KOSOVO & AMERICA:
WHAT'S GOING ON?

A SHORT REVIEW OF OUR LAST ARTICLE: THE REAL
REASON BEHIND OUR INTERVENTION IN THE BALKANS

As we indicated in our last article, "Racial Rage And The Coming Chaos," the real reason behind the elite establishment's strategic "tilt" towards the Muslims in the Balkans is oil - and not just Middle Eastern oil, [where American and British multinationals (Exxon, Shell, Mobil, etc.) have billions and billions of dollars invested], but also Caspian Sea oil (where the same multinationals are preparing to spend billions more in pipelines which they plan to build across Turkey and / or in countries close to Turkey - and all this to say nothing of the additional billions these same multinationals are spending in drilling rights and pumping operations in Azerbaijan, a country contiguous to Turkey which is populated by "Turkik Muslims." The multinationals could very well see all these billions go up in smoke if Turkey - which has a growing problem with militantly anti-American Islamic fundamentalists - were destabilized as a result of being drawn into the conflict in the Balkans; hence America's "tilt" towards the Muslims and Turkey - a "tilt" which, again, necessarily demands that the elite "play down" the religious aspect of the war while at the same time "demonizing" the Serbs (i.e., the Orthodox Christians). "Big Oil" must be able to show the Muslims of the Middle East that they can "deliver" American support in this kind of crisis.

Some Christians, of course, naively believe that "Big Oil" simply doesn't have this kind of clout - the kind that can dictate U.S. foreign policy. But they do! Take Exxon and Mobil, for instance. Exxon is the largest oil company in the world; Mobil is the third largest. The two are merging. Together they will have enormous financial and industrial power, which translates, naturally, into political power. Only two dozen nations in the world have Gross Domestic Products larger than the combined annual sales of these two giants ($180 billion in 1997). Greece has a Gross Domestic Product of only half that size, which is why Greece's concerns in the Balkans don't count for much at the State Department - and the same applies to all the other Orthodox states in the Balkans. No, Mobil's and Exxon's interests lie with the Muslim nations of the Middle East and the Caspian Sea; it's these nations that Mobil and Exxon want to ingratiate themselves to - and to hell with the Orthodox world. Of course, if the shoe were on the other foot, it's the Muslims that "Big Oil" would hang out to dry. In the world of Mobil and Exxon (and, ipso facto, the American elite's world), money rules!

HIDING BEHIND A MASK OF FEIGNED "HUMANITARIANISM"

Naturally, the State Department doesn't want its actual reasons known as to why the U.S. is intervening in Kosovo - after all, it's pretty hard to justify sending American soldiers into battle for the sake of Mobil's, Exxon's, Shell's, BP's, and Standard Oil's "bottom line." Other reasons have to be given: hence America's sudden "humanitarian concerns" for the Kosovar Muslims - a concern which, strangely enough, hasn't manifested itself insofar as Africa (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, Ethiopia, etc.) is concerned where many more human beings have been killed over the past few years than have ever been killed in the former Yugoslavia - and this is to say nothing about what's been occurring in East Timor, certain parts of Indonesia, the Philippines, etc. [And one shouldn't make the mistake that just because Africans are "black" and Asians are "yellow" that "race" has had anything to do with the elites' unconcern with regard to the humanitarian debacles going on in Africa and Asia; if money were involved there, the elite would be very concerned. But there is no money involved: hence the lack of concern. To the elites, it's not race that matters, it's money! Money! - this is what the American elite is all about. Nothing else! - Not people! Not culture! Not "humanitarianism!" These things are of no concern to the elites; they may be what drive the masses, but not the elites, except when "race," "religion," and "humanitarian concerns" can be used to bend the masses to their will.

It's precisely because of this indifference towards "race" and "religion" that the elites seem on occasion to be embracing the liberal left's concept of "multiculturalism;" when one harbors no real thoughts for "race" and "religion," one can easily adopt a "neutral" attitude towards them which, to those who are ignorant of the elite's ways, seems to indicate "tolerance," but which in reality is nothing more than indifference. And it's exactly here that minorities like the Albanian Kosovars and the Bosnian Muslims are making a big mistake, thinking that there is conviction behind America's "tilt" towards them. But there is none, and should circumstances change, the elite will shrug them off without even so much as a "fond goodby."

THE BLINDNESS OF THE ELITES

In all this, however, the elites may be erring badly. Historically, the enormous blunder of all elites has been to underestimate the passion of the masses, especially insofar as "religion" and "race" are concerned, and in doing so, unwittingly igniting conflagrations which have in the past devoured them. This may be exactly what is in store for the elites in the Balkans. As we just indicated, "race" and "religion" may not mean much to the American elites (or for that matter, the British, the German and the French elites), but they certainly do to the contestants on the ground in the Balkans." The blindness of the American elite in all this - their utter disregard of the consequences of their action - is enough to take one's breath away ... The fact is, in intervening in the Balkans (and specifically in Kosovo), they have, as Shakespeare said, "let slip the dogs of war" and unleashed forces over which they have little understanding and no control.

It's hardly surprising then that the elite media in the West (which has become in America nothing more than a mouthpiece for the American multinationals) keeps missing important - and troubling - political trends throughout the Slavic world as NATO and the West continue to push their attack against the Serbs. The effect that all this is having throughout the Orthodox world - in Greece, in Macedonia, in Bulgaria, in Romania, in the Ukraine, in Belarus, etc. - is disturbing. In pressing home their attack against Yugoslavia, the West is galvanizing Orthodoxy against themselves, as the recent demonstrations in Skopje, Moscow, Sophia, Minsk, Athens, etc. so clearly demonstrate. The West is making a big mistake in thinking that economic matters trump "religion" and "race" in the Orthodox world; that in order to get IMF funding for their troubled economy, Moscow is willing to see her brother Slavs in Serbia pounded into insensibility.

THE INTRACTABILITY OF ETHNIC CONFLICT

No one, of course, can defend the ethnic cleansing that's going on in Kosovo - at least on the face of it and without a resort to "race," "religion," and "Manifest Destiny" - but, then, that's exactly what the Serbs are doing; they're basing their claim to Kosovo on "religion" and "Manifest Destiny." As Prof. Dusan Batakovic, a professor at the Historical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, says,

"Kosovo is the native and ancestral land of the Serbs. It ... is considered to be the Serbian Jerusalem. Almost all of the great historical Serbian monasteries, churches and fortresses are located in this province."

In following their "Manifest Destiny" with regard to Kosovo and "cleansing the area of 'outsiders'," the Serbs are doing nothing more than what almost all the other nations of the earth have done in their "time and season" - after all, isn't this what the United States did insofar as the Indians ("Native Americans") were concerned? Isn't this what we did with the Mexicans insofar as Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. were concerned? Isn't this what the Aztecs did with the Toltecs? Isn't this what the Czechs did with regard to the Germans in the Sudetenland? And what the Germans did to the Poles during World War II, and then, after World War II, what the Poles did to the Germans insofar as Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia are concerned? And what about the Belorussians and the Poles? The Lithuanians and the Russians ad infinitum? And, perhaps more to the point insofar as evangelical Christians are concerned, isn't this what the Jews are doing now in Israel to the Palestinians?

Yes, of course it is! This is what the world is all about - it's not a very nice place! [And one should be clear here: in the sum total of things, there has been very little killing involved in the Serbs' deportations of the Muslim Kosovars - despite what the American press has been screaming about - certainly not in comparison to the slaughter the Turks, America's ally in the Middle East, have unleashed against the Kurds; the genocide the Americans carried out against the Indians in the United States; the carnage the Hindus were involved in with regard to the Muslims (the Pakistanis) in their midst in India and even the bloodshed the Jews have unleashed against the Palestinians for the past fifty years. In all these instances, and many more besides, there has been a lot more killing than what's occurring now in Kosovo.] The "wrongness" and the "rightness" of what's going on in Kosovo (or, for that matter, Bosnia, Israel, India, the United States, etc.) depends upon whose ox is being kicked.

Some would say, of course, that the Muslims in Kosovo outnumber the Serbs, and, therefore - ipso facto - Kosovo should be theirs. But seventy years ago, the Serbs outnumbered the Muslims until they were forced out - by the Croatian Ustashi and the Albanian Muslims, both of whom were allied with Hitler at the time (and it should be noted in this connection that at the time the Serb majority was pushed out of Kosovo, they were allied with Britain and the United States, and were responsible for saving countless numbers of Allied flyers forced down over occupied Serbia by the German Luftwaffe). No doubt, some will say that seventy years ago is too far in the past. Well, if that's the case, the Palestinians' claim to Israel should carry more force than the Jews' claim; after all, the Jews' claim is more than two thousand years old (and between then and now, they were not once the majority in that area) while the Palestinian claim is much more current.

And what about Ireland's claim to Northern Ireland? - after all, the Protestants are a majority there. The Irish, of course, would retort, that Northern Ireland was "stolen" from them and "resettled" with "illegal immigrants" from Scotland. But isn't this what the Serbs are saying with regard to the Kosovar Muslims? And if majority rules, then certainly America should prepare itself to give up its claim to California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas because in not too many years, Mexicans will be in the majority in these states. What about that?

No, you say, that doesn't count! Well, if it doesn't count for us, then why are we forcing the Serbs to adhere to "principles" we won't honor ourselves? - because this is precisley what is happening to the Serbs insofar as Kosovo is concerned: they were displaced in Kosovo through what amounted to the "illegal immigration" of Albanian Muslims into the region.

CIVILIZATION CONFLICT

With all this in mind, it's not too difficult to come to an understanding as to how intractable, vexing, and even inexplicable the "Kosovo Problem" really is - there is much more involved here than the maniacal whims of a "madman" - Slobodan Milosovich.

The elites, of course, would prefer that we believe that such is not the case: that only the caprice of a "racist" madman is involved here; get rid of Milosovich and everything else will take care of itself: get rid of Milosovich, sell the Serbs out, placate the Russians with more IMF loans, satiate the Islamic world (and the Turks) by giving Kosovo to the Muslims, and get on with drilling for oil in the Middle East and the Caspian Sea. That's, after all, what "globalization" and "free trade" are all about - making money!

But that's not what Samuel P. Huntington, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, thinks. Huntington believes that what's going on in the Balkans is much more basic and fundamental than that which is being "advertised" in the elite media; that a "Clash of Civilizations" is taking place in the South Balkans, and that the differences which delineate the different civilizations involved in the conflict cannot so easily be swept under the rug. Huntington says:

"Civilizations are not only real; they are basic. Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition, (race) and, most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not soon disappear."

Huntington defines eight major civilizations of world importance:

1. Western (which includes Western Europe and North America).
2. Slavic-Orthodox (Russia, eastern Europe, Armenia, etc.)
3. Islamic (which includes three subdivisions: Arab, Turkic and Malay).
4. Latin American.
5. Hindu.
6. Confucian.
7. Japanese.
8. African.

The elites would like us to believe that the distinctions which differentiate one civilization from another are not all that important; that these differences cannot be allowed to stand in the way of "globalization" (and be clear here, the reason "globalization" is so important to the moneyed elites is that it enhances their pecuniary interests; they have no real concern in "globalization" other than this; there is no other underlying dynamic involved. They leave the philosophical aspects of "globalization" (i.e., the "New Age") to the Shirley McLaines of this world. The "New Age" is of concern to the elites only insofar as it promotes "globalization" and by doing so, enhances the "free-flow of capital," and enables them (i.e., the elites) to take advantage of the cheapest labor available - i.e., moving jobs out of countries where labor costs are too high (e.g., Western Europe and North America) to regions where cheap labor (sometimes even "slave labor") is available (e.g., China, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, etc.), and all the while advertising that what they are doing is in the "best interests of mankind."

"Pluralism" and "diversity" are the watchwords of the elites, and because the "New Age" tends to promote these concepts by melding culture and religion into a kind of one-world mélange which they see as conducive to their global economic interests, the elites tend to promote it.

COMMERCE

But it's commerece that the elites are interested in; not philosophy! Commerce is at the heart of what the elites are up to; it's lies at the core of the globalization process the elites have unleashed on the world! It's also at the heart of Satan. The Bible says:

"The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying…

"Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus [Satan],

"And say unto Tyrus, O thou that are situate (situated) at the entry ["midst" - is the more accurate translation] of the sea, which are a MERCHANT of the people … [the traders of the earth] have made thy beauty perfect.

"Tarshish [the trading nations] … traded in thy fairs.

"Son of man, say unto the Prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God IN THE MIDST OF THE SEAS …

"By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic [commerce] thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

"By the multitudes of thy merchandise they have filled … thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: … "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by … the iniquity of thy traffic [commerce] …" (Ezek. 27:1-3, 12; 28:2, 5,16, 18). [Please see pgs. Chapter 14, "The Beast Of Revelation 17," in the Antipas Papers for a thorough treatment of this subject.]

At the heart of commerce is money. Money is addictive and all too often leads the possessor of it into unrighteousness. The Word of God speaks of "the mammon of unrighteousness" (Luke 16:9). The corruption which results from the "love of money" and the things which it can buy, invariably leads away from God.

Paul writes:

"They that desire to be rich fall into a temptation and snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which some reaching after, have been led astray … and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (I Tim. 6:9-10)

to the moneyed elites meansThat the world can be transformed into a multicultural melange That's what they would like to happen. Why? - because "civilization conflict" gets in the way of making money; specifically, it hinders "free trade" (which is the elite's key to astronomical wealth) and it hampers the ability of the multinationals to utilize cheap labor.(Please see our articles on "The American Empire.")

Huntington continues - almost as if he had read the Bible concerning the "end of days" [i.e., that "... nation (ethnos) shall rise against nation (ethnos), and kingdom against kingdom ..." (Luke 21:10)]:

"... world politics are entering a new phase ... (in which) the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural ... The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics ... The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future ... Over the centuries ... differences among civilizations have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflict (more so even than ideological conflict)."

The reason? - because, as Huntington explains, differences between civilizations -

"... are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes ..."

Finally, Huntington claims that this clash will dominate global politics not just as a struggle between civilizations, but as a struggle within civilizations - that is, as a struggle to "purify" or "cleanse" each respective civilization of "foreign elements" - the effort by one ethnic group (or civilization) to establish its dominance (through an appeal to biological determinism, history, and religion) over other groups and civilizations, especially in a given territory or area, i.e., the Kurds over Kurdistan, the Irish over all of Ireland, the Mexicans over California, the Jews over Israel, etc. This is what the Bible is talking about when it speaks of "nations (ethnic groups) rising up against nations (ethnic groups)."

One of our readers, Lucian Butum of Bucharest, Romania agrees. He writes:

"The way the Americans are conducting the war (in Serbia) is outrageous to most of the Romanian people: what started as an American response to stop the Albanians from leaving Kosovo is now generating an even bigger exodus ... on a scale that I think nobody realises. All the media is presenting is a lot of information about the three american soldiers captured by the Serbians ... and (that's not all); there is more that makes the average Romanian to nearly hate the western forces: for instance, the declaration that the bombardments are to be continued even during the Christian (Orthodox) Easter celebrations. This one is among the top reason why the western attacks are (so) strongly criticised (here).

"To reach a conclusion, when two people fight inside a house, you don't put the roof on fire in order to make peace. The feeling that western nations act based solely on ... (economic) interests and not based on honesty and good will is getting stronger and stronger each day, generating a treason-like feeling. The war in Yugoslavia is what's happening when somebody confuses the people with the politicians."

Lucian, who holds graduate degrees in Computer Science from the University of Timisoara, located about 60 km east of Novisad in Serbia, one of the main targets of the recent American bombardments, says that the West has greatly erred in underestimating the unity of the Orthodox people in Eastern Europe, especially insofar as the "Muslim Menace" is concerned. Lucian writes:

"It seems like the USA is trying to impose (on the Balkans) the first musulman (Muslim) state in Europe."

Insofar as the Orthodox Christians are concerned, what's going on really is "Civilization Warfare" - something that remains totally unfathomable to the elites, caught up as they are in the pursuit of wealth. Lucian, echoing the words of Prof. Dusan Batakovic, a professor at the Historical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts [see Vol. 8, No. 3 (March 27, 1999)], writes:

"... it all started back in 1300's, when neither Romania nor Serbia were established as full-blown medieval states (they where divided into several counties, each ruled by local kings). When the Turkish (Muslim) Empire started a large-scale invasion of Europe, marching through Serbia (with Vienna as its final objective), the Serbians asked the Christian world for help; among those who aided them was the founder and unifier of the Romanian counties, king Mircea the Old.

"At Kosovopolje ("the Field of Kosovo"), the Christian armies were beaten so badly that they never re-assembled. Ever since this time, the kings of both Romania and Serbia have helped each other. Both countries had their fair share of foreign domination ... This fact has established an incredibly strong bond between both nations ... World Wars I & II made this bond even stronger. During the dark ages of communism (1950-1990), both countries expressed (more or less) a form of independence towards Russia ... To make a long story short, all through the centuries, our two people have been very close to each other ; this is characteristic for the small, mountain-living nations. Take a look at the Greeks, the Basque people in Spain or any other community that's similar: none of them support foreign domination, all have a very strong feeling of independence.

Insofar as the American bombing of Serbia is concerned, Lucian writes:

"... I can tell you from my own experience that I have never seen a more united ... (country). Regardless of differences, when they (i.e., the Serbs) face an impending danger, they act like one: resistance to the end and no compromises. One thing that is enormously important in the common people's attitude towards the NATO intervention is the sistematic information warfare performed by the western powers. All we could see on BBC, Euronews or CNN was Serbians killing Croats or other minorities. That is only half true: one cannot see reverse actions, Croats killing Serbian villagers. I know myself a Serbian student that has a paralysed foot as a result of the Croatian torture. This reminds of the communist (or nazi) propaganda, where everything was presented in black & white.

Generally, everybody is happy the war is happening there (in Serbia), not here (in Romania); but also everybody thinks that they don't deserve it. It seems like USA is trying to impose the first musulman state in Europe.

In a follow-on letter Lucian writes:

Some update on what's happening: after the destruction of two bridges across the Danube (you know, for us bridges are symbols of friendship between the people on the sides of the river), I saw hundreds of people hand-in-hand spending the night on the bridges, with target signs painted on their clothes. That says a lot about the morale of the Serbs. Oh, I almost forgot: do you know that every day of the 14 days of war, in the center of Belgrade (the capital city of Serbia), huge outdoors pop&rock concerts take place? This speaks for itself. What I cannot understand and is completely beyond my imagination is what's in it for the US? The communist regimes in Europe have all fallen, one by one; the Cold War is no more; the Russians are economically humiliated; Hungary, Poland and The Czech Republic are admitted in NATO; everything points out an overwhelming succes of democracy (and therefore of the american foreign policy). So, what's the point to start a war that sinked US's popularity to levels it has never reached before? This really puzzles me.

I must apologise for this long message, I was kind of taken away by thoughts. If you agree, I'll be glad to keep in touch.

Thanks a lot for your time and patience.

Lucian Butum

Take the Serbs, for example: what follows is a description by the Serbian press of what’s happening in the south Balkans. The article is permeated with Serbian nationalist fervor and religious hype; but before one condemns it as nothing more than the blather of uneducated, narrow-minded buffoons, one should remember that this is exactly the kind of hype the Religious Right is engaged in here in the United States; different players, a slightly different dialogue, but essentially the same play - and not so much different from what was in vogue in this country not more than a generation ago. This is the kind of hype that is - in the end - prone to make devils out of one’s opponents and set them up for extinction - and all in the name of God. And Christians in this country are making a big error in believing that they are immune from these passions. The fact is, if the Serbs can fall victim to this kind of pathology, Americans can too!!

For instance, consider what Senator Beveridge once said from the Senate floor with regard to America’s religious and political destiny - it isn’t so different from what appears below with regard to Serbia, and not that much different from how the Religious Right would present its case - again, different players, a slightly different dialogue, but the same play:

"We will not repudiate our duty ... we will not renounce our part in the mission of our ... (people) as the trustee under God, of the civilization of the world ... We will move forward to our work ... with gratitude ... and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His Chosen People, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world ..."

Beveridge’s belief that America was, in its origins, institutions, history, and international conduct, God’s chosen nation is something few in the Right - including today’s Religious Right - doubt. As with the Religious Right in this country, the Serbs believe that what's occurring in the Balkans has little to do with anything else except religion - and the extent to which this is true inosfar as the Serbs are concerned is clearly demonstrated by a poster in the office of General Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serbs; it depicts green paint symbolizing "fundamentalist Islam" spilling over the blue flag of the European Community. Mladic and his fellow Serbs are convinced that what's going on in Bosnia and Kosovo is part of a coordinated strategy they call the "green transversal" - the effort by Islamic fundamentalists to regain their lost Balkan possessions, possessions which at one time reached all the way to the borders of Austria.

Mladic and his followers believe that they are the only ones standing in the way of Islamic expansion northward into Europe, and that though they are little understood now - mainy because of the "obfuscation" of the elite press in the West - someday "Christian" Europe will thank them for the sacrifices they have made to stop this expansion - and there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the Serb's fear of Muslim expansion into Europe is being echoed by right-wingers throughout Europe - especially in Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Greece, and Italy.

RELIGION AND THE SERBS

The analysis is by Prof. Dusan Batakovic, considered by the Serbs to be one of their most distinguished scholars. He is a professor at the Historical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The article is entitled: "KOSOVO AND METOHIA: A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS." Dr. Batakovic writes:

"Kosovo is the native and ancestral land of the Serbs. It encompasses an area of some 10,800 square kilometers and is considered to be the Serbian Jerusalem. Almost all of the great historical Serbian monasteries, churches and fortresses are located in this province. Kosovo is the scene of the famous battle fought on St. Vitas Day (June 28) in 1389, when Serbian Prince Lazar and the Turkish emir Murad both lost their lives. The Ottoman’s breakthrough into the heart of Southeast Europe following Serbia’s defeat at Kosovo marked the beginning of the five centuries long clash between Christianity and the Islamic World. This struggle continues to this day, and its most visible manifestation is the struggle between the Serbs, mainly Orthodox Christians, and the ethnic Albanians, mainly Muslims.  The oath of Prince Lazar - the great prince which led the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo - is derived from the New Testament tradition of martyrdom: that it is better to obtain freedom in the celestial empire of Jesus Christ than to live humiliated under the oppression of the earthly kingdom. Indeed, during the long centuries of Turkish rule, this oath became the key to Serbian national ideology - and so much so that the Kosovo oath, woven into the national epic, became the basis upon which the Serbs built the ideology of resisting Muslim oppression rather than accepting injustice - even when the odds seem hopeless. The Kosovo pledge was like a flag raising resistance against the tyrannical rule of the Ottomans - a resistance which had as its final aim the restoration of the Serbian national state. Countless generations of Serbian children received their first notions of themselves and the world by listening to folk poems describing the Kosovo sufferings, the apocalyptic fall of the Serbian Empire, the heroic death of Prince Lazar, the betrayal of Vuk Brankovic, the heroism of Milos Obilic who, sacrificed himself to reach the tent of the emir during the Battle of Kosovo and cut him down with his sword. 

"Over the centuries, the Serbs were forced to withdraw to the west and the north, and during this time, the only political tradition the Serbs retained was the Kosovo pledge. When the first national revolution directed against the Muslims in the Balkans broke out in Serbia in 1804, its leaders dreamed of a new battle of Kosovo through which they would reestablish their lost empire. The influence of the Kosovo covenant continued throughout the entire 19 century. At last, the centuries-dreamed-of fight with the Turks occurred in the fall of 1912. The Serbian army liberated Kosovo in a few week, while the forces of Montenegro, Serbia’s sister state, marched triumphantly into Metohia. Negotiations on the final unification of the two Serbian states were interrupted by World War I.

"Kosovo was at the moment of liberation in 1912, a backward agricultural community with a mixed Serbian and ethnic Albanian population - a land devastated by the raging of tribal anarchy. Serbs, however, even then made up almost half of the entire population in spite of the huge waves of emigration in the previous period. The Pan-Islamic policy of Abdulhamid II (1878-1909) had made Kosovo and Metohia, beside Armenia, "the most unfortunate land in the world." The Muslims were crushing the Christian Armenians in Asia Minor, and Muslim Albanians in the European provinces (i.e., Turkey’s holdings in the south Balkans) were dealing in the same way with the unreliable Christian subjects of the Sultan - i.e., the Serbs, the Greeks and the Bulgarians. The three centuries long domination of the Islamized ethnic Albanians in the Balkans, culminated at the beginning of the 20th century. Living for centuries with gun in hand, the Albanians had discovered in the plains of Kosovo and Metohia space for further expansion. The Islamic authorities of the Sultan had granted their co-religionists, the Albanians, the right to persecute Christians. In time, a strange conviction settled itself among the Albanians that Islam was the religion of the master race and Christianity that of slaves.

"In the interwar period (1918 - 1940), the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, by colonizing the rich but uncultivated spaces of Kosovo and Metohia, tried not only to return the Serbian character to these areas, but also to establish modern European institutions, as it did in other provinces of the Yugoslav state. The Muslim Albanian population of Kosovo, however, found it very difficult to adjust to the new reality where, instead of a status of absolute privilege which they had enjoyed during the Ottoman rule, they received only civil and political equality with the people they had only recently treated as serfs. During World War II, the Muslims of Albania, taking advantage of their alliance with Hitler, drove out much of the Serbian population of Kosovo and burned their homes, set fires to and robbed the Serbian churches, and desecrated the Christian cemeteries of the Serbs. The development of political circumstances in communist Yugoslavia suited the further ethnic Albanians’ national emancipation. Exhausted by the war (1,200,000 dead in World War I in Serbia alone, and at least that many in World War II), the Serbs became pawns in the hands of the new Communist regime. Tearing apart what little political power remained to the Serbs in Yugoslavia, the communists created several federal units by dividing up the Serbian lands. The communist authorities in 1945 forbade with a special decree the return of the Serbian population to Kosovo, while at the same time granting special status to the Muslims.

"Kosovo and Metohia were separated from Serbia and granted the attributes of a state within the Yugoslav federation. The confederalization of communist Yugoslavia excluded Kosovo from Serbian authority, turning it into a state with an almost independent government. In order to legalize formally the Albanization of the Province, the ethnic Albanian communist leadership threw out the name "Metohia" (which means in Greek "church-owned land") and encouraged hundreds of attacks on Orthodox believers, priests, monks, nuns, churches and monasteries, and annexed monastery property. These actions, of course, were merely manifestations of a centuries deep religious and national intolerance towards Christians.  The restoration of religious life for the Muslims in Kosovo and Metohia was conducted parallel with the Albanization. New mosques sprang up (about 700 mosques were built in Yugoslavia under communist rule, more than during the several centuries long Ottoman dominion); the Muslim clergy’s primary demand from the believers was for them to have as many children as possible. The highest birthrate in Europe derived also from the religious traditions of the ethnic Albanians. The aim in all this was to push out the Serbs. The Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia became, in their own state, a persecuted and unprotected minority. From making up almost half the population of Kosovo after World War II, the number of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia dropped to 15-20% of the population.   One year after Tito’s death, in March 1981, the Muslims of Kosovo announced their rebellion against inclusion in the Yugoslav state by setting a fire to the Pec Patriarchate, a complex of medieval Christian churches, where the throne of the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church is formally located.

"It surfaced again that religious intolerance remained the deepest layer of their obsession against the Serbs. Several days later the Muslims came out into the streets demanding that the Province get republic status and the right to self-determination - even the right of secession. Attacks on Serbian churches and the demolishing of Orthodox monuments became an everyday form of expressing Albanian (i.e., Muslim) identity. The persecution of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia and their innumerable appeals to the Serbian and Yugoslav public, finally managed to shake the Serbs out of their comfortable Yugoslavism (i.e., their multiculturalism). It appeared that Yugoslavism (i.e., multiculturalism) was only an ideological framework which did nothing more than neutralize the national potential of the Serbs. Evoking from the forbidden past their Kosovo pledge, they began to once again discover the essence of their national and religious identity - an awareness that vital Serbian and Christian interests were being threatened. This kind of thinking spread under the influence of certain Christian intellectuals throughout all of Greater Serbia as more and more Serbs began to realize that they were being threatened both as Christians and as Serbs. Realizing that their nation and their religion were endangered, Serbs began to return to their national traditions and their religion; realizing that once again, like in the age of the Ottoman rule, their lands would be the scene of the final phase of the centuries-long clash between Islam and Christianity."

ELITE DISCONNECTION
RADICALIZATION IN THE "CHRISTIAN WEST"

And it's not just in the Slavic world that the elite's idiotic "globalization" policies are pushing radicalization. Consider what's happening in our own backyard in the West. To countless numbers of ordinary, "every-day" Europeans, the thought of a Muslim state (Albanian, Bosnian or otherwise) in the center of the Balkans strikes a certain terror in their hearts. As we have already indicated, to the Austrians, Germans and other Western Europeans - if not to Americans - it was not such a long time ago that the "Muslim terror" stretched all the way up to the gates of Vienna and threatened the heart of "Christian" Europe with destruction and ruin. The disconnection here between the media and what ordinary people are thinking screams out for recognition - and, more somberly, as a warning to those who will listen.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick, former American Ambassador to the United Nations under the Reagan Administration, writing for the Los Angles Times News Syndicate, believes that

"... in France, Britain, (and) Germany (as well as in the) United States, leaders have involved their countries more deeply ... in international and multilateral relationships than voters desire, and have cared less than voters have desired about their national interest."

She believes that this has occurred largely as a result of a growing gap between the leadership elites in these countries and the people. For example, Kirkpatrick cites the gap which has developed in France between the French leadership and the people. She writes,

"The gap between the French political elite and rank-and-file voters could be clearly seen in the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. It took an intense effort by the government and the elite press to rally the barest majority to approve the proposal.

"That so much effort was required to produce so narrow a victory was a reproach not only to the President, but to France’s political ... (elite) ... The French news magazine L’Express described the contest this way: 'On one side was the France of the elites: of university graduates, property owners, residents of the great cities, all those who see Europe as a single place. On the other side is the France of the unemployed, the outsiders, peasants and workers - the Europe of all the ‘little people’ who fear they will be abandoned, who have in the back of their heads many unfulfilled promises, and who, when finally asked their opinion, took great pleasure in saying zut to the left, the right, the bosses, to the whole elite all crowded on this occasion into the same boat'."

She continues,

"Whatever happens, it seems clear that many European leaders have seriously underestimated popular resistance to the pace of European integration. More specifically, they have underestimated popular concerns about the loss of sovereignty, identity and control to a remote bureaucracy in Brussels."

And when it comes to the matter of "race" and "religion," this is especially true. The disconnection between the political elites in Europe and what Kirkpatrick calls the "little people" makes this abundantly clear. For example, take Austria where Jorge Haider, an increasingly popular nationalist politician, recently railed against the growing Moslem presence there. He charged that -

"... we didn’t win the war against the Moslems 500 years ago at the gates of Vienna to be told now that we can’t wear crucifixes in our public schools."

He was reacting to pressure by the secular elites to ban the wearing of crucifixes in public school as "inflammatory" against the Moslem community. Kirkpatrick concludes ominously,

"In the United States, there is also evidence of popular discontent with the government’s level of international commitment (and its increasing penchant for multiculturalism) ... Surveys show widespread criticism of ... (the elite) as being too concerned about foreign affairs and too little devoted to promoting American interests."

Daniel Yankelovich writes in Foreign Affairs magazine that many Americans feel their political leaders have been shortsighted and ineffective in the promotion of American interests. Yankelovicy believes that the elite has gotten dangerously ahead of most Americans in their enthusiasm for "globalism." It is easy to understand how this could happen. Summits are enormously attractive to political leaders. They like to talk things over with equals and share the responsibility for decisions. Moreover, Yankelovich writes, the political culture encourages multilateral consultation and decision-making as more "high-minded" than national decision-making. Multinational organizations are more likely than purely national ones to emphasize long-range, altruistic, global goals. They also permit leaders to forget their dependence on the people - and it is here that elites run the very great risk of being swept from power.

ELITE POWER IS A VERY DELICATE AND FRAGILE THING

The fact is, despite the mythology which surrounds elite power, it is in reality a very delicate and fragile thing. Indeed, throughout history elites have been challenged and eventually destroyed - and this is especially so in democracies or in democratically controlled organizations, although it is also true in absolutist countries as the outcome of the French Revolution and the recent collapse of communism so adequately demonstrate.

Challenges to that control occur when the disconnection between the elites and the "common man" become too great to sustain - and once such challenges take hold, they have a way of expanding until they at last gain "critical mass," at which time all bets are off and the elite can easily become prey to the mob. THIS IS WHAT RADICALIZATION IS ALL ABOUT, and the strange and ironic thing about all this is that the elites, more than anyone else, are responsible for "letting slip the dogs of war" insofar as ethnic radicalization is concerned.

It is already well advanced in the Islamic world, and now - as a result of the American intervention in Kosovo - is gaining "critical mass" in the Orthodox world. It's also beginning to take hold in the West as radicalization in one civilization plays off the radicalization of the other civilization.

DON'T GET CAUGHT

As we indicated in our last journal, the only way we can avoid being caught up in these currents is to begin walking in the light of God's Word, specifically that Christ's Kingdom has nothing to do with this world ["... My kingdom is not of this world ..." (John 18:36)] - and that out political involvement in it will not make it a nicer place in which to live; all it will likely accomplish is to pollute us. Christ's Kingdom is a heavenly kingdom whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10) - and it is only there that the reality of Galatians 3:28 can be truly lived out; it's only there where there is -

"... neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

In this world, such distinctions will remain, and there is nothing we can do to alter that fact. Our job while we remain here on earth (and it is, in the final analysis, a pretty short stay) is not to reform the earth (it is fit now only for judgment), but to get as many people out of it as we can. As the words of that old Baptist hymn of long ago declare, our home now is with Christ in the heavens, it has NOTHING to do with this present EVIL world:

The Bible says that we are "partakers of a heavenly calling" (Heb. 3:1) having nothing to do with the affairs of this earth. Paul declares that all those who wish to serve God must consider the world as alien territory, and they themselves as only "sojourners" in it - people who are merely transiting through it on their way to another land - a heavenly country whose "builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10); and that while here on earth, there is a necessity laid upon them to continually remind themselves of their "alien status" by -

"... confessing (both in word and in the way they live) that they are strangers (foreigners) and pilgrims (travelers, wanderers, wayfarers) on the earth ..." (Heb. 11:13)

DO NOT LOVE THE WORLD

The Bible says:

"Do not love the world, or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world ... comes not from the Father ..." (1 John 2:15-16)

and -

"The whole world lieth in the evil one." (1 John 5:19)

As God’s children, we have been called out of the world for there is NOTHING that we can do to make it any better. The church is a "calling out" from the world (John 15:19; 17:14-16; Gal. 6:14; James 4:4) - she is called out to witness that she is not of this world, but of heaven; that she is united to a glorified Christ in heaven (Eph. 1:18-23; Eph 2:6), and not of this world, even as He is not of this world (John 18:36).

The world - including, as a simple extension of logic, the United States - is like some great passenger ship which has struck an iceberg; it is sinking; the damage is of such a nature that the ship is beyond repair and doomed. As Christians, we have not been called to busy ourselves in the hopeless effort of repairing the damage, but instead we have been called to get as many people off the ship as is possible before it sinks. The ship itself is doomed! We are to jump into the lifeboats and get as far away from the sinking ship as is possible, lest we ourselves get caught in its undertow as it sinks.

Thus, while it’s true that God has anointed the church to be a shining example of righteousness and holiness in the world, He has not called upon it to participate in its political activities - which activities are controlled by Satan. We are to be examples of righteousness and holiness, and by doing so to contrast the light of the church with the darkness of this world. It is this - and not the church’s involvement in the political process - which has acted as a preservative of righteousness in the world.

The power and influence of a good and righteous example - humbly portrayed - is far more effective than the force of any political process. Men will never be convicted of their sin by the church taking sides with the state and placing guns to the heads of those who refuse to conform; but countless numbers of sinners have renounced their sin and turned to Christ because of the living example of humble and holy men and women of God. We are, therefore, commanded by God to abstain from the affairs of this world; to not get involved with them. True, we are to "occupy" until He comes (Luke 19:13); but this means only that we are to vocationally sustain ourselves and not be a burden on others while we pass through - and that’s all it means. In no way can this verse be construed to mean anything else. Moreover, not only are we not to involve ourselves with the world, we are not even to be "friendly" with it. The Bible says:

"You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

God's advise, then, to His people - the church - is to stay clear of the political currents that are being unleashed in the "Last Days." If we don't, we will be surely swept away.

God bless you!

S.R. Shearer

"What do we mean when we talk of a civilization? A civilization is a cultural entity. A civilization is ... the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have ... It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language [or groupings of languages - such as Western European (Germanic and Romance) or the Slavic grouping of languages], history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, (and finally) a Westerner. The civilization to which he belongs (in the case of the Roman here - Western) is the broadest level of identification with which he intensely identifies ..."