The Cedar Lounge Revolution

There’s nothing like a dispute in a foreign territory away to get people talking. And with Kosovo/Kosova we have a doozy. Usually reliable and/or informative commentators are worried. We’ve phrases such as ‘gangster state’ being thrown around. The Empire is seen at work. NATO intervention. Minority rights. National identity. And worst of all the unpleasant sense that whatever decision is taken is the wrong one.

So we learn that the European Union is split between those who recognised Kosovo in the first hours after it’s independence and those who appear unlikely to. The split is predictable. Spain – cogniscent of it’s own centrifugal dynamic – is unlikely to recognise, although the EU with gnomic diplomacy has engineered an approach which allows for Kosovo to become a European protectorate and EU states to develop bilateral relationships as and when they see fit.

Putin at his marathon press conference before the weekend rather unfortunately likened the situation to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland (an unhappy comparison on so many levels and to so many people):

Speaking at his annual press conference in the Kremlin – his last before stepping down as president in May – Putin insisted that Kosovo did not deserve special status. “I don’t want to say anything that would offend anyone, but for 40 years northern Cyprus has practically had independence. Why aren’t you recognising that? Aren’t you ashamed, Europeans, for having these double standards?” he said.

He went on: “Why do we promote separatism? For 400 years Great Britain has been fighting for its territorial integrity in respect of Northern Ireland. Why not? Why don’t you support that?” he asked a journalist from German TV.

Well… when he puts it that way…

Still, as noted by Tracy Wilkinson for the Los Angeles Times, on To the Point (KCRW) ‘they won’t be [an independent nation] for quite some time.’ Expectations are ‘unrealistically high’ as to what independence might mean. And ‘Serbs are angry and humiliated by this’.

Remember, this is unilateral. But one doubts that it would happen if the US didn’t want it.

A further point. Nothing makes me more unhappy than to hear how Kosovo is somehow predestined to be a gangster state – or already is. This discourse seems to me to be all too similar to that used by some antagonistic to Palestinian self-determination who argue that they are ‘not ready’ and that such readiness will arrive at some ill-defined future point in time. I think this is problematic on so many readings. Failed and emerging states are per definition going to tilt towards ‘gangsterism’ of one form or another. This is neither news nor particularly relevant one way or another. What is disturbing is that it seems to be used as a way of further implying that they are somehow not worth of self-determination.

This is compounded by the basis for arguing that Serbian sovereignty should remain unbroken. Kosovo is the well spring of the Serbian nation. Well, indeed, it may be, or it may not be. But for materialists to tread on such metaphysical ground or to give it any credence whatsoever is remarkable. This is not to say that one should not acknowledge such thinking and the power of such thinking. Nationalism is problematic for socialists (and it’s hardly news that the opposite is also true). On the one hand the enormous energies that it unleashes are looked on with both distrust and envy by many of us on the left. On the other it’s not really part of the solution – is it? It’s a sort of cul-de-sac. We admire its ability to marshall societal energy. But we’re not happy about the destination it often seems to be taking that society. And as even the most shallow reading of Benedict Anderson or Tim Edensor will indicate it is more problematic still in that it leads to competing calls for self-determination which cut right across the egalitarian axes of socialist thinking. How to choose? Who to choose?

And I find it interesting that people turn into the most hard-nosed of pragmatists when it comes to Kosovo. This is hugely problematic because it generally leaves little room for movement when it comes to arguing against the equal and entirely cynical pragmatism of the various powers hovering around the issue. After all, bad and all as the Empire is, it’s hardly by basing its position in pragmatism and self-evident self interest acting in a way which is much different from those arguing the opposite point of view.

Yet, that said, this is also a massive failure by the European Union. A failure in so much as it has not been willing – or able – to contemplate or execute a new approach to sovereignty in these cases. It’s not that one ’side’ or another is right. Or that one claim or another has a greater validity. The basic problem is that both claims are valid, both sides have a palpable legitimacy. There is a case for Albanian self-determination. There is an equal case for Serbian connections.

So, why have people been forced to choose between the two positions? Why has it not been possible to accept that sovereignty within the EU is going to be a compromise, a web of inter-relationships. We already have something of that on the land border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is approaching a sui generis consocietational status. Sovereignty is no longer indivisible but is explicitly divisible, not merely between the UK and the North, but between the North and the Republic of Ireland. Overlaps develop. Pooling and sharing takes place. These are only small steps, and these are also early days, so we have yet to discover their efficacy, but they sit within structures and agreements already forged within the European Union. And surely that sort of approach – one where sovereignty could be shared in some fashion to safeguard the rights of Serbs within Kosovo and the access to that heartland – was worth pursuing. Consider too that the Serbian government actually made some reasonably flexible proposals including one rooted in ‘one nation, two systems’. Some sort of inversion of that, ‘two overlapping nations’, could perhaps have been explored further.

This is, of course, largely academic now. Kosovo becomes de facto the latest addition to the Union. That’s not necessarily the worst option (so far). But so will Serbia at some point in the future, and it seems perverse that dilution or merging or overlapping of sovereignty could not occur prior to their accession when it will afterwards as they settle in the embrace of the common European homeland. Of course that is to ignore, to some extent, the very real limitations of the European project, limitations on sovereignty and suchlike which mean that for the forseable future we will have a confederation of states rather than a truly federal structure.

And beyond the hyperbole there is a useful article in the Irish Times which punctures some of the expectations and beliefs on either side. Dr. Aidan Hehir notes that:

In reality, Sunday’s declaration has not fundamentally altered the distribution of power in Kosovo nor will it precipitate a chain reaction of secession. Beyond the superficialities of flags and diplomatic gestures, recent developments in Kosovo are far less transformative than they have been portrayed.

On what basis is Kosovo now independent? Serbia’s authority and jurisdiction have been formally repealed but it is clear that the new “state” will have few of the traditional trappings of sovereignty. In key respects the ruling structure has been reconfigured but the paternalistic relationship between Kosovo’s rulers and the Kosovars themselves persists.

Crucially:

Kosovo has for centuries been subject to external governance in various guises. This disjuncture in the relationship between Kosovo’s inhabitants and its rulers characterised the period of Yugoslavia’s existence but persisted after Nato’s intervention in 1999 when the province was governed by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.

While the UN did establish local political institutions, ultimate authority was exercised by the unelected international administrators. The UN mission wielded extensive power over all aspects of the political system and economy in Kosovo while the local population continued to be subjects of power exercised beyond their control.

Hehir points to the intriguing fact that as recently as 2004 the Kosovars were rioting against the UN and Nato. That the situation has changed is clear. Pristina must be one of the few places on the planet where the Stars and Stripes is waved entirely without any discernable irony. But the declaration of the Republic is, at best, lacking in substance.

The “independence” Kosovo now enjoys, however, constitutes a very similar configuration of power to that exercised since 1999. According to a report by the International Commission on the Balkans, Kosovo has, since its declaration of independence, moved into a period of “guided sovereignty”. This involves the transfer of control from the UN to the EU and an accelerated focus on “EU member state building”.

The final stage in Kosovo’s guided evolution is described as “shared sovereignty”, when Kosovo will become a full member of the EU. One might well ask, “At what stage in this evolution is Kosovo just ’sovereign’?” Membership of the EU is not presented as an option to be accepted or rejected by the “independent” state of Kosovo but a requirement determined by the international administrators. No state has ever had so many conditions and constraints imposed upon its independence.

This latter point is important too. If, as the EU argues, Kosovo is genuinely sui generis (although their reasoning for that is due to the break up of the FRY) then it appears odd that sui generis structures could not have been established between Serbia and Kosovo. A shared or joint sovereignty as a transitional step towards the EU might have addressed some of the issues and perhaps prepared the ground for a future breakup. It certainly would have dealt with a key aspect which was the remarkable trajectory of Kosovo from autonomous region to nation by slowing the pace of that change.

And, in a pattern replicating itself across the Balkans, we see that ‘the the newly “independent” state will be governed by an international civilian representative, Pieter Feith.

This international administrator will have the power to “take the actions necessary to oversee and ensure successful implementation of the settlement” and may “correct or annul decisions by Kosovo public authorities”. This of course significantly compromises Kosovo’s independence. The people of Kosovo have no authority to elect or remove the international representative and will be powerless to resist his decisions. This political structure does not equate with the legal definition of sovereignty and clearly compromises any notion of “independence”.

An interesting species of independence, is it not? And Hehir points to the reality that since there is no agreed international recognition Kosovo will assume a half-life similar to Taiwan.

Recent developments in Kosovo constitute an aberration, born of a unique confluence of factors. The exceptional nature of Kosovo’s recognition and the superficiality of its newly acquired independence will likely conspire to generate more problems in the future as other separatist groups decry the international community’s hypocrisy and the Kosovars realise that their newly declared “independence” does not mean independence per se.

Beyond the talk of ‘gangster states’ this is the reality. A Kosovo which will have limited sovereignty. Sovereignty which in no way is equal to other states and is unlikely to become so for quite some while. A Serbia which is profoundly unhappy about this situation where the governing elites have already compromised with the EU and the US and whose political stability remains unpredictable. The torching of Kosovar border posts by Serbs (from within Kosovo if the reports are to be believed) is predictable. If it is contained, well and good, but the fundamentals do not bode well.

Surely, if the EU represents anything positive it really has to address this. While Kosovo remains constrained there is – perhaps – room to rework this dispensation preparatory to future accession. To recognise that neither self-determination or historical or cultural links must in an of themselves be mutually contradictory or prevent genuinely imaginative ways forward.