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.

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

ME Muslims all hate women and treat them like crap, so the Albanians selling women & children into prostitution doesn't faze them

As supposed to the Christian love Serbs give women (and let's not talk about the rapes in Foca etc)
Can you tell me what % of Serbian women are physically abused at home?

And where do the women that "Albanians sell" go, and how they go there? Kosovo is landlocked. Italy guards it's coast well and Albania has no private boats by law (unless Berisha lied http://www.euronews.net/en/article/16/05/2008/albania-s-pm-quizzed-on-crime-corruption-kosovo-and-russia/ If so, tell me)

The same for the drugs. Serbia, Montenegro are on the border as far as the European route. Who helps them?

The body parts sale of kuffir proves the Albanians as Muslim brothers under the skin.
When Del Ponte reveals her source we will find out that the same one probably spread the "Bin Laden mosque" lie. We never heard a word for 8 years until she published a book. Not even a news story, yet supposedly a journalist told her.

Regarding 4 and 5, if they're doing it, who is helping them, is it the Serbs or the Montegrinins? Kosovo is landlocked.

Here's a primer on the crime from Misha Glenny: http://www.b92.net/eng/insight/tvshows.php?nav_id=51236'> You will see Russia, KGB, Serbia, Slobodan and a lot of other major players.

Serbian, Montenegrin police smash human-trafficking group 26/06/2008

BELGRADE, Serbia -- The interior ministry announced on Wednesday (June 25th) that a joint operation by Serbian and Montenegrin police has smashed a human-trafficking network. The nearly two-week-long operation followed months of investigation and culminated in the arrests of six Serb citizens. "We have found three victims of the human traffickers -- a Serb girl and two women from Ukraine," the statement said. The ring allegedly talked the women into becoming waitresses and cooks in northern Kosovo's Mitrovica but later forced them into prostitution. http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2008/06/26/nb-07

and tell Serbs to stop killing each other, two killings two days in Northern Mitrovica. It's increasing Kosovo's crime rate and making Albanian look bad.

[kronos77]

Dear Kronos, Christianity can’t be ruined by destruction of churches or even by the destruction of Christians. True Christianity is only made stronger by persecution and martyrdom. Christ does not dwell in buildings made of stone, but in the temples of our flesh. You are only a Christian if you act Christian.

---

My religion.
My churches.
The one that touches those two is dead, and US administration can support him as much as it can. He is dead.

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

Diocletian,
crime knows no boundaries and you should know it. Now a lot of drugs are going through Croatia, and after that it will go through another route:

Zagreb _ Two men suspected of arranging and taking part in the transport of 381 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia have been detained in Croatia.

The shipment, destined for western Europe, was discovered in a joint action by Croatian and neighbouring Slovenian police in the Slovenian port town of Koper.

It was hidden in a container ordered by a Croatian company and arriving on board a ship from the Italian port of Gioia Tauro.

The two have been detained for 48 hours and Zagreb Jutranji List daily said there were more suspects they were looking for.

The daily added that the two arrested kept silent before the investigative judge.

Jutarnji List said that last week two Croats were arrested in Panama on drug smuggling charges, and that among the 23 detained last November in the international police operation dubbed “August,” ten were Croatian nationals.

The group is alleged to have smuggled at least 200 kilograms of cocaine since 2000 and the arrests followed an intensive police operation that started in 2006, after a huge haul of cocaine on board a yacht in Colombia.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/10839/

[Tailgunner Joe]

God will forgive but first you have to admit that you are wrong. Put down your pride and take up your cross and follow Him. Only then will you have salvation.

[FormerLib]

You are nothing but Milosevic supporters.

Only a complete fool would believe such a thing. Only a bigger fool would support the creation of the Jihadist state of Kosovo.

[FormerLib]

You say America supports fascism and jihad and I say we don’t.

And the fact that we are actively supporting the Jihadist state of Kosovo proves that one has to be completely detached from reality to make statements such as this.

[FormerLib]

Put down your pride and take up your cross and follow Him.

This from the guy who supports those who desecrate and burn Christian Churches. Stupidity has reached new heights.

[Diocletian]

This from the guy who supports those who desecrate and burn Christian Churches

Tailgunner Joe doesn't support the Serbs.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I support the USA, unlike you who support our enemies. Kosovo’s Constitution does not even mention Islam at all unlike that of Serbia's and Russia's ally, jihadist Iran, so by supporting Serbia, you are nothing but a lowly dhimmi slave.

[Diocletian]

No mention of Islam, no Islamic parties, not Imams or Hodzas in gov’t. No division of peoples according to faith, etc. The notion that Kosovo is an Islamist or Jihadi state is completely and totally false.

[BabaYaga]

“The Churches were demolished because they were Serbian churches”

Then it`s fine with you??? Even if it was truth it`s stil a crime.

`The religion of Albanians is albanism` as they like to point out. So they used every available foreign invaders on Balkans to get what they wanted, and they were always “better” agressors - worse Turks then Turks (Turks defended Serbs most of times when unleashed albos raved too much), worse fascist then Italians, worse Nazis then Germans (SS Skenderbeg), worse commies then stalinists, biggest “protectors” of nato ever and neat jihadists then any muslim wherever from.

“The symbols used aren’t nazi”

Sorry, everybody who fought, Serb or Croat, against “U” in WWII knows how to recognize it and what it represents. Same is for that singer moron. As descendant of Serbs from Kozara and croatian antifascist I find this repulsive. Wanting independant country is one thing but the way to do it is another. But I wouldn`t bother you anymore since you are such a good friend with albo-criminals and american-presidend-watch-stealers apologist.

Tell me how many serbian churches and historical clerical sites (Krka http://www.eparhija-dalmatinska.hr/arhiva2008/Engleski%20arhiva2008/0006-08-E.htm; http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Krka-monastery) were destroyed and looted in Croatia and Bosnia.

Somebody said...history?

http://www.jasenovac-info.com/?lang=en

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Krka-monastery

http://www.rastko.org.yu/istorija/srbi-balkan/jilic-croatia.html

[FormerLib]

Wrong, you support Jihad but are too unaware to see it.

That’s why you project your hatred against the Christian Serbs.

[FormerLib]

Tailgunner Joe doesn't support the Serbs.

But he does support the Ustashe solution to the Serbian Problem, which is probably why you two are doing the reach-around routine.

[FormerLib]

Still quoting the Soros-run pseudo-news websites, eh Bonly boy?

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

worse Turks then Turks (Turks defended Serbs most of times when unleashed albos raved too much), worse fascist then Italians, worse Nazis then Germans (SS Skenderbeg), worse commies then stalinists



You might want to read up Serbian history from sources other than Serbian history books. Yes, Italians and even Nazis did seem as liberators to many people, and that's saying something. In WWII you had more than your share of nazi supporters. Turks had no reason to treat their loyal vassals bad, especially since your church was helping them collect the tax. Turks even forced Catholic Albanians to pay a tax to your church after they got a firman from them

Burning of churches is never OK, neither is the burning of Croatian Churches nor Albanian mosques by Serbian soldiers.

Regarding using others: Can you tell us about your relationship with Russia /how you got your autonomy, independence, who backed you on every treaty, Balkan Wars, WWI, now, tomorrow.

Let's not get into throwing mud. Look in the mirror first, it isn't that black and white, and you definitely aren't the "white."

[Bokababe]

Tell that to Amnesty International: "Kosovo: "So does it mean that we have the rights?" Protecting the human rights of women and girls trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo

Tell that to the world's newspapers who have been following the world's Albanian Narco-Crime Sprees for Years

Tell that to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC: Kosovo Albanian drug trafficking has acquired alarming proportions

Albanians blaming everyone else for their problems!

[Santino Sonny Corleone]

if that did not happen, let me know. I have no idea on who finances them.

[Diocletian]

Then it`s fine with you??? Even if it was truth it`s stil a crime.

No, it's not fine with me. But that's the truth. It wasn't fine with me either when Serbs would blow up Churches.

`The religion of Albanians is albanism` as they like to point out. So they used every available foreign invaders on Balkans to get what they wanted, and they were always “better” agressors - worse Turks then Turks (Turks defended Serbs most of times when unleashed albos raved too much), worse fascist then Italians, worse Nazis then Germans (SS Skenderbeg), worse commies then stalinists, biggest “protectors” of nato ever and neat jihadists then any muslim wherever from.

What's your point?

“The symbols used aren’t nazi” Sorry, everybody who fought, Serb or Croat, against “U” in WWII knows how to recognize it and what it represents. Same is for that singer moron.

That's funny, since we're not speaking about the "U" but rather the Croatian flag....a flag that predates the Ustashe by a century and an emblem that is a thousand years old.

As descendant of Serbs from Kozara and croatian antifascist I find this repulsive. Wanting independant country is one thing but the way to do it is another. But I wouldn`t bother you anymore since you are such a good friend with albo-criminals and american-presidend-watch-stealers apologist.

You assume a lot. Since your family was from the Kozara, they were Communist terrorists and butchers.

Tell me how many serbian churches and historical clerical sites (Krka http://www.eparhija-dalmatinska.hr/arhiva2008/Engleski%20arhiva2008/0006-08-E.htm; http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Krka-monastery) were destroyed and looted in Croatia and Bosnia.

Not nearly as many as Roman Catholic Churches destroyed by the Serbs.

I notice your link is to the Manastir Krka, which of course was untouched during and after Oluja. You're welcome.

[FormerLib]

C’mon Bonly boy, you only quote from Soros-funded sites! No one else publishes the sort of fiction you try to pass off as news.