ustrialize his nation. He only put ethic traditions and the old ways of the village into a deep freeze (Anderson, 31). When communism fell, Yugoslavia literally fell apart and the provinces declared independence. This is how Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia, etc. came into existence (Altman, 87). Under communist rule, the people of Yugoslavia were not allowed to express their ethnic heritage. 7"In the Balkan region, there remains a great schism, which does not exist in other parts of Europe. It lies between the modernized cities and the rural countryside. Until recently, cities such as Sarajevo, Belgrade and Kosovo, intermarriages and cultural fusion were prominent. However, the Balkan village has always been a hard and pitiless place, one where ancient feuds are nursed and passed on for generations and where change and outside influence is deeply distrusted. In reality, many of the villages consist of one large, extended family. In the Balkan villages there is a deeply ingrained medieval code of honor and loyalty to one's family and clan above all others. This is true for Muslim and Christian villages alike. Even those who escape the village and become city dwellers seem to return to the grip of these ancient feuds in moments of crisis" (Anderson, 30). The collapse of the state and the economy led the Balkan people to once again openly embrace the traditional laws and loyalties of the village and hatred toward other ethnic groups (Anderson, 32). The crisis in Kosovo is caused by the goal of the Serbian people, to exterminate and erase all traces of Muslim civilization.The tragedy in Kosovo is caused largely by the Serbian religious nationalist's militarization of Kosovo (Sells, 2). The Serbian population is radicalized and supports the policies of ethnoreligious extermination (Sells, 1). The Serbs not only supported the extermination of the ethnic Albanians but took part in the actual killing. The Serbian people, like the Third Re...
