Miro Todorovich
In the last issue of Outpost (April 1998), Dr. Irving Moskowitz's "One Minute to Midnight" described the plight of Christians, Arab and non-Arab, in the territories under Arafat's control. This is, of course, very much deja vu for the people of the Balkans. There, for some 500 years, Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, Jews, and other "infidels" experienced the pains and rigors of life under Muslim domination. To take but one example, every seventh year the Muslim overlords selected the best-looking able-bodied Christian children for a trip to Asia Minor, conversion to Islam, and training for the military units of the Janissaries, the elite troops of the Ottoman authorities. In Bosnia, some of the nobility of Serb or Croat origin converted to Islam in order to retain their privileges.
There is another even more striking parallel between what is going on in the Middle East and the events in the Balkans. The Kosovo province is for the Serbs what Judea and Samaria are to the Jews: it was the cradle of the original Serbian state, the site of the most important religious and cultural monuments from the pre-Muslim era, and the stage for the battle of Kosovo, which the Serbs lost. This defeat of the Serbs presaged the
The Kosovo province is for the Serbs what Judea and Samaria are to the Jews.
At least while Istanbul ruled Kosovo, the province remained a Serbian ethnic domain. This changed dramatically after the turn of the century. The newly-emergent independent Serbian state and the successor Serb-led Yugoslavia sided repeatedly with the Allies in international conflicts: in World War I against the Germans and Austrians, and then in World War II against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. When Tito defied Stalin in 1948, creating the first crack in the monolithic Communist bloc, his defiance was based on the strength of the Serbian dominated and led Yugoslav army.
Paradoxically, each such brave act by the
Serbs damaged the Kosovo Christians. While, after the
Turkish defeat in 1912, many Ottoman Muslims returned
to Turkey rather than lose their special status, an ethnic
threat emerged from the local Albanian population,
thanks to their high birth rate. This shift in ethnic balance,
having no ideological motivation, remained politically
benign at the time. The crisis occurred during World War
II, when local Albanians banded together with the
occupying military forces of Mussolini's Italy. They initiated
a reign of local terror aimed at chasing out the
region's indigenous population.
The next blow against Kosovo's Serbs came from Tito himself. Despite the fact that he owed his World War II successes and post war survival to Serbian valor, he created an autonomous region in Serbia for the Albanians. Moreover, he in effect opened Yugoslav borders to Albanian immigration, impeded the return of World War II Serbian refugees from Albanian terror, and tolerated lingering intimidation of the remaining Serbs by Albanian activists.
As a result of such prolonged pressures, Pristina and other historical Serbian towns and landmarks of Kosovo became, like Hebron, depopulated of their original inhabitants. Even today, the remaining century-old Serbian churches, monasteries and dwellings are being further engulfed by hostile Muslims. Note, for example, the desperate Easter message on the Internet by Hieromonk Sava from Decani monastery, dated April 18, 1998: "These days the situation around Decani is very serious. Our town is surrounded with numerous militant Albanian gangs who are terrorizing the local population. Almost all the Serbian population has already fled from the neighboring villages. We need your prayers that all the problems in Kosovo and Metohija are settled in a peaceful way and through dialogue."
One would expect that enlightened governments, national and international tribunals, economic relief bodies, and human rights organizations would side with the victims of a long history of aggression. If the dispossessed Indian tribes of the United States and Canada can be helped to reclaim their ancestral lands, why should the same legal yardstick be denied the Serbs and Jews? Instead, political elites continuously press for additional concessions, gradually eroding the ability of Serbs and Jews to hold their ancestral lands. And the media, by and large, taking a leaf from the Western media at the time of the 1938 Sudeten crisis, blame the victims.
Given this and other incongruities, one cannot avoid a final painful question: Why are the major leading powers of the Western world abandoning those who in the past were their loyal allies and comrades in arms while actively siding, both in Kosovo and Judea-Samaria, with those who perpetuate violence and profit from aggression?
Miro Todorovich is Professor of Physics at the City University of New York. He grew up in Yugoslavia, and was an early member of Americans For a Safe Israel.
Outpost - 6 - May 1998