News | Serbian Unity Congress

July 27, 2007 on 1:02 am | In In Focus, Kosovo & Metohija, News in English |

Pyotr ISKENDEROV

So, the secret is out. The “premier” of the Kosovo government, the former ringleader of the terrorist “Kosovo Liberation Army” Agim Ceku has named the date, to which the Albanian leaders of the province would time their declaration of independence. That is slated for November 28,2007, when the neighbouring Albania will celebrate its principal state holiday - Day of the Flag.

But the holiday has to do with Albania but indirectly. It has long been viewed by the Albanian diaspora scattered all over the world as Day of All Albanians. To understand what Kosovo separatists mean by selecting this particular date for declaring independence, suffice it to recollect the two key events in the ALBANIAN history, not the history of a state of Albanians but rather of their ethnic origins.

The first milestone is the period when the All-Albanian Prizren League worked in 1878-1881. Prizren is a town in Kosovo. In September 1878 the leaders of the Prizren League adopted a programme of unification of ALL Albanian provinces into a single autonomous state and political formation, introducing Albanian as the language to be used for making official documents and for educational purposes, as well as creation of the Albanian national army. Following that the demand to establish of a single Albanian vilayet under the formal suzerainty of the Turkish Sultan for the above purposes. Using the slogan “United Albania for all Albanians” their troops clashed with Turkish and Montenegro armies that attempted to implement the decisions of the 1878 Berlin Congress on the territorial rebuilding of the Balkans.

The idea of the creating of the ethnic Albania was rejuvenated in the autumn of 1912 when the armed forces of the Balkan states led by Serbia liberated the originally Slav lands from Turksl. November 18, 1912 leaders of the Albanian national movement presented to diplomats from the great powers in Istanbul what was called “The Call of the Albanian Nation”. It expressed the firm resolve of Albanians to fight with an eye to “guaranteeing to the Albanian people its ethnic and political existence.” What the reference to “guarantees” meant was the establishment of Albania in its ethnic borders and its further international recognition. A few days later in Vlera the National assembly gathered to declare Albania’s independence under the banner of the Middle-Age Albanian hero Skanderbeg, a black double-headed eagle on the red background. Since then residents of Albania and Albanians in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Southern Serbia and Greece regard this flag as their national symbol.

As early as 1913 a multi-colour map of “Ethnic Albania” was disseminated in the Balkans that was drawn by someone Ahmet Gasi, also known as “doctor” and “professor”. The map showed the internationalborders of the state-to-be that included Albania, all of Kosovo, the greater part of Macedonia, a part of Greece and Montenegro. Nowadays, all the bookstores in Pristina, the administrative centre of Kosovo feature this map so that it could catch anyone willing to purchase it. The price is 5 euros.

The danger of such ethno-demographic “novelties” by “professor ” Gasi and his present-day Albanian followers should in no case be underestimated. Western researchers and observers have a knack of being constantly surprised at finding how comparatively low the religious sentiment of Albanians is, compared with, for one, with the role their faith plays for Orthodox Serbs and Greeks, and Catholic Croats. However, this Albanian secret is an open secret. The faith of Albanians is Albanism - an anti-Christian idea of bringing together all Albanians within the borders of their single state, deliberately cleansed from any impregnation by any other ethnicity. Given that Albanians have in the present-day Europe the highest per capita birth rate, the stake for ethnocracy and ethno-etatism in the plans of building the “Great Albania” is more than vindicated, allowing them to avoid restriction of the limits of Albanian expansion within the territory of the Balkans only.

So far, they in most European capitals prefer to disregard the danger that is looming over the European continent. They believe (or pretend to believe) the tales that Kosovo Albanians would be satisfied enough to have independence under the international supervision. Meanwhile, they continue to believe that Albanian riots in 2000-2001 in Macedonia and Preshev valley in the south of Serbia were caused by the oppression by Skopje and Belgrade rather than viewing them as a test of their muscles by the Great Albania strategists. Individual concerned voices are drowned in the choir of bombastic diplomats the likes of British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, who calls on the EU to take the “single and strong” stance on Kosovo, supporting the “Ahtisaari” plan that suggests granting independence to the Kosovo residents. As for the date, November 28, Europeans have grown accustomed to associate it with the age-long history, if they ever recollect it.

However, history has a habit of repeating itself, and frequently in a more terrifying manner than before. No one in the United States saw any tragic meaning of the figures 9 and 11 only six years ago. Is it absolutely out of the question for Europe, so vain of its civilization, to begin writing its comprehensive history from the date 11/28 ?

Related posts:

• Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History, Richard Jansen (Colorado State University)
• Into the Bosnian Quagmire (Part 3), antiwar.com
• The Chains That Bind: Constitutions, then and now, antiwar.com (Nebojsa Malic)
• Jihad in Kosovo: a Response to Critics, Jihad Watch
• Congress was Alerted in 2005, Republican Riot blog (Julia Gorin)