August 29, 2021
Under-Achieving
Kosovo was one of the poorest of the Yugoslav republics. It was deemed backward and low on the development index. During the Serb onslaught a quarter century ago, it suffered a near genocidal attempt to quash the Kosovo Albanian Muslims who constitute a majority of the tiny Balkan country’s population of 1.9 million.
The Washington Post reported on April 30, 1999, the slaughter of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians by Serbian police and paramilitary, who swept house-by-house through the city of Djakovica, describing it as Kosovo’s “heart of darkness.” Human Rights Watch in 2001 reported that Djakovica suffered the most intense violence by Serbian police and paramilitary against civilians, with about 200 killed and 1200 missing.
Bordering Albania, Kosovo – unlike Albania with its beautiful seaside coastal area – is landlocked. Unlike in many parts of the world, America is popular in Albania and Kosovo, where it helped facilitate Kosovo’s emergence on February 17, 2008, in the comity of nations. Motoring through Albania, it is sometimes quicker and easier to cut through Kosovo in order to get from point A to B in Albania.
I travelled through the Kosovo cities of Prizren and Pristina. While Pristina is its capital, Prizren is the cultural center of Kosovo. I visited the beautiful Sinan Pasha Mosque in Prizren, built by the Ottomans in 1615, and also partook in its vicinity delectable halal cuisine, laden with grilled kebabs and salad. Mother Teresa is an iconic figure here. Her father was born in Prizren.
Notable during the Tokyo Olympics was that Kosovo bagged 2 Gold Medals through its 2 female judo athletes, Nora Gjakova and Distria Krasniqi. It brought home the deep embarrassment felt by many Pakistanis of having a blank slate at Tokyo. Pakistan, in fact, hasn’t won a single medal in nearly 30 years, since it earned a Bronze Medal in hockey at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. There is little serious scrutiny of clingy sinecure officeholders. At its helm, the socio-political milieu is rapidly becoming immune to moral shaming.
The emphasis has been put on talk, talk, talk. Talk shows permeate and invade the electronic waves on scores of TV stations. On-air fights and vitriol have become a staple of public amusement and mental pollution. Unsubstantiated over-generalized opinionated nonsense prevails. Garbage in and garbage out. Addiction to under-achievement and sub-standard performance has been normalized.
Neighboring Iran has been among the most sanctioned states in the last 40 years and, to date, bears the collective brunt of Western, Israeli, and Arab Establishment animus. Yet, its medal tally at the Tokyo Olympics does present a striking contrast to the sporting famine across the border. Iran netted 3 Gold Medals (in karate, shooting, and wrestling) as well as 2 Silver and 2 Bronze. Pakistan during its early years had little or no sporting infrastructure, but it had the will, and its output in the global arena was astounding.
Islamabad – with its Washington-centric Afghan posture crumbling and spill-over looming across the Frontier – is in dire need of a thorough overhaul, but do its elites have the wherewithal?
The proclivity remains to externalize the security threat but, as before, the enemy remains firmly embedded within – through divisiveness, misgoverning ineptness, and misguided priorities. For the most part, Pakistani youth has only a hazy notion of its 74-year history.
2021 marks the 50 th anniversary of the Dacca debacle of 1971. Evidence suggests that its lessons remain unlearned, and as before, charlatans prosper albeit wearing new attire.
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