My nose, my face, my country

Many Balkan politicians have very firm principles. They’re prepared to make great sacrifices for those principles, but they’re more often prepared to sacrifice other people for them. People don’t seem to have as much of a problem with this as you’d expect - look at how many Serbs continued to follow Milosevic as he lead the country into utter ruin. It’s to the credit of the Serbian people that eventually they pulled themselves out of that collective descent, but the tendency remains firmly embedded in Balkan politics.

For a contemporary example, look no further than the report on Serbblog on the possibility that Montenegro might recognise Kosovo. Now this is something that’s unlikely in the extreme but which makes great political hay for pro-Serbian politicians in Montenegro - Andrija Mandic captured 19% of the vote in the recent elections by playing up to it. Mandic recently made a visit to Kosovo and has clearly decided that this is the issue that’s going to get him the most mileage:

Mandic suggested that ordinary Montenegrins take to the streets in protest, especially now during tourist season (tourism represents nearly 25% of the Montenegrin economy) should the Montenegrin leadership even consider such a traitorous move.

Apparently the Montenegrin government needs to be prevented from even thinking about recognising Kosovo (thoughtcrime!) and the best way to do that is to cripple the one part of the economy that’s actually growing. The fact that, if successful, the short-term impact of such a strike would damage the average Montenegrin more than anybody else, and that the long-term impact would probably kill the tourist industry in the cradle, seems to have escaped Mandic (and Serbblog, who supports the idea). Or maybe it hasn’t escaped him, and he genuinely believes that cutting your nose off to spite your face is a sensible policy position?

UPDATE: Okay, now Djukanovic has said in public that recognition of Kosovo independence is inevitable. Strike, Andrija, strike! (Of course, this is from New Kosova Report, and Djukanovic apparently specifically used the passive voice, and didn’t actually say that Montenegro is going to recognise Kosovo any time soon, etc, etc. Mileage may vary.)