Gorgeous Asian-American actress Kristin Kreuk has cut off her long hair, which was all the excuse I needed to remind the world of how beautiful she is.

Via Ummm… I cut off all my hair!

Because there has been way too much heavy content lately….

“Lippmann…argued in his best-selling book called Public Opinion that democracy was fundamentally flawed. People, he said, mostly know the world only indirectly, through “pictures they make up in their heads.” And they receive these mental pictures largely through the media. The problem, Lippmann argued, is that the pictures people have in their heads are hopelessly distorted and incomplete, marred by the irredeemable weaknesses of the press. Just as bad, the public’s ability to comprehend the truth, even if it happened to come across it, was undermined by human bias, stereotype, inattentiveness, and ignorance. In the end, Lippmann though citizens are like theatregoers who “arrive in the middle of the third act and leave before the last curtain, staying just long enough to decide who is the hero and who is the villain“. – “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovac and Tom Rosensteil (2001)

In day-to-day life, as in science, we all resist fundamental paradigm change. Social scientist Jay Stuart Snelson calls this resistance an ideological immune system: “educated, intelligent, and successful adults rarely change their most fundamental presuppositions” (1993, p. 54). According to Snelson, the more knowledge individuals have accumulated, and the more well-founded their theories have become (and remember, we all tend to look for and remember confirmatory evidence, not counterevidence), the greater the confidence in their ideologies. The consequence of this, however, is that we build up an “immunity” against new ideas that do not corroborate previous ones. Historians of science call this the Planck Problem, after physicist Max Planck, who made this observation on what must happen for innovation to occur in science: “An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning” (1936, p. 97). -  “How Thinking Goes Wrong: Twenty-five Fallacies That Lead Us to Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer

Michael Totten has posted the latest in his series on the Balkans, this time covering Serbia (outside of Belgrade), Republika Srpska and Bosnia & Hertizigova, Croatia and Montenegro.

After massive battles in the first two parts (1 & 2), I was pleased to see this one was much more balanced and fair.

The report is only mildly anti-Serb in the sense that all the nasty characters and places are Serb, all the decent folks are non-Serbs. That said, he did plug “Old” Belgrade nicely.

What follows is my response to Michael. It will make no sense unless you read the original article.

These articles and their subsequent discussions highlight the Serb predicament.  The double standards, the denial of Serb victimhood, the libels against the Serbs (as though they did not have enough real crimes to be guilty for) and a distinct lack of empathy, it is all there, mostly in the comments. They highlight the fact that what was true of Lippmann’s 1920′s America is doubly true of the Balkans today (and the ongoing debates about its past, present and future).

The Serbs are permanently established as villains, the rest – Croats, Albanians and Bosnian Muslims – are all designated victims or heroic resistors of Serbian aggression. The very word “Serb” is a loaded word. One finds that even on websites like Michael Totten’s, commentators are welcome to post openly hateful libels against Serb whilst merely pointing out that the libels are based on half-truths, cherry picking, hasty generalization or lies,  will get your banned or warned.

As H. L. Mencken noted “For every complicated problem there is a simple and wrong solution”. In the Balkans it is blame the Serbs. In the Middle East, blame the Israelis, elsewhere it is typically blame the Americans.

As I noted in my Pajama’s Media article I believe that most Serbophobia is based on what British journalist Nick Davies calls “flat earth news”, a story – in this case Serb villainy – that appears to be true and is widely accepted as true, such that eventually it becomes a heresy to suggest that it is not true — even if it is riddled with falsehood, distortion, and propaganda.

People are deeply ignorant about the Balkans and its recent history (not to mention medieval or pre-history). All they know is what they picked up in that third act, namely that the villains are Serbs. This exploited by  anti-Serb bigots whose favourite tactic is to point out Serbs wrong-doings, but out of context and without comparison. This is, of course, the fallacy of Selective Observation.  When  one addresses this fallacy by noting the wider picture or pointing out that Serbs comparatively blameless/innocent/not guilty, one risks being accused of being a bigot attacking the groups one is comparing the Serbs against.

A good example of this is the Serbs-as-WW2-collaborators-and-Jew-killers libel. One an Albanian-American commentator kept trying to claim that “Serbs” were anti-Semites becuase – oh the irony – a Croatian documentary about Serb collaborators in WW2 claimed as much.

As I noted in the comments:

Lets say that it is true that 11,000 Jews were killed by Serb collaborators in WW2, how does that crime stack up against the crimes in context of the time and region?

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum states that:

“The Croat authorities murdered between 330,000 and 390,000 ethnic Serb residents of Croatia and Bosnia during the period of Ustaša rule; more than 30,000 Croatian Jews were killed either in Croatia or at Auschwitz-Birkenau.”

At the same site we read that Romania killed 270,000 Jews and Hungary killed 500,000 Jews.

The People of Albania, to their credit, were heroic in hiding and protecting Jews in Albania. To their discredit, though, they had an Albanian SS Division and they too had collaborators who handed over Jews. The number of Jews handed over was tiny, but this is because there were only 2-300 Jews in the entire country.

The picture was different outside of Albania proper.

“Between 1941 and 1944, nearly 600 Jews from Greater Albania were sent to their deaths in various concentration camps around Europe. It is for this reason that many historians disagree over the role of Albanians in the Holocaust. While Albanians may have attempted to rescue the Jews in Albania proper, the government was aware of the round-up and deportation of Jews from the Kosovo region.” [Jewish Virtual Library]

She kept trying to libel the Serbs as anti-Semites based on their putative historical crimes and I was forced to post Jewish and Israeli holocaust sources to expose her blood libel, but in doing so I was forced to point out Albanian and Croatian wrongs.

She was doing to Serbs what was done to Jews for centuries, making up lurid and patently false charges of brutality and evil that the ignorant and bigoted public accept as true. And this is just one example of many. The anti-Serb comments on the Totten articles are a veritable example sheet of fallacies: Proof by Anecdote, hasty Generalizations, Straw Man, Guilt By Association, Biased Sample…the list goes on.

Oddly enough I am not that worried about the more active and open bigots. Their one-sidedness and extremism tend to serve as warning to the more intelligent readers (the ones who matter) . Self-advertising hater-mongers are not the danger, it is the soft bias that causes the most trouble.This is where people like Michael enter the story. Despite his protests to the contrary, I detected a clear, lack of sympathy towards the Serbs (so far anyway).

This conforms with what I have observed about biases in general, even in their mildest forms, they strangle empathy. On example is Michael driving around with a Belgrade registered car getting paranoid about being mistaken for a Serb, but yet completely failing to imagine what it must be like for a real Serb to face that constant aggression and hostility.

Who cares if some independent US journalist “does” the Balkans and comes out against the Serbs based on his few hours in country?

Well I care.

Michael certainly seems to have left with a negative impression of Serbia (and Serbs) that is completely at odds with experiences reported by most visitors I have spoken to. I think this is becuase he arrived with that “impression” and he saw only what reinforced it, not what is really here at all.

His visit was way too brief for him to really experience the country and he spoke to only the ultra-liberal wing of the political spectrum (imagine getting your US “facts” from Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, John Berger and Naomi Klein). No wonder he left with the same impression he arrived with.

The problem, as I note below, is that this is an influential independent journalist who is also, I believe,  a completely honourable and well intentioned person.  His voice carries weight and it is precisely people like him that need to be engaged or otherwise, lies pass into history.

The basis of so much Serbophobia and anti-Serb reporting is that so many lies have already passed into history about this country, its people and its recent history.

One of the gravest problems is that the urgent requirement for Serbs to own up to and repudiate what was done in their name is scuttled by gross exaggerations, lies and being blamed for things they did not do. It is further aggravated by negative characterizations of the Serbs growing like mushroom on the back of previous negative characterizations.

Serbs will not be able to grant justice to those they wronged until the wrongs against them are at least recognised, if not redressed. It is for this reason that I take the fight to the comment sections of blogs and spend my precious time countering the bigotry I find there.

Here are my commerts posted on Michael Totten’s blog post.

Hi Michael, I see you have started banning. Sheesh. Pro-Serbs really do make you mad! Oh well

I am going to avoid getting bogged down by the snidery of some of our resident sock-puppets and shills, and respect you wishes about commenting on the content of your post (although enforcing this policy on those cooking off on myself and other would be appreciated).

Karadic Poster

Regarding the Karadic poster, can I ask where you saw this? I travel that highway regularly and I am am frequently in New Belgrade but I have never seen it. There is nothing on Flickr, the local news, any of the Belgrade photography sites or other blogs. Are you sure it was not someone else? An advert perhaps? If I can locate it I can have it removed. Seriously, that sort of idiot gesture lets down the whole city and is almost certainly illegal. The worst I hve ever seen is illegal hawkers selling small posters.

Nice words about Belgrade

Thanks for the kind(er) words about Belgrade. It was good to see you praising the city this time.

Currency in the Balkans

You are right about Dinars. Whilst it is possible to convert them in some places outside Serbia, generally it is best to carry Euros. Even in Serbia many people use Euros which are pretty much accepted everywhere.

Primitive anti-Americanism

Regarding Serbia’s “primitive anti-Americanism” which I would say is no more primitive than any other variety of prejudice, I think you will find that even in the countryside people will treat all foreigners extremely well. There are exceptions, sure, but as a rule of thumb we foreigners find rural Serbia to be as welcoming and kind as Belgrade, which is bend-over-backwards nice to us. I have personally seen much worse anti-Americanism in rural Ireland than Serbia, with much less justification. It was nice to hear about the Albanian woman who comes to Belgrade regularly. It says to me that an Albanian woman from Kosovo can be welcomed amongst Serbs and have a great time in Belgrade. I know of similar tales from the thousands of Croats and Slovenians that also come to party in Belgrade. They generally feel welcome and safe and love the place. It seem that the Albanian woman was the only one with a problem, the one never forgetting she was in the company of Serbs. Even her choice of words was suspect. Describing someone as a “Chetnick guy” is ethnic slur around he. It is like a Serb calling an Albanian a “Shiptar” or using the N-word to describe an African-American. The Wikipedia article you link to confirms this. That said, very occasionally one can come across a look, an under the breath comment, some “atmosphere” but it is very rare and Serbs will not tolerate it. I cannot go on enough about how good it is to be a foreigner in Serbia, even an American.

The incident in the sticks

Regarding your experience in noname town, I am not sure why you devoted so much time to the strange inciden. How did you know the man was a Serb? How did you know he was asking for money? How did you know he insulted you in Serbian, or later yelled something awful? This looks like just another “dramatic” incident that tells me plenty about the village loon but nothing about anything else, except perhaps to underscore that Serbia is full of nasty aggressive money obsessed people. Was that your point?

Roadsigns in Republika Srpska

I completely understand your frustration with road signs in Serbia and RS. They are very bad generally and the policy of Cyrillic only signs in RS is monumentally idiotic. Signs are for people who do not know where they need to go, almost by definition people not from that locality. Interestingly, you note that you saw no road sign anywhere in Republika Srpska that pointed toward Sarajevo. If you ever try and get to Belgrade from Croatia you will find the same thing. Belgrade and Serbia do not exist. The first signs for Belgrade on the Zagreb – Belgrade highway start about 40km from the border. Serbs to their credit, have signs to every major town in the region even in the center of Belgrade.

Coldly sized up by brutes

It seems you luck with Serbs really is very bad. Even the nice guy who helps you navigate is cancelled out by Mr Cold Sizeup who is plotting to steal your watch. I am struggling to understand how I, and every other foreigner I know who lives here, seems to have just about the opposite impression.

Bosnian scars

I saw war scars everywhere in Bosnia, so again I am surprised to see you did not spot any damage in Serb towns. Maybe they use the money from stolen American watches to pay for teams of repairmen to patch up their bullet holes?

Encounter with Mr Frown-at-Serbs

Your encounter with the kind Bosnian in the village was weird. He displays the casual anti-Serb prejudice Serbs have come to expect almost everywhere in the region and then all is well when he discovers you are not those bastard Serbs the ones who “shot up [their] houses” that you are “from a country that kinda sorta helped [them] a little during the war”. Imagine for a minute you were not an American, but you were a Serb, would you approve of his reaction? Perhaps you might not, but simply file it as “understandable”? If that is so, then how can you be alarmed and seemingly upset by the “primitive” anti-Americanism of people whose houses you DID “shoot up” and sorta bombed for 79 days? I am not sure why the Bosnian’s wariness and negativity is OK, but the Serb’s is not?

Rebecca, our mutal love

Thanks for quoting Rebacca West. I was oddly honoured that you saw fit to use the quote from our last discussion.

Bosnian Muslim forgiveness

The Muslims undoubtedly were the biggest victims by far of the horrors of the Yugoslav wars. That is partly why I am so stunned by their forgiveness and general lack of animosity. Just this weekend I had a guest from Visoko stay with me. I am humbled by the lack of ethnic hatred sensible analysis that so many of my Bosnian friends seem to exhibit. This chat was Ethnic Cleansed by Croats when he was 6. Despite years in a German refugee camp and eventual resettlement in New York State, he is back in Bosnia fighting bigotry and nationalism on all sides. As I noted elsewhere, the Bosnian’s are model of what a secular Muslim-majority state can be. I genuinely wish them all the best.

Danger on the road for accidental “Serbs”

Driving a BG plate car was brave, If you leave your BG plate car unattended in Croatia you risk it being keyed (scraped). Mere hostile looks are a comparative luxury for Serbs. I am not sure about Sarajevo and the Federation but a Serb plate car in Kosovo is considered extremely risky outside of the Serb north. I hope you were OK. By the way, how did it feel being a “Serb”? Not nice huh. Plenty of hostility? Well now you know how Serbs feel.

Mosque with its minaret blown off

Your comments about the Mosque and the Minaret deserve a comment. You note that “Two blocks away from the decapitated mosque was an intact Serbian Orthodox church.” That surprised me, because you were in the middle of Herzegovina – Bosnian Croat territory – are you sure it was not a Catholic Church? Incidentally, some of the people of Herzegovina are restive and there is sabre rattling about a Kosovo style secession from the federation.

Mostar’s benignity

Mostar is stunning, but sadly it is also deeply troubled. Behind the gorgeous façade is an ethnically divided city with simmering tensions. It is not nearly as benign s it looks. After last week’s Turkey – Croatia football match (the one Croatia lost to penalties despite playing magnificently), massive riots broke out in Mostar after the match with Turkey supporting Bosnian Muslims versus Croatia supporting Bosnian Croats.

Flag lines streets

Did you not think it strange that Croats have their had flags draped everywhere? Did you see that in Serbia?

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik is gorgeous, but after spending 2 weeks there in 2006 I was a bit fed up. It has been ruined in exactly the same was Venice has. It has become a purely tourist based city. Beautiful to be sure, but a Disneyfied space. The shelling of Dubrovnik it was an enormity but oddly when I was there local rudeness was reserved for more for tourists that theri supposed ethnic enemies the Serbs. Serbs in our party had the effect of making waiters and others friendlier not nastier. Cab drivers asked after the White City (Belgrade) and waiters aked how things were back in Serbia. Not a hint of the anti-Serb incidents one hears so much about around Split. Dubrovnik, like much of Croatia, does feel markedly more “Western” that other parts of the Balkans. The city, like many of the towns and islands of that coastline, is genuinely fascinating.

Kotor and Shkodra

I think in Kotor you may have seen the best of Montenegro, had you stopped. It rivals Dubrovnik for beauty. I also think you missed out not spending time in Shkodra. It is also very pretty and I know several people from there and they are lovely people. It much safer there too now. Just last year an Irish friend from the UN spent a long weekend around there and said that it was a fantastic experience – friendly people, lovely beaches and no bandits in sight.

Final thoughts (for now)

Thanks for these reports. I enjoy them very much even if I disagree with you sometimes. I know you are not an Ethnographer, and these dispatches are very much fleeting impressions of the places you visit, but please keep in mind that as a respected independent voice your opinion, however it came to be formed, carries weight.

Even a slight bias can end up being magnified and stereotypes reinforced. In this age of media cynicism, people like you are now increasingly becoming the writers of the the first draft of history. That is why talking to you is so important. If you write about places like the Balkans, with its raw wounds and muddled lie-polluted past, you can expect to draw fire and fury.

Sure they can be ugly and fierce and contentious, but by having these discussions we ensure, to paraphrase Orwell, that lies do NOT pass into history. Banning those you disagree with is not a good solution. The very point of blogs is not to lecture but to converse. It is in these conversations that errors are corrected, biases exposed and unfairness challenged.

It is the lifeblood of serious journalism.

It would be real pity for you to become just another victim of the Balkans, and have this great site reduced to an echo chamber that merely reinforces groupthink and insulates you against cognitive dissonance. Clearly this is not the case now, but banning is where this rot starts. Don’t let it happen, please.

Michael responded to me in very civilised manner (as usual). The in response to a post where he wrote:

The difference between the two sides are as irreconcilable as those between Israel and Hamas. Hamas wants to conquer Israel, Israel says no, so they fight. Serbia wants to conquer Kosovo (again), Kosovars say no, so they either fight or have an external solution imposed upon them.

…Anyway, the Bush Administration will not rescind its recognition of Kosovo, nor will a McCain or Obama Administration. None of our opinions will change that.

I responded with this…

Hi Michael,

I personally do not think the Serbs want to really “reconquer” Kosovo.

Despite what Serbian politicians say publicly, it is an open secret that many of them are glad to be rid of the place. As they see it, Kosovo was a financial, military and political burden which is now the UN’s problem.

My personal suspicion, and this is backed by discussions with diplomats and locals, is that they are paying lip service to an unyielding position on Kosovo whilst they hold out for partitioning and perhaps better “inducements” from the EU.

Everyone knows it would be utterly impossible to reintegrate 1.5 million unwilling Kosovar Albanians into Serbia after what happened in 1999 (and years of abuse at the hands of the Milosevic regime).

Even the Radical Party supporters are stumped when I point out to them that id miraculously Kosovar Albanians decided all was forgiven and that they would love to be back in the folds of mother Serbia’s skirts, the Radicals would never get anywhere near power. Those ethnic Albanian voters would provide just the swing voted needed to keep the Liberal and Democratic parties in power without so much as a nod at the Socialists or Radicals.

So what now?

It may very well be true that neither this nor any (near) future US administration will rescind its recognition of Kosovo, but as long as the EU is stuck in its impasse over Kosovo, and the Russia/China axis is against set against it, we have a frozen conflict.

I am starting to think that partition is the fairest and most pragmatic solution. If it happens, and its looking increasingly likely, it should be followed by speedy EU membership for Kosovo, Serbia, Albania and the rest of former Yugoslav states not yet in the EU.

This should help boost regional economies and the Irish model has shown us that this goes a long way to helping solve seemingly intractable ethnic conflict.

The discussion after that is just me objecting to yet more Anti-Serb bigotry and name-calling which unsurprisingly led to yet more Anti-Serb bigotry and name calling. Like so many of the Balkan diaspora, I think this postcard applies to them beautifully…

Michael J. Totten: The Road to Kosovo, Part I

http://www.flickr.com/photos/limbic/2531232426/

Freddy Hagen is an extraordinarily talented Danish photographer.

Recently he returned from a trip to the Middle East and has uploaded some slide shows.

One in particular is a must see, Cairo Megacity. It is a slide show with music and both the music and photographs are utterly beautiful.

His other slide shows are also superb. Don’t miss Aid al-Adha, a photo essay about the Islamic festival where feat animals are slaughtered on the streets of Cairo (nor for the squeamish).

He also offers a radically alternative view of Denmark’s capital Copenhagen in another superb musical sideshow called Copenhagen 2007. Don’t miss the dramatic riot footage at the end.

The happy innocent days when Serbs thought that with Slobo gone, they would be treated fairly.

I have received a number of emails from friends curious to know the inside track on the Kosovo situation from their man on the ground in Serbia.

The problem is that when one is very close to the situation, and are disinterest enough to be able to see the complexities, it become very hard to summarise the story for those watching through the grossly distorted lenses of the infotainment industry (aka the media).

Even though I am not a Serbs, I am emotionally exhausted and drained by the whole topic. I just want it to be over now so the country can move on. That said I owe it to many of you to give you some insights that I have gleaned living in Serbia and having seen the situation close-up for three years. This is my position statement on Kosovo:

The Serbs are rightfully furious. Kosovo has, indeed, been illegally stolen from them by means of gross and illegal violence (the bombing) . They have been bullied by a strongly biased anti-Serb EU and America that cannot admit that they were duped by the terrorist KLA into illegally bombing a sovereign state in defence of Ethnic Nationalist separatists who mostly staged a humanitarian crisis (I say mostly becuase there is no doubt Milosevic’s forces did commit at least some atrocities). The EU and US are violating long-standing and fundamental principles of International Law and diplomacy – Sovereign Equality and Inviolable borders – two pillars of modern stability since World War 2.

States recognising Kosovo insisted that it is not a precedent because it is a “special case”. The reasoning is that supposed crimes committed by the Serbian government against Kosovars have removed Serbia’s right to govern this part of its own country. This reasoning is baseless in law and ignores the fact that those crimes were massively and deliberately exaggerated by orders of magnitude.

Additionally the appalling treatment of minorities by Albanians is ignored. Serbian, Roma and Gorani minorities have suffered much more ethnic violence and deracination than Albanians. By that logic of the EU/US they Albanians have ruled themselves out of governing the province too.

The democratic and pluralist Serbia of 2008 is being punished today for the actions of a deposed and dead dictator, himself an Ethnic Nationalist, acting without proper mandate in a country that violently opposed to him. It is like punishing the people of Iraq for the actions of Saddam Hussein.

The reasons and justifications for NATO intervening in Kosovo in 1999 were utterly baseless and illegal.

The reasons and justifications offered by the EU/US for granting Kosovo independence today are also baseless and illegal. They are desperate to be done with the mess they have created in Kosovo. They are also desperate not to establish a precedent – even though that is exactly exactly what Kosovo is: The intellectual, moral and legal justification that every separatist region of the world was waiting for.

With all that said, here is the shocker: I support Kosovo independence.

As a pro-Serb I find myself in the strange situation of being outraged by the way in which Kosovo was forced from Serbia but at the same time convinced that the best thing may now be to just let it go and move on. If the EU were trying to force Serbia to integrate Kosovo there would be war. When I ask Serbs the simple questions: “Do you really want to have over a million hostile Albanians as citizens of Serbia?” the answer is resoundingly “No”.

I believe you would have 500 year problem if you forced Kosovo back into Serbia. There would be massive community tensions, possibly insurrection and destabilising war. I believe Kosovo is economically untenable and would be a burden to the State of Serbia. I think there is better way, and this is what it is. Since the the people of Kosovo and the people of Serbia will be neighbours forever, some sort of accommodation must eventually be reached. I believe the best chance of that is when both regions are more prosperous and borders are completely open: both in the EU, for example.

If it were done to me (and it is not of course, I support the people of Serbia in what they decide) this is what I would do if I were president of Serbia.

I would endorse full independence and international recognition for the State of Kosovo with a commitment to mutual social and economic development, with the following conditions:

• Financial compensation to be paid to Serbia for the illegal and wrongful bombing by NATO in 1999
• EU sponsored recompense for the 400bn of Serbian State assets in Kosovo
• Full acknowledgement that putative Serbian crimes in Kosovo – and the justifications for the bombing – were massively over stated
• Full recognition that the Republic of Serbia is surrendering its rightful sovereignty over its province of Kosovo in the interests of peace and stability and with the understanding that its sovereignty and territory is henceforth fixed forever
• Immediate fast-track accession status for Serbia AND Kosovo into the EU
• Kosovo to remain a sovereign state until at least 2030, with no option for unifying with neighbours or other secessionist territories.
• UN/NATO funded peacekeeping mission to guarantee the safety of minorities (Gorani, Roma and Serbs) until 2030 or until the Serbia Parliament agrees to end the mission.
• World Heritage Status for remaining Serbian Churches and monasteries with permanent guards and protection
• Harsh hate crime legislation to be part of the Kosovo law guaranteeing safety for all against ethnic violence and sectarian oppression
• Right of return and/or full restitution for deracinated Serbs, Roma and Gorani
• 20 year energy and mineral rights concessions for the Republic or Serbia in Kosovo mines
• Guaranteed investments and structural loans to bootstrap Sustainable Economic Development (Business Process Outsourcing, Renewable Energy, Hi Tech Low Infrastructure Industries)
• That the EU funds a full transport and infrastructure upgrade to Serbian sections of corridors 10 and 8 to include redundant fibre links to Timishoara, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Budapest and Zagreb
• Serbia to retain Free Trade Agreements with Russian Federation and the EU with the exclusive right to conduit trade for Serbian manufactured or produced goods
• A UN/NATO funded Peace and Reconciliation Commission to resolve and finally account for 20th Century Balkan History and end the ludicrous anti-Serb bias in the narrative of the Yugoslav wars and super state institutions like ICTY

This is my best case scenario. Other scenarios – all of them ranging from very unlikely to ludicrous – include:

• An orgy of separatism and unification, with Kosovo partitioned into Albanian south and Serbian north. Republika Srpska (Serbian part of Bosnia) secedes from Bosnia and formally joins up up with Serbia and Northern Kosovo to form the Greater Serbia of Milosevic’s dreams. Meanwhile Albanians in Macedonia and Montenegro secede and join with Albanian and Souther Kosovo to form a Greater Albania
• A Cyprus like partitioning with a partly recognised southern Kosovo continuing in limbo for another 20 years
• Kosovo slips into destitution as a failed mafia state and requests reunification with thriving Serbia
• Kosovo merges with Albania
• Russians assist Serbia in forcefully recapturing Kosovo

Here are some other things I have learned from the Kosovo situation:

Population is Destiny.

For at least 1000 years Kosovo has been considered by Serbs to be their spiritual heartland. The problem is that the Collins Atlas of World History is right: Half of history is human migration (the other half is mostly population fluctuations and conquest). In Kosovo, these factors went against the Serbs. Due to migration and rapid Albanian population growth, Kosovo’s population became overwhelmingly Albanian in the 20th century and that fact alone made its eventual separation from Serbia inevitable. Population is destiny, and the Serbs in Kosovo once outbred and outnumbered were eventually, and dare I say it, inevitably, deracinated. [NB. It is a little known fact that the biggest number of victims of Ethnic Cleansing are Serbs, with hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees (or Internally Displaced People) from Croatia and Kosovo still crowded into emergency housing across Serbia.

You reap what is sown in your name

Human rights violations carried out in the name of Serbs inflicted enormous damage on the reputation of Serbs and Serbia. A perception took hold that Serbs were genocidal murderers and this (unfair) perception was exploited by Albanian propagandists to devastating effect. If Milosevic has not walked into the KLA trap with his over reacting in Kosovo, there could never have been any global support for Kosovo.

Passivity and learned helplessness blight Serbia

Unlike other Balkan peoples, overseas Serbs had no cohesive lobby and even today the Serbian Diaspora is muted and ineffectual. Overseas Serbs are the key to the future of Serbia not only as returnees, but also as global lobbyists and investors in Serbia (via remittances or bankrolling business opportunities). Are they helping? Not that I can see. Currently many overseas Serbs have a contemptuous attitude to their homeland. Those that consider themselves patriots damage the reputation of the country further by fighting at tennis championships or through online abuse. A major problem is resigned passivity, self-pity and Learned Helplessness.

People refuse to vote out corrupt politicians. They lament “Its Serbia brother”, or plead “What can we do”? The answer is “Plenty”. It may just be pure exhaustion and cynicism but Serbs today do not seem to have the energy to tackle their problems forcefully. People put their faith in “The Russians” or prayer or magic. The situation is aggravated by dreadful and self-serving local politicians and a harmful cultural artefact that can only be described as some sort of Martyr Syndrome, a national self-pity that blocks the nation’s healing and stops Serbs account for what happened to them and for what was done in their name. Serbs should stop being furious with Albanians or Americans and direct their fury at  the corrupt political elites who have inflicted disasters on them. The political classes continue to threaten their future with short-termism and political cowardice (i.e. refusing to state publicly what most know and believe, namely that Kosovo is irreversibly lost to Serbia). Until Serbs do something to help themselves , and stop wallowing in self-pity (however justified) , they will continue to languish in limbo.

We have amused ourselves to death

via Robin Good

Kosovo has taught us that you do not need an army or nuclear missiles, you only need to fool those who do into taking your side. Neil Postman’s worst nightmare has come to pass. The infotainment industry now drives the world.

I think it may actually be worse, way worse and that William S. Burroughs is right:

“We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule, or rule of aristocracy, or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They are representatives of abstract forces who’ve reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push” – William S. Burroughs

Wife of master portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh, she had a magnificent physique and was his only nude model.

Allison Stokke, reluctant Internet celebrity

Love the headline, which is for an article about the stunning Ms Allison Stokke (above) who has become an unwilling Internet celebrity thanks to the photo above being posted on a sports blog.  Click the picture to go to the Washington Post story about the whole affair.

See more of this magnificent human being here.

I noticed that one of the people recently sentenced to 6 years hard labour in Chad in the orphan smuggling case is none other than French hottie and sometimes actress Emilie Lelouch (above).

Luckily for us, before Emilie started her career as a orphan rescuer/smuggler, she was a c-list actress who likes to shed her clothes.

Emilie naked in “Fantomes” 1
Emilie naked in “Fantomes” 2

See also: Chad court jails French aid staff – BBC