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Bulgarian jihad update. "New ‘radical Islam in Bulgaria’ claims," by Clive Leviev-Sawyer for Sofia Echo, October 5:
Just days after Sofia hosted a forum on how teaching at schools could be used to forestall radical Islam, a researcher gave an interview alleging that extremist Islamic sects were operating in eastern Bulgaria.In an interview with Bulgarian news agency Focus, associate professor Tatyana Dronzina – described as an expert on conflict and terrorism research – was quoted as saying that Turkish-linked radical sects Nurju, Suleymandj and Miligurush were believed to be active in the eastern part of the country.
There were some grounds for believing that people linked to these sects were trying to make contact with pupils in Muslim religious schools in Shoumen, Rousse, Momchilgrad and in the Islamic Institute in Sofia as well, Focus quoted Dronzina as saying
While several intelligence and media reports have highlighted the rise of radical Islam in the former Yugoslavia and especially in Bosnia, earlier in 2008 US journalist Christopher Deliso said in his book The Coming Balkan Caliphate: Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West that Bulgaria was among Balkan countries where radical Islam activists were present.
Most intelligence reports have suggested that any such activity in Bulgaria is on a small scale.
Posted by Raymond at October 6, 2008 12:40 PM
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Most intelligence reports have suggested that any such activity in Bulgaria is on a small scale.
Isn't that always the case?
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
Islam started with one man, then one tribe, then...
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at October 6, 2008 12:51 PM
There are close to a million Muslims in Bulgaria, not recent arrivals, but either ethnic Turks, or those who, descended from Bulgarians who converted under Ottoman rule, have come to think of themselves as Turks. I have read that some of the Roma (Gypsies) are also Muslims, but don't know if this claim should be taken at face value.
Bulgaria is an ally of the United States, and bases there were (are) being set up to replace those in countries deemed less reliable -- e.g., neighboring Turkey, which did not permit Americans to use Incirlik and other bases from which American soldiers might have entered Iraq from the north as well as the south. A large Muslim population is not in America's, or Bulgaria's, permanent interest. Perhaps Turkey is a better place for many of those people. The patience shown in Western European countries is less likely to be shown in Eastern Europe, where the locals have had an immmediate and recent experience of ideological despotism, and are less likely to tolerate other manifestations or sources of it.
Posted by: Hugh at October 6, 2008 1:53 PM
"Unholy Terror: Bosnia, al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad" is way better than Deliso's book. And yeah, radicalization, massive immigration, and Muslims outbreeding non-Muslims is a huge problem in Eastern Europe, and it gets very hairy with a much smaller immigrant population because Eastern Europe doesn't subdue their immigrants with kizya like Western Europe does.
Posted by: jdamn at October 6, 2008 4:51 PM
jizya, not kizya
Posted by: jdamn at October 6, 2008 4:53 PM
Generally speaking, Bulgaria is a country where interethnic bloodshed has been amazingly absent, considering the neighborhood (next to Serbia, for instance). Even its Jews and Gypsies lived safely through WW2. There was a remarkably stupid campaign to get Muslims to change to "Bulgarian" (i.e. Christian) names in the late Communist era, but this didn't last long. Many ethnic Turks migrated to Turkey for economic reasons, but Turks remain the second largest ethnic group, after the ethnic Bulgarians. Ethnic Bulgarians and Turks do not like each other, but so far they've abstained from violence against each other, at least since the liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire which practiced the casual violence against Bulgarians as it did on other dhimmis. Let's hope this model of coexistence lasts.
Posted by: Karl Pov at October 6, 2008 5:01 PM
My other half is Bulgarian and I visit Sofia and other parts often.
They will not be allowed to get away with their tricks as they have in the West. Muslims are politely, but barely, tolerated here.
Posted by: Un:dhimmi at October 6, 2008 5:19 PM
Some statistics to add to Hugh's and Karl's observations:
From the CIA factbook, up to date 2008:
total pop. of Bulgaria is about 7.2 million.
Ethnic groups:
Bulgarian 83.9%, Turk 9.4%, Roma 4.7%, other 2% (including Macedonian, Armenian, Tatar, Circassian) (2001 census)
Religions:
Bulgarian Orthodox 82.6%, Muslim 12.2%, other Christian 1.2%, other 4% (2001 census).
According to my (Christian) sourcebook [2001], which combines information from sources like the CIA factbook, with information from a range of other sources, the 'religions' breakdown is 80 % Christian, 11.87 % Muslim, 7.8 % nonreligious; there is also a tiny Jewish community ( .05 % at last count).
The same source says that some tens of thousands of people among the 'Turkish Millet' (who are, seemingly, a mix of Gypsy or Roma, and Turk, converted to Christianity in the 1990s.
It also notes that among the 'Rumelian Turk' community, "Muslim missionaries have been working hard to make them 'better' Muslims" {and we all know what *that* means...dda}.
The Gypsy/ Roma population [not a large part of the total population - nearly 5 %] are about 60 % nominally Orthodox Christian, about 40 % nominally Muslim.
The Pomak (about 250 000 people) are Muslims who speak Bulgarian rather than Turkish.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at October 6, 2008 5:23 PM
Muse see video:
Burning down the house - How it all started:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4
at October 7, 2008 9:22 AM
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