The Phlegm and the Anima
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

Impressions of an eyewitness o the Kosovo War in 1999.
The Calamity

It often rains in Skopje nowadays. Sudden, thunderous outpourings of
acidulous and gluey fluid. People say it is the pollution from
12,000 tonnes of bombs dropped 20 km from here. The unions warn of a
hot autumn. The omens are ominous. It looks like an economic crash
rather than a soft landing. Tony Blair was here a while ago. He
photo opportunities with photogenic refugees and promised the soft
spoken and dreamy eyed Prime Minister of Macedonia 20 million
British Pounds. The money never came. Blair's promise went the way
of thousands of other promises made by the good and the mighty
throughout the history of this melancholy part of the globe. Emir
Kusturice compared the Balkans to an island, drifting listlessly,
receding wedding music in the background. It is heart rending and
often provokes in me a tsunamic pity, an earthquake of goodwill. The
locals are adept at using this resonance, at taking advantage of
foreigners vulnerable to their music, to their costumes, to their
rustic shrewdness. In 1963, upon the occasion of a particularly
malicious earthquake which levelled Skopje - they rebuilt it from
generous foreign donations. The message sank in: foreigners love
disasters, natural and manmade. Foreigners are willing to shell hard
currency for this indulgence. The harder the catastrophe - the
harder the currency. Thus, calamities became an export industry, a
major earner of foreign exchange, the opportunity of a lifetime for
a few in exchange for the misery of the many.

The Aftermath

Music drifts in with the fragrances of decaying blossoms and with
corpulent mosquitoes. The fragmented echoes of animated discussions.
People here talk with their whole bodies. They lean forward and
touch their conversants. When they meet or depart they kiss each
other on the cheeks and hug passionately. It was, therefore strange
to see the body language of the octogenarian president of Macedonia
with his much younger Albanian counterpart. They stood apart and
made diametrically opposed declarations about the future of Kosovo.
Watching the old communist apparatchik Gligorov, I was reminded or
Milosevic when he announced the Serb victory in operation Allied
Force. He stood so rigid, as though about to break and leaned
towards the camera, creating an eerie fish lens effect. Balkanians
are not proud people, they are adaptable. But, in an effort to
compensate for a deep set inferiority complex, they react with
vanity and narcissism. Co-existence here has never been an easy
proposition and the Americans forced strange bedfellows upon each
other. Accustomed to the imposing ways of superpowers, the Balkan
bowed its head. But it is a contemptuous gesture. Balkanians aim to
win through their surrender. They always harbour hidden agendas.
Knowing this, they are also paranoid but, as distinct from the
classic pathology, they do have enemies. The Balkan will wait until
America joins Rome and Turkey. The only commodity it has aplenty is
time. So now Gligorov and Mejdani shake hands but they both know the
long knives are drawn. They both will wait for the intruders to
depart, which will them go on with that traditional pastime of
Balkan rulers: slaughtering each other.

The War Chests

Thaci found himself with plenty of returning refugees, meddlesome
peacekeepers and houses burned to their basements. He also found
himself with very little money. Rugova and Bukoshi, on the other
hand, have access to funds but very few adherents. Rugova's decline
did not start in March 1999. It started long ago when he objected
even to peaceful student demonstrations (which the Serbs found
tolerable). It was then clear that if there ever was any distinction
between his pacifism and traitorous, collaborationist cowardice - it
has long vanished. People deserted him in droves and in Rambouillet,
it was Thaci who headed the Kosovar delegation, not his elder rival.

So now Thaci needs money. One way is to collect taxes, as Rugova
did. Another is to monopolize the business interests of Kosovo. He
set himself upon this task no less ferociously than he did fighting
the Serbs. In collaboration with Albanian politicians (government
supporters) and with Macedonian politicians of Albanian descent, he
began to take over lucrative trades and economic activities both in
Kosovo and in its neighbours. The Berisha (Albanian opposition)
crowd regard him as an imminent danger. They believe his aim is to
become the President of a Greater Albania comprising Albania and
Kosovo (though not Macedonia, a new found and perhaps short lived
ally). This is a recipe for a civil war, the second one within two
years in Albania. The first one erupted after the life savings of
one third of the population were squandered by a cronyist group of
investment houses in pyramid schemes.

The Spoils

The Greeks are grabbing Macedonian property: real estate, banks,
factories, a refinery, perhaps the Macedonian Telecom. They pay
outlandishly cheap prices. The Macedonians are on their knees,
reduced by the war to a loosely connected network of bartering
businesses. While plundering, the Greeks do not refrain from
political arm twisting. They vetoed Macedonia's application to
become the centre of the reconstruction of Kosovo and then proceeded
to propose Thessalonika (Saloniki) - a proposal adopted by the EU.
They also refuse to call Macedonia by its constitutional name,
forcing the impossible acronym FYROM on the international community.
The next logical target is Serbia. To the Greek businessmen, Kosovo
is lost due to the brutal treatment of Albanian refugees in Greece
and the expressed pro-Serb sympathies of the Greek main street.

Thus, strange, chimeral alliances emerge. They are likely to prove
as ephemeral as their predecessors, to melt away in the searing heat
of the Balkanian summer. But while they last they give one pause.
The Russians and two NATO members, Greece and Italy, are likely to
defy America and enthusiastically embark upon the lucrative
reconstruction of devastated Serbia. Financed by German money
through the inefficient and corrupt money transfer mechanism known
as the EU, German businesses are not likely to tolerate this
Christian Orthodox monopoly. They will join the fray, to America's
increasing dismay and chagrin. American firms, on the other hand,
will probably not be allowed to undo the damage their government
wrought. Left out of the game, America will try to spoil it. It
might well succeed, for it controls the strings of the American
purses known as IMF and World Bank. Americans never hesitate to
bully and to blackmail where money is involved.

The Russians are preparing to supply Serbia with new military
technology as do other rogue states. Greece is secretly negotiating
with Iran. Serb leaders visit Iraq. Russians are meeting North
Koreans. So do the Chinese. Russian aircraft breach NATO's airspace.
The Europeans are hastily forming their own defence alliance and
finally appointed Mr. PESC, the long awaited EU foreign policy
supremo. The ramblings of a new cold war (the world against the USA)
are clearly audible to the attentive ear. In the margins more minor
players such as Israel position themselves to counter what they
regard as dangerous liaisons between Pakistani, Afghani and Albanian
Islamic fundamentalist, terrorist cum drug concerns (sometimes in
the guise of aid organizations). Bin Laden is in the area. Every
secret service, every crime organization, every terrorist group,
every liberation movement, every weapons dealer, every drug pusher
are here, eager not to miss the unfolding action.

These wrangles will surely depress investors appetites. They will
not increase the pledges in bow tied donor conferences either. Good
money (investments and international aid) rarely follows bad one
(crime and weapons trading, for example).

The Balkan countries stand to get a small fraction of the
magnificent and magnanimous and generous promises made to them in
the heat of the battle. The Balkan will be forgotten because it
refuses to reform, because it is obstreperous. The number of
officials visiting will decline. The journalists will beat a path to
other blazes. The local politicians, pampered by the likes of
Clinton and the CNN will revert unwillingly to their petty squabbles
and ragged local papers. In a few months, it is will all seem like a
mirage. It will all sink into the fertile soil of this luscious
region, fertilized by countless bodies and bloody rivulets. The
great togetherness will evaporate leaving behind the putrid fumes of
re-emerging, centuries-old, grudges and suspicions. The people will
complain. The leaders will thieve and collaborate with organized
crime. The criminals will prosper. The farmers will toil their land
and intellectuals will conspire. It is the Balkans where nothing
changes.

And nothing ever will.


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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com