[ALBSA-Info] Fatos Tarifa: Albania only 16% Muslim

[Bejko, Kreshnik]

Carolina Seminar on Comparative Islamic Studies

"Albania, Kosovo, and Islam" 
a presentation by Dr. Fatos Tarifa, 
UNC Department of Sociology 
and 
Albanian Ambassador the Netherlands 
November 17, 1998.
Professor Sarah Shields began the meeting by introducing the 
speaker. The speaker then acknowledged that he was participating somewhat 
under duress, as he had a flight leaving the next morning for the 
Netherlands. There were thirteen people, including the speaker, in 
attendance. 
Dr. Tarifa began by offering some statistics as background, and as 
a means of posing a problem. To much of the world, especially the west, 
Kosovars are regarded as Islamic. Indeed, Albania itself is generally 
considered to be the only Islamic nation in Europe. These perceptions of 
Albania and Kosovo, however, are based on information from the 1929 
census. Then, roughly sixty percent of the population was Muslim, fifteen 
percent was Roman Catholic, and the remainder was Orthodox Christian of 
various types. Under communist rule, there were no statistics, as 
everyone was by default an atheist. In 1991, the United States 
Information Agency did a survey that found fifty-two percent of Albanians 
considered themselves atheists, sixteen percent claimed to be Muslim, and 
the remainder were Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. The situation 
would probably be quite similar today. Yet, to the United States and 
Europe, Albania remains a Muslim country. 
This clearly inaccurate perception of Albania begs the question of 
why has Albania been so neglected. While there may be no one answer to 
that question, there are several issues we can look to for an explanation. 
First, Albania is such a small country. Second, it is of minimal 
relevance to the west, particularly the United States, in and of itself. 
Beyond those points, we must ask: is Albania somehow special? Is it 
different from the rest of the Balkan region? 
The history of Albania is in fact quite different from the rest of 
the Balkan states. It has had the most violent transition from communist 
to democratic rule, but not because of a lack of democratic tradition. In 
that sense, the country is little different from the remainder of the 
region. The role of culture and tradition is also unclear. 
Orthodoxy was predominant. It was only under the Ottomans that the majority 
of the population converted to Islam. That conversion process was 
peculiar, and offers some important insights about Albania since that 
time. Some scholars have explained the conversion to Islam as a pragmatic 
decision made by farmers who did not want and could not afford to pay the 
tax required of non-Muslims. The population in the North, which is 
largely mountainous, remained primarily Christian, specifically Roman 
Catholic. That region was therefore divided or isolated from the 
remainder of the country. The conversion was also peculiar because it was 
not a total conversion. Conversions did not take place on the level of 
the family, but rather on the level of the individual. Again, pragmatism 
seems to explain why conversions occurred this way. It made it much 
easier for a family to deal with either a Christian regime or a Muslim 
regime if the family could present itself as an adherent to the religion 
of the current ruler. Finally, unlike people in other Balkan states, the 
Albanians converted to the religion of the foreign invaders. 
Because of the nature of Albanian conversions to the religion of 
the victors, religion itself has never been much of an issue with respect 
to calls for independence. Albanians used language, rather than religion, 
to differentiate themselves from the Ottomans and the other Balkan states 
and peoples. The Albanian Renaissance, which was an independence movement 
that began among intellectual circles and then extended outward, used 
language to promote a unified national movement. It led to the creation 
of a standard Albanian alphabet. An interesting sidelight here is that 
historical research before the Albanian Renaissance is very difficult 
because there was not a single alphabet in use. 
To say that religion was not a major rallying point for 
independence movements is not to say that religion has been insignificant. 
Religion has been quite important to Albania's history, even during the 
communist period. The most active religious groups under the communists 
were the Roman Catholics. The Muslims collaborated more with the 
leadership than did the Roman Catholics. In 1967 and 1968, there was an 
imposed "grassroots" youth movement to ban religion that made it very 
difficult to practice any religion. Then, a 1976 law banned all 
religions, ideologies, and philosophies other than communism/marxism. 
In light of all of these issues, the situation in Kosovo and its 
relationship to Albania is quite problematic. Borders were drawn in 1913, 
and Kosovo was left outside of Albania, so it has never been part of an 
official Albanian state. Ethnically and linguistically, however, the two 
are quite similar. In fact, while the differences between Albania and 
Kosovo and the north and south should not be underplayed, there are more 
similarities than differences. One of the key differences is in political 
culture. Albania has had more experience in that area. Kosovars see the 
period from the 1960s to 1981 as a golden age. Since the Serbs have taken 
over, however, the Kosovars have been denied many of their fundamental 
rights. The role that Albania can play in resolving the situation in 
Kosovo is not entirely clear. If Europe and NATO cannot reach a solution, 
then Albania cannot do much either. Even outright support for Kosovo is 
not a clear policy, because then we are faced with the question of whether 
Kosovo should be a republic, a sovereign state, or something else 
altogether. The immediate concern is simply to create a dialogue in which 
such issues can be discussed productively. Finally, the people in Kosovo 
think the West is interested in stability but feels nothing for Kosovars. 
That feeling makes the Kosovo issue important in Albanian politics, because
to 
not support the Kosovars is to "sell them out." 
There is currently a great deal of diversity in the Albanian 
political situation. There are currently fifty-two parties in the 
multi-party system. Significantly, none of those fifty-two are 
religiously defined. Again, though, the role of religion is ambiguous. 
There is now an active religious revival, but it is mostly among the Roman 
Catholics. There is one Turkish school that is heavily overcrowded. Some 
Albanians fear the school as a symbol of backwardness. Thus, you can see 
that religion is important, but there is just too much religious diversity 
for it to play a very powerful role. There are some reports of links 
between Islamic terrorist groups, the Albanian mafia, and the old 
leadership, but those have not been confirmed. They may be a product of a 
free press that is a disease in a young democracy. The problem with a 
free press in the early stages of democratic development is that it raises 
the question of what democracy and freedom really mean. 
Albania is a member of the Islamic Conference, which has caused a 
great dispute in Albanian political circles. Those Albanians opposed to 
it believe the nation should embrace European civilization rather than its 
opposite. Today, no documents confirming Albania's participation in any 
sort of global Islamic movement can be found. Rather, the issue of 
Albanian participation in the Islamic Conference should probably be seen 
through the same lens of pragmatism discussed before. In an extremely 
poor country, money is good regardless of the source. Some Islamic groups 
may exert influence within the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), but they 
certainly do not dominate it. Albania is a country of transit for 
Iranians and Kurds on their way to Italy, so some participation by Islamic 
groups in the KLA should be expected. But, again, they do not dominate 
it. Along those same lines, Albania has without doubt served as a base 
area for some of the KLA. At this point, the Albanian government has 
little control over the large number of weapons stolen during the attacks 
on the weapons stores last year. 
Discussion 
Dr. Tarifa was unable to answer the first two questions posed 
during the discussion. The first question addressed the issue of the 
apparently widespread feeling in the Balkans that the West has not done 
enough to prevent bloodshed, and whether there was a comparable feeling in 
the region about the Middle East. The second concerned where Albanian 
ulama go for their education. 
Dr. Tarifa addressed a question about possible solutions to the 
Kosovo situation by emphasizing the need for a political dialogue with 
Serbia and its leader, Slobodan Milosevic. In the former Yugoslavia, 
Kosovo was the third largest community, but it did not have its own 
republic. The Kosovars, however, should have the same right to choose 
that other republics have. That, however, is highly unrealistic, as the 
Serbs will not allow it to take place. The only way to begin to deal with 
the situation is to start a political dialogue with Milosevic that might 
eventually lead to Kosovo being recognized as a republic. 
Dr. Tarifa stressed that it is not helpful to speak or think about 
the possibility of a greater Albania into which Kosovo would be absorbed. 
Albanians actually demonstrate a large amount of indifference toward 
Kosovars and their problems. In 1990, the Kosovars were the first to 
invest in Albania after the fall of communism. They ended up alienating a 
significant number of Albanians. Yet, clearly, some people in Albania do 
still feel tied to Kosovo. 
The question was posed as to how the Kosovo situation fits into 
the larger relations in the Balkans. Dr. Tarifa responded that 
Albanian-Croatian relations are in and of themselves nothing special, and 
are little affected by the Kosovo issue. Albanians in Macedonia are 
generally more satisfied, and a chain reaction spreading there is not 
likely. Relations with Serbia are obviously much more complicated. There 
is a long history of Serb oppression of Albanians. Moreover, Kosovo was 
the poorest region in the former Yugoslavia, but it was critical to 
Yugoslavian national myths. So far, in the current situation, Milosevic 
has been the only winner. Most recently, he pulled back just soon enough 
to avoid being given a lesson by the West. The other key factor here is 
of course the army, which is a critical political actor. 
A member of the audience asked Dr. Tarifa what he believed the 
average Kosovar wanted to be the outcome in this situation. He responded 
that conditions in Kosovo had been quite good under Tito, but the Kosovars 
did not really realize it then. Of course, no Kosovar would openly state 
that, because they feel they must fight for their independence. Many, 
however, would be happy if they could return to that type of situation, at 
least as a starting point. As for Serbia and Albania, the two have always 
been separate, but we have seen elsewhere in the world that simply 
dividing Kosovo in two would not be a successful solution. It is worth 
noting here that Kosovo is much more important in Serbia than it is in 
Albania. It is a critical issue in terms of Milosevic's hold on power. 
Turning back to the issue of religion, a participant asked how 
Albanians were dealing with their current religious freedom. Dr. Tarifa 
replied that there was almost a sense of religious amnesia in Albania. 
For example, many people know they are technically Muslim, but they have 
no idea what that means. During the communist period, much of Muslim 
culture was destroyed, with the central mosque in Tirana one of the few 
that was saved. Now, Middle Easterners (especially the Saudis) are 
funding the construction of mosques everywhere, but it is unclear how many 
people are visiting them. Many Albanians see the period of Ottoman rule, 
when Islam really began significant in Albania, as a five hundred-year 
vacuum dividing Albania from the rest of Europe. That view has not 
changed much since the fall of communism, either. 
The talk concluded at that point