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  • johnpi 10:13 am on January 1, 2010 | 7 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania, , , , , , , , , , ,

    Top 10 good news stories from the Muslim world in the last year, according to Juan Cole.

    10. Saudi Arabia opened its first coeducational college campus, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University.

    9. Qatar is on track to average 7.5 percent per annum growth for the next few years.

    8. A Pew Forum on Religion and Life poll finds that American Muslims are unusual in the degree to which they are integrated into mainstream American society and demonstrate moderate attitudes, condemning religious extremism and violence.

    7. The information revolution is making strides in the Arab world.

    6. Albania has averaged 10 percent a year growth for each of the last four years, and was the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2009.

    5. The small Gulf oil monarchy of Kuwait took steps toward greater democracy and rule of law.

    4. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world at about 230 mn., had successful parliamentary elections in 2009, further consolidating the country’s decade-old democracy.

    3. Turkey, which averaged 5.8 percent a year economic growth between 2002 and 2008, was slowed but not devastated by the world’s financial crisis.

    2. Stability returned to Lebanon.

    1. The greatest political awakening in Iran for 30 years.

     
  • johnpi 9:35 am on October 30, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , albania, , , , , Young Europeans

    Muslim-majority Kosovo has embarked on a “rebranding” campaign to – as prime minister Hashim Thaci says – communicate that the new country that unilaterally separated from Serbia last year is “democratic, peaceful and progressive.”

    Mr Thaci is being disingenuous. The unfair truth is that what little the rest of the world knows about Kosovo is that there was a brutal war there not long ago, and that its declaration of independence is supported by the ethnic Albanian majority but fiercely disputed by Serbia. Which, of course, is precisely why the Kosovan government has paid Saatchi and Saatchi millions of dollars to come up with a more positive image. So now we have a young, vibrant nation, full of beautiful people.

    These rebranding efforts are becoming more common among smaller, less well-known countries:

    Less celebrated countries, like Kazakhstan, Armenia and Montenegro have got in on the act, trying to throw off negative stereotypes, and project images of beautiful, sun-kissed lands, rich in heritage, with friendly people who are eager to greet visiting tourists and businessmen.

    The campaign to rehabilitate Kosovo’s image is called “Kosovo – The Young Europeans,” and here is a 60 second promotional ad produced by the international powerhouse advertising firm Saatchi and Saatchi to introduce you to the beautiful, sun-kissed, friendly young Kosovars.

    Somebody doesn’t like the video however, and has attempted to limit the viewership of the campaign by flagging it on Youtube as obscene, containing “content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by Youtubes user community.” You have to confirm that you are over 18 to view it there. It could be Serbian nationalists who want to limit the viewership of the campaign, or it could be Muslim conservatives who don’t like the pretty pictures of all those touchy-feelly, uncovered, beautiful young Kosovars…

     
  • razib, murtad fitri 11:14 pm on September 7, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania

    post at my other weblog on albania. i am going to repost here, below the fold….
    (More …)

     
  • razib, murtad fitri 2:39 pm on September 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania

    slate has dispatches from albania. might be illuminating to read my old post, How religious are Albanian and Bosnian Muslims?

     
  • abunoor 11:44 am on September 3, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania,

    Nathan Thrall writes about Albania for Slate. Yes, the article equates “pro-American” with “tolerant.” Yes, the article’s first paragraph demonstrates the virtuous secular moderation of Albania by describing tanned and pierced bare midriffs, alcohol drinking, dancing, and pork eating (the markers of any civilization).

    Mr. Thrall assures us that four centuries of brutal dictatorship and state enforced atheism are not the reasons for this admirable tolerance, but apparently that’s just the way Albanians are or else its because Bektashism (described by an adherent in the article as a trinitarian faith where God, Ali and Muhammad are one.) Then the most shocking development of all, the imam from the Islamic University of Madinah who actually has a sense of humor!

    Actually, I’ve known a lot of conservative Sunni Imams and as far as I remember all of them had a sense of humor. I guess Thrall is surprised that he’s ‘joking’ about hijab, but I think the imam is actually trying to make an important point through his humor, not trying to belittle the issue.

     
  • Kawthar 11:35 am on July 29, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania,

    Albania is set to legalize gay marriage

     
  • johnpi 6:02 am on April 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania, , , , , , , ,

    Economic underdevelopment is good for you when the globalized economy falls into a black hole:

    How is this possible? Countries with very small economies and countries which are not globally-integrated are usually the same countries which claim that the financial crisis has not affected them so far.

    Muslim countries mentioned in this article include Albania, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Iran and the Philippines (partially).

     
  • razib, murtad fitri 4:04 pm on April 18, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania,

    on scienceblogs i posted on the religiosity of albanian muslims. the comments were really strange. and you need to keep in mind these aren’t the weirdest comments, a fair number involved albanians talking about how it wasn’t true that they followed a “sand nigger religon” (these weren’t let through the mod queue). from what i can tell it seems that a slice of albanians, in particular those liable to read english language blogs, are trying to reconstruct albanian identity and excise the islamic aspect. granted, a minority of ethnic albanians (on the order of 25% if you include kosovo and macedonia) have never been muslim, but the reality that for several centuries most ethnic albanians have been muslim seems rather hard to ignore.

    it somewhat reminds me of stuff i read about the uyghur national movement. many intellectuals and leaders were attempting to generate an identity based on their east turkish ethnicity and establish a fictitious relationship to the 8th century manichaean uyghur empire. but when ethnographers surveyed the average uyghur their primary identity was as muslims.

    granted, albania is a secular country. but the muslim presence is simply not as trivial as some people want it to be. (regular readers of talk islam might be amused to note that i was accused of cooking the books to emphasize the number of muslims for some ulterior reason!)

     
  • razib, murtad fitri 3:07 am on June 24, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: albania,

    Sworn to virginity and living as men in Albania . via phd diva.

     
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