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The side effects of a spring (Koha)

By   /  15/08/2014  /  No Comments

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Enver Hasani, chairman of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo, writes in his opinion piece about the effects of the Arab Spring in Kosovo. He argues that after the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, it was completely naïve to expect and believe that the United Nations administration would handle the arrangement of the status of the Islamic community in Kosovo. “Because such administrations, wherever they were present, showed incompetency and lack of cohesion in exercising their political power, and left the door open for all sorts of negative processes, starting from corruption, prostitution and tolerance for radical (religious and ideological) movements. The same thing happened in Kosovo: after the war, Saudis mainly, but other Muslim countries too, came with large amounts of funds and focused mainly in areas that were hit worst by the Serbian regime. Drenica, for example, which was never famous for religious traditions, became the center of financial aid from these countries whose aim was to indoctrinate the people … Intensive indoctrination, based on foreign aid, came to an unexpected stop after the start of the Arab Spring, because these countries started dealing with their own problems … Clerics in Kosovo, for a long period of time after the war, were in a silent fight with elements of radical Islam imported from Arab countries. Clerics were fanatically trying to protect their leading positions which elements of radical Islam were trying to take over. This silent war between traditional Islam in Kosovo and elements imported during the time of UNMIK went so far that radical elements built mosques in locations and in ways that were not endorsed by the Islamic Community of Kosovo”. Hasani further notes that the public in Kosovo was most surprised by the fact that Muslim clerics were either engaged in recruiting youths to go and fight in Syria or in condemning the fighting of Kosovar youths there. “Clerics have only one duty and that is to preach religion according to holy texts and not focus on whether or not our people are going to fight in Syria. The fact that Muslim clerics were involved in the latter discussion is no surprise because the same clerics failed to realize that their primary mission is to safeguard and foster traditional Islam and not enter the rhetorical race with young Wahhabi-Saudis on the interpretation of the Quran and Islamic doctrine in general. This side effect, which is extremely damaging for Kosovo, needs to be addressed by state institutions, and not be left as a monopoly to anyone, including the Islamic Community of Kosovo. The Islamic Community of Kosovo can play a role and should play it only when this is required by the state institutions of Kosovo. After all, they know that they owe this to Kosovo. In other words, the cycle of the Arab Spring has been closed and it has had both good and bad side effects. The positive side effects relate to the fact that the Arab world, which until yesterday produced an indoctrinating force outside its borders, can no longer do so because it will have to deal with itself in the coming decades. Negative side effects relate to the fact that in Kosovo there is a circle, no matter how marginal, of people who are amazed by metaphysical elaborations of Islamic doctrine by Wahhabi-Saudis, and they need to be seriously addressed by Kosovo’s state structures. This is Kosovo’s mission. Kosovo has the moral, intellectual, social and political capacity to overcome this situation; there is no doubt about this”.

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  • Published: 10 years ago on 15/08/2014
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  • Last Modified: August 15, 2014 @ 10:57 am
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