Kosovo: The Powder Keg In The Balkans

The realities of a country are closely connected with its history. When studying the status quo, one has to retrospect to an early period, so as to unveil its historical root and comprehend it from a broader perspective. The former Yugoslavia was crammed with diverse nationalities and they did not mix well. This complicated situation is just the result of its long history of nation evolution. The former Yugoslavia consisted of six major nationalities, i.e., the Serbs, the Croatians, the Slovenians, the Macedonians, the Montenegrins and the Muslims. They all descended from the ancient Slavs, and settled in the Balkan Peninsular in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Croatians and Slovenians embraced Catholicism and were associated with Italy, Austria and Germany. Ranking first in population in Yugoslavia, the Serbs adopted the Eastern Orthodox Church as their faith. They had affinities with the Russians in history. The Kosovo area in the southern part and the Albanians were characterized by nationalism, and lagged behind in economy. A part of the Serbs and Croatians in Bosnia-Herzegovina were converted to Islam under the dictatorship of the Ottoman Empire, and they were classified as the Muslims. Consequently, the ethnic problems interwove with religious divergence, which made this region a powder keg in the Balkan Peninsular. Enmity and foreign aggression were engraved into their memories. Based on respective national interests and the logic of dichotomy, those nationalities shaped into different national identities, and an Us/Other pattern worked with great impact.Such disharmony was especially severe in Kosovo where national and cultural bonds broke up due to social turbulence and historical changes. Both the...