[NYC-L] Mission:

[Isa Blumi]

Well, is this not getting rich!

I thought I was only half serious about the reference
to Hitler, but it seems that the Nazis are the theme
for the week.

Frankly, suggesting that I am a fascist is a
considerable waste of your talents Jeton.
You clearly have a slippery pen and with the right
kind of approach to things, you may be on to more
productive pursuits. But calling me a fascist will not
do. 

We can continue this head on collision if you want, I
have dealt with bigger challenges than this, but I
would think we should take it outside the forum
here...

In the meantime, as this is still a public discussion
and I assume all of our friends are watching...let us
try once again to explore this issue. What can be
done.

I have the tendency of approaching these things from
the point of view of what should not be done, before
we address what should be done. I have nevertheless,
made twice now the suggestion that we spend far more
time dealing with those people who actually are the
consumers of information on Kosova, ie the good people
at the State Department (SD), some of whom are
actually good friends and I happen to like their
understudies---it is only a terrible shame that they
do not see Kosova/Albanian/Balkan affairs as a career,
and that is how that silly diplomatic system works
unfortunately; can not have people getting too
attached. But I digress.

The mass media is a dead end, I was not advocating
reaching out to the television media because the
audience is not interested and uninformed. Our
problems are complex and require time, space and a
constant dialogue with the audience (to make sure that
our vocabulary is theirs) 20 seconds on some MSNBC
program (if you could ever get the producers to
appreciate 1) that Kosova is not a hot beverage served
in Vienna 2) that there are some real consequences to
not getting Kosova right). I do not see this
happening. Hence the reference to Ruppert Murdoch, the
don of American propaganda. 

And the same largely applies to one-page ads that are
expensive and for copy reasons, must be kept short
(you don't want to reprint Noel Malcolm's 5th and 6th
chapters on the page, gets to "busy") So you end up
putting in your full page ad a press statement that is
meaningless because it does little to change the tenor
of the discussion, which I suggest should be the goal.


Which is exactly why community out reach needs to be
steered towards our policy-making cadre. It is they, I
repeat, who write the texts, inform the officials and
ultimately inform the journalists (if there are any
who are actually interested). 

Which returns me to the suggestion that we are being
watched. I hope our friends at SD are reading
this...they are trying to learn something about those
Albanians, you see. Now if we actually spent more time
talking about how to talk about Kosova rather than
raising the hair on our backs or prancing about with
our colorful feathers extended, we could actually help
them help us. That is another fundamental problem, we
are fish in a fish bowl and we are probably confirming
all that is being said about us around the water
cooler in DC.  

Jeton, you have mobilized some interesting words to
confront my suggestions. Your assertion that I am an
ethnic-cleansing (narco?) fascist who has "chased"
away those innocent Serbs that just wanted to hang
around and live peacefully with Kosovars, drops the
ball on several points but by doing so, you reinforce
my concerns. 

I will leave aside defending myself from the
suggestion that I am a fascist. My work speaks for
itself. It is nevertheless quite dangerous to evoke
such language in the context of Kosova, because this
is exactly what our adversaries is using to enframe
the Kosova issue. Remember, Hitler created Kosova.
Ever read Chomsky's rants about Kosovars? 

That being said, let us return to history for a
minute. I seem to recall when I was in Kosova during
the liberation, that Serbs were driving off with
everything but the kitchen sink...they did steal my
aunt's washing machine ENGINE (left the shell in the
backyard), and endless lines of our cars were being
towed away with the "biblical" exodus. We even
stumbled up on some chaps whose trailor was so packed
with PIVO! that the canopy could not be tied, whole
crats spilling into the road. If you are suggesting
Kosovars are responsible for this "exodus" I think you
have dramatically been misinformed by your own sources
and/or have simply relied on the post-conflict media
assesments to explain the events on the ground. You
have fallen into the rhetorical trap of enframing
Kosova in terms set not by us or reality, but by
actors whose ambitions was to muddle the issues,
confuse the history and ultimately, create new
realities from which we have to operate...and this was
my initial point to all of this back-and-forth. We are
back peddling because we do not control HOW KOsova is
talked about. It is only about standards that can
easily be sabatoged because they all require
cooperation from our adversaries. It is incumbant on
Albanians to be welcoming, to fascilitate the RETURN
etc.

For you graduate students in political science,
anthropology or sociology I hope you are following me
on this. In fact, one only needs to consult the media
archives to remind us of what was happening on the
ground. CNN, (now remember, they negotiated exclusive
access with Belgrade and had people on the ground) was
in Prishtina after the Kumanovo agreements and AFTER
the Russians were not allowed to fly in additional
troops. Have we forgotten the move to secure Prishtina
in those first few days? Well it was all flowers for
those Russian troops who came in from Bosnia. The
cleansed Prishtina would forever be part of Serbia.
(Initially, the strategy was partition...only later
did things become clear that through
"cantonisation/decentralization" even more could be
secured). 

Back to Prishtina, once it became clear that they
could not stay, then the panic hit. CNN will have in
their archives endless reports from the PRishtina bus
station of people packing into buses...not an Albanian
in sight of course...and huge convoys orderly leaving
before One Albanian reached the North. I recall a few
days later, walking over the Iber before the French
got their duplistic, bordering on criminal asses into
North Mitroviza to "secure" the area, and who else but
our darling friend Ivanovic and his wife were setting
up the program that really did foresee a division of
Kosova. Once Albanians started to return to their
homes in the North, wife and former Karate champion
and overall war criminal Ivanovic started the sealing
off of North Mitrovica.

But I have already explored this many times,

be my guest:

• “A Story of Mitigated Ambitions: Kosova’s Torturous
Path to its Postwar Future.” Alternatives: Turkish
Journal of International Relations [1/4, 2002]: 30-52.
Accessible at www.alternativesjournal.com.
• “Kosova: From the Brink—and Back Again” Current
History [November, 2001]: 15-20.
• “Outside the Foreseeable Future: The Tyranny of
Ethnicity Politics in Kosova” The Anthropology of East
Europe Review, [19/1 Spring, 2001]: 109-127.
• “One Year of Failure in Kosova: Chances Missed and
the Unknown Future,” South Eastern European Politics
[Summer, 2000]: 15-24.

Reading Jeton's other mildly disguised insults, about
my not so slick advocacy methods etc., I have my
record to stand on, but it does allow me to again
highlight the fundamental problem...

Jeton challenges my premise that we (if we really ever
tried) should not hold our hopes up for "popular"
support. Jeton suggests that "most Americans still
have positive perceptions of ALbanians despite the
efforts of the isolationist/anti-Islamic right and the
isolationist/Anti-American left." That is a
fascinating claim, and if correct, then this will be a
first...I will be in Nebraska on Thursday, a heartland
state if there ever was one (The Albanian lobby
actually heavily supports one of Nebraska's Republican
Senators there.) I will conduct a survey on the campus
of the University of Nebraska (where people will have
presumably read something about Kosova) and I will bet
my house that 90% will not know the basic components
of the problem. I can verify Jeton's exaggerated
confidence in the "American" people to give a damn
with my experience teaching at Trinity College in
Hartford this last year. Members of the faculty, let
alone the Yuppy (and very well educated student body)
were fuzzy on "what went on over there." I do not
think the Albanian communities neither have the
resources nor the audience to start reminding people
about why they should give a damn.

Which returns us to those who make this great country
run.

My suggestion that Kosovars are in love with America
stands. Clinton can do no wrong and Rugova has
maintained, like a broken record, that our good
friends in DC have always been there and will always
be there. 

Jeton's suggestion that Kosovars are more suspicious
of Americans just does not hold water. Now that would
be a fascinating poll result, if KOsovars did say the
US was up to no good. Our friends at SD reading this
exchange would be pretty nervous by now if they
believed that was true, which of course they do not.


We dropped the ball indeed, because half of Kosova, an
important part of the temporarily discredited old
elite, were allowed back into the game dear Jeton.
Again, I have written about this in the past and there
is no need to invite LDK supporters into this as well.


This is the part where you suggested there was a
wholesale cleansing of serbs from kosova, a trap set
by Belgrade...well again, I think the flight of Serbs
was already orchestrated and the violence that took
place was very much local, hardly systemic. Of course,
with the inept handling of the initial phases of the
return to Kosova, when Kouchner and his crew still had
their heads up their asses, arrogant and power
hungry....the international community bullied a bunch
of amateurs into conceding far too much when we did
have a moral right to demand a trajectory shared by
Eritrea and later East Timor. Alas, no Italy or
Portugal coming up to bat for us. 

The violence by the way pitted some real nasty
characters, many of whom were Russian/Serb service
types...something I personally was bitching about that
summer in Prishtina's daily press briefings. Let alone
to sheer mishandling of evidence of war crimes, the
washing over of rape camps, clearing out mass graves
without proper archeological/forensic work (largely
because Milosevic was the target, not the foot
soldiers who are all still lurking).

That the spoils for the new kids from Drenica, Klina
and Dukagjin became so petty--restaurants, cigarette
runs, the provisional government's media outlet
Kosovapress-was all a bi-product of a failure, indeed.
But the key here was that UNMIK created a counter
measure here by creating an environment (rhetocial and
economic) that permitted the old guard, who had no
right to return after their performance before and
during these trying times, to set up shop again in
Prishtina. The rest is history...Alcatel, Energy,
Culture etc. 

Back to my concern with who has shaped this
discussion, I refer everyone to the just released
summary statements of the PC at the UN on Peterson's
report delivered on the 27th. 

You can find the complete text at

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sc8397.doc.htm

it is quite remarkable how uniform the statements are
from countries as diverse at Benin, Algeria, the US
and Brazil. The emphasis...minority returns, ALbanian
failures to extend a hand etc...run much along the
lines Jeton is casting doubt on my
interpretations/suggestions. Again, we have lost
control (historically never had) of the "epistomology"
of Kosova's future and past. We are talking about
ethnicity, criminality and history in ways that
immediately paint us into a corner. We need to tell
THE story using a completely different lexicon...This
is not known because we are constantly using the terms
and concepts of a society that is represented in the
minds of our audience by Belgrade. 

Consider the frequent reference to the concerns of a 
"Resurregence of violence", return of refugees, Serbia
(Covic) claims 240,000. Moreover, the solution to this
problem remains decentralization, repeated by a number
of delegates around the table yesterday. The themes,
the problems and the solutions have all been
determined by Belgrade...much as we witnessed last
week in DC with this "journalist" evoking readibly
recognizable terms (Hitler's demonic plans) as if they
have some relavance to Kosova. Hell, Belgrade has even
asked for Rugova to come pay a visit...applauded by
most members....some things just will not change! 

Interpret what you will from my frustration with the
Rugova crowd, I have published often what I think they
have done for Kosova during earlier crises, but I
would like us to again consider ways of changing the
actual vocabulary surrounding Kosova. 

I think this will do...again Jeton, if you want to
reduce this to insults, let's do it but off the radar
screen of our more civil companions who are reading
this quietly.

My ultimate suggestion, long term, is to do what every
legitimate immigrant group has done in this country in
the past. THat is buy chairs in big-time and
medium-sized Universities. TO buy a chair of Albanian
Studies at NYU would cost $10 million, A chair of
Ottoman studies has just been established for this
price. I would think considerably less money would be
needed for smaller, less pretentious outfits.

The Saudi's spent millions to cuddle up with Clinton
by investing in a program at the U of Arkansas, Little
Rock...Onasis, the Olin foundation etc. have all been
big players...

Strategically placed on the East Coast, Mid West and
South West...in twenty years, we have five generations
of undergrads and graduates with a new vocabulary. In
fact, you want to make Greeks and Serbs go nuts,
publicize the intention of buying a Chair of ALbanian
Studies at Harvard or Princeton...then you will see
the firebrands and the brownshirts come out of the
wood work. 

I do recall that at one point, our community in New
York approached NYU...I was told by those directly
involved on NYU's side that it fell apart because the
community refused to give the school the autonomy it
must have to actually search and appoint a chair.

That is another thing...PR, public outreach etc.,
unless Murdoch is Albanian, we are renting space and
time from others...we have to appreciate that.

Isa


		
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