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. Its an assertion without evidence. Weve been here for so long, said United States Army Sergeant Zachary Gore in Eastern Kosovo, and not seen any evidence of it, that weve reached the assumption that it is not a viable threat.
Nine in 10 of Kosovos 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 doesnt 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 arent there in significant numbers now, and they arent likely to be in the future. Some places may be fertile ground for radicalism in the future, but Kosovo isnt one of them for many of the same reasons that Christian theocracy isnt 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 werent 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. Theyve had a small amount of success with a similar project in nearby Bosnia, but theyre meeting stiffer resistance from Kosovos 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 countrys 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 Kosovos 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 Milosevics 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 dont 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 isnt 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.
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
What a crock!
#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
Bosnians are Muslim collaborators by definition, Bonly boy.
Go learn something.
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!
You need a time-out, child.
They only changed their name. Only a fool would believe what you've posted.
Choke on the Smoky Backroom!
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.
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.
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.
“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?
The malaka mafioso is back.
So much rhetoric, so little thought.
“An oi anthropi dipsoun,as pane na pioun stin pigi tou Ellinismou”
"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.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
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?"
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".
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!
Really?
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.
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 Viegrad. Building and history of the Viegrad 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 Mea 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.
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