Balkanalysis.com

The holiday season came early to Macedonia this year. So far, it’s been a tale straight out of Dickens- Christmas cheer for dirty orphans, and dirty toilets for confused neocons. Or something like that.

From an article on their own website, we learn that evangelical Baptists have been casing out the place for some time, and have now made some inroads by taking their ministries to- Albanian orphans.

Actually, we heard about the Baptists even last year, when a missionary job advert on one of their websites asked for a “businessman” to enlighten the Macedonians. Apparently, since the Macedonians were generally too cynical and disinterested to be approached directly about changing their religion, it was suggested- and who knows if this ever worked- that importing a “businessman” might do the trick. Apparently, while instructing local entrepreneurs on how to run a company, such a one could surreptitiously add a few details about the Good Lord J.C. and related matters. It seems, however, unlikely that such nefarious tactics would actually work.

It was a damn good idea on the part of the Baptists, therefore, to start by converting orphans- after all, if the kids had parents (be they Albanian, Macedonian or whatever) they would throw the proselytizers out on their ear immediately. Indeed, nothing beats sharing God’s love with someone who can’t fight back.Apparently, the mission has given approximately 500 children “textbooks, backpacks and school supplies.” While more basic items may have seem justified (given the Baptists’ own description of the orphans’ penury), the crying need was for “textbooks” and that need was answered: over $40,000 was raised for them by Baptist churches in Louisville, Kentucky and elsewhere.

Fortunately, volunteers who came this summer from Kentucky “…left full of love for Albanian people and with ideas of ways they could continue to support our ministry here, as well as begin a ministry to the Albanians who live in their own community,” said Martha Shaw, a co-leader of the mission. By their own community was meant back in Kentucky, where the Baptists have apparently found a sizeable Albanian community.

Back in Macedonia, the Baptists apparently see the mostly Muslim Albanians as a key market to tap. This is why they are offering:

“…other holistic, transformational ministries alongside Albanians, including English instruction; clothing, food, medicine, firewood and heater distribution; medical care arrangement and financing; church planting and discipling; human rights advocacy; sewage system installation in villages; and prison ministries.

‘Our goal is to guide Albanians to see the gospel as powerful, real and relevant to their lives and culture,’ Martha Shaw said.”

Actually, the Baptists’ goal should be something more like just staying physically intact among people who by and large have no use for them. And so, if I have only one Christmas wish, it would be: “please God, please! Send more of them!” Seeing aspiring Ned Flanders’ fleeing in terror from well-armed Balkanians on the TV news would be like- I can’t resist- manna from heaven.

As if things couldn’t get any stranger, we were just treated to an impressionistic vignette of life in Macedonia from Steven Schwartz who, having defended a number of other strange causes in his long and bizarre career, should now come to be seen as a defender of the Albanian Muslim way (take that, Baptists!)

After stints as a San Francisco punk anarchist, cabbie, ardent backer of the Contras, obituaries writer and now, neocon, Schwartz has most recently been reincarnated as an authority on Islam in Macedonia. His multi-tasking missive (in the neocon Weekly Standard) ingeniously portrays the Albanians as good Muslims, at the expense of the (bad) Saudis of Wahhabi faith. While both characterizations have been made many times by many different people, no one has so far been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together like Steven Schwartz.

But first, some useful background information. One of the more bizarre parts of the Schwartz story has to be when, during the Yugoslav conflicts, he

“…remade himself as an “expert” on the Balkans. He simultaneously transformed his public persona, growing a very long beard, sporting a skull-cap, converting to Islam, and changing his name for the duration of US military action in the Balkans to Suleyman Ahmad Stephen Schwartz. He even relocated to Sarajevo for some sordid reason, no doubt savoring the new lease on life provided by going to a part of the world where few knew him firsthand, or had seen what he is all about.”

From this, one would assume that “Suleyman” Schwartz might have a reasonably informed view of Balkan realities. Roughly, he does. The basic point of his story is that the more or less secular style of Albanian Islam is being threatened by Saudi invaders, who with their cash, NGO’s and new mosques try to “convert” the Albanians to Wahhabiism. Indeed, there is a Saudi presence in Macedonia, and Saudi-constructed mosques as well. Yet if, as Schwartz himself admits, they have had little luck, then where’s the gripping story here?

Enter credulity. Who knows why or how, but the Weekly Standard piece has Suleyman speaking with none other than Arben Xhaferi- powerless leader of the exiled DPA, who has alienated just about everyone with his suggestions for the ethnic partition of Macedonia and Albanian ethnic liberation cause. A man who used to have Clinton and the NY Times fawning all over him for his appropriation of ultra-liberal rhetoric is now having a hard time getting the West to pay attention to him at all. Really, you know it’s gotta hurt as a politician when you’re down to doing interviews with confused neocons.

In any case, Xhaferi presents the position one would expect: that Albanians are to a man practitioners of an America-friendly form of Islam, but need protection from those evil Ay-rab Wahhabi infiltrators. Since Schwartz evidently can believe that Arben Xhaferi has had no awareness of religious extremist fighters among his own people, it also seems he can believe that this wily old career politician is also poor. In fact, this veteran of the Balkans seems able to infer Xhaferi’s apparent indigence from his- toilet. It happened like this:

“…Arben Xhaferi (pronounced Jaferi), leader of the Albanian Democratic Party, is considered both the main Albanian patriotic leader in Macedonia and the region’s outstanding critic of Wahhabi influence. He spoke with me at his office in Tetovo, in the heart of the ethnic Albanian majority area. The building displayed the trademark sign of recent war in the Balkans: bottles of water for sanitary purposes in the toilet, since the plumbing still has not been restored.”

The “trademark” sign of war? Plumbing? There is something so utterly ludicrous about all of the implied associations here that dubbing the article “impressionistic” above was perhaps over-complementary. In reality, it is just one enormous net of- nothing. First of all, Xhaferi is “considered” the main “patriotic” leader- by whom? Certainly, Suleyman, there is no one here who would consider him a Yugoslav-trained, cynical manipulator of nationalist fervor- and a currently ignored one at that. Indeed, Schwartz’s enormous blind spot is his apparent ignorance of the fact that Albanian secular militancy- the kind supported by th
e likes of Xhaferi- is the only current real problem for Balkan stability.

Besides, to continue, who pray tell has ever called Arben Xhaferi the “region’s outstanding critic of Wahhabi influence?” And what would this even mean if anyone had?

But the strangest thing of all is Schwartz’s description of Xhaferi’s office: significantly, it displays “the trademark sign of recent war in the Balkans: bottles of water for sanitary purposes in the toilet, since the plumbing still has not been restored.”

Is Schwartz implying that, as an expert on Balkan sanitation and war, he remembers a pre-war time when things were different? And does he imagine that in the more than two years since Macedonia’s mini-war, a leading Albanian politician really has no water?

Considering his prior experience in the Balkans, one wonders to what extent Schwartz understood local practices. Perhaps if Schwartz had undertaken a more, err, probing analysis of certain toilets in the region, he might have come to another conclusion regarding the need for the omnipresent water bottle. One assumes that seeing just such a bottle on a visit to the john in a modern (and well-plumbed) bathroom in say, Kosovo or Turkey would confuse poor Schwartz to no end. Suleyman, don’t shake hands with the left! And don’t forget to bring your own toilet paper!

While we may never know who we should thank for bringing us this fateful meeting of minds, Schwartz’s other contact seems more self-explanatory. This latter-day Geraldo spoke with Emin Azemi, editor of the Albanian newspaper Fakti, which is apparently “…among the most professional in the region. Azemi took a strong stand in support of the U.S. liberation of Iraq- Fakti editorialized, “The defeat of Saddam Hussein will be a victory for all humanity.’”

Ah, so that’s what ‘professionalism’ means- obediently toeing the US line on Iraq. At the same time, Schwartz criticizes the US Government (through its IREX media subsidization) for its tacit concern that Fakti is actually fueling virulent Albanian nationalism. Were he aware of it, Schwartz would nevertheless probably prefer a border-breaking secular nationalism over any sort of Islamic one- even if the latter has much less chance of catching on than the former.

Schwartz’s parting remarks confirm what had been suspected all along, that is, that his piece is nothing more than a crudely-executed piece of lobbying on behalf of the anti-Saudi neocon cause:

“…I came away struck by the fact that these European Muslims, living in a remote and disregarded country, understand the truth about the Saudi/Wahhabi threat to the Islamic world, and to the world at large- even as many in capitals like Washington continue to deny it.”

In the end, perhaps the best Christmas present any clear-thinking person in this “remote and disregarded country” could get would be the musings of Suleyman Schwartz- an embarrassment to the neocon, nationalist Albanian (or any other) cause they might happen to espouse.