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On May 27, the
Albanian Institute for International
Studies held its annual security
conference, focusing on the new and
concerning reality of increasing
religious radicalism in Albania and
in the wider Western Balkans region.
The conference was organized jointly
with the U.S. Embassy in Tirana and
supported by the NATO Public
Diplomacy Division.
This event gathered decision makers, experts,
researchers, Muslim Community officials and theologists as well as a
wide audience of civil society, diplomatic community members and
national authorities.
Greeting the opening panel, Minister of Interior
Affairs Saimir Tahiri highlighted that Albania just like any other
country is not immune to the threat that religious radicalism and
extremism manifested mainly through the issue of foreign fighters.
Minister Tahiri mentioned the engagement of the executive with the
assistance of the U.S. State Department to step up the efforts of
combating the phenomena. Commenting on the latest Albanian citizen
to be killed on the front, Tahiri said that he was among the
fighters who had become disillusioned with the extremists and wanted
to return home, but he was trapped in the conflict and punished. The
minister invited civil society actors to contribute to the drafting
of the new and comprehensive strategy that the Albanian government
is going to compile for this specific issue.
U.S. Ambassador to Albania Donald Lu started his
speech by congratulating the engagement of the Albanian government
on this matter, which as he said can be taken as an example to other
countries. Ambassador Lu also gave a brief but concerning panorama
of various terrorist organizations’ crimes around the globe. In his
remarks, Ambassador Lu noted that “I share Albania’s dream of a
Europe whole, free and at peace. ISIS and other extremist groups
threaten that dream. We must not delay in rising to meet this
challenge. And we cannot leave this work to our children’s
generation.”
The first panel of the conference gathered
researchers and experts from the region and presented their
assessment of what is going on in each specific country.
AIIS researcher Ebi Spahiu, recognizing the
difficulty of drawing a profile for foreign fighters, gave some
prominent features observed in the research such as the age of
Albanians travelling to Syria which is higher than average, being
mainly in the 30s. She emphasized the increasing presence of women
and children that have also traveled to the region as part of
“family jihad,” affecting the lives of children as young as two and
as old as 15 years of age. Compared to several foreign fighters from
western European countries that have joined extremist groups, such
as ISIS, citizens from Albania have joined with their family
members. In addition, she gave a brief mapping of the most affected
areas where most foreign fighters have traveled from, which are
mostly in central Albania, but other cities in northern and southern
Albania have been affected as well. She also observed that a
significant number of individuals have also been exposed to Western
lifestyles. From secondary testimonies during field interviews, she
found that a few of the recruits had been long-time immigrants in
neighboring Italy, Greece and due to the EU economic crisis and
increasing unemployment in these countries they had returned home to
Albania to an environment that offers few opportunities and sense of
belonging for them, leaving a vacuum for radical ideologies to take
hold. She also explained the role of the Muslim Community of Albania
in countering radical religious narratives, but also pointed out
that a lot of the initiatives have not been enough because different
religious waves have a stronger presence in mosques and social media
propaganda tools that target Albanian-speaking audiences.
Serbian sociologist Srdjan Barisic made a very
interesting presentation on the two kinds of radicalism in Serbia,
first that of the extreme right wing groups displaying nationalist
sentiments while being associated strongly with the Serbian Orthodox
Church and adopting a lot of religious symbolism in their logos and
slogans. Barisic also described the dual Muslim Community in Serbia
with two centers, one in Belgrade and the other in Novi Pazar which
also adds to the complexity of the issue. Serbia’s officials Barisic
said make the situation worse by avoiding to visit the Muslim
authorities and institutions in their visits to Sandjak, a
predominantly Muslim populated area in southern Serbia. This
behavior strengthens the extremist narrative. Barisic also described
the interesting feature of Serbian right wing groups being linked to
their Russian counterparts.
Shpend Kursani from the Kosovo Center for Security
Studies brought some interesting insights from a recent study that
his think tank has published recently. Kursani highlighted the fact
that although radicalism is a threat we should not lose sight of
other threats who are after all the causes that produce the
phenomenon. Kursani shared the fact that almost 40 percent of Kosovo
people who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the ranks of ISIS
have had criminal pasts and convictions.
He focused on the importance of reintegration
measures for returnees a topic which was also picked frequently from
other speakers. According to Kursani the philosophy of ‘imprisonment
for all’ is an obstacle to use the potential of these returnees who
are often regretful and advise others against joining foreign
fighters’ ranks.
Metodi Hadji-Janev from Macedonia highlighted the
importance of distinguishing between general push forces that drive
people to extremism and factors that are very specific to the
historical and current context in their countries and communities.
Metodi Hadji- Janev also mentioned the importance of Internet,
illustrating it with a survey done with secondary school pupils in
Macedonia who revealed that while they talk to their parents for few
minutes they spend hours navigating online. He stressed that legal
measures focused on punishment often backfire and are in any case
difficult to implement, encouraging instead more energy to be spend
in understanding the social drivers behind the occurrence.
One interesting element that the Macedonian
scholar mentioned is the general confusion especially among youth
who cannot differentiate between secular forces against the state in
Syria and the religious extremist waging battle there.
Vlado Azinovic, a professor of University of
Sarajevo gave a very interesting presentation illustrated with real
life photographs from Bosnia. As Professor Azinovic explained the
difficulties inherent in the complex system of authorities in Bosnia
where there are several overlapping police forces make the
phenomenon much more difficult to manage. Azinovic described two
different groups of foreign fighters from Bosnia, the old fighters
that participated in the Bosnian conflict in the 90’s mainly in the
Mujahedeen Unit and the second group of late teens seeking
adrenaline and self-validation.
Azinovic mentioned a few facts that illustrate the
social media savviness of the extremist. ISI has around 25.000
Twitter accounts and with an average of 200.000 tweets per week they
can flood the online world with their propaganda.
Azinovic concluded on a call to do more since
until now as he said ‘we are failing the families, we are failing in
the schools’. Even though de-radicalization is very difficult more
can be done about prevention.
The next speakers was Jacob Zenn from the
Jamestown Foundation in Washington D.C. currently engaged in
Nigeria. Zenn stated that there are different groups in the world
pledging their allegiance to ISIS. Further he explained that ISIS is
using different propaganda tools such as YouTube, social media, etc.
Propaganda is spread through the use of Arabic, Central Asian
Languages and among others Albanian. According to Zenn, ISIS is more
capable to appeal to the Youth and to spread globally than Al Qaeda,
which is currently losing some of its influence. Furthermore, Zenn
added that ISIS is fascinated by the prospect of attacking Rome and
in this regard, the Balkans will play a crucial role. “ISIS is more
successful at recruiting people from areas with sectarian conflicts,
such as the Balkan countries. Counter de-radicalization is very hard
to evaluate, but workshops and debates organized by CSOs and
religious communities might help to establish critical thinking
among the people, who are more exposed towards radicalization”, said
Zenn.
The second panel of the conference brought
together some of the people that are dealing with issues of
extremism and countering it in their daily engagements.
Greeting the conference on behalf of NATO, Mikael
Switkes made a comprehensive presentation of the international
community’s efforts and resources to aid the fight against extremism
and address the security issues that derive from it. Switkes focused
mostly on the projects and programs put together by the United
Nations, OSCE and NATO itself which vary from research to field
engagement.
The head of the State Committee on Cults, Ilir
Hoxholli, focused in his address on Islamophobia and the alienation
of moderate Muslims from the rest of the society through prejudice
and discrimination. Hoxholli speaking on a case of a girl refused
education on grounds of being covered claimed that refusing the
basic constitutional rights to Muslims reinforces the arguments of
extremists and causes a lot of societal harm. Hoxholli praised the
organizers for inviting members of the Muslim community and well
versed theologians, whose engagement is absolutely decisive in the
fight against extremism. The State Committee on Cults is currently
undertaking a project that brings the Albanian Muslim Community and
the local government institutions together in establishing a
relationship of trust and collaboration in order to strengthen
prevention mechanisms and approaches.
Isolating Muslims as a measure to secure their
persistence of radicalization was a recurrent theme that all
speakers agreed was one main issue to address in countering
terrorism.
Former deputy head of the Albanian Muslim
Community and a well-known theologian, Ermir Gjinishi, frequently
speaks to the Albanian media on these matters. At the conference, he
focused on the religious roots of the problem and highlighted the
problems within the institution of the Albanian Muslim Community as
the key to understanding and countering the radicalization and
extremism in the country. Gjinishi said the Alanian Muslim Community
has been very passive in confronting the phenomenon since the
beginning and do not actively engage in explaining to believers that
the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are not their fight.
Gjinishi contradicted the Interior Minister’s
declaration that the flow of foreign fighters from Albania has
stopped, saying that to the present day boys even from Tiran are
traveling to join ISIS.
Gjinishi proposed a three pillar approach to
countering the phenomena of extremisms starting with the theological
treatment in order to make the tekfirism doctrine disappear. Other
pillars include the strong cooperation between official Muslim
Communities in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia as well as the
engagement of media and civil society to raise awareness.
The head of the Muftiat Council of Elbasan and an
active religious moderate figure, Arben Ramkaj, focused on the role
of imams themselves in preventing and fighting radicalism. Ramkaj
who lives and works in Elbasan, one of the largest Muslim
communities in Albania, spoke of the efforts that are coordinated
there for the reclaiming of the authority of the Albanian Muslim
Community. Ramkaj focused on the importance of bringing together the
old and new imams who have received different education, with the
new imams often in need to adapt their religious understanding to
the traditional Albanian practices. Ramkaj mentioned the low level
of education of the imams in general. There are only 5 PhD Muslim
scholars and very few scholars with MA in theology for a country
with more than 1000 mosques – he said explaining that in rural and
remote areas often imams have only elementary education. Ramkaj has
led several initiatives such as the moderate newspaper ‘Mendimi’
(accessible online), together with his fellow community members he
also organized a march on the occasion of the Charlie Hebdo massacre
to counter the narrative of extremists using religion for such
criminal acts.
AIIS Deputy Director Alba Cela concluding the
event announced the plans of AIIS to build a regional coalition of
expertise with the think tanks engaged in the issue in order to
coordinate research and most importantly the policy recommendations
that will help the state and society respond to the phenomenon. |
