Kosovo? Comunities? XXIst Century?

I have never visited Kosovo, but I was very near its border a few years ago, during a business trip to Belgrade and other parts of the Ex-Yugoslavia, not long after the Balkan war (the last) was over. I remember I saw a UN convoy, and this is as close as I have been to a war zone (I suppose my military service in Ceuta does not apply, even though I met there some truly terrifying characters), but it was certainly not a reassuring feeling.

While in Belgrade I saw many buildings destroyed by NATO bombs, and it was just like in the movies, but it was real, and real people had died there, and it made me feel very insecure. Of course the war was over, and I had nothing to be afraid of, but those images are still in my mind, and they came back after all the news about the declaration of independence by the Kosovo parliament yesterday. I am no expert on international relations or even history, but this is one of those moments when I feel that nothing good can come out of this.

Just this morning on my way to work I was listening to a podcast about WebEx, a comunities website, and, as I listened to it, I though that the news about Kosovo were from the XXth (or indeed XIXth) century, and the ideas about Comunities, was the XXth century. It seems as if many politicians (and obviously many of their voters) are still living in a world of National Pride, National heroes, National this and National that, a world explained in terms of boundaries, in terms of US againt THEM, Our language, Our history, everything that makes US better than Them. These stupid arguments, this constant demonising of the OTHER, is something we are sadly growing accostumed to in Spain. Nationalists are permanently on the offensive, yet portraying themselves as if they were innocent victims of some ruthless tyran.

On the other hand, we all know the world is going FLAT (Friedman), that more or less expontaneous Communities are being developed everyday, changing the way we SHARE our time on this Earth, changing the way we LEARN, the way we (some) FALL in LOVE,..... I´m not so naive to think that Internet has not borders, because there are still many for whom the Web is Off-limits, an unkown and dangerous place...., but it is certainly a much more open and free "place" that the world our politians seem to still have in their minds. Let´s hope that as we proceed into the XXIst we will eventually bury the old ghosts of the XIXth and XXth centuries.