In Pristina, the capital of the make-believe country of Kosovo, there is a
street named after Bill Clinton,
and a statue of Bill – done in the
Socialist Realist style – towers over the main square. They also named
a boulevard after George W. Bush, perhaps to hedge their bets after the
Republicans took the White House. You couldn’t ask for a more “pro-American”
country than this one: but that’s just on the surface. Undercurrents of rabid
nationalism – and real resentment of the Americans and Europeans who have been
baby-sitting the Kosovars all these years – is now breaking out that threatens
whatever modicum of stability Kosovo has ever known.
Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, but in reality it is the US Embassy,
rather than the Parliament building in Pristina, that is the epicenter of governance
in what amounts to an American protectorate in the heart of Europe. And this
essentially colonialist relationship, combined with Bill Clinton’s decision
in the 1990s to unleash the often violent spirit of Albanian nationalism, is
rupturing the fragile state apparatus.
Twenty or so years after the American “liberation” of Kosovo forcibly separated
it from the former Yugoslavia, the country is a mess. Unemployment is massive: crime
is pandemic;
and an ultra-nationalist movement, Vetevendosje,
is on the rise. Vetevendosje wants to achieve the dream of the old Kosovo Liberation
Army: a “Greater
Albania.” Toward this end, the ultra-nationalists, who polled some 14%
of the vote in the last elections, are demanding union with Albania – just
as the KLA did. Their leader, one Albin Kurti, disdains representative democracy,
which he
sees as an instrument of “neo-liberalism”:
“We think that representative democracy is not enough – direct participatory
democracy ensures a more vibrant society. Representative democracy is illegitimate,
it creates alienation and limits choice.”
In short, Kurti and his comrades want mob rule. Furthermore, they want a crackdown
on what they see as Serb irredentism: a recent agreement, presided
over by the US and the European Union, granted beleaguered Serbs in the northern
part of the country the right to form a union of Serb municipalities. The nationalists
abhor this, and have launched a series of violent protests, not only in the
streets but also in the halls of the Parliament. Vetevendosje MPs have let
loose with tear gas grenades at least nine times, by my count, in order
to bring the proceedings to a halt.
The latest violence occurred this month when 10,000 Albanian nationalist demonstrators
converged on government headquarters, set
it afire, and went on a rampage that didn’t end until police dispersed them
with ample quantities of tear gas. Opposition leaders have said they will not
relent until either…