Summary: There is a debate raging in Europe over what it means to be European. The identity issue came to a head a few years ago during the voting on a European constitution ndash; it failed. But itrsquo;s also been attached to discussions of Islam in Europe. The question often asked: Can one be European and be Muslim? ldquo;When people think of Islam in Europe they may think of Turkish workers in Germany or Algerians in France or maybe the Muslims who were in Spain many hundreds of years ago,rdquo; Indiana Universityrsquo;s Francis Trix says. ldquo;But they forget that there have been Muslim peoples in Southeast Europe, that is, in the Balkans, since the 1300rsquo;s.rdquo; Trix is an associate professor of linguistics and anthropology at IU and has spent her career studying Islam and the Balkans. She says those first Muslims were people who came to the Balkans during the Ottoman Empirersquo;s conquest of the region, but over decades large portions of the native populace began to convert. ldquo;Until the beginning of the 19th Century a slight majority of the Balkans were Muslim,rdquo; Trix says. Thatrsquo;s not the case now, with just handful of countries having Muslim majority populations. Among the newest of those is the Republic of Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. With a population hovering around 1.8 million people the Republic of Kosovo is one of the smaller countries on the continent. Islam In Flux Kosovorsquo;s independence was fraught with controversy. Serbia considers the republic an integral part of the Serb nation; Kosovorsquo;s attempt to break away in the late 1990rsquo;s lead to the Kosovo War which ended when NATO stepped in. During that conflict almost half of Kosovorsquo;s population was forced out of the region although, Trix says, most of those Kosovars have since returned to their homes. They returned to a place in a state of flux. ldquo;I think itrsquo;s fair to say Islam is in transition there,rdquo; Trix says. ldquo;Itrsquo;s definitely part of the culture of the people; it remains to be seen how it will bare.rdquo; Kosovo is still recovering from the war with Serbia; NATO and then the United Nations have been in the republic attempting to keep the peace. These internationals, Trix says, often have a very myopic view of what it means to be Muslim as well as Balkan. ldquo;I saw a fair amount of ignorance on the part of the internationals,rdquo; Trix says. ldquo;And here Irsquo;m speaking mostly of Western Europeans, who bring with them, what I see, as somewhat racist attitudes. They donrsquo;t the history of the Balkans; they know very little about history of Kosovo, of Albanians, they know less about Islam. They bring their attitudes and their condescension. Itrsquo;s not a pretty picture.rdquo; Trix does point out therersquo;s more to Kosovo than Islam. In fact, the figure she says Kosovars are most proud of is actually a Catholic. Mother Teresa, ethnically Albanian like the majority of Kosovorsquo;s population, was born in Kosovo. Trix says the fact that Mother Teresa was Albanian trumps any sort of religious affiliation. Virtually every town in the country has a street named for her and, she adds, therersquo;s even a statute of Mother Teresa standing in the middle of Kosovorsquo;s capital Prishtina.
