The political aspects of the Albanian question

    The Albanians in former Yugoslavia, i.e. in rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and in Macedonia, constitute a major political problem in the Balkans, a problem which must be resolved in the interests of the Albanians, but also in the interests of their Balkan neighbours. The European Community, now the European Union, and the United States of America have become convinced over the last few years that the strikes, protest marches and demonstrations of the Albanians, which have helped draw the world's attention to this people's plight since 1981, are understandable and inevitable. The European Union and the United States have managed to gain a more or less true impression of the situation faced by the non-Serbian population of Yugoslavia, and in particular, by the non-Slavic population there, and have come to realize that for the Albanians, Yugoslavia means nothing more than an expanded Serbia.
    The Serbs are a small people, no more numerous in fact than the Greeks, Bulgarians or Albanians. And yet, after their expansion and the recognition of this expansion at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and after an extraordinary expansion during the Balkan Wars and the recognition of their conquests by the Great Powers at the Conference of Ambassadors in London in 1912-1913, the Serbs became a power to be reckoned with, not only within Yugoslavia which was created as a state in 1918, but also throughout the Balkans. The unconditional support they received from Russia as well as help from England and France enabled Serbia to more than triple its territory within the space of eighty years before 1918 and to transform itself into an aggressive state, whose expansion was felt not only in Yugoslavia but in the Balkans as a whole. With the army, the police and the diplomatic corps at its disposal throughout Yugoslavia's seventy-three years of existence, Serbia was able most of the time to determine the political, economic and social fate of the other peoples, in particular of the Albanians who were the most defenceless of all the ethnic groups within the Yugoslav federation.
    An anti-Albanian attitude has always been a fundamental feature of nationalist ideology among the Serbs, and this has done much to determine national and government policies towards the Albanians in Yugoslavia. The Albanians were seen by Serbia and by Yugoslavia as an ethnic group to be harassed at all costs and forced into emigration. The reasons for this chauvinist attitude towards the Albanians are ethnic, political, religious and strategic. Since 1912, there has never been a single day in the existence of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro when their jails have not been teeming with Albanian political prisoners. These people were imprisoned because they refused to accept their people's situation or because there were doubts as to their loyalty towards the Yugoslav state. Even in the years 1966 to 1981, in which a relatively liberal atmosphere towards the Albanians is considered to have reigned in Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, Yugoslav prisons were teeming with Albanian political prisoners. Whether the number of Albanian political prisoners in Yugoslavia rose or fell depended on factors over which the Albanians themselves had no control. It depended on internal relations within Yugoslavia, on the level of tension reigning between Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian and Macedonian nationalists, on Yugoslavia's international status and, last but not least, on relations between Yugoslavia and Albania. The number of Albanian political prisoners in the prisons of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia usually rose whenever relations among the republics within Yugoslavia worsened, i.e. whenever the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were preoccupied with one another over economic, social and political issues, over the country's federal structure or over relations with the other states of the Balkans.
    The number of Albanian political prisoners in Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin jails also rose or fell whenever Yugoslavia changed its political course with regard to the European or global powers, e.g. to Germany or Italy, or to any of the political and military alliances, to the Soviet Union or to the United States.
    The number of Albanian political prisoners in Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin prisons was particularly affected by any deterioration of relations between Yugoslavia and Albania. Whenever Albania allied itself with a European or global power with whom Yugoslavia had bad relations or of whom Yugoslavia was apprehensive, the number of Albanian political prisoners in Yugoslav prisons rose sharply. Whenever Albanian propaganda against Yugoslavia or Yugoslav propaganda against Albania increased, which happened often from 1912 onwards, Kosovo and other Albanian territories in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro were transformed into one huge concentration camp in which the Albanians realized that night had fallen, but did not know if another day would ever dawn. On such occasions, there was not enough room for all the Albanians in Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin prisons, so new prisons had to be built, and when these overflowed, Albanian political prisoners were dispatched to Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Without sovereignty of their own, without a government of their own, without their own diplomats, police and army, i.e. without a country of their own, the Albanians were and have been left to the mercy of the Yugoslav state, the country of the Serbs, Macedonians and Montenegrins, who were free to do as they pleased with them: to persecute the Albanians, to imprison them, to murder them or to free them.
    In view of political and state terror against them, but not only for this reason, the Albanians have never been willing to accept Serbo-Montenegrin or Macedonian power over them, nor will they accept it today.
    The year 1981 saw the beginning of the open political expulsion of the Albanians from public life in Yugoslavia. At the same time began the de-Yugoslavization of Albanian political opinion in the media and, subsequently, in political practice. The Albanians as a people made it known to Yugoslavia that they were not willing to accept the situation they had been forced into and also made it known that they had the right to decide their future themselves. This is politically understandable. The Albanians demand no more rights than the other peoples already have. Self-determination for the Albanian people in Kosovo and in other Albanian regions of former Yugoslavia means an end to the colonial situation in which they are stuck. It also means an end to a life of suffering in which they have been dispensed political democracy, freedom and civil rights bit by bit, as if on a druggist's scales, or deprived of such freedoms completely. It means an end to persecution, oppression, incarceration and murder, an end to universal and systematic destitution and an end to their extremely poor quality of life. It also means an end to anguish and to the psychological, emotional and physical stress which have weighed heavily upon the present generation and which will weigh upon the coming generation, too. In the final analysis, self-determination for the Albanian people means preservation of their ethnic identity from new calvaries of persecution and expulsion as well as from biological, physical, emotional and cultural annihilation.
    Anyone informed about the past and the present of the Balkans will understand that the Albanians are not demanding anything more than what has been granted to and enjoyed by the other peoples of former Yugoslavia. In other words, they want no more than to be treated equally with the other peoples of the Balkans and not to be treated as if they were at the bottom of the barrel. With the collapse of Yugoslavia, all the traditional peoples of the Balkans, with the exception of the Albanians, have come to fulfil their national aspirations. The Greeks, Bulgarians and Romanians managed to realize their national aspirations in the nineteenth century and now, the Slovenes, Macedonians and Montenegrins are in the process of realizing theirs, as are the Serbs, Croats and Moslems. But what of the approximately seven million Albanians in the Balkans who are in jeopardy? Their neighbours, in this case the Serbs and Macedonians, are realizing their own interests at the expense of the Albanians.
    This makes resolving the Albanian question all the more complex.
    At a time when the aspirations of the Serbs, Croats and Moslems of Bosnia and Herzegovina are close to being fulfilled by the division of that country into historical ethnic states, no one has the right to demand of the Albanians that they fulfil their aspirations any differently. Is it proper for the Serbs, Croats and Moslems of Bosnia and Herzegovina to enjoy the right to self-determination, and for the Albanians in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Macedonia to be denied this right? It is unjust to apply certain political criteria to the Serbs and Croats and to apply other criteria to the Albanians. How is it that the 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 Bosnian Serbs enjoy the right to self-determination when the 2,000,000 Albanians in Kosovo are deprived of this right? How are the 600,000 to 700,000 Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina to enjoy the right to self-determination when the 700,000 to 800,000 Albanians in Macedonia are being denied this right? How is it that the 1,300,000 Montenegrins enjoy the right to self-determination, but not the 3,000,000 Albanians in former Yugoslavia? The principle of equal treatment must apply. One cannot play around with political principles without severe political and historical consequences for the region.
    The Great Powers are perhaps unable to understand the situation of smaller peoples because they have not been confronted with such problems and do not have the same way of looking at the world. But if the Great Powers can make an effort to understand the Serbs, Croats and Moslems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, why can they not make an equal effort to understand the Albanians in Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and Macedonia?
    There can be no doubt that the Albanian question is not merely a problem for the Albanians. It is a matter for other Balkan peoples, too: for the Serbs, the Macedonians, the Montenegrins and the Greeks. Indeed it is a matter for the Balkans and for Europe as a whole. A solution to the Albanian question, a just solution to the Albanian question, also means a solution to the problems in the relations between the Albanians and the Serbs, between the Albanians and the Macedonians, between the Albanians and the Montenegrins, and between the Albanians and the Greeks. A just solution to the Albanian question would, in the final analysis, also mean a solution to the Balkan question as a whole because, now that the Serbian, Croatian, Moslem and Macedonian questions have found an initial solution, only the Albanian question remains to be solved to attain basic order in the Balkan. Without a just solution to the Albanian question, there can be no legal order, humanity or peace in the Balkans. What is more, without a solution to the Albanian question, i. e. the last remaining national question in the Balkan peninsula, there can be no democracy there. The well-known Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas once called Kosovo a millstone around the neck of Serbian democracy, a weight which cannot be removed until the Kosovo question is resolved. "In Serbia, we must first of all solve the Kosovo question so that we can begin to consolidate our democracy. There will be no modern Western-type democracy in Serbia until the Kosovo question is solved."
    And this is not true of Serbia alone.
    The Albanian question is also a millstone around the neck of Macedonian democracy, because Macedonia cannot take its place in the modern democratic world either without solving the problem of the Albanians there, who constitute over one-third of the population.
    It may seem paradoxical, but the unresolved Albanian question is a millstone around the neck of Albanian democracy, too. It is an illusion to believe that Albania, the state of one half of the Albanian nation, can consolidate liberal and democratic institutions and maintain a stable democratic society while the other half of the Albanian nation across the border lives in a state of oppression and exploitation under foreign rule. In other words, Albania, as the state of one half of the Albanian nation, will never find peace or stability as long as the problem of the other half of the Albanian nation is not resolved, a problem which constitutes the greatest national challenge facing the Albanian people as a whole. The unresolved Albanian question will inevitably interfere with relations between Albania and the Albanian people and their neighbours. In Albania, in Kosovo and in Macedonia, there can easily be found servile and mediocre Albanian politicians willing to present the Albanian question as non-existent and to create the illusion for our Balkan neighbours and for the international community that the case should be regarded as closed. But such an illusion fades quickly and its initiators are inevitably regarded by the Albanians as compromised.
    If it remains unsolved, the Albanian question will continue to be a source of irritation and indeed of political conflict catapulting the Balkans from one crisis to the next. The dissatisfaction of the Albanians will only grow and become more evident, and will continue to burden the Balkans and countries elsewhere. This is obvious to anyone who has an eye for Albanian and Balkan realities. If they are not given equal rights with the other peoples of the Balkans, the Albanians will continue to be severely frustrated and agitated by regimes which are not their own, i.e. which they cannot identify with, and will continue to be obsessed by the fact that they are the only people in the Balkans to be severely discriminated against, to be damned by history. With all this in mind, one cannot exclude the possibility that they will give vent to their frustration beyond their ethnic borders and indeed outside the Balkans. A culture of vengeance could arise among the Albanians forced into emigration as well as among those in their Balkan homeland, and this could turn into wide-spread protests and movements which would know no end. In short, a peace created in the Balkans to the detriment of any one of the Balkan peoples, in this case of the Albanian people, cannot last long.