Kosovo - Anathema of Ethnonational Goals


From the Balkan perspective, the end of the 20th century looks dark and
gloomy just like its beginning. The Balkans are finishing this century in
the same way as they started it - with a war. The breakdown of the second,
„socialist" Yugoslavia began with the crisis in Kosovo. There are good
reasons to believe that Yugoslavia is going to end in Kosovo, too,
as a state.
Intolerance and hatred have been cultivated in Kosovo for decades. The
ideology of blood and soil takes its tribute on both sides. In the 20th
century the two ethnic communities, having lived together for hundreds of
years - sometimes in conflict, sometimes in peace and mutual understanding
- have tried to create two separate societies. Even promenades for the
young are strictly separated, not as a result of the most recent wave of
violence. An apartheid society has been created, and it took a long time.
What was forgotten, however, was that apartheid proved unsustainable even
in South Africa.
Today all citizens of Serbia are exposed to measures of an undemocratic,
corrupt, primitive and arrogant political regime. They are unable to
consume their basic civil rights. And where civil rights and liberties are
denied to Serbs as the majority people (comprising two-thirds of the
population), they are certainly denied also to the members of other nations
- Albanians, Hungarians, Bosniaks, and others (comprising one-third of the
population altogether). To speak the truth, citizens of Serbia of
non-Serbian nationality feel the repressive character of the political and
police apparatus more acutely. This fact often serves as a basis for
political manipulation, to which Serbs - and members of other nations
equally - easily fall prey. As a result, a member of another nation is
perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, or at least expelled, rather than as
a co-citizen to cooperate and coexist with. In this respect the
manipulation matrices of both Serbian and Albanian political and cultural
elites are very much alike. Serbian political propaganda depicts Albanians
as terrorists and so tries to justify state terror against Albanians. Of
course, the terror does not affect Albanians only, but in today's Serbia
they are most drastically affected. On the other side, the Albanian
political and cultural elite presents to Albanians the state terror of the
Milosevic regime as the terror of Serbs against Albanians.
Ethnonationalism is at work on both sides. Serbians and Albanians compete
who will make the stakes higher, i.e. who will set more extreme national
goals. None of the sides thinks about building bridges of confidence
between members of the two peoples, necessarily and historically dependent
on each other. Highly set national goals make dialogue impossible. In the
meantime, the life of both peoples is increasingly more difficult, with
growing material poverty and spiritual emptiness. The shadow of political
repression by both „our own" and „theirs" is cast over the citizens of
Kosovo nd Serbia.

Both peoples are victims of the anathema of highly set national goals. For
the ideologists of the Serbian ethnonationalism, Kosovo is the „cradle of
Serbhood" and an „internal affair of Serbia". In spring 1998 the Serbian
authorities, at the initiative of the President of Yugoslavia Slobodan
Milosevic, went so far as to organize a referendum with the aim to get the
„people" reject „foreign interference". Of course, the „people" - like in
good old Stalinist times - rejected „foreign interference", while
representatives of the international community come every day to Belgrade
and Pristina to talk and negotiate. As a matter of fact, behind the facade
of refusing foreign interference there lies no concern for the sovereignty
of the state (which, incidentally, still waits for a full international
recognition), or for the dignity of the citizens. What the regime really
thinks about its citizens was clearly shown by the 1996 electoral fraud,
responded to by the citizens with persistent three-month daily
demonstrations. It is simply an arrogant primitivism of a political clique,
which believes that, „in its own yard", it can do whatever it pleases with
unrestrained arbitrariness, without anybody having the right to „interfere".
Things do not fare much better with the „cradle of Serbhood" either.
Although Serbian ethnonational ideologists assert that Orthodox faith is an
essential component of being Serbian (discarding in this way numerous
atheists as „bad Serbs"), Orthodox monasteries in Kosovo are today „sacred"
in a national-political rather than in a religious sense of the term.
Returning to the mythical past and appealing to one's historical rights (as
if Albanians did not have historical rights in Kosovo) is totally
counterproductive in the service of contemporary political interests. For
achieving wrongly designed political goals both the Orthodox Church and the
cultural heritage have become instrumentalized. No wonder then that the
political elite of Serbia has chosen state terror as a means of reaching
these goals. During the centuries, the Pec Patriarchate, a cult place of
Orthodox Christianity and one among the most significant monuments of the
Serbian culture, was guarded by Serbs and Albanians - together. Couldn't
this fact serve as an example and direction where to seek solutions to
current conflicts?
The anathema of highly set national goals would hurt Serbs, if Kosovo
really remains „an internal affair of Serbia". The reason is simple: Serbia
lacks material, organizational and moral strength for solving this problem.
Many years ago, Leo Trotsky, reporting from the Balkan front in the year
1912, insightfully remarked: „With the annexation of Kosovo, Serbia got a
millstone around the neck of its development". An authoritarian-type state
- and the Balkans have not come to know any other type - including the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or the
Republic of Serbia, is unable to face rationally a problem like Kosovo is.
Serbia is a poor society, whose industrial production has fallen to the
level of the early 1960s. It has been excluded from international financial
and investment transactions. The overwhelming majority of the population
lives on the verge of the existential minimum - or below. According to some
estimates, the undeclared war in Kosovo costs Serbia about 2 million DEM
per day. At the same time, neither the state nor the population can meet
their most elementary needs. In a word, Serbia lacks any prerequisite for
solving on its own the problem of one of the most underdeveloped regions in
Europe. It would mean just the continuation of the agony. A horrible end
would be replaced by unending horror!
The ideologists of the Albanian ethnonationalism have chosen another
approach, but their goals are no less highly set. Since Albanians belong to
different religions, they have declared that religious affiliation is not
essential for the Albanian nation. They have proclaimed an „independent
(Albanian) state of Kosovo" as their chief, and often only goal. In the
current relation of forces between Albanians and Serbs, this goal is not
easy to achieve. It would demand massive human victims and, probably,
large-scale material destruction. Is this price worth paying for the
achievement of the said goal? For the time being, many Albanians seem to
think so, although they increasingly turn to various international factors,
asking for help. Bearing in mind the doctrine of unchangeable state borders
in Europe, after the experiences with the breakdown of the „real socialist"
system, this help is very unlikely to be sufficient for the realization of
such an extreme goal. Certainly, help will not fail to come either, but it
will oblige the Albanian political elite in Kosovo to lower its
aspirations. The Albanian elite is therefore facing a period of difficult
bargaining both with Serbian political representatives and representatives
of the international community.
Thus it would perhaps be worthwhile for the Albanian political factors in
Kosovo to analyze thoroughly the experiences of Bosniaks in expecting
international assistance during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It would be
even more worthwhile to think over what elements of infrastructure they
possess for organizing a truly independent state, in the conditions of
Kosovo's economic backwardness and a politically unfavorable environment.
If they balanced these two elements carefully, they would perhaps be
somewhat less disappointed than they sometimes are with the conduct of the
international factors in the Kosovo crisis. In that case, the highly set
goal of „independence" might become less attractive. Also, some „middle"
solutions, based on the principles of tolerance, cooperation and
confidence-building measures might become much more desirable than they
seem to be now.
 	In sum, both Serbs and Albanians are victims of the maximalist policies
of their elites, and drawn into a closed circle of hatred and violence. The
problem is that the spiral of evil is accelerating. Today, it has been
indisputably established that the repressive measures of the Serbian state
in Kosovo have reached the proportions of state terror against a part of
Serbia' citizens of Albanian nationality. It is equally indisputable that
there are terrorist groups on the Albanian side, and that acts of
individual and group terror have been present in Kosovo for decades. The
case of the police raid on the Drenica village in early 1998 was nothing
but a fascist-like punitive expedition in the style of the raids of German
troops on Serbian villages during World War II. Kidnapping and killing
civilians perpetrated by Albanians also belongs into terror against people.
A four-year-old cannot be a terrorist, and killed together with terrorists.
Violence against people, arrogance and primitivism cannot possibly be
justified by claiming that one acts „in the name of the state" or „in the
name of the nation". Such deeds should meet with condemnation and feeling
of shame in all citizens of Serbia. All that is needed is a little common
sense, honesty, and sense for human dignity.
	The Kosovo crisis can not be solved either quickly 
or simply. Searching for a
peaceful solution will be a long drawn, controversial and difficult
process, full of dashed hopes. In the meantime the number of victims is on
the rise, and material damage is becoming greater and greater. The
increased poverty will turn the citizens of Serbia, Serbs and Albanians,
into helpless people whose hopes are vanishing. Reason and moral courage
would command dialog, communication and building of bridges of trust.
	Whence then the mutual lack of readiness to negotiate? On the Serbian side
reasons also lie in the nature of government of Slobodan Milosevic. Into
the basis of his power the „skill" to make old conflicts fade by making new
ones is tightly woven. Conflicts with neighbors or with a number of
citizens of Serbia, be they Serbs or not, are imperative for his staying in
power, because they arouse the fear of changes in the electorate of Serbia.
So it happens that politics with atrocious results is over an over
confirmed at elections. It is true that the government of Serbia is
offering negotiations to Albanians, but the changes are conditioned by the
acceptance of the political dictate. The other solution offered is „a trip
over Prokletia mountains" (into Albania), as if they are not citizen of
Serbia who are living in Kosovo for generations. Between those two
possibilities lies the cruel reality of more and more open armed conflict,
undeclared war. Actually, since the escalation of conflict in Kosovo in the
early eighties, the government of Serbia did not offer Albanians any
rational choices. It is left to speculation what would be the answer of the
Albanian side to rational challenges. It seems that the „Kosovo dream" of
the Serbian political elite is like Tudjman's „solution of the Serbian
national question in Croatia."
	Albanian politicians are also talking about accepting negotiations on the
condition that the issue is secession, that is creation of  „independent
(Albanian) State of Kosovo." Is that „independent state" the ultimate goal
of the Albanian political elite we can only guess, but it is likely that
this stance is dictated by internal reasons. The Albanian political elite is
refusing participation in the political life of Serbia. This way they
practically refuse any possibility to fight for democracy together with a
part of the democratic political opposition in Serbia. The parliamentary
seats that would go to the Albanian representatives (about 30 seats in
Parliament) belonged to Milosevic's party on all elections to date. This
attitude of Albanian politicians is strengthening the government they are
struggling against.
	We can conclude that neither Serbian nor Albanian political elite is
favoring democratic solutions. That is what makes the situation of Serbs
and Albanians in Kosovo so tragic. Albanian political elite prefers the
path of confrontation and open conflict, in order to show that Serbs and
Albanians can not live together. The government of Serbia is amply helping
with this. The circle of evil closes. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The
international community will need a lot of perseverance, patience and
wisdom to break that circle.
The role of various international factors in the Kosovo crisis is a
distinct and very important topic. Both the Serbian and the Albanian sides
are often dissatisfied - and sometimes with a good reason -with the conduct
of the international community. But it is unquestionable that the conflicts
in Kosovo would have already surpassed the level of the wars in
Bosnia-Herzegovina or Croatia, had it not been for the „influence of
foreign factors". This, of course, does not mean that the influences and
pressures of the international community on the two sides have always been
balanced, rational and optimal. On the contrary, they often consist of a
mixture of ignorance, arrogance, and cynical pragmatism. Yet, we should not
forget that in this stage of conflicts in Kosovo without the active
participation of the international community the elementary preconditions
for initiating the process of peacefully solving the Kosovo crisis would be
absent. Another thing may be added here. If the aim of reducing tensions is
approached by insisting on human rights and liberties - those grand
achievements of humanity - no success will be made. For, unfortunately, in
both Serbian and Albanian cultures, the ideas of citizens' human rights and
individual liberties have never, to put it mildly, occupied a very
prominent position in the hierarchy of human values. Similarly,
humanitarian aid, however invaluable for people on the verge of starvation,
cannot be a way out of the crisis either. It is necessary that the USA,
European Union, and Russia understand that a peaceful solution of the
Kosovo crisis is their vital interest. It is necessary to make and
implement a comprehensive plan of getting people out of material poverty
and cultural misery. It could be a new version of the Marshall Plan, like
the one implemented in Germany after World War II, that would open
possibilities to people to substitute the „diluvial Balkan hatred" with
hard work, cooperation, and trust.



(This paper was prepared  for the Central and South-East Research Unit,
Glasgow University, Great Britain)

 Bozidar Jaksic
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory
Belgrade, Yugoslavia