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.
Well, here we go again. Another overly long, disruptor-infested thread. just like only a few months ago.
Yawn!
BUT, they know how to breed and multiply.
He finally realized he'd been backing the wrong side with the Jihadists and was so embarrassed that he no longer uses that screen name.
Of course, the same practice as used by Bonly boy, but being banned while remaining stupid is another matter.
Kosovar Albanian Progressive Culture
The best weapon for repelling a KLA advance, soap.
The hell of it is that the albunnies and others like them are two or three centuries out of synch and late with their plan; the age of fighting wars with grapeshot and bayonets has been over for a while and this whole idea of demographics being destiny depends absolutely on other people having tolerences and senses of humor which are fast wearing out.
La Raza? Oh wait, wrong illegals... my bad.
Cute, cannon fodder. LOL.
You deserve a post of the day award for that one. VERY GOOD!!!
He hasn't been around since you and Monty "disrespected" Hoplite's service on the Korean DMZ. :-)
“By then, Albanians will be 10 million (they are 6 now in the Balkans, not counting immigrants) and with a very professional army.”
Keep laughing, they will most likely join NATO in one year, two at the most if they can’t destroy or give away their 150,000 tons of non-Nato artillery in time. They should just give them to Kosovo and let K-FOR leave.
Serbia’s GDP/per person is not much better than Albania’s if you count the ‘gray economy’ which will soon be recorded. In two years Serbs will be visiting the Albanian shores and helping Albania’s economy.
How did Serbs in the 1990’s? For all this chest beating, a few guns and Croatia beat Serbs like a drum. Your only success was against defenseless civilians. Albanians are much worst at revenge and will get theirs, if provoked, especially when trained and led by professional officers. You keep singing about 1389, they know what you did from 1912 till 1999. The only Serbian victories I can remember are those of the Second 1448 Kosovo War and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis where Serbs where fighting *for* the Turks. Why not celebrate those, instead of the 1389 loss?
As for children: keep aborting yours and start more wars so no one feels positive about the future to have any. Here’s a memo: Having children is normal, aborting them and losing population isn’t.
Stresses of Milosevic’s Rule Blamed for Decline in Births
“During a decade in which Mr. Milosevic has sent legions of Serbian men off to carve a Greater Serbia out of the ruins of the old Yugoslavia, the women of this country, in perhaps the most intimate and pivotal decisions of their lives, are quietly choosing to make a less populous Serbia. “
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E01E0D6103DF936A35754C0A96F958260
If Northern Mitrovica leaves, so will the Hungarians, and the Albanians in Presevo and near by towns. They too will for their ‘parliament’ with one phone call. http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=06&dd=30&nav_id=51522 At this point, Serbs should focus on doing an exchange, live in peace, and stop bitting more than they can chew (again.)
You're a genius, Santino. How long did it take you to think to write the two sentences above?
I will keep laughing -- you're too stupid to realize that NATO's only interest in you is as cannon fodder. And they'll be able to waste you because they'll always know that there will be more Albanians popping out every minute. No wonder you are NATO's little pets -- perfect land mine checkers!
**”You’re a genius, Santino. How long did it take you to think to write the two sentences above?”
If it’s this simple, how come Serbs still don’t know and make fun of those who aren’t losing population? Stop being a smart@ss.
**”I will keep laughing — you’re too stupid to realize that NATO’s only interest in you is as cannon fodder. And they’ll be able to waste you because they’ll always know that there will be more Albanians popping out every minute. No wonder you are NATO’s little pets — perfect land mine checkers! “
Try again. The Albanian army will comparatively be very small in numbers. The bigger countries will do most of the heavy lifting, Albania will keep an eye on their northern traitorous neighbors for NATO so Serbs don’t serve as Russia’s trojan horse in Europe.
Either way, better to be NATO’s and USA’s “little pets” than Russia’s.
Did your Obama pom-poms arrive yet?
“So far, the main thing that I have seen working for McCain with Conservatives isn’t his policies or Conservative credentials, but nothing more than “Obama fear”. Just what does anyone think that Obama can do without the support of Congress? And what’s worse, a RINO who wants open borders and amnesty for illegals or a Democrat?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037789/posts
Looks all the “conservative” Serbs here agree with you and are bashing McCain. I wonder why.
“Obama understands Serbia better”
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=06&dd=21&nav_id=51267
“Obama appeals to the American Serbs”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979378/posts
AVERAGING ten or twelve kids per family isn't normal, and normal decent people do not do that. And, sooner or later, somebody's gonna figure out that if they KILL enough of your sorry butts, they won't HAVE to outbreed you.
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