A billboard at a construction site, with a photo of an Ottoman-style mosque with four minarets and the flag of Turkey, was erected recently in the center of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. With less than 2 million people, Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, is the home of over 800 mosques. Now the Islamic Community of Kosovo is building the “Central Mosque” at an estimated cost of $35- $40 million.
Although you wouldn’t know it from the rhetoric and actions of the Trump Administration, the U.S. is part of the global society. And while most of the U.S. was focused on a Supreme Court nomination that shook our democratic institutions, a watershed moment for democracy quietly took place half a world away. For those in the U.S.
War is a self-perpetuating habit that harms its users and can provide a certain momentary high. At a peace conference in Canada recently I heard a number of people refer to themselves as “recovering Americans.” The degree to which many people imagine wars are launched and continued for rational reasons is a major misunderstanding; war cannot be explained without irrationality.
