Albania and the Muslim World

By Grace Halsell

Tirana, Albania—A former professor of medicine and a trained heart surgeon, Albanian President Sali Berisha has made powerful friends, both in Washington and in the Muslim world. With enormous energy—and such friends—he's transformed Albania from Europe's poorest country to the fastest-growing economy in Europe.

President Berisha, born in 1944 in a small mountainous village in the north of his country, responded to my questions in English. In addition to his native Albanian, he also speaks French, Italian and Russian.

As head of Europe's only Muslim country, he began by discussing the U.S. relationship. Not only is an American presence in Albania important, he said, but a U.S. presence on the continent is necessary" for the stability of Europe."

As an example, President Berisha cited the U.S.-backed NATO ultimatum that halted the siege of Sarajevo, and the shooting down by U.S. aircraft under NATO command of four Serb military aircraft violating the no-flight zone by bombing a munitions factory in Bosnian government-controlled territory.

"I always was in favor of those strikes”, the Albanian president said. "Absolutely it was necessary to show a determination to the Serbs. It was late, but it is never too late to punish the aggressor. If a response is not made, the aggressor never stops. I think the situation remains precarious."

He pointed out that any day hostilities might break out in neighboring Kosovo, where a Serb minority backed up by the Serbian army controls two million ethnic Albanians in what is termed one large concentration camp. President Berisha said that although the White House-brokered agreement between the Muslim-led Bosnian government, Bosnian Croats, and Croatia provides "some new hopes-that is only a part of the Balkan crisis, which is a big one. This crisis has been underestimated by the West," he explained.

He lauded the increasing cooperation between Washington and Tirana, with a defense agreement signed last October, and Albania joining the Partnership for Peace. He pointed out, however, that Albania had been cooperating with the U.S. and NATO even earlier in efforts to limit Serbian aggression."We are providing NATO with naval facilities to help their mission of strengthening the embargo on Serbia and Montenegro, " President Berisha said. "We took that decision during the first days of the NATO ultimatum to the Serbs. In addition to naval facilities, we offered NATO our air space and the use of our airports. We did that to show our solidarity to the principles that NATO was going to defend, and to show that Albania is on the side of NATO in its efforts to compel Serbs to stop their aggression."

Although Albania's military forces fought Italian invaders to a standstill early in World War II, the post-war years under a Stalinist government independent of both the Communist bloc and the West left the country isolated and vulnerable. In an effort to rebuild its economy, Tirana has reduced its defense budget to as little as $100 million. The Albanian armed forces, now "below 40,000, " have been reorganizing themselves, with the aim of entering into NATO structures and other European organizations. The head of the Albanian military, Berisha said with obvious pride, "is a civilian, a former professor of mathematics."

At present, fewer than half of the Albanians in the Balkans actually live within their own country's borders. The Tirana government, therefore, would be expected by all Albanians to react to an attack on Albanians anywhere, in particular Kosovo.Should the government of Serbia move against the Albanians who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population, they would look to the Albanian army for support. To help Albania protect itself—and stand as a bulwark against Serbian attempts to expel Kosovar Albanians—the U.S. has stepped up military assistance to Tirana. The Pentagon has sent a team of military officers to Albania, and Albanian officers are being dispatched to U.S. military academies.

It is difficult for Albanians to describe to outside visitors the changes wrought in their country, which emerged as from a coma after nearly half a century of tight Communist control. As President Berisha pointed out, only three years ago it was against the law for a private citizen to own a car. In 1990, Albania had only 468 automobiles. Only a year ago, it had only two traffic signals. Now, among the ox-drawn carts and vintage vehicles, one sees many expensive late-model cars.

Describing measures to speed Albanian economic development, President Berisha said he had applied "shock therapy" to move his country to a market economy. "Albanians have shown great courage," he said. "Houses and land have been privatized, In a six-month period, we turned over to private citizens about 730 small and medium-sized enterprises. And in the past year, we have created more than 100,000 jobs."

However, Albania remains desperately poor: An Albanian minister receives $200 a month, the average salary is less than $85, and in a population of 3.5 million, a stunning 80 percent are unemployed. Despite the poverty, however Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB). The IDB, with Gulf private sector investors, set up a $100 million holding company for development in Albania. President Berisha, who travels extensively, has received warm welcomes in petroleum producing Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, he signed bilateral agreements on trade cooperation, investment guarantees and prevention of double taxation. Tirana also has close historical ties with Turkey, which has been sending aid, giving lines of credit and exporting electricity to Albania.

The Saudi Cable Company has granted Albania a $10 million line of credit financed by the IDB to produce cables and telecommunication equipment. Two other Saudi firms, AI-Fehhad Service Group and Raka's Trading Company, both based in Riyadh, are investing in the transport servicing sector and in a textile project. Kuwait has extended $16.7 million in funding and Kuwait private sector investors have set up the local Mak-Albania Company which is building a new hotel near the University of Tirana.New banks are opening. President Berisha said the Arab-Albanian Islamic Bank would be opening within a matter of weeks.

Additionally, a U.S. bank, an Italian bank, German bank, and two Malaysian banks are scheduled to open in Tirana. Middle Eastern and Asian Muslim countries are well aware that Albania was a largely Muslim country for centuries prior to the Communist takeover. Islam came to Albania with the Ottoman conquest at the end of the 15th century. The Turks ruled Albania until 1912 when it regained its independence. A mosque, dominating the heart of the capital, symbolizes the country's Islamic heritage, which reasserted itself after the ban on religious materials was lifted in 1990.

Today, since most Albanians remain Muslims by choice, Albania is the only European country with a Muslim majority. (Neighboring Bosnia's 4.5 million inhabitants were 44 percent Muslim, 31 percent Christian Orthodox Serb, and 17 percent Roman Catholic Croat when it seceded from Yugoslavia in April 1992.) I was in Tirana during the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. There I witnessed 10,000 Albanians gathered in a public park to hear Mufti Sabri Koci.

An impressive man with strength of character etched in his face, Koci was born in the town of Shkoder, north of Tirana. Under the dictatorship of Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha, the communists arrested this Muslim religious man and held him prisoner for 20 years.

Throughout his imprisonment, the mufti observed the holy month of Ramadan every year, taking only water and a few crumbs of bread at the end of each day. His steadfastness, and emergence from prison to a role of moral leadership, have come to symbolize the new Albania of President Sali Berisha, emerging from two generations of isolation to resume its place as an energetic and respected Muslim nation in a region being reborn after almost half a century of Communist rule.

Grace Halsell, the author of Journey to Jerusalem and Prophecy and Politics, has recently visited Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania.

SIDEBAR

Who Are the Albanian Muslims?

In recent years little has been written about the Albanians, a largely Muslim group in Europe who may become the next victims of Serbian "ethnic cleansing." There are three million Albanians living in the state of Albania; two million living in Kosovo; and about one million in Macedonia and Montenegro. Although most Albanians are Muslim, there are Catholic Albanians and Christian Orthodox Albanians as well. Yet, reportedly, there are no religious conflicts among them. They are united by common bonds, including, the Albanian language, a claim to being the oldest nationality in Europe and, above all a shared common suffering.

The Albanians claim that in the 19^th century they were more numerous than either the Serbs or the Greeks. European leaders who have drawn up boundaries have not always recognized their legitimacy as a people.

To learn how Albanians regard themselves, I talked with Dr. S. Sophie Juka, a native of Albania and one of America's leading authorities on Albanian history. Now a U.S. citizen, and for many years a professor in American universities, Dr. Juka lives in New York. She explained that while most Bosnian Muslims are of Slavic descent, Albanians are not Slavs:

"Albanians are different," she said.

“They are a very ancient people. Most scholars agree they are Illyrians. The Illyrians founded an immense empire extending from Epirus, in what is now northwestern Greece, to the Danube and the Black Sea. They fought with great valor against the Romans for more than a century. Eventually the Romans conquered the whole of Illyria."After the Roman conquest—in A.D. 9—many Illyrian soldiers then fought in the Roman army and rose to high position. "Illyrians who became emperors and viceroys include Claudius 11, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, Maximilian, Constantius, Valens and Valentinian, " Dr. Juka said."

Also one of the greatest of the early scholars, Saint Jerome, was an Illyrian, In Byzantine history, the Illyrians produced three of Byzantium's greatest emperors: Constantine, who officially accepted Christianity; Justinius, who built Saint Sophia; and Justinian, famous for his Code of Laws."

I asked Dr. Juka if any neighboring people to the Albanians—including such residents of the former Yugoslavia as the Serbs and Croats—were descendants of the Illyrians.

"No, they are all a Slavic people," she replied. "While Serbs today lay claim to land based on a theory of an 'Old Serbia,' no serious scholar would think of considering the Slavs as the descendants of the Illyrians. Historical documents show clearly that the Slavs were late-comers. They started to settle in the regions they presently inhabit only in the 7th century A.D."

There is much evidence, she continued, "that Albanians are indigenous to their land. Archeologists in numerous digs have found grave sites with artifacts dating from the Illyrian period—that is, going back to 2,000 B,C. Additionally, we have stone monuments from that era. Also, linguistics research of the language of the Illyrians and the Albanians leaves little doubt that the Albanians are the descendants of the Syrians." Additionally, Dr. Juka pointed that while Bosnians, Serbs and Croat all speak the same Slavic language, Albanian is unlike any other. "In the family of Indo-European languages, Albanian constitutes a branch of its own, as does another ancient Indo-European language, namely Greek." The Albanians also responded differently to the arrival of the Ottoman Turkish forces in the Balkans. In Bosnia the Bogomils, members of a Christian sect persecuted as heretic by both Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians, converted voluntarily to Islam and many welcomed the Turks as liberators.

However, Dr. Juka explained, "the Albanians fought numerous battles against the Turks—and were proud of their valor in those battles. The greatest Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg, who distinguished himself in these combats, was compared by French historians to Charles Martel, who in 732 halted the Moorish invasions at Poitiers. "As a result of the Turkish invasion of the Balkans in 1468, she said, about one-fourth of Albania's population fled to Italy. More than 500 years later, many of their descendants in Italy still speak Albanian.”

I asked Dr. Juka why—since the Albanians waged fierce battles against the Turks—most of them eventually converted to Islam.

"There is no doubt that in the Balkans the Turks used pressure at times," she said, "especially in regard to the Albanians, who resisted the Turks longer than other Balkan nations, and also on account of their Albanian links with the pope and the West."

In general, however, the Turks strike one as being tolerant. Practically all conversions seem to have been in a way voluntary. There were Albanians who rose high office with the Ottomans, becoming statesmen, reformers and scholars. Thus it might appear to some that their conversions were a means to gain high positions. The fact remains, however, that under the Turks the Greeks and the Armenians, too, held highpositions while remaining Christian.

"Thus, another factor regarding the Albanians was involved," she continued. "Let us go back in history to understand that factor: it is important to know that the Albanians are the first Europeans to have embraced Christianity. Their conversions date back to the 1st century A.D., in contrast with the Serbs who became Christians only in the 9th century A.D. Being evangelized by Roman missionaries, the Albanians adhered to the universal Church of Rome and thus did not have a national church of their own—as the Serbs did with their Eastern Orthodox Church. On account of adverse circumstances, Rome was unable to give the Albanians the necessary support to survive as Roman Catholics. Pressured by the Orthodox Serbs in the north and by the Orthodox Greeks in the south, who tried to assimilate them, the majority of the Albanians turned to Islam. Islam—in the beginning at least—represented a buoy, a safe haven, a means to keep their national identity. "

After 450 years, the Turks called a truce with the Albanians and granted them autonomy in the provinces of Shkodra, Janina, Kosovo and parts of Manastir, Dr. Juka said. "But the Serbs did not want the Albanians to have an autonomous state. Russia, as well as France, supported Serbia. And the Greeks, also hoping to prevent the creation of an Albanian state, allied themselves with the Serbs.

"In 1912-13, Serbs waged a 'scorched earth' policy of genocide, putting to the sword civilian men, women and children. There were no TV cameramen or human rights organizations on hand to report the massacres. And world leaders back then, as now, were hoping, by ignoring the victims and placating the aggressors, to achieve 'peace in our time.

Thus, the Albania-American historian continued, they permitted the Serbs' to make false claims to Kosovo to,, which they had laid military siege. "Before 1913, Kosovo was considered a part of Albania, so its history cannot be separated from Albania's," she said "Due to their 1913 invasion, the Serbs now speak of an 'Old Serbia' which allegedly existed there. They falsely claim Kosovo as 'the cradle' of their civilization. They ignore the fact that indigenous people were living there for more than a thousand years before they came on the scene."

The Serbs invent and sell their own history, Dr. Juka alleged. "They never admit that the Balkan lands had owners before they arrived—which, as I said, was really rather late on the scene. They talk about their 'empire'—it was constructed by means of mercenary armies, partly German. It was an incoherent mass of different and hostile races, put together by Stefan Dushan. And it broke to pieces immediately on his death. The so-called Serbian Empire lasted in all only nine years! "

“Before 1913, Kosovo was considered a part of Albania, so its history cannot be separated from Albania’s.”

On Stefan Dushan's death in 1356, she continued, "the rival feudal chieftains fought each other for power. Albania split off, almost at once, and was a separate principality. At the time of the historic battle against the Turks on the Kosovo plain (a battle in which all of the Balkan nations took part), Serbia was merely a very small, insignificant country. " Dr. Juka concluded:

"Just as the Nazis wanted to believe themselves a 'pure' race, so the Serbs claim that they must purify lands of Albanians, Bosnians and other non-Serbs. They began their reign of terror back in 1912, And they continue—toward a final solution." —GH