Coexistence

My train was 3 hours late, so I was rather ready to get out of my second- hand Slovenian sleeper compartment as the train finally neared the Capital of Macedonia. I had read a lot about the country, and heard it constantly spoken of as the birthplace of Old Church Slavonic by Slavic linguistics majors who I knew. As the train crested the hill, and the skyline of Skopje came into view I was shocked to count 2 short church steeples and 8 towering minarets.
While I have been to both heavily Muslim and Christian countries around the globe, no city so effectly blurs the lines between the two like Skopje. While the two populations live distinctly in different neighborhoods overlap occurs throughout the city. Women in burkhas, and men in prayer caps walk in front of the site where Mother Teresa was born. Bars and advertisements for the local beer abound in the Christian section of the city, but are conspicuously absent in the Albanian-Turkish neighborhood on the hill across the river, where it is common to see restaurants with Arabic names. It was a surreal feeling to hear the ringing of the church bells join with the call to prayer.
In many other Balkan countries , Orthodox and Muslim groups have turned to violence.

Although I have heard that there is some tension beneath the surface in Macedonia the two groups, while largely segregated, seem to live in relative peace. I simply point out that the city of Skopje stands as an example that such piece is possible in the Balkans and elsewhere..

At-A-Turk

About three years ago I spent some time working in the Maldives, an Islamic republic where alcohol is forbidden and dogs are banned from the entire country. So, on my first night in Turkey, another largely Muslim nation, I was supprised to find myself on a roof terrace admiring the Blue Mosque, sipping a glass of wine, while the puppy on the roof next door howled in harmony with the sounds of the call to prayer. During my time in Turkey I learned that I could have this experience in the Turkish republic thanks to the country's founder and first president, Ataturk.
Apparently Ataturk founded the republic with the vision of a secular Muslum nation with strong ties to the west. While this may seem like somthing of a contradiction in terms, in practice the country runs rather well. In general people seem to have the freedom to be as devout or as casual about religion as they choose. On the streets the result is clearly visible; women covered in burkhas or wearing hijabs brush elbows with women in western dress, and Biblical relics that are also revered by Christians are displayed in Topkapi Palace alongside artifacts of the Muslim faith.
That said, Turkey still has its Muslim priorities. Most of the beer for sale is made by Efes, a tightly held beer monopoly, and all other forms of alchohol are heavly taxed. There seems to be a priority in the entire country for restoring Islamic holy buldings, while letting Greco-Roman and Christian ruins fall to dust. UNESCO and other organizations have stepped in to help restore some of the more prominent Byzantine attractions such as Santa Sophia, this is not the norm in the entire country. In Goreme, an old woman even showed as a medieval church with decaying frescos, which was being unceremoniously used for grain storage. At first, I questioned the wisdom of this attitide, but then I remembered that many European countries from hungary to Spain, have been slow to restore mosques that were converted into churches.
I heard many Turks speak of their loyalty to the principles of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. A hotel owner in Capadoccia told us that he made political decisions based on how much the polititians keep the country "on the way of Ataturk." It is also illegal to speak negatively of Turkey's first president in public. During the month I spent in the country I learned that this law is actually quite intelligent, as it seems to be in place with the aim of catching extremists and other dissenters before they can do violence. From what I observed, most of the country appears to genuinely respect Ataturk.
On our last day, in Turkey, we visited the bedroom where Ataturk died, at the early age of 57. When we asked the cause of his death, the tour guide simply told us that it was "too much smoking and drinking." There was no hint of malice in his voice.