More singing...
Last night one of the girls in the dorm showed me a book of song lyrics she had-- 107 pages of old Serbian songs. She paged through them and made a list of the her favorites so I can copy them down. She was singing some of them to me, and at one point she started crying, when she was singing a song about Kosovo.
I have to say that I really couldn't have had any understanding of the Kosovo problem unless I had gone to Albania. I had to go there to understand how different Albania is from Macedonia and Serbia; how absolutely devastated the country's natural resources are. I can't remember if I said this before, but the tree line literally starts at the Macedonian border. The rivers are filled with silt. Someone told me that the soil in Albania isn't good for growing trees, but really-- I don't believe it the soil could change that much just going over the border to Macedonia. I don't know if you can blame the Hoxha government or the people themselves. Somehow, the former Yugoslavia managed to get through communism without ripping their environment to shreds. Not that Serbia and Macedonia are perfect or anything-- 80% of Serbia's forests have been cut to create grazing in the last 100 years.
So I was talking about Kosovo-- almost all of the Serb and Roma population have been driven out of Kosovo by the Albanians. I met an American lawyer last week who has been working in Kosovo for the last 4 years. Basically, the UN was evicting Albanians from Serbian homes in Kosovo so the Serbs could move back. Not surprisingly, no one is moving back. He says the current projection is that Serbia will lose Kosovo by March.
In light of this it's easy to see why Serbians resent America for bombing Belgrade. If Mexico decided to annex Southern California on the basis of the high population of Mexicans I'm sure we'd retaliate as well.
Comments (constructive ones, of course) are welcome-- my intention is to give my honest impression of the situation, not to bash Albania. And I realize my perspective is skewed since I'm living in Belgrade right now.
I have to say that I really couldn't have had any understanding of the Kosovo problem unless I had gone to Albania. I had to go there to understand how different Albania is from Macedonia and Serbia; how absolutely devastated the country's natural resources are. I can't remember if I said this before, but the tree line literally starts at the Macedonian border. The rivers are filled with silt. Someone told me that the soil in Albania isn't good for growing trees, but really-- I don't believe it the soil could change that much just going over the border to Macedonia. I don't know if you can blame the Hoxha government or the people themselves. Somehow, the former Yugoslavia managed to get through communism without ripping their environment to shreds. Not that Serbia and Macedonia are perfect or anything-- 80% of Serbia's forests have been cut to create grazing in the last 100 years.
So I was talking about Kosovo-- almost all of the Serb and Roma population have been driven out of Kosovo by the Albanians. I met an American lawyer last week who has been working in Kosovo for the last 4 years. Basically, the UN was evicting Albanians from Serbian homes in Kosovo so the Serbs could move back. Not surprisingly, no one is moving back. He says the current projection is that Serbia will lose Kosovo by March.
In light of this it's easy to see why Serbians resent America for bombing Belgrade. If Mexico decided to annex Southern California on the basis of the high population of Mexicans I'm sure we'd retaliate as well.
Comments (constructive ones, of course) are welcome-- my intention is to give my honest impression of the situation, not to bash Albania. And I realize my perspective is skewed since I'm living in Belgrade right now.
posted by Ana at 3:49 PM
3 Comments:
But the Serbs destroyed and bombed my city Srebrenica for 4 years. The serbs killed my family ,so thats why I hate Serbia.
It's so tragic, everyone slitting everyone's throats...in the end, after taking an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye, what are we left with but blindness?
We MUST overcome this way of thinking and reacting. It's so easy to hate. I can't tell you how much I hate what people do to each other for greed and gain. I hate it that people cause others to suffer. But hating them will not bring any goodness to the world. Gandhi was right...we must rise above the hatred. or else we'll all suffer...
"Ethnic. The most obscene word in any language." - Ed McBain.
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