Letter From Europe
Misuse of a myth and the birth of a nation
A new nation has been born in Europe. After nearly nine years of tutelage under the United Nations, Kosovo has just declared its independence from Serbia. This is good news and is, indeed, cause for celebration.
Like the Bangladeshis, the people of Kosovo had to make enormous sacrifices to win their independence. So we are in a position to appreciate their feelings and share their joy. We, the Bangladeshis, welcome Kosovo as the newest member of the family of nations.
Although Hashim Thaci, the prime minister of Kosovo, in his unilateral declaration of independence, proclaimed Kosovo as "an independent and sovereign state," the reality is quite different. Kosovo, a small, land-locked country of the size of Qatar, will only be nominally independent. Its national sovereignty will remain circumscribed, with the EU exercising a strong supervisory role as far as civil administration is concerned, with the Nato guaranteeing its national security.
Approximately two thousand functionaries, police officers, judges, prosecutors, customs officers etc. from EU countries will look after the civil administration, while approximately 16 thousand Nato troops will guard its frontiers and continue to maintain peace between the 95 % Albanian majority and 5% Serbian minority.
Most members (20 out of 27) of the European Union and the United States have expressed their willingness to recognise Kosovo's independence. Serbia, which considers Kosovo as its heartland since medieval times, reacted in a violent manner. Its leaders have proclaimed Serbia's sacred rights to Kosovo for being their "ancestral homeland," and refused to recognise "this fictitious state."
Although Belgrade has, for the time being, ruled out using military force to keep Kosovo, some of the Orthodox Church leaders have urged Serbia to retake Kosovo militarily. As usual, Russia has given its unconditional support to the Serbs, who, after so many deaths and so much suffering, still seem to believe in this "ancestral homeland" theory. So, the question is: Is this a myth or has it got any historical foundation?
In about the tenth century BC (long before the Slavs made their appearance on the Balkan scene), the Illyrians (of Indo-European origin), ancestors of modern Albanians, occupied a sizeable expanse of territory in Europe, which included not only the whole of modern-day Albania but also Kosovo.
In 168 BC, it became part of the Roman Empire. The conquered Illyrians rendered distinguished services in the Roman legions. It is also interesting to note that some of the most important Roman emperors, like Diocletian and Constantine the Great, were of Illyrian origin.
Although Hun and Visigoth incursions, in the period between the third and the fifth centuries, devastated the Roman Empire, they did not make lasting alteration to the ethnic composition of the Illyrian-speaking territories of the empire. But the Slav invasions, which started in the sixth century, completely transformed the ethnic structure of the area in approximately one hundred years.
Croatia, Serbia, Dalmatia, Montenegro and parts of Macedonia became Slav-dominated territories. Only the Albanians (including the Kosovars) survived as the direct descendants of the Illyrians.
Towards the end of the 12th century, Kosovo was conquered by the Serbians and annexed to Serbia. Despite efforts by the Serbian religious and political authorities to build many Orthodox churches and monasteries and to settle Serbs in Kosovo, its population remained predominantly Albanian. In this context, it is worth stressing that the Albanians and their ancestors had been living in Kosovo for more than two thousand years before any Serb ever set foot on its soil.
In 1389, a decisive battle was fought between the invading Turks and the Serbs, in which the Serbs were defeated, thus paving the way to the conquest not only of Kosovo but also the whole of Serbia by the Ottomans. The memory of this battle (the battle of Kosovo) is probably what gave birth to the Serbian myth of Kosovo being their "ancestral homeland."
After nearly five hundred years, as the military power of the Ottomans started to decline, the Serbs fought for independence and, finally, with the help of the Russians, Serbia became a fully independent country in 1878.
At the end of the second Balkan War in 1913, Serbia militarily occupied Kosovo, and at the end of the first World War in 1918, the peacemakers confirmed the annexation of Kosovo by Serbia because of Serb participation in the war on the Allied side and also to satisfy the Serb claim to their "ancestral homeland," thus sowing the seeds of ethnic dissension for the future. (This was the original sin committed by the West, which was in a way redeemed by President Clinton's decision to bomb Yugoslavia to save the people of Kosovo from genocide in 1999).
A new term, "Turk," was invented. It did not refer to ethnic Turks alone. Its wider connotation also included the Slav Muslims, who spoke Serbo-Croatian, and, of course, the Albanian-speaking Kosovars. Due to popular uprising by ethnic Albanians, Kosovo achieved autonomous status within Serbia in 1946.
During the days of Tito (1945-1980), who was a pragmatist, the people of Kosovo were allowed to manage their affairs and use their language as the medium of instruction. Tito's death in 1980 changed all that.
It was Milosevic, the Serbian dictator, who revived the "ancestral homeland" and "sacred rights to Kosovo" myths, and exploited the already existing anti-Albanian feelings among the Serbs to capture power. In April 1987, he visited Kosovo and declared that Kosovo was the heartland of the Serbian people and the ethnic Albanians were mere usurpers.
In 1989, he abolished Kosovo's autonomous status, put the entire province under Serb paramilitary rule (later replaced by the Yugoslav federal army), sacked tens of thousands of Albanians from their jobs, introduced an apartheid system, prohibited the use of Albanian as the medium of education and started a vigorous campaign of ethnic cleansing against the civilian population with the intention of emptying Kosovo of ethnic Albanians. The subsequent events that led to the birth of Europe's newest nation are well known to every one.
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