Well since everyone, from CNN international to the street vendor on the Marshall Tito's street in Sarajevo, has been commenting on Kosovo's declaration of independence I thought I'd share a few thoughts.
I have to admit I was really nostalgic and sad on Sunday afternoon as I was watching the live session of the Kosovo parliament because the declaration was the last nail in the coffin of socialist Yugoslavia. The Kosovo myth was what endowed Slobodan Milosevic with a godlike quality around which ordinary people gathered hoping that he would guide them to a better future. Instead, what they got was a series of extremely bloody conflicts that smashed the country into little pieces and made Serbia into the world pariah. The disastrous policies of Milosevic's regime inadvertently turned the myth of Serbian victimization in Kosovo into reality: hundreds of thousands of Serbs forced to leave their homes and pushed into cramped refugees camps that scatter Serbia. The declaration of independence made it very unlikely that these people will ever return.
Certainly, Milosevic takes a giant share of the blame for what has happened, but I have also been bothered by the way the media has covered the history of the conflict in Kosovo. The Serbs are portrayed as vicious killers while the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) as the liberators who finally achieved the Albanian centuries' old dream of independence. Given this biased and cartoonish coverage of the Balkans, it is useful to remind everyone that the KLA started the campaign in 1997, just two years after the Bosnian war ended, by killing Serbian police officers who were patrolling the region. The KLA also raided many Serbian villages, killing innocent civilians. Now, there is no doubt that the Serbian police responded without any regard for civilian casualties, but to paint the conflict as simply a Serbian aggression on the helpless Albanian population ignores the facts and a history of poisonous relations between the Albanians and the Serbs. These relations often degenerated into tit-for-tat acts of violence with both communities suffering immensely.
Now, to the NATO bombing of 1999. At the time it was carried out, I supported it, but I no longer do. The Rambouille accords which were offered to Milosevic in Paris on the eve of the war were deemed unacceptable by the Serbs due to the clause in the treaty which would allow unlimited NATO access to every piece of Serbian territory. No president of a sovereign state would sign this since it would amount to political suicide. Milosevic accepted all the terms except for that clause. NATO bombed. Following the bombing campaign--which by the way targeted civilian buildings and electrical grid in a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions--Milosevic accepted the deal, but the deal no longer had the clause which he had rejected in the first place. So my question is, why the war? I really think the war was a culmination of the international community's (mostly United States') frustration with Serbia over the war in Bosnia, and Clinton's obssession to show the Serbs that NATO still mattered. Following the bombing, the KLA unleashed a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign under the eyes of NATO forces who had promised, under the agreement, to ensure the safety of the Serbian population.
Having said all this, I do believe that independence was long overdue no matter how shady the conditions in which it was created. All countries are created in revolutionary and morally/ethically murky environment, but to look at this as a good versus evil fight (something the American media loves doing) would simply be wrong.
Finally, the muted response to the declaration is hopeful since it shows that the former Yugoslav regions have stabilized quite a bit since the 1990ies. The Serbian government protested, the Bosnian Serbs burned the Bosnian flag in the streets of Banja Luka, but no violence (only a few minor incidents) was reported. I think this is also because Kosovo became de facto independent in June 1999 and Sunday's declaration formalized it. Any violence that was bound to happen already happened in 1999 when the Albanians cleansed thousands of Serbs, similar to what the Serbs had done to the Albanians just a few months earlier.
15 comments:
Poor Tito! You can still claim to be from Yugoslavia if you want to....
I have very mixed feelings about this to say the least.
1) It unquestionably accepts the nation-state as the sole means by which a community might attain freedom, realization of itself as a community. Every movement for national sovereignty is predicated upon - to an extent - exclusion of the Other, and the assumption the mutual recognition of the Other in a multiethnic, multinational state, is an impossibility. The very idea of the nation-state, which holds that the state should be the embodiement of the values, culture, and "spirit" of one people exclusively necessitates this concept of national being as purity, oneness, "ownness;" the very communal ontology that justifies ethnic cleansing. So I would argue that by establishing a nation state in response to ethnic cleansing, the foundations of ethnic cleansing (the idea of ethnically hermetic nation states) are actually being reinforced.
Instead referring to the nation-state as the only possible solution to ethnic conflict, I think we should start looking to something of a Kantian principle cosmopolitan law and mutual recognition.
2) Speaking of the idiocy of ethnic-nationalism, this is going to heighten fears worldwide of of "demographic warfare." In Europe and Russia, people are going to start saying, "we will lose our country to the Muslims unless we outbreed them! Look what happened to the Serbs in Kosovo!"
3) As you mentioned, it was all predicated on a ridiculous narrative, a binary of "good and evil."
Yes, it is a sad day for those of us who hold quaint ideas such as international law and not redrawing borders without mutual consent important. It is also sad to see how poorly this is being reported. Kosovo is not more independent today than it was last Saturday. The chief civilian authority is not the President of Kosovo, but a Dutch Euro-crat, who can anul and law and fire any official, including elected ones he sees fit to. The security of Kosovo is not in the hands of a Kosovar, but a French General who will essentially run the police and KPC. And the courts will not be run by Kosovars, but by 2000 Euro-crats. One is left to wonder how long this faux independence will satisfy the young Kosovars who demanded true independence. I suspect they will begin to blame the EU for their continued economic stagnation just as they blame the UN today. Then we will be right back where we were last fall, looking for some way to keep the place from blowing up and putting NATO in the same position as the Serbian security forced had been in starting in 1996. You can only declare independence so many times before it stops meaing anything.
So, my question is, are there any concerns in Sarajevo that Banja Luka might pull a similar stunt?
For now, Banja Luka has said, half heartedly, that they will not draw parallels, but they already have. This puts Bosnia in a really bad position since the parallels are striking. But the Office of the High Representative, backed by the EU and the US, are not going to allow any kind of referendum to take place.
Thanks for the clear, cogent, carefully thoughtful and (I think) balanced account.
Bert
"the Bosnian Serbs burned the Bosnian flag in the streets of Banja Luka"
Bosnian Serbs are protesting at someone wanting their own independence?
Let's see...Same people (from Bosnia) that want independence FROM Bosnia are protesting to people (Kosovo) wanting their own independence.
What an ignorance.
Recognizing Kosovo independence today cannot but be suspected as the West's attempt to score brownie points with its ever-growing Muslim minority population--and at relatively low cost. The problems far outweigh the benefits, however. As some commentators have already pointed out, it makes a mockery of minority rights and international law; it manipulates the facts of the case by perpetuating an overly-simplistic reading of the two sides involved in part to legitimize, retroactively, incorrect American policy decisions in 1999; it ensures instability in Serbia by giving legitimate gripe for the ultra-nationalists and perpetuates the Serbs as victims of the West ideology among many in the country that makes objective discussion of the mistakes of the 90s an impossibility (now for a long time); and finally it creates a needless issue of contention with a Russia that is increasingly belligerent and looking for issues over which to have conflict.
Wow, 7 comments on your first post!
Nice to see you have a blog. I added you to mine.
"other examples of granfalloons are the communist party, the daughters of the american revolution, the general electric company, the international order of odd fellows- and any nation, anytime, anywhere."
vonnegut, cat's cradle, pg. 67
i haven't read this book since i was fifteen- i found this passage last night before drifting into a troubled dream about owing taxes.
ya'll just a bunch of granfalloons! - that's what i'd say to the kosovars, the bosnian serbs, and any other mighty nationalist out there.
The topic in my World History class today was Nationalism, and I got to use Kosovo as a jumping off point. Of course, we Americans aren't nationalists, we're "patriotic."
Yes, the coverage has been ridiculous. As far as the KLA goes, they had obviously learned from history that national liberation can happen after a judicious use of violence prompts an over-reaction from the colonial power and creates popular support for an uprising. (The FLN in Algerian 1950s-1960s, IRA in Ireland in the 1910s-1920s, etc.)
As cruddy as this is, I don't know what other solution would be possible. After what Milosevic did, I just don't think coexistence would have been possible.
Herzog, that's true about coexistence not being possible, but at the same time, what do you say to the Bosnian Serbs (or Muslims, or Croats) whose leaderships are making the same argument in Bosnia? I am not sure if there is an answer to this question.
the answer to the question is simple- form an angry mob! not just for monster movies anymore, here we have a 300 strong group of club-wielding serbs, ready to bring vigilante nationalist justice to the balkans. amazing.
Fedja, you say that there might not be an answer to the question of what to do in Bosnia regarding the clamor of nationalists for seccession. I think there is. It is this: send all the politicians on a one-year journey to India, where they will do yoga and meditate in an ashram. While they're working through their illusions of superiority of one people over another, install people like you -- young, democracy-loving, Western-educated philosopher-kings -- to run the country. When the politicians return, they will be in a state of spic and span and will want to do one of two things: remain part of BiH or split. At that point, since they will be more enlightened than ever before, if they decide to split -- let them. They will do it peacefully, civilly, and with a promise not to tax minorities more than the majority. Who knows, they might even have a job in a newly created tolerance department for the likes of you.
South Asia has as much sectarian violence as the Balkans. Something tells me said political leaders would be more likely to swap leadership strategies with the Taleban or VJP than to meditate and attain serenity.
at least we know where Bjork stands...
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