COMMENTARY: Kosovo: It’s neither a melon nor Monica’s cousin

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of Religion News Service.) (RNS) Balkanize. The word has found a place in American pop culture, stretching its meaning to fit anything that is divided and dysfunctional. But a better definition might be disinterested. Mention the Balkans themselves and the average American’s eyes glaze over.”What […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of Religion News Service.)

(RNS) Balkanize. The word has found a place in American pop culture, stretching its meaning to fit anything that is divided and dysfunctional.


But a better definition might be disinterested.

Mention the Balkans themselves and the average American’s eyes glaze over.”What now?”seems to be the tired response to the latest strife in the region.

When I asked friends and acquaintances what they knew about Kosovo, most drew a blank.”Isn’t that a kind of melon?”one guessed. It might as well be, I thought.

Mention Monica or Linda or any of the other players in the so-called White House scandal and you get an earful. Mention a Balkan region of 2 million people that could explode into an international crisis at any moment and few Americans can find it on the map.

To be fair, we are only beginning to see photos of the dead and fleeing during the evening news. Because the ruling Serbs have allowed few journalists into the territory, we have had scant information about the situation.

But Kosovo is not a new story. In fact, U.S. policy regarding the former Yugoslavia has been in place since 1989, long before most of us had heard about Bosnia. Some would say that without Kosovo there never would have been a war-torn Bosnia. America got tough about defending the ethnic Albanian majority of Kosovo and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic turned his sites westward instead.

Like many stories in the Balkan region, its roots go back even further. In fact, Kosovo might be called the West Bank of the former Yugoslavia, a land claimed by two different people groups, both of which consider it holy ground.

The majority of the population is ethnic Albanians, descendants of the Illyrians, who stubbornly call their land Kosova. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the Slavs established their Christian Orthodox faith in the same region, building several monasteries and cathedrals that either remain or have been rebuilt since the 1300s.

In 1389, the battle of Kosovo began a conflict that in many ways continues today. Serbs were defeated by Turks in a battle that has been immortalized in ballads, stories and folklore. Serbs view Kosovo as a place where their ancestors were martyred defending Christianity against the Ottoman Empire.


During the next 500 years of Turkish rule, most of the Serbs left the land and moved northward into present-day Serbia. In 1912, what has been called the First Balkan War liberated Kosovo from Ottoman rule and in 1946 it became one of Tito’s blocks as he built Yugoslavia.

But the Muslim Albanian population was never happy with its status and repeatedly fought to become one of the six republics having federal representation in Belgrade.

In 1989, President Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy and insisted it be represented by Serbia. At that point, most ethnic Albanians lost their jobs, medical care and access to education.

One observer of the region described the situation as apartheid, with the Serb minority ruling the Albanian majority and denying access to the most basic necessities. For example, since the Serbs use a different alphabet, most of the Albanians cannot even read public signs.

So why should we care about this ancient conflict now appearing on the evening news?

Perhaps because we should have learned our lesson from Bosnia, a land that captured our attention only after tens of thousands had died while as we watched the O.J. Simpson trial. We came to Bosnia’s aid much too late and we now assist the land with excessive patronage stemming from guilt.


If we spend a little effort on Kosovo now, we might actually make a difference. But it takes more than newspaper headlines and speeches by Robert Gelbard, the U.S. special envoy to the Balkans, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. It takes the support of average citizens. It takes letters to Congress and donations to relief groups. And it takes time to educate ourselves about the facts of a land rich in history and conflict.

Doing so might take some of our attention away from Monica. And that probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

DEA END BOURKE

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