Thursday, October 11, 2007

Some thoughts about conflict, war, peace and justice

This is what everyone connects with Serbia. A land of war, conflicts and trouble. I have to admit that I used to think the same thing. So is this the Serbia I have met. There are some strange things here, like the fact that I don't recall seeing any Africans at all during my time in Serbia. People here also have a pretty negative view of NATO.

I will try to give a short summary of my impression of the Kosovo conflict. I want to emphasize the fact that this is my version, I'm not saying that this is what happened. Also I think my point of view is a little Serbian given the fact that I live in Serbia. Some time back Albanians (a Muslim people) started immigrating into the Kosovo region. This was originally a part of Serbia. They started getting a lot of kids and after some time they went from being a minority to a majority. Reasonably enough they felt like having more control of there own area in stead of Serbia deciding everything. During the rule of President Tito, Kosovo was given strong autonomy (they were given a lot of power to control them self) along with Vojvodina (the region I live in). Some years after Tito died a new President called Slobodan Milosevič started ruling the nation and he canceled the autonomy that Kosovo had been given earlier. This was the point were things started to turn around. The Kosovo-Albanians became angry and started killing Serbians. Then Serbia sends armed forces into Kosovo and starts killing Kosovo-Albanians. NATO tells Slobodan to retreat from Kosovo something he will not do. To stop the killing NATO starts bombing Serbia to ruin the economy of Serbia, and after a while they send peace keeping troops in to Kosovo.
During Tito's rule there were communism in Yugoslavia. A good communism as some of the people here have told me. People where happy and they had more than enough money to survive. They even had money for recreation like skiing, traveling and similar activities. They had a standard of living that could be compared to what we had in Norway. Communism made everyone equal, something that kind of put a lid on the different conflicts that were boiling under the surface. When Tito died the lid fell of and things started boiling. After a while NATO bombed Serbia and destroyed most of the industry of Serbia, leaving half the population unemployed. They succeeded with there goal which was to destroy the economy. NATO ruins the country and leave them to manage them selves, no wonder they don't like NATO here. People who used to have what they needed and more barely have enough resources to provide food for their children. A nurse with 3 years of education earns around 1500 NOK every month. That's 50 NOK every day. Less than a tenth of the salary a nurse would get in Norway. The prices in Belgrade is around 1/3 of what they are in Norway. How are people supposed to manage to survive? Is this fair? Is this justice? As I said earlier there are many sides to this story. You will get a different version from each person you ask.
This is what's left of a TV station after NATO bombed it. This is what we leave behind.

Please give comments and reactions to this, there are probably some inaccurate facts and I would like very much to get others opinions.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to here this, Torstein. I think the communication to the world society about this conflict has been rather one-sided. Probably the bombing of Serbia was as wicked as the genocide of the Kosovo-albanians and the killings of Serbians. Suppose the serbian people paid a steep price for having an unstoppable man like Milosevic as president. There were clearly no winners in this war...

Inki and Ole Einar said...

Hei tot-li! kjekt å få oppdatering fra livet der borte. Flotte bilder! Ser ut som det er et spennende land. Håper du får det fint videre! :) Gleder meg til å lese mer!

Per Oddvin Stornes said...

Halloen! Interessant lesing:) Bor du og Oda i Beograd? Jeg kommer ned 3. november for å besøke Andja og Danijel en uke:) Gleder meg! Regner med vi snakkes!

Anonymous said...

Hei Torstein. Nå har du fått godt grep med bildene. Veldig illustrende. Flotte s/h bilder. Håper du koser deg der nede og får mange gode minner for livet. Vi snakkes snart . Klem fra Lill