Greece’s New Geopolitical Environment
The geopolitical landscape of Greece has changed considerably in the past few years given not only the various geographical challenges but the emergence of a number of ‘functional’ ones as well. According to the author, Greece’s geopolitical landscape is now much wider as a result of Greece’s continued Europeanisation and the effect of globalisation. These include questions of equity and reform, concerns over terrorism and ‘homeland defence’ as well as the need for multilateral responses to global challenges. Although the verdict is still out as to whether Greece can adapt to its changing environment, the author speculates on some ‘wild cards’ that could affect the country’s geopolitical scene profoundly.
A COMPARATIVE STUDY of HEALTH UNITS of the 6TH GREEK HEALTH REGION DURING an ECONOMIC CRISIS PERIOD through DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS METHOD
The aim of the present study is to investigate the change in relative efficiency through a comparative study on the efficiency of health units within a Greek health region during an economic crisis environment, with the aid of a new application. The study is designed to collect data from the 6 th Greek health region and to process that data with the use of Data Envelopment Analysis software. The study methodology extends to the application of the study of efficiency of organisations and the integration of the analysis in an interpretation framework within the economic crisis. The study refers to similar hospital clinics (pathological) within one of the largest Greek health regions in order for the results to be comparable. We estimate and calculate the DEA sizes based on the CRS, VRS and SE models of the Health Units of a Greek health region, with the use of a new application which calculates the change of overall relative Efficiency during the crisis. The study of the change in the efficiency of health units leads to useful conclusions on the negative changes in the observed efficiency of the units and the integration of the studies on the change of efficiency in the Integrated crisis management. The study ranks the efficient and inefficient units and suggests ways of improvement. This study allows for further case studies in the future and the completion of the integrated crisis management model through comparative studies on the efficiency of systems.
The Resurfacing of Islam in Albania
In the twentieth century, Islam in Albania has ranged from being secure as the majority religion to being at risk for its very survival. In the first half of the twentieth century, seventy percent of Albania's people were Muslim,(1) mostly Sunni Muslim, but also including members of the more Alevite Sufi Orders like the Bektashi, Halveti, Kaderi, Sa'adi, and Rifa'i.(2) As a sign of the relative security of Islam in Albania, when Ataturk closed the Sufi tekkes (centers) in Turkey in 1926, the headquarters of the Bektashi Order moved from Anatolia to Albania. However, beginning with the Communist victory in 1944, and culminating in Hoxha's declaration of Albania as an atheist state in 1967, the very survival of Islam in Albania came into question. Since the fall of the Communists in 1990-1991, there has been a revival of religion in Albania, but the loss of Islamic clerics and the destruction of centers of worship that occurred during Communist times has taken its toll. What will be the future of Islam in Albania? What outside sources will it turn to, and more importantly, what residual sources within Albania will it draw on? In this paper I present the resurfacing of Islam in Albania in 1991, the first year that public worship was again permitted. Notice that I do not refer to this as a "rebirth" or a "resurgence." Rather I choose the phrase "resurfacing of Islam" as more descriptive, both for the advanced age of its leaders and for the way Islam has not become the locus of a major political group. To appreciate the return of public Islam to Albania it is necessary to understand its suppression. Therefore I survey the Communist suppression of religion, followed by the loosening of State atheism. Then I focus on particular public Islamic events of 1991: the celebration of Id al-Fitr(3) at the Sultan Edhem Mosque in Tirana, the celebration of Nevruz(4) at the Bektashi Headquarters in Tirana, and the celebration of the rebuilding of a turbe (mausoleum) next to a Bektashi tekke (spelled teqe in Albanian) in the far south of Albania, outside the village of Nepravishte. In reflecting on these events, I contrast capital-city dwellers and villagers in their celebrations, in their sources of funding, and in their records of the event. I then tentatively suggest that the villages and cities in the south and north of Albania, both border regions where there are also Christians, will likely serve as continuing sources of Muslim believers and Muslim leaders in Albania. Besides works on Albania under Communist rule(5) and Islam in the Balkans,(6) my sources for most recent times include videos, tapes, interviews, newspapers and journals,(7) and my own fieldwork in Albania in the spring and summer of 1993.(8) Fieldwork in Albania in these times is challenging, due to the state of the economy and the degree of social uncertainty, and yet to begin to understand how Islam survived Communist times, and to note the directions it is presently taking, it is crucial to interview often aged Muslims there and visit villages whose activities have not been documented in any written form. Communist Suppression of Religion The policy of the Communists under Enver Hoxha was to replace the people's loyalty to various religions (Islam, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism), to religious leaders, and to sacred places with loyalty to the Party, to Hoxha, and to the State. As early as 1945, laws were promulgated to dispossess religious institutions of their properties. This especially affected the Bektashis, a Sufi Order that included a fifth of all Albanian Muslims, as they often had their tekkes outside cities and depended for support on their surrounding properties. The Roman Catholics, who constituted ten percent of the population and were concentrated in the north around Shkoder, also suffered dispossession of properties in that the schools they had run were taken from them. Further, immediately at the close of the war, certain religious leaders were imprisoned or executed on the grounds that they had worked for the National Front (Balli Kombetar), a group that lost out to the Communists, or that they had sided with the Italians, or that they were spies. …