Sweeping generalisation: western Europeans find it hard to understand the Serbian mentality. So why not read the Subjective Atlas of Serbia and see how some of it maps out? You can order a copy of the book, should you be sufficiently impressed, which you probably should be. Congratulations to everybody who contributed to it, and let’s hope the next version isn’t as depressed about the carve-up.
New Kosova Report carries an opinion piece entitled God has stopped speaking Serbian. It’s a polemic against Serbs not learning Albanian, disguised as concern for the future of Serbs in Kosova. Thus,
If before Serbs did not really have to learn Albanian because Albanians could and had to speak their language, now learning Albanian is a must to function economically in Kosovo. Otherwise, there won’t be any future for Serbs here. While Serbian is an official language along with Albanian across Kosovo, this is barely essential if only 6% of the population is Serbian… The key for prosperity for all the minorities in Kosovo – Serbian, Roma, Turkish and Bosniak – is being able to function in the dominant language – in this case Albanian.
This is a fairly moderate view in Kosova, acknowledging at least that Serbs (and other minorities) have a place in the country – but even moderation has its limits in Kosovo.1 The basic limit of that moderation is that Kosova is Albanian, and anybody who wants a piece of that future – no matter how long their communities might have lived there – needs to buy into that.
Linguistic chauvinism was one of the factors that drove the conflict in Kosovo prior to 1999, and continues to be a hot topic in the region (particularly in countries with Albanian minorities), but the notion that Serbs must learn Albanian is of course bullshit. If Serbs are citizens of the new Kosova, and Serbian is one of the official languages of Kosova – both of which the article agrees with – then it’s up to the majority to make the necessary accommodations to the minority. Given how many Kosovar Albanians have lived (and continue to live) in Switzerland, I’m surprised that they haven’t noticed this rather basic requirement of a multilingual state.
Switzerland isn’t the best example – the Swiss-German continually chafe at the fact that they need to learn French to work in the government, while the Swiss-French seem to have little requirement to learn German. However they don’t use this as an excuse to force the Swiss-French to learn German, or to deny that they can be citizens if they don’t. This seems like common sense to me, but that’s not how we roll in the Balkans, unfortunately. And so the merry-go-round continues, with language used as a club to bash people with.
Depressing. If you want some more positive news about Albanian-Serb relation, then this report in Balkan Insight will warm the cockles of your heart. Serbs visiting Pristina? Astonishing:2
… of course I was reluctant to speak Serbian openly at first. But whenever someone overheard me speaking it in a café or restaurant, the only reaction was pleasant surprise and genuine joy. Most Albanians in those situations will squeeze out as many words of Serbian they know (be it a lot or just a little), smile, ask how are things in Belgrade, or even play some music commonly considered as “naša” (covering a wide array from Serbian turbo-folk over Bosnian sevdalinke to Croatian soft pop, but that’s an altogether different story). It seems they don’t think we eat little children for breakfast. Which is food for thought, if you can pardon the pun.
The ever-entertaining Belgraded posted on the inventive curses carried by national television during the NATO bombing campaign. My favourites were “Tomahawk Democracy in Warrior Adventure”, “Goebbels-persistent Villains” and “Mongoloid Conglomerate”, but the list is endlessly entertaining….
In an interesting but patchy essay from 2004, Goran Stefanovski wrote:
It is street wisdom in the Balkans that it is impossible to be born and die in the same country. Within one’s lifetime, the house will fall on your head and you’ll have to start building again.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. I was against the repression of Kosovar Albanians by state and state-sponsored institutions, I was against the NATO bombing campaign and I was against the killing and cleansing of Serbs from the province by Kosovar Albanians. Generally speaking, I’m against things that increase the sum of human misery, and all three of those things fall into that category. Could i make my position any clearer?
In the beginning, the first few days, it was scary because nobody knew what to do in this situation… ou decide after a couple of days that this bombing is not so terrible after all. Schools are out, university too, almost nobody goes to their jobs. It’s a big party on the streets… But after a while, it starts to get boring, and towards the end it really gets intolerable. Not even the pirated films on the TV and endless arguments over the internet represent much joy to you. So you are really glad it’s over.
Yet I get more angry with the Serbs than I do with the Kosovar Albanians or NATO. I like Serbs, and I think they were royally screwed during the breakup of Yugoslavia, but it astonishes me that ten years later there still doesn’t seem to be the will to face up to their situation. It was always fairly clear (if not always explicit) that NATO hoped the Kosovo campaign would lead to Milosevic’s downfall (which it did, eventually); meanwhile, the Kosovar Albanians were usually honest and unapologetic about their desire to extract revenge on the provincial Serbs who stayed behind after the bombing (which they did, immediately).
… others said the action would prevent a humanitarian catastrophe resulting from Serbian attacks on Kosovar Albanians. (in 1999 there were 81% ethnic Albanians and 11% Serbs in Kosovo…so how realistic are these theories?!)… Yugoslavia had been attacked because it had used its sovereign right to fight terrorism and prevent the secession of a part of its territory which had always belonged to Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Yet as I watch Serbian and Montenegrin television (with my comically limited Serbian), I can’t help but notice that there seems to be very little mention of the reason/excuse (take your pick, as if I care) that NATO had for bombing in the first place. When talking with Serbs, you sometimes feel that they believe that the bombing campaign came out of nowhere – almost an act of god – with a casualty list that seems to include a lot more people than the ones that actually, you know, died.1 The NATO campaign emphasised the positive aspects of the Serb character (such as their dark sense of humour) but also exposed the negative aspects, particularly the victim mentality.
There is a saying about Serbs, that we always forgive but never forget and this is very true… For most of us, the war and the hatred towards the West ended with the last bomb that fell in Serbia… We come back to this and many other events every year, to remember the fallen and drop a swear or two on our miserable lives, but that’s pretty much it.
Perhaps it isn’t forgetting that’s Serbia’s problem, but remembering – at least, remembering the decade that preceded the NATO campaign. Ten years ago their house fell, and I would argue that Serbia has barely begun the difficult task of rebuilding that house. Raise your glasses to the dead of the past ten years, both Serbian and Albanian, and then let’s get on with the job of construction.
UPDATE: Phew, it’s not just me, Nenad Pejic spotted it as well.
Radovan Karadzic was arrested at the weekend – a great day for justice but a bad day for beards. Check out one of the most bizarre before and after shots ever:
Recent posts have exposed me as a big fan of the taste of “international justice” and Karadzic’s arrest fits right into my pot. The destabilising effects predicted by critics of the indictment of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan are minimal in this case; thanks to the passage of time, the Karadzic arrest is unlikely to be much more than another arrow in the political quiver of a particular section of Serbian politics, rather than a focus for mass mobilisation.
The news is more interesting in terms of the timing – shortly after the formation of the new Serbian government and the replacement of Bulatovic as the head of the intelligence services. Karadzic is just a pawn in the chess game of Serbia’s political rehabilitation, which is perhaps the hardest thing for his supporters – and him – to stomach. That’s perhaps part of the role of tribunals such as ICTY – not just providing justice, but also showing people that their “heroes” have feet of clay and their “monsters” are (in the end) a sad old man with a novelty beard.
However the most important aspect of this news is that Karadzic – under his pseudonym of Dr Dragan Dabic – had his own website, which I urge you to visit at http://dragandabic.com/. Turns out that the initial website that circulated via such illuminated truthseekers such as the BBC and Reuters was a spoof - Dabic’s real website was the New Age car crash PSY Help Energy. In spite of that, I still found the homilies at the bottom of the spoof page quite entertaining, this one was particularly poignant in light of his history of hair:
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
He’ll have plenty of time to reflect on that in the next few years, and possibly to face in court some of the people from Bosnia who had very little choice about where the birds of sorrow built their nests.
POSTSCRIPT: In other news, Karadzic was my neighbour! Human Quantum Energy! Also smuggles endangered animals (in hat)! Ratko to go down swinging!
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.)