Muslims must return tradition, patriotic, secular, pro-European

Publicist and journalist Mustafa Nano was invited to Forumat UET in a debate with teachers and students of the European University of Tirana on his thesis on religion and national identity, which have sparked public debate

Islam should not be a taboo topic for public debate in the country. Mustafa Nano, journalist, publicist and author of several books that have provoked debate, believes that freedom of speech should be applied even when it comes to sensitive topics such as religious ones. He sees open debate as the best way to face the challenge of religious relations.

After publishing a long analysis in Mapo newspaper entitled “Politicaally incorrect: What is wrong with Albanian Islam today?” Nano again touched on the topic in a debate with students and professors of the European University of Tirana on Tuesday evening invited to the UET Forum format on subject “Reformism vs Populism”.

According to him, there should be no taboo subject. Just as it has been spoken of in Christianity, Jesus Christ, as it has been done for these with dozens of critical books, so it should be spoken of and debated, even becoming a mood for Islam and the prophet Muhammad. According to Nanos, Europe has surrendered in the face of Islam and risks burying itself, its civilization in the future.

“Conversion to Islamic Islam is the biggest project Albanians have made in their history”, Nano claims. <x2 We don't have what we do. Muslims are here, they're ours, they're Albanians with a full title, and here they're going to be forever, until there's Albania”, he identified it. It further stresses that the Islamic tradition that Albanians have has a pro-Western dimension to be preserved.

“Europe and especially political establiments are surrendering in the face of pressure coming from Muslims who, of course, are demanding their right to live on the basis of their tradition. Here we have come to a point that you can say anything about Jesus Christ, you can use the heavier terms, the books are made. Critical, insulting, disqualifying to the Christian prophet, to Christianity, and to Islam you cannot say anything.

No one can say anything. Everyone has surrendered in this climate. And if you say anything, they say Islamophobic. Or tell you why you're insulting us? You come to say: Are you offended? Okay, that's great, take offense, big deal.

You should be taught to take offense, just as Christians are taught. And here the European intellectuals of the left, have joined, there's a kind of solidarity with all that Muslim part that shows skin in these circumstances, and I don't understand this kind of asymmetry, and if it is allowed to continue this way, it will change Europe. I think people have the right to say what they think of Christianity, but they also have the right to say what they think of Islam. ”- highlighted Nano, among other things.

Does Albanian Islam need reform?

This question, according to Nano, is not whether we would compare it with reforming Christianity.

Revolution, this is one thing that is being discussed, reforming the Islamic world, because the Islamic world is in a crisis, has problems. There are many intellectuals, clergymen, and theologians of Islam who are on the reformist side. But there is one problem because we often refer to European reform, and we say: Why is a Martin Luther emerging into the Islamic world? We forget it's a whole different situation.

Martin Luther and all the other Reformers of the century. 16 and 17 came out, saying that Christians have fled from the source message, Christ's teachings, so we must return there to the source. The Islamic world is the opposite challenge. Muslims have not fled the source. They're insisting on staying in the source version of Islam, and under these circumstances the reformation of Islam means leaving the source, leaving the VII century and coming in the 20th century.

So, I don't think there's any need for a Martin Luther, I don't think that's what Islam needs. So I'm a pessimist about the reform of Islam in the world. While in Albania, the solution is very clear, Albanian Islam is old Islam. We have to learn from Europe because we are ajamins, we have to take from it democracy, political culture, and many other things, but as far as Islam is concerned we don't have what to learn.

We are more expensive than they are at this point, since we have our Islam, we are old, we are 500 years old. We have our own Islam, Albanian brand, with all its features. This tradition is where the community itself must stand. In fact, here I see the solution to the religious problem in Albania:”Mysminians must restore their tradition of Islam, which is secular, pro-Western, native”.

Skenderbeu's mother, “society drowned at a drop of water”

The hottest summer debate in the media has undoubtedly been Nano's statement that Skenderbe's mother, Vojsawa Tribalta, was Slavic <x1)>, but the author of the saying believes that the debate that arose from this mine saying, which lasted several weeks in a row, developed with hot tones, “show that Albanian society drowned with a drop of water. Nor was there a need for that debate; I think that debate, raised on a crumb, even on nothing, shames us all”

Then it followed: “I made a mistake, during a conversation with students in Vlora, it was Serbian “, at a time when I had “slave”, but the response came in hot and very nervous. I was shocked by the response and academic panic, of nature “ca says this”, as if I was saying Skenderbee's mother was a camel or a giraffe.

While I said it was Slavic. The marriage between Slavs and Albanians has been a routine, something that happened much more prominent than we think today. So this kind of academic panic seemed a sign of the fact that our society drowned with a drop of water.

There was no reason to have all this debate, even if we took it for my own invention, my provocation, or something said under evil motivations, that I serve Slavs or Greeks, even if we got it this way, it's not like I said anything that would completely shake the Albanian nation. I said one thing that could happen quite well at that time, as happened to Skenderbe's brothers and sisters, who married Slavs”- commented Nano.

Academy, asleep, isolated, with no impact

Also involved in the debate on reforming the Academy of Sciences after public reporting by Professor Artan Fuga that he was threatened, Mustafa Nano, said he criticised the thinking of <x0 use1> and “izolation” of academics, but named the “laated”.

Regarding Artan Fugen, I was impressed by an excitement of him, the moment that Sali Berisha appeared solid with him, the moment he nurtured the threat session that medemek had been made to Fung. The noise over the threat was an unintelligible spoiling of Funga. And Fuga, instead of reverseing Berisha's solidarity, instead of saying that “is not necessary, there is no need to overreact”, greeted him with much excitement. At a time Berisha had said that the “threat had been made by Albania's Noriega”.

This type of excitement of Artan Funga in this situation impressed me. Of course I support him in regard to the cause he's representing, I'm glad his cause has won ground, because I think he's right, the science academy is an atrophicated thing, I think, say, ” Nano said.

While he named the academy “an isolated academic institution”. “Akademics have created an ivory tower, do not participate in any kind of debate, of public nature, the whole world is boiling out of debate about religions, of debates on the conflict of civilisations, in Albania also this debate is of the time, and will be of the time. But academics are silent, they don't feel”, Nano said, adding that there are exceptions, however, with academics really involved in debates.