In Kosovo-Metochia (KosMet), traditionally, part of the gastarbeiters’ (guest workers) money is proliferated by financing criminal business, but first of all, drug smuggling, which from the Middle East goes via KosMet to Western Europe.
It is one of the principal occupations of the young Albanian population, for many reasons. Apart from their unemployment, money earned by this traffic is used for buying weaponry, which has always played a very prominent role in the Albanian way of life.
The Albanians turn out to be ideal for playing the role of the main ring in the chain of smugglers from the Middle East to Western Europe and the USA, at least for two good reasons:
Since they belong mainly to the Muslim religion, they have the easiest way to contact the producers and deal with them.
Being of “European complexion”, they are much more suitable for smuggling drugs across the Asian-European borders, unlike Turks, Afghans, Pakistanis, etc., easily recognizable by the European customs.
Generally, the social structure of the Albanian society, based on fis (or tribal) units, appears ideal for the business of the mafia type. A father earning money in Germany can supply his 4‒5 sons (for instance) at home with the initial capital for this kind of business.
Hence, this sort of “private initiative” business provides the KosMet society with large capital, which is out of control and thus out of the public funds. It is never accounted for when estimating the regional incomes, and when presented as the income per capita, the official figures appear miserable indeed.
As for the weaponry smuggling, guns, etc., end generally on KosMet itself, it, therefore, provides a large earning for some families, but large expenditures for others, so that the net gain for the region cancels out. It was a practice of the small businesses held by the ethnic Albanians at green markets in ex-Yugoslavia, as in Zagreb, for instance, where they hold a monopoly in many branches. Again, the ethnic ties are here of the utmost importance, since the business is tightly bound with the feeling of belonging to the same nation, “endangered by the hostile environment”. Generally, the Albanian organized crime in Western Europe and the USA has pushed down many “renowned” adversaries, like Italians, Chinese, etc.
Here, the question of corruption in this context will not be entered, but, in principle, it cannot be avoided, as it is an issue relevant to the political problems related to the KosMet crisis and knot. All wealthy ethnic Albanians, in particular the KosMet Albanians, are supposed to contribute to the “common cause”, that is, to the creation of a Greater Albania (the political project from 1878). While some of the gastarbeiters presumably donate the money voluntarily, it is not difficult to imagine the money exhortations made by the criminal groups and organized crime. This phenomenon appears common to all “patriotic movements” outside the motherland, and evidently, the passing from patriotism to crime requires a small step. Many murders reported among immigrants from various Balkan and Near-East countries are simply the outcomes of clashes between various criminal gangs.
Religion, church, and politics
In order to better understand political events in both historical and current perspectives, attention has to be turned here to the role of religion in Albania and the surrounding countries. Albania’s population consists of 70% Muslims, 10% Roman-Catholics, and 20% Greek-Orthodox (consisting mainly of ethnic Greeks and some Slavs). Though it has been widely accepted that religious division is of no importance to Albanians altogether, divisions do exist and, in fact, they are important in particular regarding the Orthodox Christians and the Muslims. The latter has a specific way of life and a distinct attitude towards women. Nevertheless, Albanian leaders, from the Rilindja movement in the 1870s to the present, have persistently tried to suppress religious differences in favor of national unity. One of the most prominent mottos of the First (Islamic) Prizren League (1878‒1881) was: ”Feja e shqiptarit asht shqiptaria”. This is a remarkable slogan, widely ignored by the external factors, and taken as a mere rhetorical figure. However, with the present-day experience with ethnic-Albanian nationalism and its ferocity, a parallel with religious fanaticism imposes itself. One cannot help recalling early Christianity in this context and the perplexity and animosity with which the ancient world regarded its relentless marching through the Roman-Greek civilization and culture.
The Albanians at KosMet are overwhelmingly Muslim, with small admixtures of the Greek-Orthodox and the Roman Catholics. Regarding the Muslim Albanians, they belong almost entirely to the Shiite sect (Bektashi), but in almost every village, a family of Sunnites can be found. As it turned out later on, the Muslim religious organizations will play a crucial role in the KosMet issue.
First mosques in KosMet were built in the 16th century, as compared with the earliest extant Christian churches and monasteries, which date from the 9th century. These monasteries are scattered all over KosMet. But the most ancient and valuable examples are concentrated in the Metochia region (the western portion of Kosovo), as one could infer from the very (Greek) name Metochia (monastery estate), without further inquiry. The most important among them are all Serbian: Visoki Dečani, Bogorodica Ljeviška (Prizren), Pećka Patrijaršija (near Peć), and Gračanica (near Priština). The latter church appears to be the pearl of the Byzantine style architecture and is recognized as one of the World Heritage sites, protected by UNESCO. It is in this church that the most infamous fresco eye-digging occurred. It concerns the figure of Queen Simonida, the wife (of Greek origin) of Serbian King Milutin (1282‒1321), who was the founder (ktitor) of the monastery. Another significant (presumably unique) figure among the frescoes is Eustachius, a famous grammarian and orator at Constantinople, from the 12th century, later the archbishop at Thessaloniki.
As a rule, the Ottoman authorities, in principle, did not destroy Christian churches, although there were occasional exceptions. Generally, the Ottoman Empire was rather tolerant to a certain extent towards ”infidels” and their shrines (as the Jews and Christians were understood as “the people of the book”). The Albanians themselves used to respect monasteries and even protected them from their compatriots. However, this protection has been widely used as general proof that Albanians were friendly with the Serbs who lived in their neighborhood, but this protection deserves some scrutiny. It concerns the nearby Albanian fis (tribe), which makes a deal with a monastery. The latter pays for their protection and proclaims the master of the fis vojvoda, with the meaning of duke, though of local importance.
Moreover, if the fis kills somebody in the course of “protection”, it is the monastery which “pays the bill”, that is paid to the family of the deceased the amount prescribed by the 15th-century Albanian Canun (law codex). In fact, this kind of protection resembles a very similar institution widely practiced by the Sicilians, in particular in the USA. The obligation to reward the blood feud implies the incorporation of the monastery staff into the Albanian traditional society and its ethos. If we are aware that the said protection is from the same Albanians, the overall picture attains a cynical connotation (with the mild taste of blackmail).
Religion is tightly bound to “the soul of the nation”, even if people happen to be emancipated from the faith. The Serbs mostly identify themselves with the Serbian Orthodox Church (the SOC), even atheists. It was the SOC that was instrumental in preserving the Serb identity under foreign rules of the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungary, Venice, etc. Though a small number of Serbs have adopted the Roman-Catholic confession, they consider themselves Serbs, but the rest of their “tribal compatriots” regard them as “outcasts”.
On the other hand, those who were converted into the Muslim religion have been written off by the rest of the Slavic population and do not consider themselves Slavs any longer. This concerns particularly Bosnian Slavs (Serb and Croat alike). The curious, if not tragic, position those Slavic Muslims have found themselves after the first Yugoslavia was founded in 1918 has been vividly described by Mehmed Meša Selimović, a Muslim Bosnian writer, presumably of Serb origin, in his highly acclaimed novel Dervish and Death. Apart from the Turkish population in the Balkans, the Bosniaks, Slavic Pomaks in Bulgaria, and Albanians are the only Europeans whose ancestors were converted to Islam. The Bosnian Muslims were on their way to return to the Slavic roots, under Josip Broz Tito’s rule, but this process was abruptly interrupted by the secession of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, and the strong Islamization of most of this population is evident today.
A Yugoslav communist regime did not suppress any particular confession, but by the very separation of church from the state and vigorous efforts to secularize the society, it uprooted the very rationale for religious fanaticism, even ordinary practice. Most Muslims abandoned nutritious taboos, like no-eating pork, etc., and used to name their children in neutral terms, like flower-like, tree-like, etc., appellations, instead of Arab, Turkish, or Persian names. Nonetheless, after 1992, the process has been reversed, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with Kosovo and Metochia, has become a Muslim springboard (platzdarm) in Europe.
Destruction of religious shrines appears to be one of the best signs of the ultimate aims of adversaries in an armed conflict. Events in Croatia after mid-1991, but particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina after spring 1992, illustrate this phenomenon very well. If a shrine in a village or town is destroyed, this is a clear message to the inhabitants of the relevant confession – ethnic cleansing. The rationale is obvious since it is the shrine that is supposed to be maximally protected against demolition and thus remains as the clear testimony as to who the land belongs to or belonged to. The situation of the Serb Orthodox monasteries and churches in KosMet is the case in point.
Here I quote a note in the Belgrade pro-Western (and Serbophobic) daily news Danas, by the columnist B. Andrejić, entitled „Church and Mosque“:
“In the ‘Kosovo indictment’ at the Hague Tribunal against Slobodan Milosevic, there is a place, at first sight, an insignificant one, which haunts me for months. Without any wish to defend him whose, in the Indictment, unmentioned sins are bigger than all of those accounted for, at least as far as I am concerned, I wish that many others give a thought about it.
Both he and his collaborators have been accused of being responsible for the demolition of a mosque in a purely ethnic-Albanian village, Bela Crkva.
Does it occur to anybody, in particular to those under the title of ‘international factors’, that this condensed history, those destinies placed into the civilization mismatch between the name of the village and the destruction of the mosque crime? (In other possible cases – the destruction of a church).
Those who do not appreciate this will solve nothing. These appear to be the majority (for the time being?).”
This short note is the essence of the crux of the matter (or the crux of the matter of the essence) of the “KosMet issue”. It speaks eloquently more than all Security Council resolutions, all fables on the “Kosovo mythology”, all syntagmas like “actual reality”, all arguments like “Serb spiritual vertical”, all mantras like “the right of the majority”, “self-determination”, etc.
Bela Crkva (White Church) is a common toponym among the Slavs (there are several others in Yugoslavia). The place-name has nothing to do with the Albanian language, as the toponym is purely Serbo-Slavonic. The majority of newly built churches are white (fresco painted), and some villages or towns are recognized by their new church and the name is born out. Evidently, Bela Crkva once was a purely Serb village. When ethnic Albanians became the overwhelming majority, the mosque was built, then as time evolved, the village was purged from “extraneous elements”, the church destroyed, but the name remained. Those who worry about the latter “betrayal” should be calmed down – when KosMet becomes “independent”, those mismatches are rectified and no traces of the previous “extraneous elements” are going to be preserved. This, actually, has already happened, for example, with the traces of the Byzantine-Slavic region of the “Koman Culture” in Albania.
When on March 16th, 2004, an accident occurred on the bank of the Ibar River in Kosovo, the next three (March 17−19th) days, 29 Serbian Orthodox churches were burnt all over KosMet by ethnic Muslim Albanians (“Kosovo Kristallnacht”). It has to be noted that the “even distribution” of the destroyed Serbian Orthodox shrines is a clear signal of the well-planned action of wiping out “non-Albanian elements” from KosMet.
That a “spontaneity” concerning these matters appears highly improbable testifies to the “avenge” in Central Serbia, immediately after the pogrom, when two mosques, one in Belgrade and one at Nish, were burned the next night. The perpetrators have never been arrested, but it was not difficult to trace (according to the pro-Western media & politicians) the instigators of these misdeeds, the so-called Serb Radical Party (SRS), whose supporters come mainly from the refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, apart from the Serbian social losers.
Since the SRS was expected to be blamed for this crime, they quickly moved and presented to both Muslim communities in Belgrade and Nish with a PC, with a theatrical manner characteristic of this subversive social movement, disguised as a political party. The pro-Western, post-Milosevic (the EU/NATO client) government of Serbia condemned the misdeeds but did not pursue the case further. The same pro-Western post-Milosevic authorities did nothing to stop the “March Pogrom” of the Serbs in KosMet in 2004. More or less, everything was arranged.
Unfortunately, we still don’t know how many mosques at KosMet were demolished by the Orthodox savages. In the course of the “Yugoslav wars” (1991−1995), many shrines have been deliberately destroyed, Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Orthodox (the Croats and Bosniaks destroyed around 300 Serbian Orthodox churches in WWII within the territory of the Independent State of Croatia). It is claimed by KosMet Albanian leaders that out of 500 mosques on KosMet, only 300 survived the fighting in 1998−1999, but this figure may be taken with a grain of salt.
The Wahhabbi Balkans
When “wars” became imminent, many “external factors” considered they were entitled to “extinguish the fire” which was about to burn unfortunate Yugoslavia. Some Arab countries, Saudi Arabia in particular, were quick to support the Muslims, first in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then in Serbia, especially the Albanians at KosMet.
Since they were rather short of water, they started pouring another liquid (which they possessed in abundance) over the fire. Particularly worried for the fate of mosques in these regions were the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, not only for their destiny in the unstable region but generally. Since they were (self-proclaimed) the truest and even the only guardians of Muhammad’s faith and confessional institution, the Wahhabis strongly condemned the dangerous and treacherous deviations of some Muslim mosques concerning the prohibition of visual decorations of mosques.
Any diversion from the most abstract and decorative figures on the walls of mosques was proclaimed as inappropriate, even blasphemous.
Unfortunately for the Wahabbits, it turns out that many mosques (built by Ottoman authorities) in the Balkans were subject to these distortions of the Prophet’s inheritance. And such spoiling of the pure Islam was intolerable, of course. There was only one inconvenient circumstance – the local religious compatriots were reluctant to destroy their mosques, even for the sake of religious orthodoxy. However, fortunately for the Wahabbits, fate (or somebody else) showed grace and sent the “wars” to Yugoslavia. Now the task was much easier – it was just sufficient that a mosque was damaged and a new one was readily built instead of the old one (properly destroyed for the purpose). A scratch or hole from a bullet, a crack on the wall (from old age or otherwise), damaged decoration, or something like that was sufficient to proclaim the building useless and erect a new one, more beautiful and “older” than the previous one. According to a Cairo daily, hundreds of mosques in Bosnia and Herzegovina and KosMet were thus destroyed and re-erected according to the strict Wahhabbi religious rules (and money).
The profit was multiple. Not only concerning Wahabbism as such, but Islam in general. The statistics of shrines destroyed by infidels greatly improve, the sympathy for the Muslim cause in Europe is raised, and the presence of fundamentalist Muslim countries is strengthened. The demolish-and-build stratagem appears beneficial to both sides: local Muslims get new mosques and the Wahhabis new (at least potentially) ideological and political supporters.
At present, it is not possible to estimate how many of those alleged destroyed mosques were victims of the “Orthodox” savages (Vandals would not be an appropriate term), and how many fell victim to the “Wahabbite cause”. In any case, however, they have been victims of the religious conflicts, albeit in an indirect way.
Personal disclaimer: The author writes for this publication in a private capacity, which is unrepresentative of anyone or any organization except for his own personal views. Nothing written by the author should ever be conflated with the editorial views or official positions of any other media outlet or institution. The author of the text does not have any moral, political, scientific, material, or legal responsibility for the views expressed in the article.
