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| Yes | 63% | 146 votes | Total: 230 votes | |
| No | 37% | 84 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesThe question of deciding an entire countries' independence is obviously much simpler than a "yes" or a "no." Whether in Kosovo, in the various Middle East conflicts, in Russian Chechnya, Indonesian East Timor, in Sudanese Darfur, etc., each situation comes with its own set of issues and history. Nationality, language, resources, tolerance, religion, and history all play a role in prompting a people to seek national independence. Who is to say the Native Americans will not one day challenge the United States and demand their own country? And what about the Aborigines of Australia? Or the natives of the Amazon? Where does it end?
Whatever the particular situation may be, the Kosovo story has shown the world that peaceful and legal proceedings can actually be very successful. Ever since the war ended in 1999, the region has been remarkably peaceful, and war criminals were tried and sentenced in international courts. NATO has been stationed in the region without much incident, and Milosevic and his cronies went to jail. Less than a decade later, the Kosovars are now claiming their independence, without bloodshed.
The region, of course, has not always been so peaceful; for a while, the region was even nicknamed Europe's "tinderbox" after its role in igniting the first World War. For nearly a century, conflict ravaged the land and the people. The awkward consolidation of the area as Yugoslavia led to problems as serious as ethnic cleansing, as late as the 1990's. But a fragile peace has been in place of late, and with it, as always, prosperity has followed. This can be a lesson to those who give up on peace, citing generations of aggression.
Like Ghandi and Martin Luther King's civil rights movement, the Kosovo revolution has been nonviolent, and looks like it will be accepted. Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens, and other disenfranchised peoples take notice: patient, legal, and bloodless struggles for independence yield the most effective rewards. With no use of force on the part of the Kosovars in their claim, the Serbians too now have little excuse to use force of their own.
Already the United States, Turkey, Albania, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Australia, and others have already recognized Kosovo's independence. Surely, the situation would be different had the Kosovars resorted to terrorism in order to oust the Serbs. Violence tends to alienate and exacerbate situations. Let us hope that Kosovo's legacy will be that of a peaceful example to others who harbor nationalistic dreams.
Learn more about this author, Beeri Moalem.
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No
The independence of Kosovo is in the news at the moment but the independence of small groups of ethnically similar people has gone on for millennia. It is only in times of stress that small territories amass into larger ones or remain as confederations for mutual protection.
Catholic Belgium was formed in 1830 by seceding from the Low Countries which had become largely Protestant after the Reformation. Now, the country is composed of three catholic communities of different ethnic background Dutch-speaking Flanders, the French-speaking Walloon, and a small German-speaking area on the borders with Germany. Naturally, as religion has become of less importance, there are calls to separate on the basis of ethnicity even as the European countries are being slowly welded into the European Community in which national identity might slowly become as meaningless as that of the different states in the U.S. However, separation is unlikely since the Belgians and pragmatically sensible people.
Similarly, four nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland form Great Britain and again there are activists who call for different levels of self-government. Scotland and Wales both have local governments that provide for considerable power over their own affairs. One could, of course, view them as merely the equivalent of State governments in the U.S. since London administers foreign policy. Despite the rumblings of separation it is unlikely that it would ever happen. The British are also sensible people.
One small country has managed to retain true independence through the centuries the Confederation of Helvetia that we know as Switzerland. The Confederation title acknowledges that it is composed of smaller groups, speaking a multitude of languages: French, German, Italian and more. To my knowledge there has not been a recent call for independence of any of these groups and perhaps that is so because of the external pressures exerted during recent times: first as Germany expanded during World War II, and later as external nations bonded as the European Community.
The former Yugoslavia was fabricated artificially and held together only by the personality of Tito. Following his death it was inevitable that the area would separate. There were simply too many religions and too many ethnic differences for it to remain one. Slovenia with a different language, culture and economics was the first to go and the first to enter the European Community. Kosovo is simply one of the later splits for reason of religion.
The independence of Kosovo will have no effect on whether other small groups seek independence. That is the continuing practice even though independence is not what it used to be. Generally, some larger group administers foreign policy and/or economic policy. In the Kosovo case, that larger group will eventually be the European Community and over that the United Nations.
Learn more about this author, John Graham.
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