This post will be short.
Kosovo, as I’m sure many of you who are reading this have heard, has declared independence from Serbia, as was expected since around 1999. The Serbs, both resident within Kosovo and resident within Serbia proper, are angry and protesting, while the ethnic Albanian majority of residents have celebrated the coming diplomatic recognition.
I may be a bit biased toward the pro-independence side, since political self-determination is something which I wholeheartedly support, wherever it may be. But I can also agree with the sentiment that Kosovo’s secession will set a precedent that could lead to an increase of the UN’s membership.
The biggest reason why I think that the Kosovo issue is overblown, however, is because of how most sovereign countries are now interdependent, to various degrees, upon each other.
The European Union, while not being the best example or model of the supranation, is probably the best example of this interdependence across borders. The EU’s member states are very wired for cross-border communication, very accessible for cross-border transportation, and very sensitive for cross-border socio-political developments. Thus, those who often cross borders as part of their occupation don’t have to worry that much about border guards or currency exchange rates.
Of course, this setting is not easily duplicable for other supranational organizations, such as the African Union, which spans the second largest continent on Earth, has its highest concentration of transport connectivity in the most southerly regions, and is far behind other regions in terms of communication infrastructure.
And of course, the EU is not a complete panacea for inter-member disputes. Farm subsidies have to be increased regularly in order to prop up competing agricultural markets, for example.
But overall, I doubt that the Serb minority has that much to fear from the Albanian majority. Besides, when the border guards are dismissed when both countries enter into the EU, I doubt that the nationhood of Kosovo or Serbia will matter that much in the greater scheme of things.
Before you get too warm and fuzzy over the Serbs, take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkgHkxIfgBc Be sure to read some of the comments. Just reminds you of what we were saying when we interfered over there in first place: They’ve been fighting for 14 hundred years and won’t stop any time soon. As a matter of the fact, the only time they DO stop fighting is when the Russians or the Germans come in and slaps them around and makes them behave.
Danny
Oh I know that….
The Serbs are, from their assumed tone in conversation whenever Kosovo or some other former Yugoslav republic, a bunch of over-nationalistic dicks.
I can suitably compare the Serbian nationalistic streak to that of the Turks, particularly whenever the Kurds/Kurdistan is discussed.
Exhibit A: a rather infamous post by a Turkish citizen who claims that the Kurdish language is not a “real” language….to a Mozilla newsgroup….simply because Mozilla had released a Firefox version for Kurdish language speakers.
The irony of it all, however, is that the Serbs are accusing the Albanians of practicing irredentism (namely, the much-rumored Greater Albania that the ethnic Albanian Kosovars have been supposedly seeking), when the Serbs themselves were embracing the ideology of a Greater, dissoluble Serbia under Milosevic during the 1990’s.
I mean, WTF is their problem? Are they that thin-skinned and egotistical as a collective ethnicity – butthurt over a piece of land which only recently became the Serbian “homeland” – that they will trash private and public property to soothe their *sadness*?
The Serbs, the Turks, the Spaniards, the Frenchmen….they’re all dicks. They all deny true self-determination to their respective regional divisions (Basque Country, Catalonia, Brittany, Kurdistan, etc.) in the name of such a previous-millennium domestic policy concept as that of territorial integrity, something for which hundreds of thousands of people have died – in the most unnecessary manners possible.