Noticing this, Daniel Korski at Global Dashboard has written a short post, Curing the Bosnian blues. which reprints the recommendations provided by a recent DPC report, itself alarmingly titled Sliding toward the precipice. These recommendations are all well and good, but they stand about as much chance of stopping the disintegration of Bosnia as Canute had of holding back the ocean.

No, while “A destructive dynamic is accelerating, and Bosnian and Croat nationalism is on the rise”, the problem is not the rise of nationalism. It’s the rise of the wrong sort of nationalism - we want them to build up their nation, as long as it’s the nation that we want them to build. At the same time the Bosnian Serbs can look across to Kosovo and wonder why the international community breaks up one state on ethnic lines while forcing another to stay together despite the same sort of division.

Actually, they don’t wonder that at all. No matter what their other flaws, the Serbs have never been under the illusion that the international community operates under any principles except those of realpolitik. So instead of trying to stop the tides of nationalism, Canute should recognise that he can’t stop the tides, get off his throne and work out a better way of keeping his feet dry.

I will always remember the things of the past

and I have no need

to bow down to the golden calves of the future

which sleep in the cattle wagon

on the road to the new Europe

and its abattoirs

which have been turned into discos.

- Delimir Resicki

(HT: Greg Dotzauer @ Der Tagesspiegel Via signandsight)

As of 11pm this evening, Filip Vujanovic had cleared the 50% threshold required to keep him in the Montenegrin presidency - which of course means that Milo Djukanovic is still the power behind the throne in Montenegro. As I’ve said before, I don’t think that the Djukanovic / Vujanovic administration is the worst option for Montenegro, especially at this critical post-independence pre-EU stage. However this does mean business as usual, and that’s not a terribly good thing. Given that they’ve been in power for the last 17 years (I think), the blame for the host of problems that Montenegro faces can be laid squarely at their door. (Richard Cowper ran down a list of those problems for the Montenegro Times.)

Anti-corruption candidate Nebojsa Medojevic ran an interesting campaign, maxing out his photo opportunities and trying to emphasise that he’s accessible and personable - as opposed to Vujanovic, whose PR always seemed to put him in front of some flags looking presidential. Nobody really thought Medojevic could win - but with 15% of the vote, he’s trailing third behind the main Serb candidate, Andrija Mandic, who scored at least 19%.

This suggests two things. First, the Serb vote is stronger than many observers initially thought it would be - although Mandic played up the Kosovo question (to recognise or not to recognise?) considerably in the final stretch of campaigning. This will have some (but not major) implications for how Vujanovic conducts foreign affairs - it’s not as if Montenegro was rushing to recognise Kosovo anyway. Second, the anti-corruption ticket wasn’t as strong as the PzP were counting on, despite the fact that most Montenegrins recognise the problem of corruption as the most obvious one which intrudes on their day-to-day life. (Freedom House’s Nations in Transit report suggests that in more general terms Montenegro is at best standing still in terms of developing a healthy democracy.)

This was a “safe pair of hands” vote; it seems likely that Vujanovic was the beneficiary of the independence honeymoon, particulary following a few years of rude economic health for the country. That health is likely to worsen considerably in the next couple of years, and the question is only how well the DPS will handle it. I think they’ll handle it quite well in the sense of protecting their own financial interests - which in many cases are not that different from Montenegro’s financial interests - but whether they’ll be able to provide leadership that goes beyond that is another question.

The level of interest in this election internationally appears to be almost zero, which is understandable - there’s plenty more interesting things going on in the Balkans, like Ramush Haradinaj being acquitted and Greece administering a diplomatic beatdown to Macedonia. In the long term, however, this result isn’t good for the health of Montenegrin politics, and that has implications for the entire region - remember that Montenegro neighbours Serbia, Kosovo and Albania, and has its own significant Serb, Bosniak and Albanian minorities.

On the other hand, Madonna’s playing Jaz beach this summer. She’ll be 50, you know. Frightening.

During the trial the Chamber received evidence from almost 100 witnesses. Nevertheless, the Chamber encountered significant difficulties in securing the testimony of a large number of these witnesses. Many cited fear as a prominent reason for not wishing to appear before the Chamber to give evidence. In this regard, the Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe, due to a number of factors set out in the Judgement. The parties furthermore agreed that an unstable security situation existed in Kosovo that was particularly unfavourable to witnesses.

No surprises there. Although Haradinaj (and Balaj) walked, the evidence shows that the KLA was involved in some distinctly unsavoury activities; Brahimaj went down for “cruel treatment and torture”, but the full description of KLA soldier misdeeds includes rape and murder as well. No surprises there either - the standard defense for the KLA offered by Kosovars is “Look what the Serbs did to us”, but if you read through the trial papers, most of the murders that these three were indicted for were of Kosovar Albanian civilians.

The good news about Ramush Haradinaj being acquitted at ICTY: by all accounts, he wasn’t a bad politician for Kosovo, and it’s not as if they have a particularly wide range to choose from. The international community should be happy - Haradinaj was very popular, and a conviction would have stirred up even more distrust between locals and internationals, particularly following Human Rights Watch’s damning report on the state of Kosovo’s own legal system and the international community’s tragicomic failure to rebuild it.

Hopefully this will inject a little bit of life back into Kosovar politics - now that they’re independent they need as much help as they can get. Ramush always seemed to get on better with the internationals than (for example) Hashim Thaci, and the fact that he turned himself in voluntarily to ICTY in the first place will give him major political capital to spend. The problem is that Thaci is now the first prime minister of independent Kosova, so I’m looking forward to some really dirty political combat very soon.

A recent poll suggests that many Montenegrins share Abdomerovic’s moderate nationalism. Conducted in September and October by the independent Center for Democracy and Human Rights, the poll showed that about 35 percent of respondents favored renaming the official language Montenegrin, edging out Serbian by about 5 percent.

There’s a problem with this sort of poll in a country where demographic affiliation can be so contentious. The 2003 census estimated that at least 40% of the population is Montenegrin, while only around 30% are Serbian, and that poll result looks suspiciously like a split along those lines. So many Montenegrins Montenegrins might share that “moderate nationalism”, but they’re likely counter-balanced by Serb Montenegrins who feel short-changed by the whole deal.

The problem is that the Serbian voice isn’t very credible in Montenegro (as far as I know), despite the lack of rancour over the separation of the two countries. A good example of this is given in the article itself, as a Serb intellectual unwittingly demonstrates:

Aleksandar Stamatovic, a pro-Serb historian who lives in Montenegro, said every student in the Balkans should learn one true history, difficult as that might be to reach. Stamatovic would like to take on the job but knows that some of his claims, including that the Srebrenica massacre was exaggerated, if not made up, would scuttle any such opportunity.

Possibly his lack of job opportunities aren’t related to being pro-Serb, but being an apologist for war crimes, but the idea that there is “one true history” is an interesting one for a historian to make. History is always a matter of interpretations, and anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

There’s nothing wrong with revising history textbooks, simply on the basis that our understanding of history changes over time. The problem is that such revision implies that the previous history was false and that those who presented it were liars, which is what makes somebody like Stamatovic angry. If only he - and so many other people in the Balkans - could realise that history doesn’t have to be war by other means.

It feels strangely anti-climactic to watch an independent Kosovo paraded on-screen - a mere 9 years after it actually became independent. Everybody’s a winner - the Albanians get their country, the Serbs get another raison de martyre and our governments get to distract us from Afghanistan and Iraq (ooh, contentious lefty jibe!). The real losers are the Kosovo Serb communities that are left - the Kosovar Albanians don’t really want them hanging around, but the Serbian authorities would probably prefer them to stay in limbo to keep the issue live (hey, that reminds me of this great joke about the Palestinians!).

Independence is clearly not a solution to any of Kosovo’s long-term problems, and might even give us a few new ones, but this feels like the inevitable conclusion of a process that started long before the 1999 NATO bombing. Still nobody seems to be prepared to point out in public that Kosovo has no economic prospects of any kind, which I’ve always thought is pretty essential for economic development. I don’t have anything insightful to contribute to that discussion, but I do wonder how long it will take before the Kosovo authorities start blaming the EU for the lack of progress?

Good luck, Kosovo - you’ll need it.

Kosovo will get some sort of independence, Belgrade and Moscow will cry foul, there will be a certain amount of huffing and puffing… and then, not much. The borders will stay open; the lights will stay on. The medium-term effect will be to create a sort of Balkan Taiwan, recognized by some states but not by others.

Apart from the lights staying on (regular power cuts are still the norm in Pristina, let alone the rest of the country), he’s spot on. However, given that if enough EU member states recognise Kosovo, it’s likely that all of them will, then it’s unlikely that many other states will refuse to recognise it. States that don’t recognise it are likely to do so because they don’t really care very much one way or the other, rather than because they’re deeply opposed to independence.

As for conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, that will be a storm in the proverbial teacup. Large scale conflict is extremely unlikely, given the vested interests of both the EU and NATO stopping it quickly and forcefully and, if anything, independence is likely to increase tolerance within the province, since the Albanians won’t have anything left to prove. The postscript to a recent BBC report was interesting,

After this story was published, we received this e-mail from Serb musician Ivan Ivanov in Pirot, Serbia: “I recently (7 March) played in Babuka’s club with my band from Bulgaria. Everyone knew I was from Serbia. I had an amazing time. Of course, there were a couple of benign jokes, and a few friendly shouts (”Hey, Serb, come over here”), but I can definitely say that people from Pristina, or at least the crowd that hangs out in Babuka’s place, have moved on, and are looking forward to things getting back to normal. It will take time, it will take effort and compromise, it will take a lot of good will, but it will happen. Cheers to that!

I’ll take that with a pinch of salt, but you get the idea. So, Serbia doesn’t have any cards left to play except for Russia, which is frankly a wild card that they should leave in the box the cards came in (do you see what I did? Extended metaphor!). What about Kosovo? Most of the people I still know in Kosovo - who are English-speaking but hardly members of the political elite - seem to be fairly lacking in any faith in their politicians, and none of those politicians have any real political platform beyond independence. The elections went well, which is a good sign, but once independence is declared, that political elite will have to deliver.

I don’t think they will. I think they’ll fail to implement any significant reforms, and continue to make excuses for their failure to deliver on the most basic responsibilities government. As an example, a recent report on the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network had a gem in the article “Kosovo’s Daily Bread Gets Expensive“, reporting on sharp rises in the cost of flour:

Although grain price rises on the world market have affected the whole region, Kosovo has suffered the most, partly because of its lack of reserves, and partly because the delays to defining Kosovo’s long-term political status mean the government has few control mechanisms to cope with such crises.

Bujar Dugolli, the Minister of Trade and Industry, says that the lack of grain warehouses prevents the authorities from being able to deal with the problem.

“We are renting even the ministry’s premises,” Dugolli complained to reporters last week, making it clear that the government was unable to secure any kind of storage for key commodities.

What kind of feeble excuse is that? If they’re renting the ministry’s premises, why can’t they rent warehouses? It’s not as if any future government isn’t going to need warehouses, and it’s not that difficult to do - you find a warehouse, then you offer the owner some cash. The problem is that most politicians in Kosovo don’t have any experience in actually running anything, since they’ve been substantially carried by the international community since the war. There are good politicians and public servants, but you have to look quite hard to find them.

When I was in Kosovo a couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to meet with Jeta Xharra, BIRN’s Kosovo director, who was running a series of televised debates in each of the municipalities as well as a regular weekly show. This was a tremendously good idea, and clearly a shot in the arm for increasing the accountability in the election process, but the candidates’ performances weren’t up to much, according to her colleage Mufail Limani:

It would be good if the top leaders spared us having to put up with such clowns and backscratchers, but the candidates selected appear to represent their parties’ genuine political offer… Many candidates, who were on Xharra’s show, realise that it would have been better if they had not appeared at all.

I predict a lot more feeble excuses to come from assorted “clowns and backscratchers”, unfortunately, and the more the excuses keep coming, the more disillusioned the people are going to become. That’s where the real problems are going to be - not in potential conflict with Serbia, but in the internal conflicts that are likely to surface as frustration grows, particularly amongst young people. Plus, of course, the concern by surrounding countries about whether this sets a precedent for their own Albanian minorities. Is there a way out of this mess? Of course there is, but I’ll leave that for another post…

The first set was the Jean-Michel Pilc Trio. I’d never heard of Pilc, a self-taught French pianist, but his trio featured Mark Mondesir, one of my favourite drummers. On that basis alone I assumed that the quality of the music was going to be high, and it absolutely was. Pilc is an ethereal force at the piano, light and vigorous at the same time, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes playing directly with the piano strings, sometimes falling off one side of the keyboard. I was worrried that he might be too imposing for a trio setting, that he would dominate the music, but Mondesir and bass player Thomas Bramerie balanced him well. A mixture of Pilc’s own compositions and standards given his own twists and turns, I could have left happy after that without waiting for the second set of the evening.

I’m glad I did wait, however, because after the break we were treated to The Leaders, a superstar group put together by Chico Freeman. If you have any familiarity with jazz, you’ll recognise names like Bobby Watson, Lenny White and Eddie Henderson. The band were slightly off form because their luggage had been lost in transit, and so they were dressed in their travel clothes, but they still blew through the Universal Hall.

There were no revelations, just rock-solid playing; ironically the player who stood out for me was not one of the big names, but the young pianist Frederick Harris. He didn’t rock the keys in the way that Pilc did, but was equally impressive in terms of tone and fluency. The other players were exactly what I was expecting, but I was slightly surprised by how well they played together given how distinctive their individual voices are; the set had the feeling of an extended jam session rather than a formal concert. The frontline players chatted to each other between solos, and there was a real feeling that they really enjoyed playing together, a feeling that they shared with Pilc’s earlier trio.

And that was the end of my Skopje Jazz Festival. It actually went on for another two nights, but I had to get back to… well, I’m not sure what I had to get back to, but I left anyway. I was glad I’d made the effort (even though I had to dig the car out of the snow when I got back to Rozaje, and then drive 5 hours through the winter) and it will definitely be on The List next year. Except next time I’ll plan it better…

I love flamenco, but I have now discovered that an entire evening of it is about an hour too much. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy both performances - they were both absolutely exhilarating - but flamenco performers tend to be a bit intense, especially on the vocal side.

Juan Carmona and his group started the evening off - a full lineup of three guitars, percussion, flute and vocals, as well as one member of the group who would occasionally step out from behind the microphone and bust some flamenco dance moves. As you can imagine, the crowd went wild whenever this happened. The set itself was extremely dynamic - lots of light and shade - and Carmona himself proved to an amazing guitarist who was willing to work with his band rather than dominate them. I’m no flamenco afficionado (I get as far as Ketama and that’s about it) , but you didn’t need to be to enjoy the set.

I’m not sure the same could be said for Miguel Poveda. Poveda, a younger musician than Carmona, is an acclaimed vocalist in a very traditional style. In this case, traditional means voice and guitar, plus two members of the band whose role is to provide the clapping. I kid you not, they don’t play any instruments and they don’t sing; they just clap. It sounds a bit ludicrous until you see how essential that is to the performance (although it still sounds a bit ludicrous even then) but it underlines how seriously they take traditional flamenco.

It was during this set that I realised that I had a relatively low tolerance threshold for flamenco. Poveda is a phenomenal vocalist, and it was fascinating to hear the echoes of Arabic styles in his vocal delivery and shades of Qawwali in the intensity with which he performs. Without understanding Spanish, however, it’s next to impossible to follow the narrative that flamenco lyrics provide; for me that reduced my enjoyment of the performance, since the tempo and timbre of the songs tended to be quite similar. At the end, Poveda stood up and moved away from his microphone to the front of the stage, singing directly to the audience - a great way to end, but after he left the stage I breathed a sigh of relief and stumbled off into the Skopje night, still reeling from the intensity of the performance.

(Thanks to Beastmaster112 for posting these clips on YouTube.)