Filenews 3 March 2023
By Andreas Kluth
Good news from the Balkans. And no, this is not the beginning of a macabre joke. I am referring to an agreement reached this week between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo, under the 'tutelage' of the European Union.
Agreement to achieve what? In principle, then, agreement on certain things - small and insignificant at first, such as the legality of each other's license plates and customs seals. The plan, however, is to continue expanding this list, until - cross your fingers! - the process itself to lead to trust and peace, at a time when not only the region, but also the world needs a much greater "quantity" of both of these goods.
So let the whole war-torn world rejoice in this new and fragile détente between Serbs and Kosovars. And let the world's troubles - from Israel and Palestine to Northern Ireland, the Caucasus and Africa - look to the Balkans and learn a great lesson. Because, if reconciliation succeeds here, it can happen anywhere.
"Balkanization"
If one looks at an atlas, one is likely to conclude that what afflicts much of the world is "Balkanization". This term originally described ethnic fragmentation and conflicts — even including ethnic cleansing — following the dissolution of multinational empires. Balkanization in this narrow sense is what happened on the famous peninsula after the departure of the Ottomans and again after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It descended on Africa in the 1950s and 1960s when the British and French colonialists withdrew, as well as in the Caucasus after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
More broadly, I would define balkanization as the battle between competing victimization narratives and their use to spread hatred among groups that should instead live as good neighbours. In this sense, Lebanon and the entire Levant is balkanized. In my darkest thoughts, I fear that even the US is heading in that direction.
Russia's genocidal aggression against Ukraine may not initially appear to be a case of Balkanisation. It looks instead like an atavistic war of imperial conquest - the attempt to re-establish an empire, rather than as a consequence of its collapse. Russian President Vladimir Putin is indeed comparing himself to the Tsars of the past.
However, the Russians, including Putin, see Ukraine (and various other places) more as the Serbs saw Bosnia and Herzegovina some time ago or as they see Kosovo today. That is, they deny the national identity of their neighbouring state, relegating it instead to a vassal role in their own national or imperialist history. The result in both cases was very often atrocities.
Serbian and Russian narratives rhyme in other ways as well. Both nations, as Christian Orthodox Slavs, often declare that they are bound by a special bond (which they obviously do not feel towards orthodox and slav Ukrainians). They spread similar narratives that they are threatened by a hostile West, with NATO - which bombed Yugoslav (i.e., Serbian) forces in 1999 to prevent atrocities against ethnic Albanian Kosovars - in the role of evil.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Neither Serbia nor Russia, however, recognise it as a country, and Moscow and Belgrade have so far worked together to prevent Pristina from joining the United Nations and other international organisations.
Kosovo's Albanian ethnic majority, meanwhile, suspects its Serb minority of a possible separatist uprising or worse. The Serbian government, in turn, is against the real or imagined oppression of its ethnic relatives in Kosovo and threatens consequences. Violence is never too far away. Last year, it almost reignited over the banal issue of which car plates ethnic Serb Kosovars should use - those of Belgrade or those of Pristina.
What Serbia and Kosovo share and what is lacking in other Balkan regions of the world is a common ambition: membership of the European Union. This gives Brussels some influence in promoting a new narrative in order to replace the primordial Balkan victimisation complexes.
The European response to Balkanisation: making borders 'invisible'
The Europe solution
This new narrative is called 'Europe'. I called it the "alternative to Alsace," from the name of the region for which France and Germany fought for generations before realizing they had to stop. After the Second World War, the two bitter enemies reconciled and made national borders at the same time sacred, but largely invisible within what eventually became the EU. The Alsatians, whatever language their ancestors spoke, today live as free Europeans.
This is the spirit that Josep Borrell, the EU's head of diplomacy, channelled in announcing this week's rapprochement between Serbia and Kosovo, which he orchestrated. The agreement, he said, "is not primarily for the good of the European Union: it is for the citizens of Kosovo and Serbia."
This new narrative of overcoming differences and finding mutual redemption is obviously difficult to "sell" in the Balkans. The unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina hangs by the thinnest threads to date. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić - who worked under Slobodan Milosevic, the "butcher of the Balkans" - has called Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti a "terrorist". Kurti, in turn, has called Vučić a "little Putin". None of this looks promising.
Yet both Vučić and Kurti - like Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Albanians and North Macedonians - want to join the EU. This forces them to overcome their own shadows, as the Germans say. For Vučić and the Serbs, this must include condemnation of Putin, who embodies total opposition to European values.
It is too early to proclaim Vučić and Kurti as the Sadat and Begin of the Balkans or something similar. Peace and civilized atmosphere, however, always begin with a gesture of courage and magnanimity, however small.
Perhaps Europe this week took a small first step towards overcoming Balkanisation as such.
Source: BloombergOpinion
