So I was at yet another soccer game tonight with a couple of friends of mine when this huge firework display started going off in the center of the city. The girls, knowing I always have my handy smart-phone nearby, asked me to look up what was special about today.
(By the way, whenever you have a chance to bring girls to a sporting event, you gotta do it. They always ask really relevant, informed questions, know which teams are which, and love taking pictures of the game itself rather than dozens of photos of them, in various poses, sitting in the stands.) Jokes :)
So going to good ol' Wikipedia, I discovered... that the following holidays probably didn't warrant fireworks in Tirana.
- Birthday of former King Sobhuza II (Swaziland)
- Christian Feast Day
- Pi Approximation Day, see March 14
- Ratcatcher's Day
To my chagrin one of the girls figured it out before I did, that the International Court of Justice at The Hague
(that's gotta be the only city in the world who's name has a definite article right?) had ruled that Kosovo's declaration of independence was legal. (My chagrin cause I'd read about the court decision earlier this morning and had completely forgot about it.) Well yeah Kosovo, problem solved, everyone get drunk. Well of course that's not the case. At least the problem solved part, but I'm sure they're hitting the celebration juice up north. Serbia, predictably, of course, rejects the decision of the court. As does Russia. And pretty much all the other nations that haven't as yet recognized Kosovo's independence. Or at least they will by tomorrow morning. And, in keeping with a role I love (LOVE) to play, and at the risk of alienating some of my Albanian friends, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that, -gasp-, Serbia might be right on this one. At least in principle. In specifics they've done terrible things to the Albanians living in Kosovo, tried to snuff out their culture and language, never mind the thousands that they literally snuffed out. But in principle they may be right.
So hear me out. For starters most of the existing borders were not designed by committee. Or if there was a committee, it was a bunch of English Lords tasked with figuring out a situation half the world away while sipping sherry in a stuffy English country estate. Borders were almost never created along ethnic lines. Rather they said heres a nutural border, i.e. lake, mountain range, desert, whathaveyou, tadah! theres the border. Now let's go play some polo. Cheerio! And that's the civilized way. The uncivilized way is your people were overthrown and invaded by Mongols/Cossacks/Huns/Zulus/Arabs/Turks/Saxons/Spanish/Portuguese/French/dozens others, and of course, The British, centurys ago, and what do you know your people found themselves on the wrong side of the border.
(that's gotta be the only city in the world who's name has a definite article right?) had ruled that Kosovo's declaration of independence was legal. (My chagrin cause I'd read about the court decision earlier this morning and had completely forgot about it.) Well yeah Kosovo, problem solved, everyone get drunk. Well of course that's not the case. At least the problem solved part, but I'm sure they're hitting the celebration juice up north. Serbia, predictably, of course, rejects the decision of the court. As does Russia. And pretty much all the other nations that haven't as yet recognized Kosovo's independence. Or at least they will by tomorrow morning. And, in keeping with a role I love (LOVE) to play, and at the risk of alienating some of my Albanian friends, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that, -gasp-, Serbia might be right on this one. At least in principle. In specifics they've done terrible things to the Albanians living in Kosovo, tried to snuff out their culture and language, never mind the thousands that they literally snuffed out. But in principle they may be right.So hear me out. For starters most of the existing borders were not designed by committee. Or if there was a committee, it was a bunch of English Lords tasked with figuring out a situation half the world away while sipping sherry in a stuffy English country estate. Borders were almost never created along ethnic lines. Rather they said heres a nutural border, i.e. lake, mountain range, desert, whathaveyou, tadah! theres the border. Now let's go play some polo. Cheerio! And that's the civilized way. The uncivilized way is your people were overthrown and invaded by Mongols/Cossacks/Huns/Zulus/Arabs/Turks/Saxons/Spanish/Portuguese/French/dozens others, and of course, The British, centurys ago, and what do you know your people found themselves on the wrong side of the border.
In a perfect world everybody would have equal representation in
terms of Race, Culture, Language, Religion, etc. all the way from
the local municipality to the UN assembly. But of course, we don't
live in a perfect worldand imbalances and inequalities are always
going to exist. But part of what keeps this world going is, and one
of the founding principles of the United Nations is the integrity of
Nations and there borders.Allowing a people/province/state/city
or any other recognizable minority to independently extricate
themselves and declare independence is an extremely bad
precedent to set. 69 countries have, at this moment, recognized
Kosovos independence. That means 123 haven't. Thats just over
36%. That's not even close to a majority. They couldn't even get
unanimity from NATO or the EU. Do you know why? Cause
they've got there own problems back homewith nationalist
uprisings. How can Spain say, "yah Kosovo, go solo, but not you
Basques. You're completely different."
Whatever compelling arguments you can give showing why
Kosovo get's to be an exception, I bet you the Chechens,
Basques, Turkish Cypriots, or a dozen other groups of people,
can tell you why their cause is greater. The point is this. The
Serbs are being completely unreasonable refusing to
acknowledge the possibility of Kosovos independence,
but the matter has to be resolved internally or it will set a
very bad precedent. I happen to remember a certain nation
who went to war with itself rather than let it's southern half
democratically and peacefully withdraw from the union.
And now they're Kosovos largest patron. Serbia will see the
writing on the wall. They'll make concessions. After all, they
want to get into the EU and NATO as well. But doing
an end route around them is not the way to go.
terms of Race, Culture, Language, Religion, etc. all the way from
the local municipality to the UN assembly. But of course, we don't
live in a perfect worldand imbalances and inequalities are always
going to exist. But part of what keeps this world going is, and one
of the founding principles of the United Nations is the integrity of
Nations and there borders.Allowing a people/province/state/city
or any other recognizable minority to independently extricate
themselves and declare independence is an extremely bad
precedent to set. 69 countries have, at this moment, recognized
Kosovos independence. That means 123 haven't. Thats just over
36%. That's not even close to a majority. They couldn't even get
unanimity from NATO or the EU. Do you know why? Cause
they've got there own problems back homewith nationalist
uprisings. How can Spain say, "yah Kosovo, go solo, but not you
Basques. You're completely different."
Whatever compelling arguments you can give showing why
Kosovo get's to be an exception, I bet you the Chechens,
Basques, Turkish Cypriots, or a dozen other groups of people,
can tell you why their cause is greater. The point is this. The
Serbs are being completely unreasonable refusing to
acknowledge the possibility of Kosovos independence,
but the matter has to be resolved internally or it will set a
very bad precedent. I happen to remember a certain nation
who went to war with itself rather than let it's southern half
democratically and peacefully withdraw from the union.
And now they're Kosovos largest patron. Serbia will see the
writing on the wall. They'll make concessions. After all, they
want to get into the EU and NATO as well. But doing
an end route around them is not the way to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment