A few days ago, a militant Islamic group made up at least in part of ethnic Albanians (who were former citizens of the former Yugoslavia) was charged with planning an attack on an American military base in New Jersey.
The thing about religious conflict in Albania is that there isn't much, relatively speaking. The country's population is divided about 70/30 between Muslim and Christian, yet there's about as much tension as there is between Catholics and Protestants in the United States. Orthodox priests visit mosques on Muslim holy days, and vice versa; marriages between Christians and Muslims are so common as to be unremarkable.
I do see the danger, though, of militant Islamic groups finding a recruiting pool in Albania. I've been to towns in the northern part of the country where the roads are close to non-existent and the buildings downtown are in ruins, but the mosques are brand-new and immaculate. The other civilian airport in the country (besides Rinas Mother Teresa) is being built not in the biggest southern city (Vlora), nor in the tourist centre (Saranda), but in a small town in the northeast of the country, near Kosovo. All of these were built by Middle Eastern financiers.
Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe; very few towns are about to turn down an infusion of petrodollars (or petrolekë, I guess). The problem is that the builders of a mosque, for example, are going to want to staff said mosque with clerics from, or at least sympathetic to, their own sects. Albanian Islam is marked by its liberality (the souvlaki stand downstairs from my apartment is filled with girls in miniskirts eating pork and drinking beer) and tolerance (Albania is the only European country which had a larger Jewish population in 1945 than in 1938); I'm not sure the same could be said for all Middle Eastern Islamic groups.
With the exception of the above-mentioned airport, very little if any Middle Eastern investment has gone towards improving the country's infrastructure; rather, most investment seems to be ideological rather than developmental. Many Albanians in the more developed parts of the country have a healthy skepticism towards foreign missionaries, but if the only building in a town that's not half-ruined is the mosque, I can see how the implied promises made by its financiers could sway people's opinion towards favouring the ideology behind the gifts.
The thing about religious conflict in Albania is that there isn't much, relatively speaking. The country's population is divided about 70/30 between Muslim and Christian, yet there's about as much tension as there is between Catholics and Protestants in the United States. Orthodox priests visit mosques on Muslim holy days, and vice versa; marriages between Christians and Muslims are so common as to be unremarkable.
I do see the danger, though, of militant Islamic groups finding a recruiting pool in Albania. I've been to towns in the northern part of the country where the roads are close to non-existent and the buildings downtown are in ruins, but the mosques are brand-new and immaculate. The other civilian airport in the country (besides Rinas Mother Teresa) is being built not in the biggest southern city (Vlora), nor in the tourist centre (Saranda), but in a small town in the northeast of the country, near Kosovo. All of these were built by Middle Eastern financiers.
Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe; very few towns are about to turn down an infusion of petrodollars (or petrolekë, I guess). The problem is that the builders of a mosque, for example, are going to want to staff said mosque with clerics from, or at least sympathetic to, their own sects. Albanian Islam is marked by its liberality (the souvlaki stand downstairs from my apartment is filled with girls in miniskirts eating pork and drinking beer) and tolerance (Albania is the only European country which had a larger Jewish population in 1945 than in 1938); I'm not sure the same could be said for all Middle Eastern Islamic groups.
With the exception of the above-mentioned airport, very little if any Middle Eastern investment has gone towards improving the country's infrastructure; rather, most investment seems to be ideological rather than developmental. Many Albanians in the more developed parts of the country have a healthy skepticism towards foreign missionaries, but if the only building in a town that's not half-ruined is the mosque, I can see how the implied promises made by its financiers could sway people's opinion towards favouring the ideology behind the gifts.
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