The arrogance of the Serbs is at least refreshing. It seems it is not just the Americans and Russians who say they know what is best for people in other countries. Apparently the Serbs feel they have some emotional claim that their roots are in Kosovo. Well so what! Given humanity’s propensity for migration, most of us on the planet have our roots somewhere else. That does not give us any justification at all for controlling those who still live in that location.
Perhaps if the Serbs had been a little more open minded and tolerant of the cultural differences in Kosovo and taken that into account in setting up a reasonable governance model, then maybe Kosovo would not have felt the need to go independent.
But now we have a people who have decided in a referendum that they want to bear their own burdens of governance. Why would anyone else know better what they want than the Kosovans themselves. We should just leave them to it. The Serbs should be thankful that they have got rid of a province that bore a solid antipathy towards them, and that would have no doubt caused problems in the future under Serbian regulatory authority. With reference to the African independence movement, the English and French have learned to a certain degree that ruling obstreperous colonies is more trouble than it is worth, and have let those colonies go off and deal with their problems on their own. So now it is Serbia’s turn to learn to just let them go and avoid the grief of a continuous ground-swell of unrest in search of independence. However we only have to look at the recent history of the Balkans to work out how unlikely this course of action is. As each country has broken away from what was Yugoslavia, the Serbs have fought a, generally unsuccessful, civil war to keep as much of the land as possible under their own control. The sooner Serbia learn from their recent history, the sooner we will see peace and tolerance in the Balkans.
This entry was posted on February 25, 2008 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Serbia & Kosovo
By goodtalkingThe arrogance of the Serbs is at least refreshing. It seems it is not just the Americans and Russians who say they know what is best for people in other countries. Apparently the Serbs feel they have some emotional claim that their roots are in Kosovo. Well so what! Given humanity’s propensity for migration, most of us on the planet have our roots somewhere else. That does not give us any justification at all for controlling those who still live in that location.
Perhaps if the Serbs had been a little more open minded and tolerant of the cultural differences in Kosovo and taken that into account in setting up a reasonable governance model, then maybe Kosovo would not have felt the need to go independent.
But now we have a people who have decided in a referendum that they want to bear their own burdens of governance. Why would anyone else know better what they want than the Kosovans themselves. We should just leave them to it. The Serbs should be thankful that they have got rid of a province that bore a solid antipathy towards them, and that would have no doubt caused problems in the future under Serbian regulatory authority. With reference to the African independence movement, the English and French have learned to a certain degree that ruling obstreperous colonies is more trouble than it is worth, and have let those colonies go off and deal with their problems on their own. So now it is Serbia’s turn to learn to just let them go and avoid the grief of a continuous ground-swell of unrest in search of independence. However we only have to look at the recent history of the Balkans to work out how unlikely this course of action is. As each country has broken away from what was Yugoslavia, the Serbs have fought a, generally unsuccessful, civil war to keep as much of the land as possible under their own control. The sooner Serbia learn from their recent history, the sooner we will see peace and tolerance in the Balkans.
Tags: civil war, independance, Kosovo, self governance, Serbia, tolerance
This entry was posted on February 25, 2008 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.