEkSMNPgu8 Be proud of your legacy.

Since you brought up Dienekes: he has a problem since he's trying to show that the new "Greeks" are the same as the old one, but this what he said about Albanians: "Albanians are also descended to a great degree from the indigenous population of the South Balkan peninsula, like the Greeks. Hence, it is not surprising that they are related to the Greeks."
http://dienekes.50webs.com/blog/archives/000220.html
236 posted on 07/02/2008 10:14:31 PM PDT by Santino Sonny Corleone
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone
Hi Carpet Muncher!

I didn't lie, you did. You said the Albanians "said NO" to the Nazis, and they said "YES, Sir! Can we lick your German boots for you, sir? Or anything else for you sir? You got caught lying and now you are changing the subject like the lying propagandist you are.

Bin Laden mosque, Vitina, Kosovo, renamed "Medina Mosque" so as not jeopardize the transfer of stolen property ... "Kosovo".

237 posted on 07/02/2008 10:51:51 PM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: NYC Republican; Santino Sonny Corleone
"Over time, the truth will be known, that they’re NOT the jihadists you’re trying to make them out to be, but they’re Europeans who just want to enjoy life and be part of the EU"

Tell that to the Ft. Dix Six, four of were Albanians -- and one was a KLA sniper.

Besides which you obviously didn't read Pt. 2 of Totten's article where he continually compared the Albanians to Arabs:

(In Albania)... I felt like I was in Iraq – and I don't mean that in a bad way....

...Slavs in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro are friendly people for the most part, but they are not exuberantly so, at least not to strangers. They are a bit friendlier than Western Europeans, perhaps, but their temperament is still European. These Albanians, by contrast, at least these children, were as ecstatically friendly as Arabs and Kurds....

...."Just to underscore the point, I saw a No Honking road sign. The only other place I've ever seen these things – and it was an exact duplicate – was in Lebanon."...

Besides which, notice the headline graphic on Totten's blog -- a cross and a crescent intertwined. Pure blasphemy!

238 posted on 07/02/2008 11:21:23 PM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone
"Washington Times is hardly credible."

Really?

"The Washington Times is politically conservative. It was President Ronald Reagan's preferred newspaper. Some have cited it along with the Fox News Channel and talk radio as epitomizing the conservative media.

If you think that Michael Totten as self-described Liberal is "credible" and the Washington Times ISN'T "credible", I do think you are on the wrong site, carpet muncher! Your Liberal leanings are showing you for the Albanian propagandist you are.

239 posted on 07/03/2008 12:26:12 AM PDT by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Santino Sonny Corleone
You can lough as much as you like and since you do not like what you read you are loosing yourself again...so it`s histerical laugh...it`s already written that italian site was quoted, so go and do your homework...until you find some other Skenderbegs genealogy tree, to be compared with this... "Branilo (+ assassinato a Jannina nel 1379 circa), di origine serba, Governatore di Jannina nel 1368. Sposa N.N...", ...I`m finished with posting about this subject.

Well, there are Viziers and Viziers. Unlike Albanians who willingly accepted islam (no wonder Skenderbeg is your only one anti-Ottoman hero), Serbs from Bosnia and Serbia were kidnapped from their families and FORCED to serve as janissaries. Unlike your "hero" Sinan, in "troups" for money and crime, Sokolovich (soko - falcon) brothers, both muslim by abduct and orthodox made significant changes for their people in Balkans

"Sokullu Mehmed Pasha is also remembered by South Slavic peoples for his architectural endowments in the area. He renewed the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Peć Patriarchate during his tenure as third vizier and member of the imperial council in 1557 and instantiated his relative Makarije Sokolovic, as a Patriarch of Serbia.

His most renowned endowment is an eleven-arched bridge in his home town Višegrad. Building and history of the Višegrad bridge is the topic of the well-known book by Ivo Andrić - The Bridge on the Drina, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literary achievements. His life also interested Meša Selimović. There were numerous Serbian legends on the bridge's construction. According to one, Mehmed Pasha built the bridge in his son's name. Another is present through Ivo Andrić's "Bridge on the Drina". It tells the tale of Rade the Architect who built the bridge." (wiki - Mehmed pasha Sokolovich)

And you know which Hollywood star named his daughter after beautiful Drina river.

And Turks knew about serbian caracteristic to revive and restore lifes, places and buildings and they settled captured civilians in Istanbul to serve as water-system and bridge builders...we all know Belgrade was about 300 under Ottoman occupation, fell 1521. during sultan Suleyman...further reading:

"In 1594, a major Serb rebellion was crushed by the Turks. Further on, Albanian- born Grand vizier Sinan Pasha ordered the relics of Saint Sava to be publicly torched on the Vračar plateau; more recently, the Temple of Saint Sava was built to commemorate this event. In retaliation for the rebellion, most of the city's population was deported to Istanbul; the Belgrade Forest is, centuries on, still named after those Serbian refugees." (wiki - Belgrade)

Belgrade forest is today touristic attraction in Istanbul.

240 posted on 07/03/2008 3:57:41 AM PDT by BabaYaga (BRE!)
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