http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=3785
Albanian Muslims: Islamist Target
By Stephen Schwartz
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 11, 2002
On October 9, the UN press service in Kosovo distributed a disturbing
article extracted from the Kuwait Times. Among many
objectionable elements in it, was one of special urgency for Western
observers: an indication of new Islamist desires to infiltrate
and destabilize the Muslim Balkans.
Under the headline "Muslims 'victims of injustice,'" the paper reported
on a lecture given at Kuwait University's Faculty of
Social Science, by Professor Ali A. Mazrui, a Kenyan Muslim, honored
member of the faculties at several prestigious
American universities, and strident critic of the West. Prof. Mazrui's
curriculum vitae shows many distinctions typically sought
by politically-correct African scholars in this country. Among them, he
is Ibn Khaldoon Professor-at-Large, School of Islamic
and Social Sciences, Leesburg, Virginia. The latter institution is
controlled by the government of Saudi Arabia, and was raided
by a U.S. Customs Service task force earlier this year. Prof. Mazrui is
also a functionary of the extremist American Muslim
Council (AMC). Prof. Mazrui is, therefore, an exemplar of the voices on
Islam presently favored in the American academy.
Prof. Mazrui's Kuwait lecture was titled "The U.S.A. and the Islamic
World After September 11." According to the Kuwait
Times, Prof. Mazrui chose to add his voice to the chorus that blames
America for all the world's troubles, even after September
11. He "termed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. the central trigger of
rage against the United States among all issues. He said
that Muslims are victims of violent injustice elsewhere in the world
without the globalization of anger against the United States.
He accused the United States as the main source of military support for
the enemy of the Arab World, Israel, and [said] also
that the U.S.A. is the main destroyer of Arab potential to rise
militarily. The latter is evident in the emasculation of Egypt and
Iraq, he argued. If terrorism is to end, the Palestine problem is to be
resolved. To the moralist, terrorism against the United
States is born out of evil; to the political analyst terrorism is born
out of rage and frustration, said the professor."
Of course, such a buffet of clich�s is hardly novel, from leftist and
extremist advocates esconced in the American academy. But
in his survey of "Muslim victims of violent injustice elsewhere in the
world" he stated, "Muslims in Macedonia are trying to cope
with discrimination from Christian Macedonians; Muslims in Kosovo are
facing the risk of reintegration with Yugoslavia against
their will." He ranked these areas alongside Israel/Palestine, Kashmir,
Chechnya, and Afghanistan as areas where Muslims
continue to suffer. (On Afghanistan, by the way, he seemed clearly
sympathetic to the remnants of the Taliban and the stragglers
of al-Qaida: "'Muslims in Afghanistan faced the Soviet Union earlier and
defeated it; the Afghans have now endured military
action by the United States,' Mazrui went on.")
Thus, this tenured demagogue delivered a warning: he and other
apologists for Islamist extremism would like to turn the
simmering difficulties into the Balkans into a new "jihad."
>From the viewpoint of the Balkan Muslims and their friends - and I take
second place to nobody in that category - nothing
could be more despicable, appalling, and even obscene. Israel and the
Palestinians face each other as two heavily armed
adversaries, each shedding the blood of the other, almost daily. Kashmir
is the scene of continued extremist terrorism, and the
self-defense of the Chechens has been badly disrupted by Wahhabi
intrigues. By contrast, while tension continues in
Macedonia between the Albanian majority in the western section of the
country and the overall Slavic majority, the Albanians
themselves do not see any religious significance in their predicament.
Albanians demanding language and local autonomy rights
in Macedonia include Catholics and nonbelievers as well as Muslims. The
Albanians do not view themselves as fighting for
Islam, but for the Albanian nation. Furthermore, Albanians and Slav
Macedonians currently remain at peace - an uneasy
peace, but peace nonetheless, and nobody intelligent, sane, responsible,
or truly patriotic among the Albanians wants a
resumption of fighting there. The recent Slav Macedonian repudiation of
extremism at the ballot box, and the integration of
former Albanian combatants into the electoral system, are causes for
hope, not pretexts for new subversivet agitation.
As for the problems in Kosovo, they are many, and they are aggravated by
the lack of clarity on the status of the territory as a
former possession of Serbian imperialism. Indeed, Kosovo is currently
undergoing a wave of mass protest, including strikes by
the teachers' unions. Kosovar Albanians are deeply disillusioned by the
failure of Western administration in such areas as
privatization. But nobody among the Kosovar Muslims views these issues
in terms of religious conflict. Once again, the patriotic
leadership of the Kosovo Albanians includes Catholics and nonbelievers
no less than Muslims.
I know these things from personal experience. I have written and spoken
extensively on the martyrdom of the Kosovar
Albanians in the 1998-99 war. Of course, numerous pious, virtuous
traditional Muslims were martyred by the Serbs in
Kosovo. One of the most affecting moments I ever experienced came when I
visited the Halveti-Karabashi teqja [Sufi lodge]
in Rahovec, Kosovo, where Shaykh Myhedin Shehu, one of the most beloved
figures in Balkan Islamic culture, was
assassinated during the conflict. I joined the members of Shaykh
Myhedin's community in a memorial dhikr or "remembrance of
God" ritual, and comforted his son, who wept to recall the solidarity of
an American journalist, Roy Gutman, thanks to whom
the shaykh received a decent burial, even with the Serbs still in
control of Kosovo at his death.
Rahovec is a beautiful agricultural city on two levels, with an upper
town on a hillside. On July 19, 1998, open fighting in the
streets between Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army culminated in
a Serb assault on Shaykh Myhedin's teqja, in
which terrified residents had gathered. At Rahovec, up to 150 Albanians
died. My new book, The Two Faces of Islam: The
House of Sa'ud From Tradition to Terror, published by Doubleday, is
dedicated to Shaykh Myhedin.
In addition, I personally saw and photographed the bloodstains in the
Dervishdana teqja at Gjakova, where Shaykh
Zejnelabedin Dervishdana was brutally murdered with a group of his
relatives and companions, in 1999. I interviewed the
survivors of that horrific atrocity for the Sarajevo Islamic journal
Ljiljan. The Dervishdana incident figured in the indictment of
Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague. Shaykh Zejnelabedin was killed by
masked Serb terrorists on March 26, 1999 along with
two sons, two neighbors, and a friend. The family of Shaykh Dervishdana
maintains the teqja, which follows the Sa'di-Jibawi
form of Sufism. The bloodstains remain on the floor, under the carpets
of the teqja. Shaykh Zejnelabedin's deputy, shaykh
Rama, was killed in a massacre by Serb terrorists in the nearby hamlet
of Korenica on April 27, 1999, a month later.
In the latter incident, one of the worst in the entire Kosovo war, Serb
irregulars arrived in buses, with red bandanas tied in their
heads or as armbands, according to a local resident, Tom Dedaj.
Korenica's population is 90 percent Catholic and 10 percent
Muslim. When the Serbs had completed their assault on Korenica, at least
129 people, and as many as 155, were dead, all
unarmed, including women and children. One survivor said every man in
the village over 16 had been killed. The ratio of victims
was approximately the same as that of the living: 90 percent Catholic,
10 percent Muslim.
The local Serb army commander lived in Korenica. When the survivors of
the massacre first came streaming into the Catholic
church at Gjakova, Father Ambroz Ukaj - one of my dearest friends in the
Balkans - went to the officer and demanded to
know what had happened. He was interrogated as to how he knew anything
had happened at all, and he replied that women in
the village reported the mass arrest of all males. Pater Ambroz was
ordered by the Serbs to return to his church or suffer
himself, but he succeeded in getting medical care for some of the
injured, even though it was too dangerous for them to go to
hospitals.
No Albanian would dare say that Pater Ambroz, as a Catholic, was less a
hero of the national struggle than the Muslims who
have fought for Albanian rights. In my extensive involvement with
Catholics in Kosovo, I frequently saw manifest the essential
truth of the Albanian national epic: the religion of Albanians is the
Albanian nation. To the extent Slavic nationalism, fuelled by
Orthodox Christian demagogy, threatens Albanians, it is a menace to
Shi'a as well as Sunni Muslims, Catholics and Albanian
Orthodox as well as the small remnant of Albanian-speaking Jews. When I
had the extraordinary honor of introducing Pater
Ambroz to Baba Mumin Lama, head of the Shi'a-oriented Bektashi sect in
Kosovo, each referred to a national poet and hero
originating with their communities: Baba Mumin said, "you have Gjergj
Fishta, we have Naim Frasheri." Unfortunately, these
names are nearly unknown in the West; but they are treasured in the
hearts of all true Albanians and all the sincere friends of the
Albanians. And of course, there remains Mother Teresa: When Dom Lush
Gjergji, one of the great Catholic figures of the
present day, introduced his new book on her in Kosovo in 2000, he was
joined by Ali Podrimja and other leading Muslim
intellectuals.
The Albanians - in Kosovo, in Macedonia, in Montenegro, in Albania
proper, and elsewhere - will continue their just,
righteous, and valiant struggle for national freedom and respect; for a
seat at the table of European culture and full recognition in
the family of nations. They remain Muslim in their majority, but their
national hero remains Skanderbeg, a Christian. There is no
place for "Islamization" of the Albanian national struggle. I know that
another great friend of mine, H.E. Rexhep Boja, grand
mufti of Kosovo, agrees with me on this. The Albanian struggle is not,
and will not be, a "jihad." Kosovo and Macedonia are
not Israel or Palestine, or Chechnya, or Kashmir. The blood of the
Albanian nation cannot be exploited by Prof. Mazrui and
other demagogues to justify Islamic extremism. Indeed, the attempt to
"Islamize" the Albanian national movement would present
the Slav extremists with a precious gift: evidence that their
Islamophobic claims were true.
If Albanian Muslims face a religious enemy, it is Saudi-backed
Wahhabism, which has been rejected in Kosovo, but whose
well-heeled functionaries continue in their attempts to undermine
traditional Islam in the territory. Their methods include the
crazed Wahhabi practice of desecrating historic Muslim graveyards (which
they consider an expression of "idol-worship" of the
dead and of monuments). Similar vandalism is now being practiced by
Wahhabis in Kurdistan, much to the dismay of Kurdish
traditional Muslims.
I recommend Prof. Mazrui keep his eyes and hands off Macedonia and
Kosovo, and turn his attention, as a leading African
scholar, to the Wahhabi campaign to impose a rigid form of Islamic law
in Nigeria, an effort that has deeply harmed the image
of Islam in the West. The Albanians and their friends, the Americans,
have no need of his attentions.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
