Kosovo

The Kosovo Albanians are celebrating. Literally, dancing in the streets. Waving the Albanian flags.

We can redraw the maps now; there is no going back to the Serbian province of Kosovo. Serbs are burning border posts, trashing McDonalds, saying they will never accept this, organising protest marches, burning the US Embassy… but Serbia has no choice.

They need to accept this, find Karadzic and Mladic, and get ready for the EU. Serbia will be better off without this problem around their necks.

For Serbia, the journey along the road to becoming a pariah has been full of indignities and the ‘Kosova Question’ kept them coming. The Serbs were on the ‘right’ side, our side, in both World Wars and their sacrifice was huge. Meanwhile, their Croatian neighbours, now the darling destination for wealthy international travel, followed their Austro-Hungarian/Catholic compass and fought for fascism and Hitler.

Balkan countries have long had the stereotype of warmongers, passionate madmen throwing bombs at every turn. (Their films, unfortunately, never fail to have contain some of this image). But now, that stigma is for Serbia alone. The Bulgarians, the Slovenes, the Bosnians, the Monetengrins and especially the Croats, are all rehabilitated in the world’s eyes. They are seen as the sole agressor. The devil Milosevic is remembered; the (admittedly more junior) devil Tudjman is long gone.

I am looking forward to revisiting the region soon. I particularly wonder what Kosovo independence will mean for Bosnia and for Macedonia. The latter is a brave attempt at negotiating and finessing a multiethnic state.