The Kosovo Crisis (Part Six), Why it Happened

What happened is easy to understand. The illegal involvement of the West in Serbia’s civil war allowed Albanian Muslims in Kosovo to break free of Serbia. Some may say that this is something unique, a change brought about by globalization. But this is nothing new. Great powers have always been interfering in the internal affairs of lesser powers when they think it is in their interest. In 1772 Russia, Austria, and Prussia divided Poland amongst themselves. England ruled India and colonized Australia. They did this much in the same way that Rome ruled the Mediterranean and the Phoenicians settled Carthage.

But intervention has unforeseen consequences. When Germany supported Lenin during World War One in order to undermine the Russian state and advance its own interests, it had no idea that within a generation Lenin’s Soviet Union would conquer and absorb half of the German state. What happened in Serbia is nothing new. However, intervention has unintended consequences and as of now we have no idea what the consequences of the West’s intervention in the Balkans will be.

What happened has already been explained. Why this happened, why there was a civil war in Serbia to begin with and why Kosovo desired to break away, is a very complex and important question. Nietzsche said that God is dead. But it appears he was wrong. Today Nietzsche is dead, but fervent belief in God continues to turn the wheals of history. Though many try to find economic or utilitarian explanations for the Kosovo crisis, the truth is this conflict is rooted in a historical, religious conflict. Religion alone can explain the why of this conflict.

To begin with, one must understand how nationalism operates in Eastern Europe. Generally, ethnic nationalism has been more prevalent in Eastern Europe than civic nationalism. Scholars explain this by pointing out that nationalism began primarily as a response to social and economic change in Western Europe. It became a political phenomenon there and only later traveled east. Because of the different levels of economic development, it took on a different tinge in the east.

In the 1700 and 1800’s Eastern Europe lacked nation states like France and England with law, some democratic institutions, and the same language. Instead it had the Habsburgs, Ottomans, and Romanovs—vast multi-cultural empires. Instead of binding various parties together into a greater whole, like the nation, as it did in the West, nationalism broke apart the pre-existing massive groups into smaller factions rooted in religion or ethnicity. Instead of breaking down differences of culture and religion as it had in the West, nationalism in Eastern Europe strengthened these differences.

It has already been mentioned how Orthodoxy has influenced this conflict. The seat of Serbian Orthodoxy is in Kosovo, it is akin to the Vatican or Jerusalem for the Catholics or Jews. Further, Orthodox Serbs have suffered for centuries under what they view as Islamic oppression. The religious significance of Kosovo to the Orthodox Serbs and the strong religious persecution they have faced in the past make them loathe to surrender Kosovo, especially to a group under whose hands they have suffered much.

What of the role of Muslims? How does the Islamic faith play into this conflict? In the Western world, the basic unit of human organization is the nation. This is then subdivided in various ways, one of which is by religion. Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations. Because of the central importance of religion to Muslims, all conflicts become religious in nature, rather than simple matters of state.

For example there was a clear religious tone in the resistance to the American led Gulf War. One Islamic leader boldly proclaimed that this conflict was a “clear declaration of war by the Americans against Allah, His Prophet, and the Muslims. In such a situation, it is the unanimous opinion of the ulema throughout the centuries that when enemies attack Muslim lands, Jihad becomes the personal duty of every Muslim.”

Complicating matters is the fact that for Muslims, no piece of land once added to the realm of Islam can ever be finally renounced. This leads to a unique notion of imperialism. Imperialism is a particularly important theme in the Islamic case against the West. For Muslims the word imperialism has a special meaning. This word is, for example, never used by Muslims of the great Muslim empires—the first one founded by the Arabs, the later ones by the Turks—who conquered vast territories and populations and incorporated them into the House of Islam. It was perfectly legitimate for Muslims to conquer and rule Europe and Europeans and thus enable them to embrace the true faith. It was a crime and a sin for Europeans to conquer and rule Muslims and, still worse, to try to lead them astray. In the Muslim perception, conversion to Islam is apostasy—a capital offense for both the one who is misled and the one who misleads him. Even if a new convert renounces his new faith, he is still put to death. In the eyes of the Albanian Muslims of Kosovo it is completely acceptable to take that territory. In fact, all of Serbia and the Balkan region rightly belong to them for it was once under Muslim rule. Any declaration to the contrary, any assertion of sovereignty by a non-Muslim group in this region is in fact an imperialistic power grab.

This understanding of the different notions of imperialism is crucial to explaining the current Kosovo conflict. For Muslims the world is Allah’s and Islam is the true faith. Their religion requires them to reclaim the world of Allah at all costs and in any way possible. I believe that the establishment of the Islamic state of Kosovo is part of a broad, worldwide move to spread the Islamic faith worldwide.

In March of 1683 the Ottomans began a siege of Vienna. This was the furthest they had moved west and until that point they had overcome all resistance. The siege lasted until September 11th when King John Sobieski and the Polish army lifted the siege and defeated the Ottomans. This defeat led to a great change. It was the first major loss and retreat by the Ottoman Empire. This defeat was followed by a number of defeats during the following centuries, during which time the Ottoman Empire continually lost ground.

It is no coincidence that Bin Laden picked the day of the attack that he did. September 11th marked the end of nearly one-thousand years of continual Islamic expansion. Bin Laden’s attack represents a resumption of the expansion of Islam that was brought to an abrupt halt that day.

The establishment of an Islamic Kosovo coincides with this renewed effort. Saudi Arabia is funding mosques that they hope will radicalize the population. Known terrorists from the Middle East have settled and already begun to carry out their operations (as mentioned before, in Spain, Greece, England, and New Jersey). Going along with this is tremendous immigration into Europe by Muslims, followed by high birth rates. Though many immigrate in order to have a better life, some want to infiltrate and take Europe by peaceful means. These radicals consciously refuse to integrate into the West; they move into the West solely to take it for Allah. For them the Kosovo model (gain majority population in a region and take it democratically) provides a good example to emulate. Terrorism is not their only tool, through immigration and democracy they may take ground by peaceful and less suspect means.

Is this to say that every Muslim in Kosovo is a terrorist? Or that all Muslims share this imperialistic goal? By all means no! This radical notion of Islam is held by a very small minority. But that does not mean that this is not a dangerous minority. The Taliban in Afghanistan represented a small minority, yet they were able to brutalize their people in unspeakable ways and carry out global terrorist operations. The Bolsheviks in Russia showed that a small, violent group of men can in fact rule a great land and people and influence the course of world events in a significant way. The majority of Muslims in Kosovo are like the majority of people everywhere, they simply want a peaceful life for them and their families. However, there is a small contingent group of radical Muslims who are intent on world domination and these men must be taken seriously.

We can see how religion motivates the Serbs: they want to keep their holy land and protect their faith from foreign domination. We can see as well how religion influences the Muslims: they desire to spread the truth of Allah and regain the greatness they once had. But there is more than these two groups at work. If it was only these two groups, Kosovo would still be a part of Serbia. The West involved itself in this conflict and so we must, for a moment, consider the religion of the West.

Secular Humanism, of which tolerance is the cardinal virtue, is the religion of the West. This religion has its basis in the brutal wars of religion that ravished Europe in the early seventeenth century. After losing over one-third its population, Europe made peace in 1648 at the Treaty of Westphalia. There it made an agreement that stands even today: no one can prove that their religion is right, so for the sake of peace all must have an equal right to worship as they please. We must live etsi deus non daretur.

Since then this position has evolved. The popular point of view is not only that all have an equal right to believe, but that all beliefs are equally right. We believe Weber: science is all we have. All science can give us is means to ends, it cannot tell us what ends are preferable. So we advocate radical tolerance, not only tolerating all thought, but treating all thought as equal. In the West it is easy for us to discount religious differences because in this secular mentality there is ultimately no such thing as religious truth. All we have are varying religious opinions that should be respected but never given any kind of ultimate value. The only value or truth an opinion has is the value an individual decides to confer upon it. In the West we get along with all, living amongst all sorts of peoples and religions. It comes easy to us so we expect all others to do the same. Because tolerance and the pluralism it produces have for so long been a part of the West, we take them for granted. It is hard for us to appreciate the importance religion plays in the lives of others.

When religion means much to people we are prone to mock them. We say they are unenlightened or backwards. But in doing this we forget our own history. In the West we fought brutal religious wars. The West did not have a rational breakthrough that led it to the truth of tolerance and pluralism; it was forced to adopt these values because, in the midst of these wars, no one side was strong enough to beat the other.

The communists tried to force these values on Yugoslavia, but they failed. Now the West is again trying to force Western thinking upon this region. But maybe these notions and values cannot be simply imposed on a group of people, maybe a people needs to go through historical development to reach the conclusions we have. I believe we are naive in thinking we can change centuries of thinking with our involvement. Sometimes the only lasting lessons are the ones learned the hard wary. By trying to impose a resolution we may have in fact prevented the region from fighting out its civil war and coming to its own, workable solution. By preventing the Balkans from reaching a lasting solution we may have done the region a great disservice in its long term development. The ever constant problem of involvement is that we can never what consequences our actions will bring.