This Is A Kosovar Muslim

Commentary ^ | Unk. | Michael J. Totten

[forkinsocket]

Lee Smith laments that American Muslims have to read almost exclusively about scary Muslims and slightly less scary Muslims in the mainstream American media. “One can only sympathize with American Muslims,” he writes,

those who may or may not be religious, but surely have no attachment to the obscurantist fanatics that drove them from the region, and must now be wondering what is wrong with the New York Times that the only Muslims that register with the paper of record are very scary ones, and less scary ones.

I have noticed and been annoyed by this tendency myself, and it goes double today: I'm writing this from the capital of Kosovo, the least “scary” Muslim country on Earth. I've grown accustomed to moderate Muslims after living in and traveling to places like Beirut and Istanbul, but Kosovo is surprising even to me. Islam in this country is so thoroughly liberal (“moderate” doesn't quite cover it) that, if it weren't for the mosques, there would be no visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim country at all. I've been in Prishtina, the capital, for four days, and I can count the number of women I've seen wearing a hijab on one hand. Aside from the conservative dating culture, women here are as liberated as Christian women in the rest of the Balkan region.

A large number of Kosovo's Muslims are Sufis--the most peaceful and the least fundamentalist of all the world's Muslims. Sufis can be found in many parts of the Islamic world, but here in Kosovo they proudly proclaim that they are the most “progressive” of all.

Soft-imperial Wahhabis are trying to export their brand of Islam from the deserts of Saudi Arabia to this fertile green land. They have their work cut out for them with this crowd. Bosnia notoriously welcomed thousands of Salafist mujahideen fighters from the Arab world during Yugoslavia's violent demise. But the Kosovo Liberation Army brusquely told them to stay the hell out of their country--even while they faced an ethnic cleansing campaign directed from Belgrade.

“After two years of traveling almost exclusively to Western Europe and the Middle East,” Thomas Friedman wrote in 2003, “Poland feels like a geopolitical spa. I visited here for just three days and got two years of anti-American bruises massaged out of me.” I feel the same way now in Kosovo after working for much of the last year in Iraq. (Kosovo feels like a pro-American spa compared even to my home town in the United States.)

American flags are on sale at kiosks everywhere. They fly in front of government buildings. The world's second largest replica of the Statue of Liberty sits atop the five star Hotel Victory. The largest street downtown was renamed Bill Clinton Boulevard. Many businesses are likewise named after Clinton. One cafe owner called his establishment “Hillary” and placed two gigantic pictures of Bill and Hillary on the walls. Don't assume, though, that this makes Kosovars Muslim versions of Euro-lefties. Clinton is rightly hailed as a liberator, but one resident told me “We are Republicans here in Kosovo.” They want a strong American President who won't back down from commitments.

Just a few short blocks from Bill Clinton Boulevard is the Israeli Odyssea Bakery. It is not just a Jewish bakery, but an Israeli bakery owned and operated by an actual Israeli. The very idea of this would be unthinkable in even the most liberal of Arabic-speaking countries.

Accomplished businessman and practicing Muslim Luan Berisha told me that 90 percent of Kosovars support Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don't know if that's really true. But if so it means Kosovo is more pro-Israel than even the United States. And even if he was exaggerating, it was an intriguing-- and telling--exaggeration. No one in any Arabic country would say such a thing. Whatever sneaking sympathy for Israel might exist here and there in the Arab world is vehemently denied by just about everyone else. Kosovo sharply contrasts also with nearby Serbia on this question, where General Wesley Clark is seen as a sinister Jewish figure who plotted Belgrade's destruction, and where Saddam Hussein was considered an ally.

Forget creepy crypto-Islamists like Tariq Ramadan and his ilk, whom reporters like to swoon over. Genuinely liberal and moderate Muslims do exist. They're just not famous. If NATO's Kosovo war had taken place after September 11, 2001 instead of two years earlier, perhaps the Muslims of Kosovo wouldn't be so obscure. As it stands now, hardly anyone bothers to write about them because their country no longer explodes.

[marron]

If it is only the Serb church that is targeted, how are other christians doing there? Evangelicals, catholics, other orthodox? Are they free to worship and evangelize?

How are jews treated?

Just curious.

[grellis]

Most of the Muslims I know are Bosnian, and they are scary (expletive)s.

[Honorary Serb]

This is what the Kosovo Albanian muslims can do to Albanian Catholics:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1818955/posts

And I know that the KLA types burned down at least one Albanian Evangelical Protestant church soon after the Serb army was forced out of Kosovo in 1999.

Kosovo Albanian culture is clan-based, and especially with their difficult language and code of revenge, no American tourist ninny is going to penetrate it. So things may seem all Stars and Stripes and rah-rah clinton on the surface, while a volcano of violence and savagery is bubbling underneath!!!!

[Honorary Serb]

...“One can only sympathize with American Muslims,” he writes...

Somehow I have a great deal of difficulty sympathizing with them.

That is because I know about the large fifth-columnist mosque in the heart of our metropolitan area, which has helped finance the KLA, the “Bosnian” islamists, Hamas, the Chechen bandits, etc., and has hate literature in its library against Christians (especially Orthodox Serbs and Russians), Jews, and Americans.

I also know that nearly every metropolitan area in the US has at least one fifth-columnist mosque, usually financed by the Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, and run by the fifth-columnist muslim Brotherhood.

Somehow, I would find it easier to sympathize with “American” muslims if they would clean up their own house!

[F-117A]

Islam in this country is so thoroughly liberal (“moderate” doesn't quite cover it) that, if it weren't for the mosques, there would be no visible evidence that Kosovo is a Muslim country at all.

Guess he missed all the destroyed churches!

[dennisw]

These unflattering thoughts come to mind when thinking Islam, but too true. It is a dangerous game to court Islam to any cause, as the CIA found out the hard way with its ugly step child in the Afghan-Soviet war, Al Qaeda. There is no peace with Islam, no negotiations, no compromise of convenience, and surely no trusting them. They are deceitful liars, and no truce or hudna is worth the paper. For this there is no apology.

Mohammedans today are what they had always been, descendants of caravan raiders led by a delusional Arab warlord who turned his armies into slavers, hostage takers, rapers, looters, and genocidal murderers of all past civilizations conquered, all in the name of their pagan moon god Allah. Their only claims to fame, their so-called "Golden Age of Isalm", was largely stolen.

To court Islam for any modern cause other than to put it down will lead to the 'Constantinople syndrome', where they close in and one day storm through the gates. There is no peace with Islam, only war until they feel themselves totally subdued and discredited. Not a religion, no apologies to a cult of war. Action speaks louder than words.

Modern Islam has morphed into violent threats, abuse of freedoms, abuse of women, riots over most trivial things, suicide bombings, and all elements of violent Jihad terrorism against our freedoms and democratic ways of life, all powered by their Sharia. Muslims claim this is a small minority, but their silence is collective condemnation of their majority complicity, even if only with their silence. Why? What place can modern Islam occupy in the modern world? None. So, no apologies to them, ever, for any perceived slights as they play their victimhood card. They are the ones who should be apologizing to us.
Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at May 7, 2008 1:12 AM

[eleni121]

Totten’s piece just reeks of accomodation. Sufis are mohamedans and mohamedans are sufis..both inhumanly strange and demented cults.

[Bokababe]

The article above is a crock, cheerleader piece. Are we Americans really that vain and stupid to think that just because they have a "Bill Clinton Boulevard" and an fly a bunch of American flags, that they are "pro-American, non-jihadist Muslims"? What did Bill Clinton EVER do that was "good for America"?

And if you recall, the press went on and on with the same PR bull about the Bosnian Muslims being "peaceful" and "secular" before it turned up that 4 of the 9/11 hijackers cut their jihadist teeth in the Bosnian wars! "How are jews treated?

This is a pretty insightful interview, re not only on what happened to Kosovo Jews, but on the fact that as the Jews of Kosovo were thrown out, Albanians from Albania actually invaded Kosovo in the supposed "Kosovar return to Kosovo".

[Bokababe]

And here is what happened to the Roma community in Kosovo: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Rifati_Kosovo.htm

[marron]

So, lets see. Evangelicals, orthodox, catholics, jews, and gypsies are being pushed out of Kosovo at the point of a gun.

Who does that leave?

There is a lesson here for anyone that cares to learn it.

Thanks.

[Diocletian]

Sorry Dennis, but you’re completely wrong. I’ve explained why the attacks on churches happened.

[Diocletian]

Are any of those groups Albanians? if not, then you’re beginning to understand Kosovo.