International Herald Tribune
Serbs use words of Western leaders to support Kosovo stand By Nicholas Wood Sunday, December 16, 2007 BELGRADE: As the dispute over Kosovo's future nears a climax, the Serbian government has enlisted the support of some the world's best known statesmen - all of them dead. For the past two weeks billboards carrying the images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle have appeared throughout the country above the mantra "Kosovo Is Serbia!" Extracts of their speeches are printed next to their busts, each one selected, and adapted in some cases, to advocate Serbia's cause. In a dispute in which Serbs so far have looked to Russia for support against the West, the posters are an unusual twist. Across the Balkans, from Kosovo to Bosnia, photographs of President Vladimir Putin of Russia can be seen in Serbian shops and cafés. In Mitrovica, the divided city that is the front line for tension between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, a banner is strung over the main crossroad in the Serb-dominated north, saying, "Russia Save Us!" But the government's recent billboard campaign suggests that Serbs can use the icons of Western democracies in protesting the possible loss of Kosovo. Churchill is shown with a cigar in hand, alongside an extract of a speech urging the British to stand up against Nazi Germany: "We shall defend what is ours. We shall never surrender." Washington's head appears in front of a billowing American flag with an approximate quote from during the American Revolution: "The time is near at hand which must determine whether we are to be free men or slaves." (Washington used the word "Americans" where the Serbian version uses "we.") By borrowing words from some of the greatest Western leaders, the authors of the billboard campaign say, they are offering not only a note of defiance but also a means of finding common ground with the West as it collides with Serbia over Kosovo. "We are trying to remind people there are Western politicians who say it is all right to defend your state," said Dragoslav Bokan, director of Arts and Crafts, the marketing agency commissioned by the Serbian government to undertake the poster campaign. The United States and a majority of European governments have indicated they believe that the UN administration of Kosovo, in place since 1999, is untenable and that ethnic Albanians, who make up nearly 90 percent of the population, should be granted an independent state. Last week the European Union approved a new mission that would replace the world body and help supervise the state if it became an independent state. The Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, reacted angrily to the decision, accusing the EU of attempting to set up "a puppet state" on Serbian soil. According to Bokan, the question now posed by those who favor Serbian integration into the European Union - and according to opinion polls they are an increasingly narrow majority - is how to resolve that clash of interests: How can Serbs identify with the West and oppose what it is doing to Serbia? "It's so schizophrenic. We work for Western companies all over Europe, and feel part of the global environment where borders are being broken down," Bokan said, referring to his marketing company. "On the other hand, the other part of our identity has obligations to Serbian history." Senior advisers in the Serbian government paint the controversy over Kosovo in stark terms, suggesting that there is no point in Serbia's joining a bloc that would occupy Serbian territory. As pro-Russian rhetoric has increased, many Serbs are bewildered, Bokan said. For all their ties with Russia - including a shared Christian Orthodox faith and military alliances dating back two centuries - Serbs today appear to have far more in common with the West. Serbia borders the European Union to the north and east and does not border Russia, Bokan noted. And Serbs, he said, play in the National Basketball Association in the United States and in soccer clubs throughout Europe. "Ask anybody the name of a Russian film director, composer or even rock group and they will struggle, but they can name five or six American directors," Bokan said. The poster campaign, he said, is a reminder that Serbs can still fight for their cause and be Europeans. Ljiljana Smajlovic, editor of Politika, a conservative broadsheet that has run a vigorous campaign against Kosovo's independence, is more specific. "I don't expect the government to go to war" over Kosovo, she said in a telephone interview. "But I expect them to go to court over this. I think one can be a good European and still protest this." But regional commentators say it is also possible to see a gloomier outcome, in which Serbia seeks strength in its history as a nation surrounded by enemies, proudly defiant, even at terrible costs. Serbia's most celebrated battle is a defeat at the hand of the Turks in Kosovo; its national motto is "Only Unity Can Save the Serbs." It is a big mistake "to underestimate the strength of Serbian 'inat,' " or spite, William Montgomery, a former U.S. ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro, wrote in a recent column for B92, an independent news service based in Belgrade. "They may well know full well that they will be hurting themselves more than anyone else with some of their actions, but that doesn't mean that they won't go ahead anyway." The inspiration for that kind of thinking can also be found in the government's billboard campaign. The quote from John F. Kennedy reads, "A man does what he must, in spite of the consequences." _____ _____ <http://www.iht.com/> International Herald TribuneCopyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com http://statse.webtrendslive.com/dcsvgnood10000w0atsza69tn_3m9q/njs.gif?dcsuri=/nojavascript&WT.js=No&WT.tv=1.0.7
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