Tiny Albania; the most mysterious country in Europe.
In 1995, as I was winding down my career with DEA, I was in Warsaw participating in a regional training seminar for drug cops from various countries in that part of Europe. By chance, one of the students was a cop from Albania. He was pointed out to me as one whose English was limited, but spoke Italian. When I went over to make his acquaintance by speaking to him in Italian, his response was, "Grazie a Dio" (Thank God.) He had someone he could communicate with.
My only other experience with this mysterious land was one summer in the 1980s when I was living in Italy and vacationing at Barletta. On the beach, we could actually see the coast of Albania in the distance.
That is the sum total of my experience with Albania.
So now we come to a recent UN vote on Palestinian non-member observer status in which Muslim-majority Albania did not go along with the expected "yes" vote. (They abstained.) That incurred the enmity of Turkey, a heretofore moderate Islamic-majority country now under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdodan.
(Hat tip Center for Islamic Pluralism)
http://www.islamicpluralism.org/2161/albania-abstention-on-palestine-un-vote-and
It is heartening to see Albania emerging from the Dark Ages, but sad to see Turkey going the other way.
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16 comments:
Gary I always felt that Judaism corrupted a persons mind, body, and soul.
Reading your blog, and specifically this post further strengthen my belief that Judaism destroys a individuals morality and humanity.
Exactly how is not voting for a group of people to gain representation at the UN a good and progressive thing?
I can understand the criticism of Turkey meddling in the affairs of another nation, but how is this different from the United States bullying nations into voting against the Palestinians?
Judaism kills brain cells.
Vijay,
I don't recall mentioning anything about Judaism in this post.
As for voting for a group of people to gain representation at the UN, I thought UN representation was for nations. There is no Palestinian nation, nor has there ever been one.
I assume from your name you are an Indian. Perhaps the UN should accept the untouchable caste in India as a a member too. What do you think?
As for Judaism killing brain cells, it seems your hatred for Judaism has been killing some of yours as well.
Why do you always have to attack others to protect the Jews Mister Fouse?
Who did I attack, Mr Anonymous other than an obvious anti-Semite?
@ Vijay
If Judaism kills brain cells why are 25% of the Nobel Awards recipients in the history of the prizes Jews? And why are there only 10 recipients of Nobels among the Muslim world?
"If Judaism kills brain cells why are 25% of the Nobel Awards recipients in the history of the prizes Jews? "
My guess is Affirmative Action.
Also a lot of "Jewish" Nobel Prize winners are not religiously Jewish and do not practice Judaism. Examples include Albert Einstein, Steven Weinberg, John von Neumann and Richard Feynman.
Anyone who says that any of the 3 were not really "Jewish" doesn't know them.
All 3 believed and accepted that they were Jewish. While they did not practice Judaism, you could have asked Einstein for one if he was Jewish and he would have resounded with a yes. In fact he was a proud Zionist.
In what way Mister Fouse???
My statement about Affirmative Action was meant jokingly.
Many people who claim to be "Jewish" do not practice Judaism. Many Jews consider themselves an ethnic/racial group over a religious group.
As for the list of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, Einstein was agnostic. Von Neumann converted to Catholicism. Weinberg and Feynman are both militant atheists.
As we know, the populations of Norway and Sweden are overwhelmingly Jewish, and naturally biased toward giving prizes to their co-religionists. It goes back to Viking times, when Jewish raiders in long boats struck terror into European Christianity, while Jews in the middle east eagerly cooperated with the Muslim conquest of formerly Byzantine territory, thereby gaining renewed access to Jerusalem. (The last clause is true).
Hindus, however, have always hated Jews for their intolerance of idol worship.
Anonymous (Nazi boy)
Where did you read that- Der Stuermer-or La Voz de Aztlan?
From now on, your comments will no longer be posted here. Take your Jew hatred elsewhere.
That's harsh Gary.
Does your ban extend to all anonymous's or just the previous poster.
Did the first anonymous hit a nerve or speak an uncomfortable truth to warrant a banning from this blog?
Findalis, the first anonymous gave four examples of Jewish Nobel Prize winners who did not practice/believe in Judaism. I checked and he/she was right for all of them (although NNDB lists Einstein as an atheist).
So Judaism might still be responsible for the killing of brain cells as Vijay noted.
I did a bit of research, and Anonymous is right that the examples that Findalis gave might have been examples of people who were culturally/ethnically Jewish, but none of them were religiously Jewish.
However, that doesn't mean that I agree with the statement that "Judaism kills brain cells". That's just an ignorant thing to say.
jakes,
Hitler didn't care whether they practiced Judaism or not. He didn't care if they had converted to Christianity or not. To him it had nothing to do with religion. His anti-Semitism went deeper. To him, it had to do with race.
007 (I know who U R)
Thanks for showing a side of you not herefore known. That's the only reason I am posting this.
Jakes,
I pointed Hitler out to illustrate that historically reasons for anti-Semitism have evolved. As for Anonymous, who knows what he is or isn't. We don't even know who he is.
Trivia Quiz: Who was it who said "The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not?"
Answer: Albert Einstein.
Who did you say lists Einstein as an "atheist"?
(a-theist means a person without any god or belief in God)
Einstein is also reputed, as a student, to have refuted a professor who tried to logically prove that if God created everything, then God must have created evil.
Einstein explained that there is no such thing as darkness, only the absence of light, no such thing as cold, only the absence of heat, and no affirmative existence of evil, only the absence of God.
This makes sense to me, especially in light of C.S. Lewis's observation that "nothing can be very strong indeed."
In any case, strike two for Albert Einstein being an atheist.
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