It appears to be doubtful that Albanians (from Albania, at least) are mainly Muslim. Decades of religious oppression under a Stalinist regime appears to have led to the result that most Albanians today are atheist or agnostic.
I don’t know how it is for Kosovo Albanians, though. Not having lived through the same kind of regime as their colleagues from Albania, maybe they do remain mainly Muslim today.
As for Alessan’s theory, Albania has been located at a confluence of empires for a long time. I’m guessing it’s possible that the fact that you should support those who look like they will win (even if you’re only paying lip service to “supporting” them) became entrenched in their culture. But I believe that friedo’s suggestions are more accurate.
What the hell, why would they lie about this? You can clearly see it being taken off his wrist. At :50 you see it on, at :55 you see a dude yanking on his arm, and at 1:04, it’s not on there anymore. But according to consummate truth-teller Tony Snow, "It was placed in his pocket… the president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home.” Now this clearly did not happen. Bush’s arms were up in the air greeting his supporters. Also, according to that article, “Snow says a careful review of video of the scene confirms no pilfering.” Okay, they know there’s a video, they must know that it clearly does not show Bush taking off his watch and putting it in his pocket. And yet, that was the best story they could come up with.
Fair play to Mr. Bush though - a lot of politicians wouldn’t have relished that sort of contact. I bet the Secret Service people were shitting themselves.
The anti-Communist demonstrations in 1990 and their subsequent history make it a bit difficult to say they were cheerful.
Is that why they’re joining the EU?
Instead of looking down on them, I prefer think that, since they’ve actually lived under Communism, they’re smart enough to know the difference an empire that wants to dominate them totally and a country that wants to work with them.
NBC News has video from another angle that appears to show Bush taking the watch off and putting it in his pocket. Which prompts the question: Doesn’t he trust the Albanians?
albania has always been a wierd-end-of the world kind of place. Ethnically, the albanians are european, but were indeed muslim 9during the Ottoman Empire). But they were a communist , closed society for 55+ years-Hoxha had a minaiture version of Stalin’s Russia. So, recognition by the USA is welcome.
Anybody been to albania? the Adriatic coast is supposed to be as nice as Croatia, at less than half the price!
About ten years ago we took a day-trip from Corfu to the southern town of Sarande, and then down the coast to the Greco/Roman ruins of Butrint. The scenery was stunning, with hidden coves and beaches, backed by pine-clad hills. I can see that this country becoming the next holiday hotspot.
Albanians are very warm, family-oriented people. There are quite a number of them in the Boston area-though most are 3rd-geberation Albanian-Americans. one odd thing: many of them took the family name “Stevens” when they entered the USA-was that because the Albanian name was unpronouncable?
People who have lived under totalitarian regimes have an appreciation for democracy that many people from the West just can’t grasp. GWB or any POTUS would be mobbed in any Warsaw Pact nation, in Cuba, in Iran, in Syria, etc., providing of course that the secret police were not working that day. The true test of how people feel about another country is their willingness to live there, and judging by the lines at the US embassies for visas, the US is by far the most popular country in the world.
Bush made the statement that Kosovo ought to be independent. This is basically like declaring that South Texas (including the Alamo) should be made an independent Spanish-speaking republic, because, you know, there are obviously already a lot of Mexicans there anyway. Cue wild applause in Mexico, boiling hatred in Dallas.
That’s what I love about this presidency. Reality, shmeality.
Religious practice is not the same as religious identification. You can be sure that if push came to shove, at least 75% of Albanians would ally with Muslim friends and family even if they’d never seen the inside of a mosque.
That isn’t just Albanian culture; that’s pretty much anyone who has very little power. If you’re vulnerable and have few friends, you try to change that situation any way you can. Americans typically lack any way to identify with that situation or mentality.
Specifically with the Albanians, they have seen their country sour on Russia, on Yugoslavia, and on China, followed by complete isolation. At this point they’re very interested in picking a reliable winner.
George Bush is NOT the U.S. The general international feeling is that people like and admire America and Americans but they do not like George W. Bush. Do enough international travel and that message comes through loud and clear. People want visas to the U.S. in spite of GWB not because of him.
Again, Albanians have a special sense of apprciation for the U.S. because of the support that the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo received during the Balkan conflicts. This isn’t a difficult concept to understand.
Albania is such a poor country that a lot of families rely on money that is sent to them from relatives working in other countries such as Greece, Italy and particularly America. Situations like that creates bonds right away.
Having been to Kosovo, I don’t think your analogy is appropriate. The situation there is very difficult and complex. You don’t even have to go far beyond the cultural history of “blood fueds” to know that the problems there are not easilly resolved.
On one hand, independence seems like the best answer (and it may be) but there are huge difficulties. The country is poor, it’s small, it’s landlocked, the mines are tapped out and there doesn’t appear to be much to indicate that it can sustain itself. Law and order is in the hands of the United Nations and the KFOR troops. A lot of work and progress has to be made to make the country viable.
Bush was just echoing the recommendation that was put forth internationally. It may be a good recommendation and he can’t really be faulted for going along with it. Whether it is right or not remains to be seen.
However, I do like the idea of kicking Texas out of the United States as long as all of the Texas politicians have to go with it.
But that’s exactly the point. It’s an ancient region with a complex past as well as a complex present. That’s why it’s dumb for Bush to do in and say “by golly, let’s just carve off a part of a sovereign state and make it independent”.
For that reason, I would give an independent Kosovo about 10 years before it outright merged with Albania, sparking another giant Balkan love-fest that would make the 1990’s look like a tea party.
Maybe so, but there are significant numbers of Albanians who are Catholic or Orthodox Christians, and from what I’ve heard Albanians have always been more nationalistic than attached to their religious affiliation. They always adopted the religion of their current rulers but never felt strongly attached to it.
So I believe that Albanians would probably ally with other Albanians, regardless of religion, in times of need.
Do we even know if most Albanians still identify as Muslims, even though they’re completely secular? I guess it’s possible, but given that they never had a strong religious attachment in the first place, I’m not entirely convinced.
In Albania it’s something like 70% that identify as Muslim, in Kosovo something like 90%. You are correct in that Albanians strongly identify with their own ethnicity first and foremost regardless of religion. In fact it’s a point of pride among them that they are able to unite in spite of different religious traditions. But you’d be incorrect if you thought that a mere 50 years of dictatorship effectively erased hundreds of years of religious tradition.
In Kosovo where there is a big conflict between Albanians and Serbs, religion is taken very seriously because it is a clean dividing line between the two. Kosovar Muslims aren’t what you would call extremist but they do learn the Quran in Arabic and so forth. I don’t know firsthand about the country of Albania itself, except it seems like the religious sentiment is not as strong because there was never an external group using it as grounds for discrimination.
