Kosovo Declares Independence February 18, 2008 Jill Now let’s just hope that Serbia respects it and that things don’t get violent. (Yes, I’m an optimist).
Your hope is also dependent on whether Russia, their ally with a UN Security Council Seat also respects Kosovo’s declaration of independence. As Russia’s government may view, with some justification, that the declaration was largely instigated by US/NATO support, I am not as optimistic as you are on that score. Here’s hoping I am completely wrong on this score.
So THAT’S what all those cars were doing in midtown Manhattan today, driving around and around waving big red double-headed eagle Albanian flags. I was like, what’s going on? Did Albania win some major sporting event? In other weird news, I just realized that the UN Special Envoy that developed the plan for an internationally-monitored Kosovan independence is the father of my college philosophy TA.
Serbia has reported that they planned on not resorting to any violent tactics although they do wish that this would not have happened. They are sending troops to the areas that are predominately Serbian in Kosovo just in case violence does spring out. I have mixed feelings about this whole situation as it is rather personal to me as a Serbian with some family still over there. That area’s history is filled with so much anger and feuding between the different ethnicities and religions that in some ways it is similar to the feuds in the middle east.
Jill — have you ever been to the former Yugoslavia? The Adriatic coast is supposed to be really beautiful.
I’m not certain that this Kosovo independance is really something to celebrate. Among other things, this will give the Russians cover for supporting and recognizing Russian-majority breakaway territories in Georgia and Moldova, so Kosovo moving from de facto independance to formalized independance will have high externalized costs to the people in those two countries. Continuing to punish Serbia a decade after Milosevic is folly. Did Europe not learn anything from WWI? This partition is just more fuel for the nationalist fire in the Balkans. I think that history will look on this as a mistake. Hopefully I’m wrong.
I have to disagree with oljb. I’ve actually spent some time in the former Yugoslavia (stayed with a family in Croatia, have friends in Serbia, studied for a month in Bosnia) and the issue of Kosovo is high on everyone’s minds. The question, however, is not one of punishing Serbia for the crimes of Milosevic. The desire of Kosvo’s Albanians for independence well precedes Milosevic’s ascension to power, in fact, the outrage of Serbian nationalists at the independence movement was one of the political resources that Milosevic rode to national prominence. The rapes and murders of 1998 and 1999 were only the most violent culmination of the long discrimination faced by Kosovo’s Albanians. A more apt question is, given that Serbian politics is still inflected with ethno-nationalism which commits the state first and foremost to the Serbs and only secondarily to its minority population, given that Serbia justifies its power over Kosovo based on an appeal to the cultural rights of Serbs – what right does the Serbian state have to administer a province that is 90% Albanian? The virulent anti-Albanian sentiment that pervades Belgrade is nearly palpable. Paradoxically, it is those who adamantly desire to keep Kosovo that hold the Albanians in the most contempt. Why should the rights of Kosvo’s Albanians be subject to the political agenda of those who despise them? This 2008, not 1389, and Serbia has no claim to that power. And its not that the situation is not fraught with geopolitical peril – certainly it is. But I think we must recognize the justness of the Albanian’s claims and fight to protect them, rather than letting Russia and Serbia bully this vulnerable people for another decade. But I am not so certain that “nationalist fire” will catch the way it did during the 1990s. Even with the situation in Kosovo as tense as it was, Serbia’s moderate incumbent, Boris Tadic, was able to defeat his ultra-nationalist challenger. The radical right in Serbia is weakening because its single minded obsession with Kosovo as it existed 600 years ago has left the pressing issues of poverty, unemployment and inability to travel unaddressed. There are those in Belgrade who want change, and they are organized.
Matthew Cole, I don’t disagree that Kosovo has a legitimate argument for self-rule. But the same can be said for minority enclaves all over the world. Indeed, even within Kosovo, there are sections that are overwhelmingly Serbian- why should they be ruled by a government that is obviously tilted toward the interests of ethnic Albanians? Should Hungarian regions of Transylvania gain indepdendance from Romania, or should we support the dividing of Ukraine along Russian and Ukranian ethnic lines? I think a better solution to this problem is to have areas of increased self-government within the larger nation, similar to Gaguaza in Moldova or the Kurdish regions in Northern Iraq. Instead we’re seeing increased efforts to tear apart multinational states like the movement for Scottish indepedance and the very possible division of Belgium between Flemish and Walloon dominated regions. There may not be an appropriate model that can be applied to every analogous situation, but I’m not convinced that continual particalization of states is a desirable outcome. Obviously, there are contrary examples like the division of Czechoslovakia that have seemed to work out well for the parties involved. On the other hand, the division of other multinational states in Eastern Europe espeically (Yugoslavia and USSR in particular) has simply provided a situation where the national aspirations of smaller and smaller groups have created continuing conflict after the initial dissolutions. This gets even more complicated when the population that wants independance is supported by a larger neighboring state (like Albania in the case of Kosovo or Russia in the case of Transnistria) that shares the ethnicity of the separatists. Anyway, I hope it works out for the best for the people in Kosovo.
Anything worthy I was about to say was said by Matthew immediately above. And good on you, Filipovic — any Serb relatives in your family whose feelings are different than yours?
Jill — have you ever been to the former Yugoslavia? The Adriatic coast is supposed to be really beautiful. I have, and it is indeed gorgeous. I would love to go back some day. And good on you, Filipovic — any Serb relatives in your family whose feelings are different than yours? Good question — I haven’t asked any of them about it, and we’re not in close contact, so I have no idea how they feel about all of this. I know they’re fairly progressive (and certainly not big Serbian Nationalists or anything like that), so I’d imagine they aren’t too upset. But I also know that they’re exhausted by continual war and ethnic divisions, so I really have no idea. I also think Matthew’s analysis is the most compelling, but oljb makes an important point about the Serbian minority in Kosovo. Serbs have been targets of violence in Kosovo, and I think the question of what happens to that minority is a legitimate concern (my line in the post saying “I hope things don’t get violent” wasn’t just directed at the Serbian side). But I don’t think it’s enough of a reason to deny Kosovo its independence. And while I’m also skeptical of dividing up countries along increasingly specific ethnic lines, I think context here is important. Kosovo is not Belgium, and ethnic Albanians have faced certain things in this generation that Flanders simply have not. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have faced slaughter and oppression to a tremendous degree; they aren’t idiots, and they obviously don’t feel safe or protected under Serbian rule. I’m sure they’re also mighty tired of being a UN protectorate with little right to self-determination and little ability to pick themselves up and move on. It seems to me that those opposing Kosovo’s independence — Serbia, Russia — have more than a few questionable motives (Serbia because, in addition to its general pridefulness and ethno-centrism, it doesn’t want to lose power and land, and Russia because of its little Chechnya problem). But independence has been declared, and much of the rest of the international community is backing Kosovo. With any luck, Serbia will accept it, Russia will shut up, and the newly independent Kosovo will establish protections for its ethnic minorities, and won’t engage in any sort retribution for crimes past. But like I said, I’m a big optimist.
The concerns for the safety of Serbs in Kosovo are most definitely over-pronounced by Serbian nationalists, but I agree with both oljb and Jill that there are real grievances there. It’s heartening though, that Kosovo’s prime minister has promised a platform of equal opportunity, accommodation and affirmative action for Serbs in Kosovo. I’d like to think that this stems from an understanding of oppression and marginalization in an ethnic state, but it could just as well be motivated by a desire to placate Serbia. Either way though, what will matter is if these policies are carried out, not the amount of idealism that motivates them. I read on a CNN article that there are plan to establish a federal office for minority rights, so hopefully that comes through. I also want to say that I’m sympathetic to oljb’s point about the infinite regression of nationalism. This move will have repercussions across Europe. I feel particularly uneasy about right-wing elements in Republika Srpska (the near-entirely-Serb half of Bosnia-Herzegovina crafted by genocide and codified by Dayton) and what thoughts of secession this could prompt. I’d hate to see Bosnia torn apart again. This fear, like oljb’s, I think captures a lot of what makes nationalism so difficult to handle – the repulsion at atrocities committed in the name of nationalism runs up against the sense of solidarity with those whose suffering could have been staved off if they had greater political self-determination (Israel is a paradigmatic case). The good liberal multiculturalist/pluralist in me says that I should hold out hope that multi-ethnic rule can work for minorities, but the specific history of Kosvo’s Albanians makes me question the applicability of those values.
this actually gets to the crux of many international problems. for one thing, it glaringly highlights the inadequacy of the UN in it’s current form, you can’t have any legitimacy when five permanent members have the ability to veto anything that is against their national interests and you can’t have any legitimacy if you lack the ability to enforce your rules and laws. the UN is essentially a non-entity at this point. kosovo’s statehood wasn’t agreed upon by the UN, yet western nations seem to be backing it up. i’m sure they’ll get their way, since serbia wants to get into the EU, and NATO is sitting there, but there really needs to be a new framework for international law before this entire “right to self determination” thing goes any more to hell. you really can have a domino effect with this.
America’s right-wing has short attention spans…elsewise I’d expect them to start flapping their gums in disrespect over this. Remember: These idiots don’t want Kosovo to be independent, as Ooh Scary Muslims. So they’d rather see a Slobbo M. back in place, even if he would be supported by both the Russians AND A.N.S.W.E.R.- thus reminding us all that batshittiness from the left and right holds hands behind the ass of the world.
Jill, I don’t imagine Russia will shut up. While obviously I’m sure that Kosovo irks the Russians because of the similarity to the Chechen conflict (not to mention dozens of other potential conflicts with ethnic groups that find themselves inside Russia’s borders) they are certainly not too principled to return the geopolitical favor when it comes to the various Russian enclaves throughout the former USSR. Not that the prospects of resolving the disputes between Abkhazia/South Ossetia and Georgia or Transnistria and Moldova were likely in the first place, but Kosovo’s independance is a greenlight to Russia making permanent oblasts in those countries. It seems to me like the Western powers have simply decided to write off the Western-leaning majorities in those two countries when both ought to be aggressively courted for EU membership and saved from a fate of permanent subservience to Russia. That prospect may be completely squandered now. Kosovo has its own interests and its people can’t necessarily be expected to sacrifice their own aspirations for the sake of Moldovans and Georgians, but I personally wish that a more diplomatically palatable solution could have been finessed here- like UN backed self-rule, with Kosovo nominally remaining part of Serbia. This is exactly the solution that Moldova and Georgia are trying to accomplish with their own breakaway areas.
Well Jill, there are two key concerns for the Serbian government: 1 – Is the Serbian people and not be seen to be complicit in the disintegration of Serbia and the loss of Kosovo, the “spiritual home” of the Serb people. 2 – Serbia’s long-term ambition to be part of the EU. Russia does not wish to see Serbia go from Russian sphere-of-influence to Europe’s sphere-of-influence. Also we should remember that Kosovo is not truly independent in the strictest sense, and that the EU (and, I believe, its partners – such as the USA) are committing a lot of money and effort to Kosovo. An 1800 man mission and a 15000 man military presence is no small effort. And that is just the front, in the background the countries involved have numerous public servants involved in the deployment and maintenance of these missions. Another consideration is that Kosovan independence breaks international laws to which USA, UK and every EU nation signed up to. Of course, invading Afghanistan and Iraq to topple regimes break UN laws too. So we have a strong precedent in the past 6 years of international law being redefined when it suits the USA and the UK – and not done on international consensus. This does not make the actions of the USA and the UK morally wrong – just illegal under UN mandates. And, of course, Russia’s treatment to British Council in Russia also breaks the rules. So there’s a lot of tit-for-tat in politics at the moment. (There always will be). The immediate concerns for Kosovo must be the 600k Serbs there. Presumably they do not wish to live under an Albanian state?
What I find fascinating is that nearly a century after the Balkan quagmire which resulted in a series of minor wars (Austria-Hungary vs. Russia vs. the disintegrating Ottoman Empire vs. the Greeks vs. Rumania vs. Bulgaria, etc. etc.) and ultimately the assassination which sparked the First World War problems in that area are still intense enough to bring other nations into conflict. Yugoslavia was created out of the ashes of the fallen empires of the First World War…an artificial creation cobbled together because the dignitaries of the Versailles Treaties (most specifically France and Britain) did not think smaller, more nationally-homogeneous states to be viable. And now we have another small Balkan state becoming a point of “Great Power” contention, with Russia playing its accustomed role as the father-protector to all good minor Slavic states versus the meddling West. History doesn’t repeat itself, but sources of conflict endure. If anyone is curious about the genesis of some of the most intense inter-ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, I would suggest exploring the “puppet” states created by the Italians and Nazi Germany in the region during the Second World War and how their excesses justified the Serbian-dominated backlash which surrounded the formation of Tito’s reconstituted Yugoslavia.
I found it interest that, with significantly less fanfar than Russia and Serbia, Spain is out there, expressing solid opposition to Kosovo, too, having their own Basque scapegoat.
1 – Is the Serbian people and not be seen to be complicit in the disintegration of Serbia and the loss of Kosovo, the “spiritual home” of the Serb people. 2 – Serbia’s long-term ambition to be part of the EU. Russia does not wish to see Serbia go from Russian sphere-of-influence to Europe’s sphere-of-influence. Judging by your two points, it seems the Serbian government’s walking a tightrope between attempting to join the EU with all its accompanying potential advantages and ensuring it is not seen by the more nationalistic-minded Serbian citizenry and their Russian supporters as effective puppets/collaborators of the US/NATO/UN. The second is especially bad as I’ve seen some parallels between how Serbian nationalists perceive the US/Nato/UN and how many nationalistic-minded Chinese perceive the US/Japan on the Taiwan Independence issue.* * Complicated by the fact the “Taiwan Nationalists” themselves are analogous to “native” White Americans in the US…..an issue underscored when the Taiwanese Independence-minded Vice-President Annette Lu offended Taiwanese Aborigines by publicly calling for their being relocated to Central/South America a few years back.