Political Bitches

I think this is going to be the first post that doesn’t detail some new and/or frustrating aspect of the election. Brace yourselves.

Kosovo.

First of all: fuck you, CNN. Kosovo declared independence and you took 24 hours to cover it? What in the shit?! Let me tell you something. I find it pretty god damned ironic that you would continue to “cover” the presidential candidates with your anti-intellectual pundit press over reporting on a seriously important global issue. It just shows where your priorities are, and they’re misplaced. The president is the chief ambassador for foreign affairs. That’s their niche. They’re international-politics driven. So a hugely substantial part of the reason that electing our president even matters is because of situations like Kosovo. So given that the importance of the presidency rests largely on the importance of the international community, don’t you think it was a teeny bit of a FUCK UP to blow off the Kosovo story?

Secondly: for those who are confused (and I wouldn’t blame you, considering the media’s shitty coverage), Kosovo was/is a small region belonging to Serbia in Eastern Europe. (Here’s a picture for you– it’s the southern tip of Serbia.)

Long story short, there’s been tremendous amounts of ethnic and political tensions between Kosovo and Serbia for fucking decades. So a few short days ago, Kosovo declared independence from Serbia and established its own government, etc etc.

You know, more or less what we did back in 1776, albeit for slightly different reasons.

We, the U.S., are fine with this. In fact, we’re recognizing Kosovo as its own state. As are Italy, France, Belgium, the U.K., and a small host of other Western European nations. We/They support Kosovo’s efforts toward independence, namely because Kosovo’s new government has been democratically elected and has vowed to endorse both human and minority rights. But there’s always one major country with a stick up its ass, and guess who it is this time?

Surprise surprise! Russia. Me and Russia are about to duel it out. They’ve been pulling this kind of shit for years. But yeah, back to the story– so Russia is supporting Serbia and claiming that Kosovo had no legal grounds on which to base this move. There are two ulterior motives for Russia’s actions: first and foremost, Chechnya. Chechnya is a Russian satellite state, under Russian rule, blah blah, whose circumstances strongly resemble that of Kosovo’s. In SAT format: Chechnya is to Russia what Kosovo is to Serbia.

Therefore, Russia’s in a shitfit over the precedent this will set. If Chechnya sees that Kosovo can successfully declare freedom and be viewed as a valid entity among the world powers (U.S., U.K., France, etc), they would get ideas of their own. Chechnya is none too happy with the status quo in their country, nor with Russia. Independence and political freedom to assert their own policies would be a welcomed change. So Russia needs to squash any inkling Chechnya might have to do this by supporting Serbia’s efforts in reclaiming Kosovo.

Secondly, Russia and Serbia are allies, so aside from their personal stake in the matter, Russia sort of “has to” support Serbia. So what does this mean? It means the United Nations is fucked, that’s what it means. See, the U.N. needs to agree on how to handle the situation and on whose side they’re on. No such agreement will be met because Russia is on the god damned Security Council (along with the U.S., U.K., France, and China). For those who don’t know this, a permanent Security Council member has the power to veto anything that the U.N. as a whole might decide. So even though 99% of the U.N. backs Kosovo, Russia’s veto will prevent the U.N. from passing any resolutions or being able to assist in the crisis at all.

Here’s my take. No one can really blame Serbia for wanting their territory back. If Hawaii or California or Maine wanted to break away from the union, we wouldn’t stand for it either. We saw evidence of this during the Civil War. So Serbia is only doing what any country would predictably do, even if it is, granted, an extremely self-centered and illegitimate stance. (I ultimately support Kosovo.) However, Russia’s interference is a huge fucking bag of douche. They’re single-handedly preventing any amount of progress, which will only result in hurting the Kosovans. If Russia is having issues with Chechnya, they need to sort that out themselves without projecting their fears on to another nation and that nation’s legitimate struggle for political independence.

It’s the same old Story of Empire, I suppose. Complete with tales of world dominance, despots, revolutions, calls for freedom, greed… only there’s much less glory and much more suffering and confusion when it’s not being filtered through the safety net of a history book.

-Elysa