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Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@RS8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: Carolyn Karis <ckari@URBANSCHOOL.ORG>
Subject: Kosovo teach-in
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Hello to all,
Today, at Urban School of San Francisco, we held a half-day "teach-in"
about Kosovo--not just the current situation but the history and
background of the Balkan region.
Two history teachers prepared the presentation that included
-- overhead maps
-- an audio tape of the song "Konjanik= The rider on horseback" (which I
located by entering "Kosovo" into the AM Search of all collections. The
song performed by Peter Boro in Servo-Croatian was recorded in San Mateo,
California, in May, 1939, and appears as part of the California Gold
collection.)
--video clip of a PBS presentation about the current Kosovo situation
Most importantly, the two teachers presented historical background,
starting with the Byzantine Empire and moving up through history: the
mythology resulting from the "martyrdom" of Prince Lazar in 1389 and its
resulting "Homeric" type poetry, the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian
Empire, the ethnic divisions, the religions groups, the 4th crusade, the
1912-1913 Balkan Wars, World War I started by the assassination by Princip
of Archduke Francis Ferdinand on June 28, 1914--the exact day of Prince
Lazar's death, the formation of Yugoslavia, WWII, the collaboration of
various Balkan groups with the Nazis, the Utasi (?sp), the aftermath of
WWII, Tito, the post-Berlin Wall tear-down in the Balkans, Milosevic's
1987 speech in Kosovo, the independence movements in the Balkan/Eastern
European states, the KLA (1993-present), the Dayton Peace conference and
the Rambouillet, France conference, and "ethnic cleansing."
The presenters fielded questions from the assembled group of teachers,
9th, 10th, and part of the 12th graders. The above presentation lasted
about one and one-half hours. After a break, students re-convened in
groups of 15-20 for discussions. These smaller groups, which included at
least 2 teachers/adults, were lead by members of the Model UN club (who
had been studying the situation over the past several weeks). Many
students of the Urban community tend to be anti-war (any kind of military
action) and have already been involved in war protests. Their parents
were the anti-Vietnam protesters. In the discussion, they raised many
questions and points for consideration. Why are we involved now in Kosovo
when we didn't get involved in Rwanda? or other African nation situation?
or Tibet? Is this all about economics or is it really about human rights?
And if it is about human rights, how is bombing/military aggression a way
to support human rights?
It was a powerful day. I know I learned much and now have a different
reaction to the situation. I now have many, many questions and many
wonders about how this problem with such a long history can be resolved.
As one student pointed out, even removing Milosevic (by force or
otherwise) could create an intense backlash reaction by the Serbs. Could
they see him as another "martyr" like Prince Lazar? How can a problem
that involves ethnicity, nationalism, religion, mythology, and twisted
history be resolved?
Carolyn Karis
Urban School of San Francisco
1563 Page Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
ckari@urbanschool.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 04 2000 - 12:24:21 EST