Albania has proposed creating the smallest microstate in the in its own capital: a Muslim Vatican

At the moment it is just an initiative, a plan that is still moving in the slippery terrain of projects, but the idea is so powerful that it has already captured the attention of the whole . Albania has launched its administrative machinery to promote a new state in Europe. And not just any one. What his prime minister, Edi Rama, wants to launch is a microstate — the most “micro” in the entire world — nestled in a handful of hectares east of his own capital, Tirana.

When imagining the new nation, which would be sovereign and have its own administration, borders and passports, it is difficult not to think of the Vatican. And not only because of a question of (micro) sizes. While waiting for its details to be finalized, the new nation will serve as headquarters for a Muslim religious order.

A new state in Europe? This is what Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who has been in office for more than a decade, aspires to. A few weeks ago, during a speech at the UN General Assembly, the leader announced his desire to create in the heart of his country a new, sovereign microstate that in a certain way will follow in the footsteps of the Vatican in Italy. Of course, with one key difference.

In the absence of further details being known, the new nation will be called the Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order, which gives a rough idea of ​​what its focus will be. The territory will serve as the institutional home of the Bektashi, a Muslim religious group that emerged in the 13th century in Anatolia, and who at the beginning of the 20th century were forced to leave Turkey and move to the Balkans.

A few blocks from New York. If Rama achieves its objective, the new microstate will be able to boast a peculiar merit: it will be the smallest in the world, with permission for adventures of questionable legitimacy such as that of Sealand in the North Sea. It is estimated that it will measure between 10 and 11 hectares, a quarter of the size of Vatican City, which with some 44 hectares of surface area now holds the Guinness record for the smallest independent country on the entire planet.

To give us an idea, the new microstate that Edi Rama wants to promote would occupy the same area as five blocks of New York, a small portion of land located east of the Albanian capital. All that if it goes ahead, of course.

Sovereign and with passport (green). Although the project is still in a very initial phase and will have to overcome a few political and social obstacles to become a reality, we already know some of its details. The future nation is planned as a sovereign enclave, with its own administration and passports for its citizens, although a priori, the Swiss Info agency clarifies, this would be reserved only for a handful of people: the clergy and staff of its institutions.

But how many will there be? Will there be many people with citizenship? Little? The chronicles that have already been dedicated to international media within the scope of the BBC or The New York Times They talk about the future nation having no army, no border guards, no courts. At the forefront would be the leader of the Bektashis, Baba Mondi, who a few days ago assured the American newspaper that what the Muslim microstate would probably need is an intelligence service. “Because we also have enemies,” he justified. Another detail has also already been decided: their passports will be green, a crucial color in Islam.

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But… Why? The million dollar question. The details of the new microstate may be the most curious thing about the project, but there is a more relevant question: Why create it? What sense does it have? And why has the Albanian prime minister decided to launch such a peculiar initiative? Rama was clear during his speech at the UN assembly. What he seeks is “a new center of moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.” And he believes that a small nation centered on the Bektashis, a creed that emerged from a branch of Sufism, is the best way to achieve this.

“Religious tolerance”. Rama recalled that over the last decades, Albania has left a few “good examples of defense of humanity”, welcoming the Jewish population during the Holocaust or Afghans when the Taliban took control of the country, and that a microstate like that he proposes will promote a more tolerant vision of Islam. “We must take care of the treasure that is religious tolerance and that we must never take for granted,” he recently argued in an interview, he claimed, will send a clear message: “Do not allow it. that the stigma of Muslims defines who Muslims are.

And who are the Bektashis? The other big question, without which the previous one will hardly be understood. The Bektashis are an ancient religious group, which traces its roots to the 13th century, and comes from Anatolia. Almost a century ago, however, they moved their headquarters from Türkiye to the capital of Albania. Its great peculiarity is not, however, its history, but its creed. “God does not prohibit anything, that is why he has given us the mind,” said its leader, Edmond Bahimaj, better known among his acolytes as Baba Mondi, a few days ago during a talk with The New York Times.

Hence, despite being proposed as a Muslim theocratic state, in the future nation that Rama wants to create in Tirana it would not be unreasonable to find alcohol and there will be no segregation by sex or dress codes. Women will be able to go out on their (few) streets with the clothes they consider best, free of strict impositions or the obligation to cover themselves with a hijab oh burka.

Whatsapp Image 2022 08 28 At 9 32 02 Pm 4 1024x576
Whatsapp Image 2022 08 28 At 9 32 02 Pm 4 1024x576

Love, kindness… “All decisions will be made with love and kindness,” guarantees Mondi, who is now 65 years old and served as an officer in the Albanian army. In the same interview with New York Times The religious leader showed his disdain towards rigid dogmas and those extremist Muslims who resort to violence. “They are just cowboys”. Their interpretation of Islam has led many conservative Shiites and Sunnis to consider the Bektahsids heretics.

“Shiites and Sunnis repudiate them because they say they have deviated too much from the true message of the Koran,” Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid, tells the BBC.

“The Bektashi Order, known for its message of peace, tolerance and religious harmony, will obtain sovereignty similar to that of the Vatican, which will allow us to govern autonomously from a religious and administrative point of view,” the organization defends in a statement. cited by DW. In his opinion, the fact that the order reaches sovereignty will allow it to “strengthen inclusion and harmony.”

…and above all controversy. Rama’s proposal has not taken long to generate controversy. And not only for the Bektashis. The Albanian leader has been disgraced by how the proposal has been made public, first slipped into The New York Times and then launched using the loudspeaker of the UN General Assembly, without first discussing it, for example in the Interreligious Council of Albania. The initiative has also drawn attention to the weight that the Bektashis themselves have in Albanian society.

The BBC recalls that the 2023 census shows that around 50% of the inhabitants of Albania, which today is around 2.76 million, are Muslims, the majority are Sunnis. Approximately 10% would belong to the Bektashi community. The rest of the religious population is Christian, Catholic or Orthodox.

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A political movement? There are those who have also questioned the prime minister’s real motivation, beyond the desire he has expressed to establish a new “center of moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence”, as he argued before the United Nations. Some critics see much more mundane reasons, such as a strategy by Rama to attract the community’s electorate on the eve of the 2025 elections, a way to relaunch his popularity or boost Albania’s entry into the EU or even an attempt to attract Middle East investment.

“The prime minister has a tendency to pursue extraneous causes to divert public attention from problems that truly matter to society,” censures Artan Hoax, a professor in Pittsburgh, on the BBC.

Will it help religious tolerance? The idea has supporters who consider it a “good initiative” to promote cooperation, coexistence and tolerance, as reflected by Albert Rakipi, the president of the Albanian Institute of International Studies. But also detractors. Without going any further, the Muslim Community of Albania does not seem to feel comfortable with the idea and warns that it sets “a dangerous precedent” and has been launched without first seeking consensus.

“There is no basis to claim that this supposed Bektashi State will have a positive impact on the climate of tolerance in the region,” warns Besnik Sinani, a researcher at the Center for Muslim Theology at the University of Tübingen. In his opinion it is “an unprecedented case of contemporary religious engineering” and any comparison with the Vatican “does not stand up to historical analysis.”

Do you have possibilities? It won’t be easy, of course. The proposal has aroused interest that extends far beyond the Albanian borders and a few days ago RENEW He assured that there is already a team of experts drafting the legislation that will define the status of the new microstate. To move forward, however, the measure will have to overcome a few obstacles. The first, the limits reflected in the Albanian Constitution itself, which in its article 1(2) clearly establishes that the republic is “a unitary and indivisible State.”

Changing that point would require the support of two-thirds of the legislators, a majority of 94 votes of the 140 deputies of Parliament. Rama is strong in the chamber, but his party only reaches 75 seats. And the opposition has not been enthusiastic about a measure that, in the words of the leader of the Democratic Party and former prime minister of the country, Sali Berisha, only seeks to “distract public opinion” from other problems, such as depopulation. Another key question, should the measure go ahead, is which countries would recognize the Bektashi microstate.

Images | Xiquinhosilva (Flickr) 1 y 2 y World Grandmother Bektashi

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