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.
But Kuwait was NOT a legal part of Iraq, when the 1973 Helsinki Final Act was signed that said the borders of countries are FINAL and no changes can be made, except by consent of the sovereign country and those wishing to secede.
On the other hand Kosovo WAS part of Serbia in 1973, when the US and a host of other Western countries signed the Helsinki Final Act.
"possession is nine-tenths of the law".
Not when it is theft.
New York wasn't ours on 9/11 because "we couldn't defend it"? The Pentagon "wasn't ours on 9/11 because we couldn't defend it"?
The rule of force is not the rule of law, and rule of law is what civilized societies embrace, not the rule of the jungle.
Second, do not enter in archaeology field so easily bozo, you do not have the right shoes to walk through it safely. To you it`s just another instrument that you play on really badly thinking at the same time that that will make some difference. No it will not. Also, I do not want and have to prevent you and people like you doing this because you are helping in future ravings like yours to be put on “ignore” list faster.
So be my guest “make paper and publish it” and with sentence like this: Tell us instead of Illyrian kings of Serbian origin,
I`m sure your lecture will be massively attended in some institution, but in that kind that has nothing to do with archaeology or history.
Third, I was waiting for that Senderbeg`s genealogy tree, but I changed my mind. It`s more relevant to get it from actual proficients in field.
Anyway, thank you for post about factual but brutally deleted wiki article about roman emperors that happen to be born on territory of modern Serbia, because I didn`t know about that and be sure it will be forwarded along with discussion which really shows another rotten formula of hiding the facts for all the reasons I named above.
To this stadium you showed no signs of such educated aproach to any matter of conversation, but histerical and obsessive search for internet “proofs” other word BS about Serbs and Serbia. My post about Belgrade had no other goal but to show the fate of one citi`s population.
You always cry when somebody “calls you names”, but at the same time you are self-enjoyingly doing the same. Your links about genetics and history are completely took out of context and wider perspective and put in front of us just to confirm what you already and uncriticaly accepted as eternal “truth”. You are not answering to questions and challenges in the same manner not to ruin that picture you have in your head. So further on, there will be posts adressed to you in mutual understanding for "not to waste each others time" so don`t bother post to me back.
I don't have to prove my American loyalties to you, you little babbling punk. When you have been here for more than five minutes, then you can start questioning me & my American loyalties.
"Second, the world powers desire PEACE. If it means adjusting the same borders they set, so be it. They giveth, they taketh.
Then you aren't just a Muslim Liberal propagandist, you are a globalist, too. Again, you are in the wrong place for that BS, junior.
Third, there is no unlimited sovereignty. Just as free speech and other are limited so is sovereignty.
You are pulling that crap out of your butt -- the legal limits on sovereignty and free speech are spelled out by rule of law, not just the point of a gun.
"Many wanted the US to intervene in Rwanda...."
Kosovo was NOT Rwanda! A million people died in Rwanda for their ethnicity, much like Jews had died in the Nazi camps. Less than 5,000 had died ON ALL SIDES, in Kosovo before the 1999 NATO Bombing, in a war of secession. Comparing the two is comparing apples to oranges. And beside, last time I checked, we were NOT redrawing the borders of Rwanda.
It is absolutely insane to me that anyone calling themselves "a Conservative" (which you surely aren't) would defend the illegal seizure of private property & violation of legal sovereignty, in favor of a socialist/communist model of "seizure of private property for collective ownership" and "overthrowing the haves in favor of the have-nots". That isn't a Conservative philosophy, it's Communism!
Thank you MarMema.
I stand corrected. Thanks
This cultural heritage of one european country is meant to carry out through the project “Routes of roman emperors” (Putevima rimskih careva) where tourists can visit historical and archaeological sites and monuments with all the logistics and accomodations that go with this kind of conceptual and visual presentation of various historical information of roman imperial period.
This project is helped by Ministry of Culture of serbian government - Putevi rimskih careva, internationals and tourist organizations - SERBIA – HOMELAND OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS.
Palace in Gamzigrad is on UNESCO WH list - Gamzigrad-Romuliana, Palace of Galerius, Viminacium is the most important fortress and town from roman imperial period in province of Moesia Superior - Viminacium – roman town and fortress (wiki article is joke)…
On already mentioned wicked wiki we can find that same list broken in several articles about cultural, historical and archaeological places in Serbia. At first, we can find sentence like this: No less than 17 Roman Emperors were born in the land that is now Serbia Serbia – wiki, Early history
Then we can learn something about Mediana, Roman emperors from Niš, Sirmium, Justiniana Prima, but much better in german.
And so on…
Did I say that similar obstructions will not succeed in their main purpose? Itinerarum Romanum Serbia
Second-largest in the world for the US military. Still can't figure that one out.
Wow. Thanks for another great post.
less die because you never had a chance to rape and murder like in Bosnia. I mean “allegedly, according to Soros propaganda.”
This is as illegal as you taking Kosovo in 1912 with mother Russia’s help Obama girl.
Kosovo will be there when NATO leaves. Go and get it, you sure do know how to fight. At least the French don’t brag about losing or surrendering like cowards.
And be nice to Muslims, given how many Serbian girls were in Turkish harems...
“Third, I was waiting for that Senderbeg`s genealogy tree”
I told more than once: impress me with a peer reviewed paper. I have no time to chase any retarded theory because you need a hero.
Glad you acknowledge what DIDN't happen.
Kosovo is not Bosnia. Bosnian Muslims are NOT Kosovo Albanians. Unless you are talking about "the umma", you can't claim their another's victimhood.
"This is as illegal as you taking Kosovo in 1912 with mother Russia’s help Obama girl. "
It wasn't "with Mother Russia's help", actually it was with the help of Greece & France and the Allies. Quit bitching cause you picked the wrong side!
"Kosovo will be there when NATO leaves."
-- and it will there when Albanians leave, too.
"And be nice to Muslims, given how many Serbian girls were in Turkish harems..."
The operative word being "were". No one's ever faulted us Serb women for our good looks.
Do you keep posting these Bosnia related photos for the stupid or uninformed out there, and those without a map? Because Bosnia and Kosovo are a couple hundred miles apart and the Bosnian Serbs are not from Serbia. It’s got nothing to do with Kosovo & the Albanians.
The Gueghes are thickset and muscular, the Toskes slender and agile, both strong, vigorous, and perhaps the finest race in Europe. The characteristics common to both peoples are love of independence, love of war, a revengeful spirit, merging into ferocity. They are wild, plundering, indefatigable soldiers, selling their services and their blood to those who pay them highest ; but lively, gay, adventurous, sober, generous and heroic so soon as it concerns the defence of their country, their tribe, or their family. They are an iron race, as hard as the rocks they inhabit.
They proved the most intrepid soldiers in the armies of Pyrrhos, of Alexander, Diocletian, Scanderbeg, and lastly of the Sultans of Byzantium. They have been in the pay of the Italian States, chiefly of Venice, and, under the name of Stradiotes, have rendered themselves famous alike by their valour and cruelty.
The Albanian Catholics are the inhabitants of the Mirdita and the Dukagin : they are almost entirely independent, and pay no tribute, suffer no Ottoman upon their territory, and allow themselves to serve in the Turkish armies only for the pay ; Catholicism has not softened their manners or their ferocity. The Albanian Greeks are found chiefly in Epirus, and share the ideas and passions of the Greeks. The Albanian Mussulmans occupy the central portion of the country ; these are very slightly zealous followers of the Koran, and have only adopted Mahometanism to escape from Turkish oppression and to preserve their liberty. The Albanian Greeks and Mussulmans are better subjected than the Catholics to the Ottoman domination ; but, in reality, they govern themselves and are divided into tribes, which enjoy great independence.
Albania, consisting entirely of mountains, defiles, gorges, and precipices, where wide plains are only found in the lower basin of the Drin, is a country very difficult to conquer, very favourable to a war of stratagem, and almost entirely isolated from the Ottoman Empire. It is generally unfertile and badly cultivated, producing only olives, fruit, a little corn, a little wine, abundant pasturage, and very few horses. Of commerce there is almost none. http://books.google.com/books?id=XwsIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA524&dq=%22The+Gueghes+are+thickset+and+muscular%22
Don't you think that it would also be (at least) appropriate to post other photos of the brutal detention camps run by Croats in Detlj and the Izetbegovic's regime in Konic as well?
Or, are you just simply not aware of what I mentioned - which is what I suspect.
Gee, I can't wait. Aren't you going to start telling us about "the great values of Islam"? I mean I am sure everyone is curious, and we are so wishing to share in what you have been smoking. And do please tell me about my sister "Serb women in the harem".
It's OK, I'll wait.
Vaistinu!
Go to hell loser... You don’t have the guts to ping me on it? Don’t you know it’s rude form to bad-mouth someone without pinging them? Jackass
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.