How Kosovo Created its Own Liberal Islam

Standpoint ^ | July 2008 | MICHAEL J. TOTTEN

[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.

[Bokababe]

“Valin; Hoplite; Tailgunner Joe”

... Uh-oh, Dio just called in the rest of the Black Shirts. LOL!

[dennisw]

These liberal Kosovo Muslims sure dynamited a lot of monasteries and churches and drove out a lot of Orthodox Serbs

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

can you provide a reputable source on the "Bin Laden Mosque" ? It seems a bit too convenient?

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

wendy, I know you didn't do it on purpose but misleading people is not cool. David Binder is a known Serbian apologist. He either pulled a Jayson Blair and reported what she saw on Belgrade TV or deliberately lied. What he wrote was being reported 24-7 on Serbian media to justify revocation of Kosovo's autonomy. Michael Sells and many others have shown that these are lies.

"These new allegations against NATO are ominously similar to Serb nationalists' charges in 1986 that Kosovar Albanians were destroying the monasteries. This charge was combined with other inflammatory allegations that Kosovar Albanians were illegal immigrants who should be expelled; that Albanians were using their high birth rate as a tool to commit" demographic genocide" against Kosova's Serb minority; and that they were carrying out widespread rapes of Serb women.

In 1986, Serbian Orthodox bishops repeated these allegations and charged that genocide was being carried out against Serbs in Kosova. The same charges were repeated in the famous "Memorandum" written by Serbian intellectuals attacking the Yugoslav constitution and the autonomy of Kosova. In this inflamed environment, Slobodan Milosevic made his leap to power by promising he would protect the Serb people and their shrines against their enemies.

What was the truth of these frightening allegations? There were genuine grievances by both Serbs and Albanians in Kosova, and both groups felt threatened. But Serb independent journalists and human rights workers found the more inflammatory charges to be total fabrications. A study of police records in Kosova showed only one rape of an ethnic Serb by an Albanian in an entire year. Similarly, the alleged destruction of Serb shrines turned out to involve isolated cases of vandalism, graffiti, and cutting of trees on church property -- hate crimes, perhaps, but surely not the organized, genocidal annihilation that was claimed."

You can search for yourself right here from several different scholars.

Regarding crime: Kosovo was no where near catching Serbia in crime; their entire Milosevic era was one big mafia state. They even had their PM killed in 2003. Now? Kosovo now has 3 murders per 100,000 people, safer than a lot of countries in Europe. www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/10585/ So let's debate, but not mislead by repeating allegations that have been proven false. Also Kosovo was the poorest part, so 7000 Serbs a year leaving (20k in 3 years) isn't that much, more leave NJ each month probably and many more Albanians emigrated to Europe.

[wendy1946]

wendy, I know you didn't do it on purpose but misleading people is not cool. David Binder is a known Serbian apologist.

I don't see how that's relevant to anything unless Binder had enough pull at the NY Times to cause them to totally fabricate stories in the late 1980s. It's basically the NYT describing albanian kosovars as savages (which they are) and, if you don't like the one Binder cited, there are many more to choose from.

[wendy1946]

What was the truth of these frightening allegations? There were genuine grievances by both Serbs and Albanians in Kosova, and both groups felt threatened. But Serb independent journalists and human rights workers found the more inflammatory charges to be total fabrications. A study of police records in Kosova showed only one rape of an ethnic Serb by an Albanian in an entire year. Similarly, the alleged destruction of Serb shrines turned out to involve isolated cases of vandalism, graffiti, and cutting of trees on church property -- hate crimes, perhaps, but surely not the organized, genocidal annihilation that was claimed."

Funny, every ethnic group other than albanians seems to have been driven out of KosovO by now and you claim nothing serious caused that? You think maybe the albunnies just made faces at all the other people until they got the creeps and left??

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

Funny, every ethnic group other than albanians seems to have been driven out of KosovO by now and you claim nothing serious caused that?

Once again, you're misleading Freepers and repeating propaganda: They are over 130,000 Serbs in Kosovo, and less than 200,000 were there to begin with (out of 2 million or so). Many left with the Serb soldiers, knowing what had happened in Kosovo, about 16,000 of them have returned. The 'gypsies' have returned as well. This is not to say that everyone loves each other, there is still mistrust, but it's as you say either. Source for 130,000 Serbs there:
(Serbian) http://www.kosovocompromise.com/cms/item/topic/en.html?view=story&id=628&sectionId=1

http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/cbj2006/ee/ko.html
http://www.balkantimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2008/06/20/feature-02
Your views aside, please do not mislead on facts. And calling Albanians 'albunnies' is very childish and adds nothing to the debate. On whether Binder had any pull, of course they do; they are on the ground and are trusted. Do you think a team of investigators checks each story before it's published?.

By 1980's there was a lot of tension, by then SANU had called for Kosovo's autonomy to get pulled and to unite all Serb areas in one, meaning taking land it from all other republics. Serbs had the mighty Yugoslav army, one of the most powerful in Europe.

Once, again, facts are facts and people need to know theme so they make their own decisions. In Kosovo there are plenty of Christian missionaries, new churches are springing up, and many are converting to protestanism and Catholicism.


Here's how "Jihadi" typical Albanians are:

"What is remarkable is that about 10,000 members of Father Gjolaj's midnight congregation will be young Kosovar Albanian Muslims. Thousands more are expected at Catholic churches in other towns and cities across Kosovo.

What's more, the custom is welcomed by the Catholic clergy and generally smiled upon by Muslim religious leaders.

Father Gjolaj says he does not know how or precisely when the custom of interfaith visitation began in Kosovo. He said he would like to see the phenomenon studied by social scientists: "When it started, I don't know, [at least] since I've been here for the past 11 years. But it is obvious that massive participation began before the war. I think we're talking about approximately 10,000 people, most of them standing inside the church's front yard, since there was not enough place for all of them inside."

More than 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are Muslim. Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999, when a NATO air war ended a Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at Albanians in the province.

The Kosovar Muslim interest in Christmas signals neither an abandonment of Islam nor the adoption of Christian belief. Blerta Krasniqi plans to attend Christmas Mass at Father Gjolaj's church this year. She's a Muslim who lives in Pristina. "

http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/000164.html or go here that shows that people are embracing Catholicism, but slowly as the region is not 100% ready yet to do it in masse.
As everyone points out, they are some extremists, just as they are in Brooklyn or Small Town USA, but the people are shunning them, and the government is cracking down.

[Tailgunner Joe]

If every ethnic group other than Albanians was driven out, then why are there still over a hundred thousand Serbs living in Kosovo?

[Tailgunner Joe]

These rabid Miloseviknik commies always turn to marxist and anti-American sources to sell their lies. Just look at which countries support Serbia over Kosovo: Red China, North Korea, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and KGB-run Russia. Their whole mission here is to spread anti-American communist propaganda and whitewash their genocidal communist hero, Slobo.

[Bokababe]

Refrences to the Bin Laden Mosque in Kosovo:

Stars & Stripes

"While under the watchful eye of NATO’s Kosovo Forces since 1999, more than 150 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries have been destroyed or desecrated and dozens of new mosques have been built — including the Osama bin Laden mosque that now stands on Serbian soil."

Fjordman on Islam Watch

"Western governments are pushing for independence for a group of Jihadist thugs who recently wanted to create the Osama bin Laden mosque in Kosovo. This name was eventually changed for public relations reasons since the Albanians knew they needed American political support.

Brussels Journal: "How to Fight Eurabia"

This isn't just "talk". It is specific.

For those who don't know, the "Metohija" name in "Kosovo-Metohija" means "Church Land" and we just helped turn it into "Mosque Land".

[gitmogrunt]

http://www.kosovo.net/destruction.html

[MadelineZapeezda]

The Churches were demolished because they were Serbian churches and those acts were of a national, not a confessional nature. In the meantime, the Albanians in Kosovo are raising a Roman Catholic Church.

So this nationalism?????

[MadelineZapeezda]

Just look at which countries support Serbia over Kosovo: Red China, North Korea, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and KGB-run Russia.

The Vatican, The Vatican City State (VCS), an enclave of Rome and a sovereign monarchical-sacerdotal state will not recognize Kosovo, btw!!!!

[MadelineZapeezda]

43 countries did so far, the other 109 that didn’t speaks volumes

[wendy1946]

You still have a handfull of Serbs holding out in the Northern edge of the place but Kosovo was predominantly Serb prior to WW-II and has belonged to Serbia since the early middle ages. What has happened since WW-II is a sort of a slow-motion land theft.

As to communism, most of the albunny kosovars are basically illegal immigrants and refugees from one of the worst regimes there was in the commie world. Milosevic on the other hand grew up in a world in which only commies lived past eight or nine but eventually grew out of it. The most major reason the NWO types hated the guy was basically that they viewed him as one of their own gone bad i.e. he started off as a banker and then took Yugoslavia out of the IMF.

There were a baker's half dozen or so realpolitik type reasons why anybody in Slick KKKlinton's position might have wanted to do Kosovo and the Pentagon added them up and determined they did not add up to a case and advised Slick not to do it but the overriding concern was the Juanita Broaddrick story.

[wendy1946]

I can’t think of a reason to recognize a gangster state, anywhere. That would be like recognizing Chicago as a sovereign nation after Al Capone took it over.

[Tailgunner Joe]

43 countries did so far, the other 109 that didn’t speaks volumes

The other 109 countries that didn't: Countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Burma, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe, etc., etc.

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

I asked for reliable sources: Stella Jatras is not one of them, http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=stella%20jatras as her "Bosnia: The Birthplace of Al-Qaeda" Serbianna columns show. Is she related to Serbia's paid lobbyist, Jamas Jatras?

"Washington's plan is that the negotiations on Kosovo end with its unilateral recognition, but we will take care that the plan seems unattractive to them (Americans) as much as it is possible, Serbian lobbyist in the United States James Jatras, who expects the negotiations to continue next year as well, said in an interview with the Monday issue of the Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti....

Europe is reluctant, Jatras said. It is on us, the lobbyists, to strengthen its insecurity both in Washington and in Brussels. It is very important to work on the United States fear of isolation, and at the same time on a division within the European Union, he added."

And who is this Fjordman guy that quotes Gorin? You can do better than that, if it's true it would have been mentioned by reputable sources, it is a major event.

It was called the land of churches because that's what the King who took it in 1180 called it. The Bulgarian and the Byzantines had a different named when they ruled it. The Ottomans ruled it for another 400 years after that. And it was called something different long before Serbs even came into the Balkans.

Please back your assertion with facts, or stop misleading people because you disagree with the independence.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Kosovo was predominantly Serb prior to WW-II

Wrong. Kosovo has been majority Albanian for several hundred years.

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

Why don’t you tell us about the destruction, murders and rapes, that Serbs did before that? Doesn’t that matter or provide context?