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| Europe |
| Jules Crittenden: Kosova |
| 2008-02-18 |
| I spent a couple of weeks running around that place, with a couple of Kosovar families and with some U.S. paratroopers. It was parachute journalism, in and out job. Part of that time was spent in the city of Urosevac. That’s what the Serbs call it. One of the Serb soldiers who had occupied my host’s house painted on its side as they departed the wistful graffiti, “Bye Bye Ferizai.” In English. There was apparently a sophisticated, maybe even poetic conscript in the bunch. Ferizai is what the Albs call that city. That is where I learned quick ethnic conflict lesson No. 1: When you have people living in the same place who have two different names for it, sooner or later you’re going to have trouble. In Kosovo/Kosova’s case, that’s been just about once a decade for most of the past century, and probably about the same for most of the prior ten centuries. . . . Go read it all. He has a lot to say about Kosova Moslems, the Serbs, and Yugoslavia in general. |
| Posted by:Mike |