Kosovo 2.0_Religion

KOSOVO 2.0 PEOPLE/POLITICS/SOCIETY/ARTS/CULTURE #3 SPRING/SUMMER/2012

RELIGION ISLAM’S BALKAN BLUES KOSOVO’S FAITHFUL, FAITHLESS MODERATES’ HOLY WAR RIGHTS TAKE JESUS A LA CARTE CALCUTTA FOR HEDONISTS SWEET MEMORIES OF HOME

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR BESA LUCI

— I wasn’t raised in a religious family. I associate religion mainly with childhood memories of Bajram — baklava and early morning visits with my father to close relatives. At lunchtime, we’d return home for a feast as some of the best meals and drinks were enjoyed on that day.

Today in Kosovo, whenever we talk among friends of Bajram, the Albanian name for the Muslim holiday Eid, it turns into a reminiscence of a sense of home and food. Our experience wasn’t necessarily about religiosity, though it was an expression rooted in it. More so, it might hold true only to one particular group, because for others it evokes other memories and sentiments. But that religion has moved to the public sphere is evident in the newly found force it has to shape and challenge ideas on the role of religion in society, culture, ethics, morality, gender, politics and identity.

Throughout this magazine, we don’t profess to provide an answer or solution to religious claims and assertions. What we bring with this issue is a collection of articles and stories that speak to the experiences and narratives shaping belief systems, while exploring the complexity of the political, economic and social life that no longer can refuse the inf luence that religion plays on them. By looking at issues of how religion is present and functions in the public and private sphere, how it interacts or clashes with the state, how it places itself on the market and how it communicates with the media, we unravel how religion continues to inform the identity of people, particularly in politics.

So, the point is not the gradual vanishing of religion from the modern world, rather its ongoing transformation.

As we began putting together this issue, we discovered the prevalence of religion has to do with the extent there is participation — whether as access to state services and institutions, social inclusion or the creation of economic resources. Today, more than ever, as politics of identity and the nation-state are failing to make the individual the primary principle of identity, alternative communities are emerging through new forms of religious assertion and display. Talal Asad, a prominent thinker on the failures and achievements of secularism, in his “Formations of the Secular,” argues that people are feeling less and less represented and need a moral dimension to secularism. As such, they embrace references of their religious identity to challenge current political and social agendas, whatever they might be.

We’ve found such experiences serving as either a polarizing

factor or a binding one, as responses have taken different shapes, depending on where they are located. Our cover story, “Faith led astray” (page 38), by Enver Robelli, explores such effects in post-communist, post-war, economically reforming Balkan countries. He speaks of a religion at a crossroads of extremism and moderation, where after years of Islam practiced “as a cultural value,” as the governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are failing to remedy economic hardship and provide for political projects in a post-socialist and post-9/11 world, religion is re-emerging through troubling affirmations of politics of religion in the public sphere. But he makes a more important call to the need for an Albanian Muslim clergy that could serve as an example of interfaith tolerance, within Kosovo and abroad.

In Switzerland, they might be doing just that. In a country that once served as the economic backbone to Kosovar Albanian immigrants and a continuing Kosovar-remittance economy, a group of Albanian imams has united their voice through a moderate Muslim platform. The Union of Albanian Imams, comprised of Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania, is seeking to combat extremism and fundamentalism by strengthening their role in society; the tool they have chosen is classes on language, culture and politics (see "Switzerland, moderate Islam digs in for fight," Page 78).

Their voice, though, is struggling to be heard, which is typical when alternative platforms emerge in response to strong, pre-existing conservative sentiments. So the Union of Albanian Imams partly emerged as a response and counter-initiative to the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (IZRS), who, themselves, believe and propagate a more radical form of Islam. In return, the IZRS sees its creation as a response to growing European right-wing rhetoric on Islamophobia, as Christian symbols are returning to politics and right-wing rhetoric is calling to a cultural, social and moral platform that is exclusive to those different from them. (“Europe’s conceptual Christians,” Page 92).

Trying to pinpoint a start and finish line, as mainstream media often do, is the wrong type of reading, because it excludes the complex history of religious practice and institutions. However, the above examples in this issue demonstrate the sensitivity and vulnerability of language and communication. And when used as references for defining and differentiating between a sense of “us” and “them,” “good” and “evil,” “right and “wrong,”

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— Ultimately, the common thread to our magazine is that religion is not vanishing — whether it’s an entry point to social relations, serves to distance ourselves from it, a reason for oppression or inequality, or a way of evoking memories, people everywhere have stories to share, and they’re using and engaging with different means and instruments to make their calls heard.

religion not only becomes a tool of manipulation, but is left, right and center for sources of conf lict.

That is something we’ve witnessed ourselves in this region.

Although not the primary cause, in the wars that came to characterize the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, religion was used to determine and gather support, but also to draw lines among the ethnic groups. Photographer Andrew Testa places the blame on journalists just as much, as by differentiating only the Bosnians through their religion as “Bosnian Muslims,” it ended up reinforcing the assumption that “the conf luence of Catholicism, Islam and Orthodox Christianity must be the source of all conf licts” (see “A Question of Faith,” Page 62).

Examples from this region are not alone; they hold up in different countries just as well. In “Central Asia’s religious crossroads,” (Page 105) Grif Peterson speaks to a different post-communist trajectory, as governments in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are using legislation to hinder religious groups from association. Meanwhile, in “Baha’i lessons in hardship,” (Page 96) Jenna Hand looks into how Iran’s government oppression of the country’s largest religious minority has extended into the classrooms, by trying to exclude the community from a right to education. Choosing to oppress educational opportunities is no coincidence, and it’s something we’re well aware of in Kosovo from the 1990s Serbian regime, as not only does it repress participation in public space, it also shrinks people’s space to question and make calls against their inequality.

That is why, when we heard that a new initiative by religious #3 RELIGION SPRING/SUMMER 2012

authorities in Turkey is working toward making Istanbul’s 3,100 mosques more accessible and fitting for female worshippers, we were drawn to the story because it shows how through public request new spaces are being formed (see "I am a woman, hear me pray," Page 52). We’ve included other stories along these lines, such as Robin Holmes’ personal essay on breaking away from his family and community as a Jehovah’s Witness in “Choosing my confession.” (Page 88). His breaking point came when he began questioning the overf low of religious literature in his family’s home library. Our profile of Albin Kllokoqi, who through rock music is interpreting Christianity, Yll Rugova who through social networks has established Kosovo’s first organized atheist and agnostic community, and our reviews of books and films, show the new cultural dimensions of religion through literature, art, entertainment and social media. ( Pages 110, 112 and 127).

Ultimately, the common thread to our magazine is that religion is not vanishing — whether it’s an entry point to social relations, serves to distance ourselves from it, a reason for oppression or inequality, or a way of evoking memories, people everywhere have stories to share, and they’re using and engaging with different means and instruments to make their calls heard.

Our magazine cover is a collection of products bought at shops around mosques and churches in Kosovo. As we found them, we were intrigued and drawn to the commercial, moral and political significance they were assigned — D&G and Armani perfumes produced in Saudi Arabia, the “Secret Man” alcohol-free perfume from the United Arab Emirates, a bracelet depicting some of the key Christian figures and saints, and the Orthodox cross carrying the four Ss for “Only Unity Saves the Serbs,” which became a sign of state oppression during the 1990s.

These things come to us in the form of commodities, political symbols and moral messages as they locate themselves in the market and become a part of culture. I remember how I used to look forward to Bajram visits with my father, as my relatives would give me money to mark Bajram celebrations and show generosity. Today, it seems that more than ever this kind of giving and the purchase of goods require a form of singular loyalty and assertion of religious belonging. And as long as the expectation of return is followed by advice on appropriate conduct and imposes indebtedness or moral and ethical restraint, our experiences and memories will shape new identities in this post-secular world. — K 5

CONTENT

KOSOVOTWOPOINTZERO MAGAZINE RELIGION — #3 2012

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POLITICAL HEADCOVERING. A religious symbol becomes a weapon in a war over national identity. By Dafina Zherka

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RELIGION ON THE WORLD STAGE. Seven commentaries, from Saudi Arabia to South America, explore how faith is shaping people and politics across the globe.

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THE THREE LIVES OF VESELINKA ZASTAVNIKOVIC.

The ex-wife of Serbian leader Boris Tadic was once a rebel and is now a nun who goes by Sister Irina.

By Mirjana Radovanovic

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64

Muslims in the Balkans could follow the road to extremism, but moderation offers a way forward. By Enver Robelli

Striking images explore the misunderstood role of religion in conflicts in the Balkans. By Andrew Testa

COVER STORY: ISLAM'S CROSSROADS.

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MANIPULATIONS OF FAITH.

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92

THE IMAMS OF SWITZERLAND.

FAMILIAR BEDFELLOWS. In Europe, political parties mix Christianity with politics.

By Teresa Reiter

Group combats Islamophobia by preaching moderation.

By Julian Schmidli

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A WEB OF ISLAM. Online sites cater to Muslims, but the road is rocky.

By Cyrus Farivar

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A STUDY IN INEQUALITY.

Iran targets the Baha'i, starting in the classroom.

By Jenna Hand

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100

Growing up in a fringe religion isn't all it's said to be.

By Robin Holmes

Missionaries let their faith guide them through development projects in Kosovo, while leaving the soul rescuing to others. By Irmin van der Meijden

WITNESS TO WITNESSES.

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THE MORMON WAY.

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105

110

127

132

Time of growth or time of suppression?

By Grif Peterson

Prishtina musician brings inspiration from Christianity and Africa into his songs.

By Dardan Zhegrova

Five movies that will refocus your lens on the world.

By Veton Nurkollari

Get the 2.0 perspective on five powerful books.

By Hana Marku

112

114

Yll Rugova wants you to believe him about not believing.

By Isotta Ricci Bicci

Son's emergence from father's shadow has changed order of Kosovar Sufis.

By Nate Tabak

FAITH CENTRAL ASIA.

ATHEISM ALMIGHTY.

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NOTES FROM ABOVE.

ON FILM.

THROUGH THE PAGES.

THE TORCH PASSED.

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140

THE MYTHS OF KOSOVO.

ROOTS IN THE KITCHEN.

A lucky crypt? UFOs? Legends die hard in this part of the world. By Kosovo 2.0

For one American, understanding family can be a matter of many tastes.

By Blair Kilpatrick KOSOVO 2.0

AND MORE...

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THE DECALOGUE 2.0

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR. Besa Luci explains the thread of faith running through this issue's 150 pages.

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MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE. Interfaith marriages shed light on legacy of secularization. By Shengjyl Osmani

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GOD IS NOT DEAD IN ARMENIA. A summer spent at church headquarters can prove quite convincing. By Shant Shahrigian

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THE CROSS IN COLOMBIA. Catholics are living in a time of contradiction in this South American country. By Pablo Camacho

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CATHOLIC CONUNDRUM. Not everyone wants to put their hands together and support the church. By Danijela Simrak

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WHERE IS THE CULTURAL BAPTISM? The Vatican has invested in Kosovo, but its dedication is questionable. By Hana Marku

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PUNK AND POWERFUL. Pussy Riot make a stand in Putin's Russia.

By Yulia Medvedeva

145 THE (NEW) TEN COMMANDMENTS. C'mon, the decalogue needed a makeover.

By Conor Creighton

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FEMALE SAUDIS FIGHT TO BE FREE. Life for women in Riyadh isn't as regulated as many think. By Laura Moth

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THE FLIGHT OF FERVOR IN U.S. POLITICS.

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FAIRER CONDITIONS FOR THE FAIRER SEX.

62

UNORTHODOX SPECTACLE.

In America, the 2012 election shows Christian right's grip has loosened. By Paul Thornton Religious authorities in Istanbul make mosques more female-friendly. By Matthew Brunwasser Serbian Orthodox Church's problems aired in public.

By Isak Vorgucic

121

CALCUTTA IN 20 HOURS.

136

BACK INSIDE KOSOVO.

From fish frys to College Street, diversity is a common thread. By David Boyk Sometimes the most life-changing vacation happens at home. By Artrit Bytyci 9

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TEXT BY ENVER ROBELLI

ISLAM IN THE BALKANS EMERGES TATTERED FROM COMMUNISM, WAR AND ECONOMIC GLOOM, AT THE CROSSROADS OF EXTREMISM AND MODERATION.

KOSOVO PRIME MINISTER HASHIM THACI, LEFT, AND TURKISH PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN ATTEND AN OPENING CEREMONY NOV. 4 FOR THE GRAND MOSQUE IN PRISHTINA.

— IT WAS A BOLD THESIS. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and after Moscow’s satellite states in Eastern Europe got rid of their rigid communist systems, American professor Francis Fukuyama proclaimed in his book “The End of History and the Last Man” the final victory of democracy and the end of totalitarian regimes.

A more peaceful world was expected to come for future generations.

Thanks to democracy, economies would develop, the fire of hate would die out or at least be subdued, nationalism would lose its power to incite wars and religions would retract within private confines. More or less, these were the expectations in those optimistic years, 1989 to 1991. Now, more than 20 years later, a fiery debate is taking place in Germany on the role of Muslim activists from the fundamentalist Salafi sect, whose members are distributing free copies of the Quran in several cities. Two decades later, debates about the role of Islam within the state and society have also started among Muslim societies in the Balkans.

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There is no doubt that epochal changes came after the Berlin Wall’s fall. But in one corner of Europe, the Balkans, these changes foremost were not democratic but bloody. The European Union failed to become a problem-solving force. Peace was restored only after huge human and material losses and only with massive engagement by the United States.

The reasons behind the EU’s failure in the Balkans during the early 1990s were many: Western Europe was still euphoric from the fall of the Iron Curtain; no one thought the ghosts of war would be revived in the Balkans after the triumph of freedom in Eastern Europe; and the EU did not have a unified policy regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Moreover, for years, two political tabors competed to formulate the standings on the Balkan wars: One side opposed any foreign intervention and hoped that one day, when “blood dries out,” a solution would be imposed by the victorious party; the other side sought foreign diplomatic and military intervention to end the bloodshed. But the bloodshed was stopped only by the Pax Americana.

The Balkan conflicts of the first half of the 1990s also spurred a debate within the EU for a new foreign policy toward conflict regions.

The recent Balkan conflicts also brought to the surface many challenges related to the future stability of the region. One of these challenges is the role of religions, especially of Islam, in social and political life.

— But in one corner of Europe, the Balkans, these changes foremost were not democratic but bloody.

HISTORY’S ABYSSES The Balkans is a region where cultures, religions, traditions and social and political models converge. In this part of Europe, since the early 1990s, there was no end of history, but the opening of history’s abysses. Irresponsible politicians used nationalism to keep power; chauvinistic clergy blessed the weapons used to shoot people of other ethnicities; intellectuals who proclaimed themselves fathers of the nation sowed seeds of hatred. The Balkan wars of the 1990s, which claimed the lives of nearly 200,000 people, are largely examples of using nationalism and religion with the aim of retaining power, redrawing borders and creating “ethnically clean” states. The orgy of segregation was manifested in many forms. During the war in Bosnia, a group of Serb nationalists considered dumping blue dye in Banja Luka’s river, which was originally green because, according to nationalists, the green color is related to Islam. This is just one grotesque example of the religious rancor.

During the 1990s, Islam was widely misused. It is well-known that Muslims from the Balkans have for centuries cultivated a tolerant Islam. They were often indifferent to rigid interpretations of religious dogmas, and socializing through Yugoslav socialism had an emancipating effect despite its many shortcomings. Islam in everyday life was seen as a cultural value, never as a hindrance to coexistence. War damaged this value, but did not undo it. Thus, secularism in Bosnia is still predominant.

The failure of the Western world to prevent the horrible crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina created a sense of helplessness among the Muslim population there. When a nation is threatened with extinction, it can’t choose its supporters. Hence, during the war in Bosnia, the religious identity was forcefully returned and the communication bridges with Islamic states were re-established.

Among Muslim societies in the Middle East and Asia, many religious fanatics saw the war in Bosnia as a Christian attempt to annihilate Muslims.

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A MAN, ABOVE, TAKES PART IN FRIDAY PRAYERS BEFORE A PRISHTINA PROTEST SEPT. 2, AGAINST A GOVERNMENT DECISION TO BAN RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS INCLUDING MUSLIM HEADSCARVES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Photo: Petrit Rrahmani

SHEFQET KRASNIQI

The imam of Prishtina’s Grand Mosque has a knack for stirring up controversy. Several citizens sued Krasniqi in 2011 for disparaging remarks he made about Mother Teresa. Ahead of Kosovo’s 2010 parliamentary elections, he suggested that voting for the Vetevendosje party would be a sin.

Photo: Petrit Rrahmani

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Thus, the bloodshed was reduced to a religious clash.

About 2,000 experienced Mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan and Chechnya came to Bosnia to aid their Muslim brothers. In this way a local conflict in a corner of Europe took on a global connotation.

Foreign religious militants were not warmly welcomed in Bosnia.

They were soon in conflict with the secular cadres in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s army and with the local population because they were trying to impose rigid regulations, particularly in terms of dress and behavior.

Parallel to the Mujahideen efforts for many years and especially after the war, many nongovernmental organizations from the Persian Gulf operated in Bosnia. Countries like Saudi Arabia attempted, often successfully, to increase their influence in Bosnia, be it through constructing sacred buildings — mosques, madrasas and so-called cultural centers — or through educating young Muslims on the basis of the Wahhabi doctrine that opposes the Hanafi one, to which the majority of Balkan Muslims subscribe. Foreign influence is visible in almost all cities dominated by Muslims in Bosnia; in the wardrobe, imported rites of prayer, music and mosque architecture.

Ethnic cleansing in the first half of the 1990s created separated ethnic areas. Consequently, even Sarajevo, once a symbol of multi-ethnicity, has an overwhelmingly Muslim majority today. Muslim groups funded by the Persian Gulf states, Indonesia and Malaysia are popular among young Muslims in Bosnia because the state is unable to provide entertainment and education opportunities in the secular field. With an economy severely damaged by the war, damaged internal relations and largely incompetent politicians, Bosnia remains a country in permanent stagnation. During the war years, the Bosnian economy’s production reached 5 to 10 percent of the prewar period’s production. The population’s income was reduced to 25 percent of the 1990s level. The industry, infrastructure, handicraft production and agriculture companies were severely damaged. According to the World Bank, war damages in Bosnia were $15 billion to $20 billion. Numbers from the Sarajevo authorities are even more drastic: According to them, war damages were $50 billion to $70 billion. With the outbreak of the war, many well-known enterprises such as Energoinvest, Unis and Sipad were placed under the control of political leaders from the three ethnicities. The conflict created room for an informal economy to develop with all the negative side effects it brings.

In light of this grim situation inherited from the war it’s easy to see how marginal, fundamentalist Islamic groups might gain great support. Bosnia’s Islamic Community, with its leader, Mustafa Ceric, a polyglot — When a nation theologian who spent time as an imam in the U.S., also plays an unclear role. Ceric presents himself as tolerant in front of the is threatened with West; he talks about European Islam and dreams to one day extinction, it can’t become the head imam of Europe. But he has numerous critics choose its supporters. in Sarajevo who say he is two-faced. In the West, he speaks differently. He is tolerant. At home, he shows patience toward funHence, during the damentalism. For example, on one hand Bosnia’s Islamic Comwar in Bosnia, the munity claims it embraces Western democratic values, but on the other hand it compiles lists of Islam’s critics in Bosnia, and fails religious identity to harshly react against fanatics’ aggressiveness toward such was forcefully groups as sexual minorities. In 2009, Ceric supported an imam returned and the who was facing charges of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl.

The rigid interpretation of Islam in Bosnia could become communication more noticeable, but only if in the long term the country’s intebridges with Islamic gration in the European Union is blocked. For now, as the high representative of the international community in Sarajevo, the states were reAustrian diplomat Valentin Inzko declared that radical Islamic established.

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IN SREBRENICA, BOSNIA, BODIES CONTINUE TO BE FOUND FROM THE 1995 MASSACRE OF MORE THAN 8,000 MUSLIM MEN AND BOYS DURING THE COUNTRY'S CIVIL WAR. Photo: Andy Spyra

XHABIR HAMITI

The University of Prishtina professor and president of the Islamic Community’s assembly is a liberal theologian who sees Islam as an open, tolerant faith. Hamiti is also an outspoken critic of radical Islam and was assaulted in 2009, presumably because of his views.

Photo: Jetmir Idrizi

groups do not represent a direct threat to Bosnia, nor to the region and beyond.

ALBANIANISM: THE SECULAR FAITH THAT BINDS In addition to Bosnia, other parts of the Balkans with majority-Muslim populations are Kosovo, Albania and Western Macedonia, where the vast majority of people are ethnically Albanian. The Albanian National Renaissance in the 19th century gave birth to the idea of a secular religion largely based on national poet and thinker Pashko Vasa’s formulation: “The religion of Albanians is Albanianism.” This was an attempt to show that beyond the three major religions — Islam, Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity — something greater brings Albanians together, something above religion: common ethnicity, blood and historical memory. These notions were used by other Balkan nations to demonstrate and strengthen national homogeneity. In this regard Albanians were no exception; the only difference is their multiple religions. However, the claim of historians in Tirana and Prishtina that Albanians have always lived in religious harmony seems excessive and often artificially constructed. In his recently published book, “The Albanians: History of a People between Orient and Occident,” historian Oliver Jens Schmitt writes: “The dogmas that Albanian nationalism developed since the 19th century regarding religion and religiosity do not withstand an accurate observation: Albanians were not more or less religious, or tolerant, than other Balkan peoples. In majority Albanian areas, religion was a crucial feature in social differentiation. An Albanian nation that is beyond religion, and as a political or social actor did not exist before the 20th century, but there definitely were some forms of a sense of unity based on language.” As a late-blooming nation, Albanians in the 20th century, under the influence of different political elites — nationalist, emancipatory, communist and pro-Western — embraced the idea of a nation beyond religion.

MUSTAFA CERIC

Ceric has been the grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country’s top Muslim leader, since 1999. He has promoted interfaith tolerance and moderation, but critics say he has shown some acceptance of fundamentalist Islam, which has been on the rise since Bosnia’s civil war ended in 1995.

Photo: Dzenat Drekovic

IN ALBANIA, RELIGION COMES BACK FROM OBLIVION During communism in Albania, the practice of religion was prohibited beginning in 1967.

Clergy were mistreated and imprisoned, and sacred buildings were transformed into warehouses and sports halls. After the of fall communism, religion made a comeback. Albania, a poor country with a population disoriented by the harsh communist rule, turned into an arena of missionaries, soul gatherers from the East and the West. There were cases when Albanians in the morning conducted missions for some “humanitarian Islamic organization” and in the afternoon for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Religious polarizations were inevitable. There was little tolerance between new theologians educated and indoctrinated in Arab and Asian countries and older theologians who often have a rudimentary religious education and a liberal orientation. There were even open, violent conflicts between these two groups, which in some cases were the consequence of the struggle for controlling the assets of the Muslim community in Albania. In recent years, Albanian authorities have decided to create an opportunity for believers to study Islam in Albania. In this way they intend to avoid influences from abroad, especially from Saudi Arabia.

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— However, the claim of historians in Tirana and Prishtina that Albanians have always lived in religious harmony seems excessive and often artificially constructed.

ISLAM’S THREE PHASES IN KOSOVO Kosovo, as the second state in the Balkans with an Albanian and Muslim majority, has passed through several phases in its relationship with religion: perception, use of Islam and misuse of Islam.

PERCEPTION

Islam was perceived as part of the tradition created during the Ottoman rule; rules of Eastern behavior were mostly imitated, but this wasn’t the case with strict religious dogmas. Muslim Albanians differentiated themselves from others through religion, but Islam didn’t serve as an initial incitement for conflicts. Instead, ethnic and territorial disputes between Albanians and Slavs brought about bloodshed. The Congress of Berlin in 1878 split Albanians among multiple states and helped set the stage for the next century, in which conflicts with Serbs culminated with Belgrade’s brutal crackdown in Kosovo from 1989 to 1999.

Under the influence of post-World War II socialism, Islam was reduced to a private experience, especially in Kosovo. Economic development, the creation of education opportunities, and an economic migration to the West all visibly changed Albanian society. By the end of the 1950s, there were no television sets in Kosovo. Then, Radio Television of Prishtina was established at the beginning of the 1970s. This introduced modern media to the homes of Muslim Albanians and created an opportunity to communicate with the world, which before World War II was often explained solely in religious books.

USE With the abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1990, the Belgrade regime led by Slobodan Milosevic started stigmatizing Albanians and presenting them only through the Muslim prism. Milosevic’s government intended to make the West aware of the danger posed by Kosovo Muslims. So, Serbs used Islam to smear Albanians’ reputation. The intellectual elites of Prishtina led by Ibrahim Rugova responded to this propaganda by using Islam in a positive sense. With their embrace of a tolerant attitude toward other religions, preaching of a peaceful resistance, with their lifestyle, way of dressing, Western-leaning, with a political vocabulary strongly based on universal values of human rights and democracy — these intellectuals attempted to show the West that there was no threat of a religious conflict in Kosovo. Instead, an entire nation was subjected to violence and terror, which in the end of the 1990s reached a peak with Serbia’s attempt to commit ethnic cleansing, provoking the intervention of the international community.

During the 1990s, the Islamic Community of Kosovo was led by Rexhep Boja, an openminded theologian who did not see social and political developments as being stuck within a religious framework. This cannot be said for his successor, Naim Ternava, who gives the impression of an indecisive person more concerned with the management of Islamic Community resources than with the formation of a tolerant religious discourse and the fighting of groups that misuse Islam for sectarian purposes. Lately, Boja has distanced himself from the Islamic Community and is Kosovo’s acting ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

MISUSE Just like in Albania after the fall of communism, in Kosovo, Islamic organizations became active during the chaos that ensued after the war ended in 1999, mainly under a humanitarian disguise.

Also similar to the situation in Albania, in Kosovo there was a conflict between tolerant Islam practiced for centuries and the new religious guardians that were indoctrinated in foreign coun44

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REXHEP BOJA

Boja served as the head of Kosovo’s Islamic Community from 1990 to 2003. Educated at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, Boja has been praised for his tolerant approach to Islam in Kosovo and his rejection of missionary Wahabbism.

He is the dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Prishtina. “Albanians have been Muslims for more than 500 years and they do not need outsiders (Arabs) to tell them what is the proper way to practice Islam.”

— Just like in Albania after the fall of communism, in Kosovo, Islamic organizations became active during the chaos that ensued after the war ended in 1999, mainly under a humanitarian disguise.

tries. Their missionary work is facilitated by the post-war circumstances in Kosovo: Kosovo’s society emerged from the war with an estimated 10,000 dead, about 1 million Albanians expelled from their homes, and hundreds of thousands of properties destroyed. The Serb apartheid of the 1990s and the attempted ethnic cleansing derailed and traumatized Kosovo’s society. Members of such societies are malleable, even more so when one considers the terrible economic situation.

Kosovo remains one of the poorest European countries. According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, about 45 percent of residents are considered poor, while 18 percent live in extreme poverty. It also continues to be strangled by the side effects of transition, such as the misuse of public resources by politicians and criminals; systemic corruption; a lack of experts for economic development; and above all, the capturing of the state by elements devoid of ethics and morality and with a thirst to take and extort. In such circumstances where despair among the population is endless and the sense of helplessness is a daily occurrence, religious missionaries can easily purchase souls.

Although Islamic extremism remains a marginal phenomenon in Kosovo, troubling incidents in recent years show that radicals can pose a danger. In 2009, still-unidentified people beat liberal Muslim theologian Xhabir Hamiti, an outspoken critic of radical Islam and the growing influence of foreign Islamic groups. In the same year, extremists targeted Ejup Krasniqi, a librarian in the faculty of Islamic studies at the University of Prishtina, as he was delivering the Friday sermon in a village near Prishtina. Attackers who accused him of not enforcing the Hadiths of Mohammed beat him. In Drenas, mullah Osman Musliu, an opponent of religious radicalism, was beaten in another attack. Writing in the Kosovo newspapers Java and Koha Ditore, Hamiti has emphasized that “tolerance is the basic foundation of a believer. It is God’s request. Good behavior, justice, love and kindness among all people without any differentiation are holy requests. I don’t see Islam as something rigid, something static, the way someone else might see it.”

POLITICIANS ON SIDELINES

XHEMAJL “KASTRIOT” DUKA

The Macedonian-born Duka posed as an imam and operated in Skenderaj for years. His mosque in Marina, built in 1999, was an extremists’ hub. He was accused of manipulating and indoctrinating children at a connected mosque, and was deported in 2010.

Photo: Jetmir Idrizi

One of the toughest but most emotional and often irrational debates in Kosovo’s society had to do with the wearing of the headscarf in elementary and middle schools. Enver Hoxhaj, then the minister of education, issued an administrative order in 2010 banning headscarves. He made the decision based on Kosovo’s constitution, which defines the state as a secular one. The majority of Kosovo’s politicians did not take a stand on the issue. They feared that a stand against the requests of the religious fundamentalists would cost them votes in the next elections. This influence should not be overestimated, but imams have a lot of influence on elderly believers. Before the December 2010 elections, Shefqet Krasniqi, an imam who continually stirs up controversy with his religious interpretations and political views, asked people not to vote for Vetevendosje, the third biggest parliamentary group in Kosovo’s Assembly. According to Krasniqi, an imam at the Grand Mosque in Prishtina, to vote for Vetevendosje is a sin. In doing so, he insinuated that the believers should vote for the Justice Party and the New Kosovo Alliance, which had promised to consider Muslims’ requests for the construction of religious buildings. Moreover, the head of the Islamic Community of Kosovo, Naim Ternava, threatened to take the issue of the headscarf ban to the European Court of Human Rights, even though it is impossible because Kosovo, with its contested statehood, cannot address this court.

Foes of the Albanian Muslim tradition and Wahhabi militants seek to incite conflict between different layers of Kosovo’s society, and the demand to allow the wearing of the headscarf in schools is just the beginning. If Wahhabis — or Salafis, as some prefer to be called — succeed in making the state of Kosovo succumb to their demands regarding headscarves, then other #3 RELIGION SPRING/SUMMER 2012

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demands will follow: introduction of ethics studies in elementary and middle schools instead of classes that teach students about all religions and cultures, as in some European countries; maybe even more radical demands about the covering up of females, or even demands to ban the use of perfume and the listening of music, to stone women in cases of adultery, which are all well-known phenomena in Saudi Arabia.

While Kosovo is a long way from becoming an Islamist theocracy, the emergence of radical theologians who spread religious propaganda is a major problem. An imposter imam from Albania, Xhemajl “Kastriot” Duka, operated in Drenica for years until Kosovo authorities deported him in 2010. Duka preached a radical form of Islam and opened religious schools, where young girls were forced to be fully veiled. In Skenderaj, some 6,000 residents outraged with Duka’s activities — mostly Muslims — signed a petition that led to his mosque’s closure.

In Prishtina, there are imams and militant publicists who dream of and talk about the victory of “true religion” (Islam) against infidels, or would like to see Mother Teresa burn in hell. Neither politics nor the police react to such nonsense in Kosovo, even though everyone can see fundamentalist religious groups are creating a parallel system of religious infrastructure in Kosovo, which the Islamic Community either cannot control or is choosing to tolerate. In Prishtina there are already several so-called dorms for Muslim students. These dorms are not controlled by the state nor by the Islamic Community of Kosovo; only those that live inside the walls of these (semi)-illegal “institutions” know what is preached there.

— Although Islamic extremism remains a marginal phenomenon in Kosovo, troubling incidents in recent years show that radicals can pose a danger.

IN MODERATION, A WAY FORWARD Within the Islamic Community there are reasonable voices that complain these dorms are founded and financed by “religious businessmen” from Macedonia, but maybe also from the Persian Gulf countries. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Islamic Community of Kosovo have not always firmly reacted toward religious fundamentalism. Muslim Albanians in the Balkans should have religious leaders that actively participate in important debates on the role of Islam in a society, in the European Union, in democracy. Muslim theologians in Prishtina and Tirana are also asked to express their opinions outside conferences organized by UNESCO and other organizations that support the exchange of views among leaders of different religions. If they speak reasonably and are based on the Quran, always respecting constitutional rights, then Albanian Muslim clergy could become known outside the borders of Kosovo and Albania, and moreover even be accepted as examples of interfaith tolerance. — K

NAIM TERNAVA

The head of the Kosovo Islamic Community since 2003, Ternava is serving his second term as Kosovo’s top Islamic cleric. Ternava has been criticizing for not taking a harder stand against more extreme forms of Islam in Kosovo, particularly Saudi-financed Wahhabism. His top priorities include the construction of a central flagship mosque in Prishtina and the introduction of religious education in Kosovo’s public schools.

Photo: Petrit Rrahmani

Enver Robelli covers the Balkans for the newspapers Sueddeutsche Zeitung in Munich and Tages Anzeiger in Zurich.

A MUSLIM BELIEVER PRACTICES HIS FAITH DURING FRIDAY PRAYERS IN VUSHTRRI. PHOTO: ATDHE MULLA

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MUSLIMS ARE AT A CROSSROADS IN THE BALKANS, AND MANY ARE CHOOSING TO PEACEFULLY PROTEST, AS SEEN HERE SEPT. 2 IN PRISHTINA, RATHER THAN FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF VIOLENT EXTREMISTS. PHOTO: ATDHE MULLA

A FIGHT FOR IDENTITY HEADSCARVES BECOME BATTLEGROUND FOR SECULAR AND DEVOUT ISLAM IN KOSOVO TEXT BY DAFINA ZHERKA / PHOTOS BY ATDHE MULLA

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AGE 25

— WHEN A DELEGATION OF KOSOVO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS TRAVELED TO GERMANY FOR A STUDY VISIT IN 2003, an interpreter accompanied them. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe organized the trip and picked the translator. She was an observant Muslim woman who wore a headscarf. Kosovo officials asked her to remove it during meetings with their German counterparts. She refused, and the delegation cut short the trip, causing an uproar in Kosovo.

In the eyes of the male delegation, the covered translator was “a false representation of an ethnic Albanian woman emblematic of Islamic religious fundamentalism, backwardness and Orientalism,” University of Prishtina lecturer Vjollca Krasniqi observed in a 2007 article. In Kosovo, Krasniqi argued, the headscarf “symbolizes the historical legacy of the Ottoman Empire and Serb representations of Albanians as Islamists.” In other words, headscarves conflict with Kosovo’s emergent national identity as a secular European democracy. In 2010, the perceived threat of headscarves — as an extension of the rise of more religious

forms of Islam since 1999 — led to a national ban in Kosovo’s public schools, something France had done seven years earlier. It wasn’t that the Muslim garb was something new to Kosovo; women had been wearing various types of head and face coverings for centuries. But their contemporary manifestation posed a direct conflict to the new national identity, whose secularism was written into the constitution.

From cultural to political significance After the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into the Western Balkans, beginning

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in the 15th century, veils covering the entire face except for the eyes became commonplace along women in the region. The end of the World War II saw the Communist Party in Yugoslavia launch a massive campaign to outlaw the veils, known as ferexhe in Kosovo, culminating with a ban in 1951. According to the scholar Drita Bakija-Gunga, most Albanian women in Kosovo greeted the development positively, through the prism of communism, as a revolutionary act toward female emancipation and liberation.

Some women resisted the law’s implementation, but they gradually got rid of the ferexhe and replaced it with a headscarf. By this point, the head coverings worn by Albanian Muslims in Kosovo largely took on a cultural significance, owing to the Ottoman heritage.

After the Kosovo war ended in 1999, the arrival of NGOs with funding from places like Saudi Arabia helped usher in a new wave of Islam with a more fundamentalist posture. Increasing numbers of women began wearing hijabs, which took on a political connotation as symbols for a more stringent form of the religion. According to a recent survey from the Gani 49

Bobi Institute for Humanistic Studies in Prishtina, this new trend is challenging the traditional model of “soft” or “minimalistic” Islam practiced by most Albanians.

Governments across Europe have placed restrictions on headscarves in recent years. The most notable case happened in France, where it became a national issue in 1989. Three Muslim middle school students were suspended for refusing to take off their hijabs.

France eventually banned students from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in 2004. Like Kosovo’s ban, it didn’t target a specific faith, but Islam was the apparent target. In France, headscarves in schools posed an external threat to the centuries-long traditional homogeneity of French culture and nationality. In Kosovo’s case, the issue was not that Islam per se was unKosovar; the religion had been around for 500 years. Rather, it came down to a conflict over how to define Islam on a national level, with the dominant group of nonpracticing Muslims championing the secular state versus a much smaller, but apparently growing number of devout Muslims who sought a political platform.

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Secularism versus freedom of religion The 2011 ban sparked a strong reaction from some Kosovar devout Muslims, who saw the law as a discriminatory attack on their freedom of religion.

In protest, groups staged marches in Prishtina. Girls stopped going to school altogether as an act of defiance.

On the other side, secular and liberal groups countered that open displays of Islam threaten the secularism at the foundation of Kosovo in its constitution and send the wrong message that that state has an eastern orientation.

Merjem Gashi, a sociology student at the University of Prishtina, says the law is not the right place for Kosovar society to deal with its qualms about Islam. The problem is that it makes secularism more important than a person’s right to an education. “It automatically contributes to increase in percentage of students who are denied secondary education, especially if we look at it from the gender perspective.“ Gashi says. “We do not offer these girls any other alternative by dismissing them from the school, and do not think of the repercussions following these hasty decisions.”

The ban also hasn’t diminished increased visibility of devout, politically active Muslim groups. Also in 2011, the members of parliament affiliated with the right-leaning Justice Party, an essentially Islamist organization, KOSOVO 2.0

proposed adding religious education to state schools. The largest parties, including the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo, shot down the idea. Just as with headscarves in the classrooms, critics of the proposal suggested it was an attack on Kosovo’s constitutional concept of secularism. Proponents of it, mostly devout Muslim groups, saw religious education as an extension of the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion. And even though the education proposal failed, these nascent Muslim groups succeeded in getting out their message. It would seem that while the state can impose secularism on paper, it cannot prevent people from moving toward religious and spiritual orientations, even if they contradict the emerging national narrative. — K Dafina Zherka is a researcher at the Alter Habitus Institute for Social and Cultural Studies in Prishtina.

VANISHING BENEATH THE VEIL Artist Vlora Imeri, 20: “The idea of this work came to came to me after reading “The Veil of Fear” by Samia Shariff. As a Muslim woman, I thought about what it meant for women and girls to wear the veil. I concluded that this is a way to make them lose their identity until they become nothing and disappear. I felt it was important to begin my work with a girl who had yet to reach puberty but already faced the stigma associated with her gender. The five images document the incremental suppression of her identity, culminating at age 25, when her face is rendered invisible.”

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PORTRAIT

BAKASHANTA’S SONGS FOR THE FATHER TEXT BY DARDAN ZHEGROVA / PHOTO BY ATDHE MULLA

PRISHTINA MUSICIAN ALBIN KLLOKOQI BRINGS HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH TO THE FORE.

TEXT BY LISANDRI KOLA / PHOTO BY ATDHE MULLA

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PORTRAIT

— ACCORDING TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS, all of mankind once spoke a single language and lived in the same place. In Babylon, they built a structure to reach heaven, the Tower of Babel. God — angry or impressed, depending on the interpretation — responded by scattering humanity across the world and “confused their languages.” That original, universal language is what Christian singer-songwriter Albin Kllokoqi says inspired his pseudonym, Bakashanta.

I meet Kllokoqi on an ordinary day February on Prishtina’s Mother Teresa Boulevard. The city’s pedestrian thoroughfare appears like a lighted stage, illuminated by Kllokoqi, strumming his ukulele. Music first came to Kllokoqi as a 7-year-old, when his mother bought him a harmonica.

Times were rough for a kid growing up in Prishtina in the 1980s and 1990s, a period that informs Kllokoqi’s music. The city, rough and tumble, with gloom as Slobodan Milosevic’s regime unleashed a wave of repression on Kosovo Albanians as the rest of Yugoslavia tore at the seams. But in that time Kllokoqi found inspiration in the sounds of a city in a time of crisis: sirens from ambulances, fire trucks, police cars and civil defense alarms associated with wartime. In Kllokoqi’s musical vocabulary, those sounds are calls for salvation.

“I want listeners to form a taste and sense for distinguishing good and evil,” he says.

Kllokoqi’s Christian faith is central to his songs. A turning point in his career came in 2009, when he attended a conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, held by Nigerian televangelist Christian Oyakhilome. Pastor Chris, as Oyakhilome is known, runs the Pentecostal ministry Believers' LoveWorld Incorporated.

“Pastor Chris is one of my faith models — Bible teachers — who brings to life the church of the time of Jesus’ first disciples, where gospel is followed by signs and wonders,” Kllokoqi says. #3 RELIGION SPRING/SUMMER 2012

Pentecostalism is a Christian sect that emphasizes personal experiences with God. It began as a revival movement in Los Angeles in 1906. Followers are known for speaking in tongues, and faith healing is a common practice. Once considered a marginal part of Christianity, Pentecostals are estimated to comprise more than 25 percent of Christians worldwide.

Kllokoqi says his conversations with Oyakhilome helped solidify his faith. During his time in South Africa, he also learned about traditional dances and became interested in instruments used in street music. His experiences became inspiration for his music upon his return to Kosovo.

Kllokoqi began performing spontaneously in parks, on city streets, in bars and elsewhere. He eventually released his selftitled debut album, “Bakashanta,” in summer 2011. Its 10 tracks, three of which have music videos, include backup vocals by Blessing Bassey and Precious Irek, singers he met during his trip to South Africa. The songs themselves draw inspiration from the Bible. He says that when he initially wrote the lyrics, he noticed strong similarities to real Bible verses. Kllokoqi opted to quote directly from the scripture.

As for his audience, Kllokoqi is worried about just one listener.

“I search for God, I usually look up in the sky and I am encouraged not to connect with the transitory and imperfect world. Don’t accumulate your wealth on earth where a thief can take it away, accumulate it in heaven,” Kllokoqi says. — K

Dardan Zhegrova is a Kosovo 2.0 staff writer.

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CALCUTTA IN 20 HOURS TEXT AND PHOTOS BY DAVID BOYK

AGNES GONXHA BOJAXHIU, BETTER KNOWN AS MOTHER TERESA, MAY HAVE BEEN BORN IN SKOPJE, BUT CALCUTTA BECAME HOME FOR THE ALBANIAN NUN. OUTSIDE INDIA, BECAUSE OF MOTHER TERESA’S HUMANITARIAN WORK MANY THINK OF CALCUTTA AS A CESSPOOL OF DEPRAVITY AND DESTITUTION. INSIDE INDIA, IT HAS A REPUTATION FOR HIGH-CULTURE SNOBBERY. IN REALITY, IT’S EASY TO LOVE THE CITY FOR THE REASONS THE BENGALI PEOPLE DO: FOR ITS EASYGOING AND EARTHY STREET CULTURE, FOR ITS MASTERY OF THE FISHY ARTS, FOR ITS INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC SOPHISTICATION AND FOR THE LOVE ITS PEOPLE HAVE FOR TALKING. CALCUTTA, LIKE INDIA’S OTHER BIG PORT CITIES, WAS INVENTED BY COLONIALISM. THE BRITISH TOOK A FEW VILLAGES IN BENGAL, FAR FROM ANYWHERE IMPORTANT, AND MADE THEM INTO THE CAPITAL OF THEIR INDIAN EMPIRE. LIKE MOST COLONIAL CITIES, CALCUTTA — WHICH HAS BEEN RENAMED KOLKATA TO BETTER MATCH BENGALI PRONUNCIATION, THOUGH MANY RESIDENTS WRITE AND SAY IT THE OLD WAY — WAS DIVIDED INTO TWO ZONES, NOT-SO-SUBTLY CALLED WHITE TOWN AND BLACK TOWN. THE EUROPEANS IN WHITE TOWN GOT WIDE STREETS, SEWERS AND MONUMENTAL BUILDINGS; THE INDIANS IN BLACK TOWN GOT OVERCROWDING AND BETTER FOOD. THE BRITISH ARE GONE, AND THE CITY HAS EXPANDED HUGELY, BUT IT’S STILL EASY TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THE TWO SIDES.

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8:00 P.M. FRIDAY: FISH FRY Fish fry is what it sounds like: delicious. Bhetki, a small whitefish, is marinated in lemon juice, deep-fried and served with a grainy, vinegary mustard to give it zip. Fish fry is common, and it makes a perfect snack between eating sweets and eating other sweets, but at dinnertime you can get an unusually delicious one at Bhojohori Manna, a restaurant with a few branches around the city. It was one of the first restaurants to serve any Bengali food apart from snacks like fish fry. Even now, there are only a few others; Kewpie’s and 6 Ballygunge Place are also good. Bhojo-

hori Manna only serves a dozen or two dozen of its 100 or so menu items at a given time, based on what ingredients are good on a particular day. Keep fingers crossed for the malai chingri (cream prawn), a humongous sweet prawn in a coconut curry.

Such vegetable dishes as aloo posto (potatoes with poppy seeds) are also delicious, and, for other items, it’s worth taking the waiter’s advice.

You’ll end up wanting to lick sweet-sour green mango 122

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chutney off of a banana leaf and order another fish fry for dessert.

9:30 P.M. NIGHT SHOW India’s most famous movie industry is, of course, Bollywood, named after Mumbai when it was still Bombay. But many other regions have their own cinemas in their own languages: Tamil, Bengali, Kannada and others. In the

HOW TO GET THERE If you're interested in traveling to Calcutta from Prishtina, you have a few options available to you.

Kosovo 2.0 checked a variety of sample itineraries from Prishtina, Skopje and Tirana for trips this summer.

Expect to pay 900 to 1,000 euros for an indirect flight.

Kosovars require visas for entry into India. To apply for a visa, visit the Indian Embassy in Belgrade. A six-month travel visa costs 26 euros or 3,000 dinars. The Foreign Ministry of Kosovo recommends citizens to contact the ministry before applying for a visa abroad.

old days, Bengal was famous for beautiful art movies like Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” and Ritwik Ghatak’s “Meghe Dhaka Tara,” but now, most Bengali movies are cheap knockoffs of action movies from other parts of India. The directors go south to Hyderabad to buy bargain Telugu movies, complete with sets, actors and crew, and they get what they pay for. But they’re still good fun, and every so often someone will try to revive the artsy days of yore with something slow and thoughtful, with no songs or dances.

A better bet is to go to the Metro, a decayed movie palace from the glory days of Chowringhee, the old center of White Town, and see the newest Hindi musical blockbuster. The best thing about the Metro is that the snack bar is also a regular bar.

Go on Friday or Saturday nights of an opening week-

end, when the crowd is rowdiest, grab a Kingfisher beer and some samosas, and get ready to whistle and holler. Don’t worry if you don’t know the language: Whether it’s a slapstick comedy, a sappy love story, or a violent revenge drama — or, more likely, all three at once — you won’t have much trouble following what’s going on.

11:00 A.M. LOSING YOUR MARBLES The “Britishers,” as Indians call them, didn’t rule alone.

Soon after they took power in Bengal, they created a class of powerful landlords, who mostly ended up leaving their estates in the hands of managers and moving to Calcutta where they could be closer to power. Of course, they had to live right, so they built impressive mansions in North Calcutta, #3 RELIGION SPRING/SUMMER 2012

often in a mixture of Indian and European styles. If you walk around the neighborhood of Jorasanko, you’ll see lots of these houses and be able to walk into many of them, but one of the most impressive, as well as the wackiest, is the Marble Palace. It’s crammed full of paintings and sculptures, almost all by European artists, as well as a few odds and ends from China. There

is almost no Indian art, save for a few sculptures of Hindu gods dressed in togas. The ballroom is the most amazing room, with an intricate floor inlaid with, apparently, 88 colors of marble.

The whole effect is not so much on the halfway mark between tacky and beautiful as simultaneously deep into both territories. In case the palace itself weren’t lavish enough, there’s an old-fashioned private menagerie outside.

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2:00 P.M. FEEDING TIME Kali, Bengal’s favorite goddess and the patron deity of Calcutta, is worshipped in style at the Kalighat temple.

While other Hindu temples aim for an air of otherworldly calm and sanctity, or simply offer an everyday roadside path to god, Kalighat is always raucous and chaotic.

Despite middle-class attempts to tame her, Kali has resisted domestication, and so has her temple. Going there is an intense experience any time, but especially at 2 p.m., when Kali has her daily meal of a goat — either offered by a devotee or, if no one is forthcoming that day, by the

12:47 P.M. BENGALI BURRITOS One of the great Bengali contributions to junk food is the kathi roll. Delicious rolls exist elsewhere in India — kabab rolls in Delhi and Lucknow, frankies in Bombay — but the Calcutta kathi roll is the king. And among kathi roll joints, the canonical place is Nizam’s, next to Calcutta’s eclectic old covered market, New Market.

They take a paratha (fried flatbread), crack an egg on top, fry it again for good measure, and then wrap it around delicious chunks of curried goat, or chicken, if you prefer. Then they throw on onions, which are superior in India to all foreign onions.

Take it to go, and wander off to the Maidan, Calcutta’s central park, to watch a pickup game of football or cricket. Or you can dive into New Market to dessert on plum cake at Nahoum’s, the 124

old Jewish bakery, or shop for elaborately embroidered ribbons and shawls.

1:35 P.M. SUGAR ON THE TONGUE Sandesh (shondesh in Bengali) comes in dozens of shapes, pressed in molds to look like flowers, shells or strawberries, but basically only one flavor, with minor variations. The flavor: milk. Like many other Indian sweets, it’s made of milk and sugar and not much else, but it tastes wonderful, with a delicately grainy texture and a slight sweetness. Mishti doi, which means sweet yogurt (curd in Indian English), is another sweet that’s hard to find outside Bengal. There’s something magical about it, too, that makes it something indescribably more subtle and delicious than yogurt.

It’s dense, smooth and somehow floral, often with a

beautiful pale pink color.

Bengal has many more sweets, including rossogolla, a milk ball in syrup that’s often boring and chewy but can be light and elegant.

Look out for anything featuring gur or nolen gur, raw sugars made from cane or dates, which have warm flavors that might remind you of something in between a fig and an orange.

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priests out of their own pockets. In deference to squeamish templegoers, the sacrifice now happens behind a wall. If you’re not up for this much excitement, visit the calm Nakhoda mosque, the old Armenian church, or one of Calcutta’s many other religious sites. In October and November, during Durga Puja and Kali Puja, the streets themselves become temples as neighborhoods compete with

one another to build intricate displays honoring these two goddesses.

3:15 P.M. HORSING AROUND Placing a bet at the Calcutta Turf Club is one of the best parts of spending an afternoon there. You go to a building shaped like an old railroad roundhouse, but instead of steam engines, each spot around the edge is occupied by a stall where one fellow is frantically erasing and rewriting the next race’s odds on a board, while a couple of other guys take bets as fast as they can. A visitor and 15 others will yell at a bookie until he takes the money, and then everyone can run off to get a beer, a Thums Up or Limca — India’s superior answers to Coca-Cola and 7-Up — in time to make the race, and either sit in the bleachers or stand at the rail. A Britishsounding announcer informs the crowd that the next race “promises to be a cracker,” and then they’re off.

4:00 P.M. LITERARY NUCLEUS College Street, like many other streets in India, is not a street but a neighborhood.

Hundreds of bookstores have sprung up near Calcutta University, some tiny stalls selling the textbooks and test-prep manuals seen all over India, and others well-stocked with teetering piles of novels, poetry, histories and art books.

One good store, Indica, is one of several that focuses on books in English by Indian authors.

You could try a book of poems

by Jibanananda Das, one of Bengal’s great modernist poets whose life was cut short when he was killed by a tram, or goofy detective stories by Satyajit Ray or Saradindu Bandyadhyay, or a novel of midcentury Calcutta by Sankar. Once you’re suitably equipped, climb the worn staircase to the legendary #3 RELIGION SPRING/SUMMER 2012

Indian Coffee House and work through a few tiny cups of sweet, milky coffee under the high ceilings, attended by ancient, liveried waiters. As you sit, try to figure out which of the smoking, glasses-wearing intellectuals around you are filmmakers, or writers, or possibly just students trying to avoid studying. — K

Originally from Los Angeles, David Boyk is a graduate student in South Asian history at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is currently living in north India, doing research on urban history and eating kababs.

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THE DECALOGUE 2.0

By Conor Creighton

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS GET A MAKEOVER FOR OUR DEPRAVED AGE

that sloping narrow path for so long that not even a reincarnated Steve Jobs could entice new buyers.

America is the great exception, but that bulky land aside, religion is only thriving in poorer countries of the world.

Therein lies a hiccup.

Bull-headed marketing Religion needs has reduced religion to revamping if it ever an immovable structure. plans to win back the Norman Mailer said, “If many lost souls who you’re not moving, you’re have long since replaced it with modern not growing.” And religion, like a plant on environmentalism or a north-facing sill or a good old-fashioned hedonism. town bypassed by a motorway, has for much of its existence given up It needs kick-starting.

And it makes sense to on growth. start with the Ten Commandments Follow technology. If because not only is it you’re fast, you buy it when it’s at its best and the rulebook of then buy it again a year Judaism and Christianity, but the later when it’s become even better. Religion, as Muslims like to have a we know it in the West, cheeky read of it, too. might polish the shoes and dust the jacket every century, but it’s still been wearing the same outfit for 3,000 years. And that takes us back to the start and the hiccup I mentioned.

Human thought is liquid; religion is stone.

Religion has become a collector’s item, a niche interest, like Japanese psychedelic recordings.

It has been going down

1. I AM THE LORD THY GOD. THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS

To their credit, the original 10 get off to a flying start with this injunction. It’s hard to survive as a global religion in this day and age if you don’t ban the opposition, but rules are the biggest turn-off for would-be believers. Your average man on the street joins an organization based on what it will allow him to do rather than what he can’t do.

Perhaps we could soften the opener and change it to: I am your God, but I can handle an open relationship so long as we both get tested and you agree not to sleep with any of my close friends or family.

2. DO NOT MAKE GRAVEN IMAGES OR LIKENESSES

Well this is just plain dumb. If we’d adhered to this commandment, the world’s art museums would have little more than landscapes on the walls. If you follow this commandment literally, you might as well sandblast the Sistine Chapel, crumble the Pieta and level the Sagrada Familia. Without images of the usual religious suspects, we’d have no idea what they looked like and it’s hard to show loyalty for a brand you don’t recognise.

No. 2 should really be: Spread the word.

3. DO NOT TAKE THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN For many people, their only contact with religion is taking the Lord’s name in vain. Jesus Christ, Goddamn, God almighty, Mary’s bloody bones scattered across the virginal altar of Lourdes, to name a few phrases. At heart, taking the Lord’s name in vain is a form of advertising and should be encouraged.

Say my name, say my name.

4. REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY Would we ever forget? Without the Ten Commandments, we workers of the world would never get a chance to stop. Here’s a thank-you. Remembering the sabbath goes without saying, really, but a nice little invocation or a shot of encouragement wouldn’t go amiss. A god who wanted us to kick back at his command would definitely be a god you’d want to follow, fight wars for and, if it came to it, strap explosives to your chest and ram-raid abortion clinics. That’s the god of the weekend and this is what he might say.

It’s the freaking weekend baby, I’m about to have me some fun.

5. HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER Honor, that’s a strange one. As there are bad people in this world, there are also bad fathers and mothers, too. If you were the daughter of Josef Fritzl and the god of love, peace and understanding was pointing a long alabaster finger in your direction saying, “Honor your dad,” I think you’d be less inclined to agree as you would to bite off his whole finger. Fritzl, you might remember, is the guy in Austria who locked up his daughter in the home dungeon for years and fathered seven children by her. Forcing your followers to honor someone who might have done them wrong is not just incongruous, it’s cruel. In light of this, maybe we’d be better off rephrasing that as something like: Honor those who deserve it and let God deal with the rest.

6. THOU SHALT NOT KILL This commandment can’t be read loud enough, especially when it’s ignored by so many warmongering religious nations.

But in light of it being so easily brushed aside in the face of geopolitical interests, it needs reinforcing: I’m the only one allowed to kill around here so the rest of you better cut it out.

7. THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY Oh, adultery. The thing about this particular commandment is that the punishment is generally self-administered.

Guilt comes rolling in not long after you’ve pulled out. And if it doesn’t, then committing adultery was probably your queue to get out of that particular relationship. Adultery is sometimes necessary, but it’s a messy business to trade in.

If you’re not happy, do something, and, on that note, let’s just remake No. 7: Young hearts, run free.

8. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL Not all stealing is bad for society. Wikileaks’ stolen documents shined a light on the dark dealings of diplomats, Hugo Chavez’s nationalising (stealing) of Venezuela’s natural resources increased the standard of living of his people, and you could argue that downloading music for free has given an injection of life to the live music circuit and for the most part hurt the industry, not the musicians. Stealing is still bad, but sometimes it’s necessary. Let’s rename this one:

Rob from the rich; give to the poor.

9. THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

False witness is the same as stitching up someone. Lying to an authority to get someone else in trouble. It’s pretty despicable but it’s also pretty specific. And perhaps a little outdated for the times in which we live. Police require a little more evidence than a tattletale to convict someone. How about we just boil this down to its simplest components and pull one grand umbrella rule out of that. And as religion cherry-picked the best parts of period paganism, a modern Ten Commandments could do well by taking a cue from the ultimate corporate religion: Don’t be evil.

10. THOU SHALT NOT COVET Coveting is wanting something you don’t have. Without any form of coveting, mankind would stagnate and recess. Coveting is what makes people work, invent, brush their teeth in the morning and keep failing better and better. It’s the fuel that burns inside each of us, pulling us on to evolve and achieve. And this is where God should take a leaf out of the film “Scarface” and remember this line from Tony Montana: The world is yours.

fin

Conor Creighton is an Irish writer.

This former ambassador to Kosovo now lives in Berlin.

His latest project is www.shortcouples.com.

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AUTUMN #01 2011 INDEPENDENT CULTURE MAGAZINE

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