Kosovo – Anathema of Ethnonational Goals

Bozidar Jaksic
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory

Belgrade, Yugoslavia

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 what remains of Yugoslavia is going to end it will be in Kosovo, too /again, that finish its state and legal existence/ 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 a like. 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 Milose-vic, 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 façade 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 demonstrat ions. 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 instrumenta-lized. 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 i t 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 then 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 jus tified 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.

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. 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 appro ached 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.