December 10, 2007.
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
provinces 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 dont 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
Clarks 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 Worlds 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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