An American Perspective on the Spiritual Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija,
and the Problem of U. S. Policy
Paper presented at the conference Serbian Spiritual Heritage of Kosovo and
Metohija in the European Culture, Belgrade, November 30, 2007
Today I would like to offer a specifically American perspective on
the spiritual and cultural heritage of Kosovo and Metohija. I believe my
remarks will differ somewhat from the others to be offered today, which
likely will focus on the positive aspects of that heritage. My unfortunate
task will be to turn our attention to the negative side of things, in view
of the fact that it is precisely the policies of my country that present the
greatest threat to the continued existence of Serbia ’s ancient patrimony.
I do not think this danger is news to anyone here. It is no secret
that the government of the United States is most insistent on the so-called
“final resolution” of the question of Kosovo and Metohija in favor of the
province’s forcible and illegal separation from Serbia and the creation of a
rogue state controlled by criminal and jihadist elements. It is clear to
everyone that the so-called “guarantees” for Serbs are a fraud, and would
not be honored by Ceku, Thaci, and their ilk, nor be enforced by those
powers that insist that independence is the only acceptable outcome. A
success of the stated American policy – which, by the way, I do not expect –
could only mean eradication of the remaining Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija
and destruction of their holy places.
The foregoing observations naturally lead to an obvious question:
Why? Why does Washington want this outcome? By this question I do not mean
the political issue of why Washington has adopted this policy in a strategic
context. The answer to that question is complex and not especially relevant
to the purpose of this conference. More relevant is this: Why don’t the
American authorities value the unique heritage of Kosovo and Metohija, not
only to the Serbian nation, but to Europe , to Christianity, to all world
civilization? Why are they so determined, either by malice or indifference,
to destroy it?
This requires some background on American culture. In fact, many
people from older nations find the expression “American culture” itself
absurd, thinking we are a people without a history and without a
nationality. As an American, I can tell you that I have encountered this
notion many times from representatives of many nations.
This year we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of
what became the United States , with the landing of the first English
settlers in Virginia , where I live. To be sure, by European standards four
centuries is not a very long time. But it is not such a short time, either.
And this does not even take into account the previous history of England ,
which forms the basis of the American civilization. As Samuel Huntington
has pointed out, the oft-repeated claim, drummed now into the heads of
generations of American schoolchildren, that America is a “nation of
immigrants,” is simply false. Being myself of recent immigrant stock, I am
not at all offended by the fact that the root and trunk of America is not
from later immigrants but from the original settlers from the British Isles,
who brought with them the twin pillars upon which America was founded: their
Protestant religion and the English Common Law.
A hundred years ago, if you told any American that there was no
such thing as an American nation or an American language, he would punch you
in the nose. Today, he would regard the question with confusion and
indifference. If he were a recent product of our educational system, he
would answer the question emphatically in the negative, that we are a
multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual country. What has changed?
And what is its relevance to Kosovo and Metohija?
With regard to the first question – what has changed – I cannot
give you an exact answer, but I can point to some relevant facts. First,
the de-nationalization of the United States is a relatively recent
phenomenon. It did not really begin until after World War II and only
accelerated during and after the cultural and moral revolution of the 1960s.
Second, it went hand-in-hand with changes in America ’s immigration policy,
which in 1964 dropped its former bias in favor of western European
immigrants, who up to that point were considered most compatible with our
existing social structure, to favor Third World origins, mainly from Latin
America and to some extent the Far East . America ’s changing ethnic
demographics both reflected and fed the growing notion that there was
nothing distinctly “national” about America , that we were simply a random
group of people with origins across the globe, united only by an American
“creed” – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg
Address, and so forth. The paradox of this view should be obvious, since
none of the “creed” was produced by the immigrants but by the descendants of
the original English settlers and was an expression of their institutions
and values. Still, the shift was a profound one. In this understanding,
America ’s founding principles are not the unique heritage of a particular
people but an expression of a universally applicable set of standards, which
means they are available for export. As I was once told by someone at the
Pentagon, Wesley Clark, following his departure from his post as Supreme
NATO commander, during one private conversation about world affairs looked
him in the eye and said, with evident passion: “You have to understand –
everyone in the world wants to be an American. They all want to be
Americans!” And I think I hardly need remind anyone here what General
Clark’s methodology for Americanization in the Balkans consisted of.
Perhaps the most crucial factor in the transformation of America
from what it once was to what it is now was the end of the Cold War. Now of
course, the end of communism and the global confrontation with that ideology
was a great blessing. But I can remember how naïve I was at the time,
thinking that the end of communism meant a return to a more or less normal
world, comparable to that of pre-1914. I could not imagine that messianic
Marxism-Leninism would be supplanted by messianic “democratic capitalism,” a
worldview in which man, no less than under its predecessor, is not a person
made in the image and likeness of the eternal God, but a material commodity.
The current ideological motivations of the “World’s Sole Surviving
Superpower” have nothing to do with America ’s founding principles as the
unique heritage and values of a particular people. Or to use the Greek
expressions: the unique ethos of a particular ethnos. Indeed, it is not a
coincidence the words come from the same root. Nor should it be thought
that most Americans either have much awareness of what they have lost nor of
what is being done abroad in their name.
Which brings us back to the Balkans, and specifically to Kosovo and
Metohija. I ask your pardon for this lengthy detour into American issues,
but I think it is impossible to appreciate what my government is trying to
achieve without a sense of the indifference, or even hostility, of our
policymakers towards Serbia ’s spiritual and cultural heritage, the timeless
value which other speakers will address in greater detail.
To convey a sense of that indifference and hostility, it might be
better to show you than try to explain to you. As many of you know, I have
been working for some time now, under the authority of Vladyka ARTEMIJE in
opposition to American policy on Kosovo and Metohija. As part of that
effort we have employed, among other tools, advertisements in publications
read by Washington policymakers.
You have in front of you one of these ads. In fact, this idea was
suggested to me by a friend at the White House – and I should point out that
there are many in the Washington apparat who oppose the current policy and
are distressed by it but have not been able yet to turn it. Since all
Americans who follow world affairs are familiar with the destruction by the
Taliban of the gigantic Buddha statues of Bamiyan, why not use the
comparison to drive home the point about what is happening to the Serbian
Christian heritage in Kosovo and Metohija?
In fact, as we pointed out in the ad, the latter is far worse.
There have been no Buddhists in Afghanistan for many centuries. The
destruction of the statues was an offense to world art and culture, but it
was not part of an assault on a living community in that country. By
contrast, the crimes committed against historic sites in Kosovo and Metohija
are first and foremost a crime against people, against the Orthodox Serbian
people whose holy places they are. A church consists not of cold stones but
of the living people whose spiritual life is housed there. The demolition
and desecration of these places is inseparable from the process of removing
the people and the memory that they were ever there.
The reaction to our ad was hysterical. Congressmen called a press
conference to denounce us. We were called “racist” and “Islamophobic” – as
if we had invented the facts contained in the ad. But of course, the ad was
of great benefit to us, and even more so our opponents’ reaction, since it
began to draw attention to the fact that there was something terribly wrong
with our supposed showcase of “humanitarian intervention.”
But did it change the minds of our policymakers? You know the
answer. How can people who no longer understand or love their own native
culture, who have rejected the spiritual values of their own civilization,
appreciate those of another?
The indifference and hostility of American policymakers to the
preservation of the Serbian spiritual and cultural patrimony in Kosovo and
Metohija, and their dogged determination to impose a “settlement” that will
lead to its eradication, is at root a symptom of a political class that has
lost all appreciation of spirituality and culture, that of their own nation
first of all. In that sense they have lost much of what divides a human
being from a beast, and the bestial results of their policies in Kosovo and
Metohija are plain to all those who have eyes to see. But of these it was
truly said: “Seeing, they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do
they understand.”
No, they cannot see, or hear, or understand. But they can be
defeated. However powerful they may have been in the past, and however
powerful they still imagine themselves to be, that power is slipping away
every day and it will not come back. In this sense the political struggle
against the power that seeks the destruction of Kosovo and Metohija is in
fact a spiritual struggle. That struggle is the task to which we all must
rededicate ourselves, here in Serbia , in America , in Europe, in Russia ,
and everywhere else. And speaking as an American, I am certain we will
prevail.
by James Jatras
James George Jatras, Esq.
Director, American Council for Kosovo (www.savekosovo.org)
Principal, Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC
Washington
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