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rfmcdonaldYesterday's declaration of independence has met with a mixed global reaction, but general recognition isn't far off. Most of the member-states of the European Union, including Britain, France, Italy and Germany, are planning to announce their recognition of Kosovo's independence, alongside extra-regional countries like the United States and perhaps Japan, and Muslim countries of note like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The result? A state with an international status that Douglas Muir called a "Balkan Taiwan", a state that enjoys recognition from most of its neighbours and the European Union and with many other countries, but which lacks recognition from other major powers (Russia, China) along with international institutions like the United Nations.
My opinion? Yugoslavia was an idea that worked quite well for a time, and could have worked better if not for first and foremost paranoid Serb nationalism that helped destroy a promising upper-middle multiethnic income country. Had Yugoslavia survived, would almost certainly have joined the European Union at least as early as the big bang accession of 2004. Serb nationalism as applied to ethnic Albanians was particularly destructive, reducing them almost to the level of Morlocks as Vladimir Arsenijevic described in his essay "Our negroes, our enemies". In the light of this and the general unwillingness of anyone living in either Serbia or Kosovo to exist in multiethnic societies, a separation of Kosovo from a Serbia strikes me as probably the least bad solution.
As for the international consequences, eh. There are plenty of frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet world and elsewhere. Maybe, under supervision, they should start to thaw.
Your thoughts?
My opinion? Yugoslavia was an idea that worked quite well for a time, and could have worked better if not for first and foremost paranoid Serb nationalism that helped destroy a promising upper-middle multiethnic income country. Had Yugoslavia survived, would almost certainly have joined the European Union at least as early as the big bang accession of 2004. Serb nationalism as applied to ethnic Albanians was particularly destructive, reducing them almost to the level of Morlocks as Vladimir Arsenijevic described in his essay "Our negroes, our enemies". In the light of this and the general unwillingness of anyone living in either Serbia or Kosovo to exist in multiethnic societies, a separation of Kosovo from a Serbia strikes me as probably the least bad solution.
As for the international consequences, eh. There are plenty of frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet world and elsewhere. Maybe, under supervision, they should start to thaw.
Your thoughts?
