Self-fulfilling prophecy?

The past events in Kosovo have made me thinking. I can hear some ghosts from the past coming back.

For the good understanding, without losing objectivity: I fully endorse an independent Kosovo. I did research for the subject, and if there was something I could conclude, it was that Kosovo deserves a chance. A chance for dealing with its own problems, a chance to make something out of their story and the chance to construct itself. But these things take, as you might have read while I was in Kosovo, time. Much time.

There are voices appearing that now every part of the Balkan can claim its independence, and that there are also many Albanians living outside Kosovo. So? Has the world met new Liberation armies the past year that wanted to split a region of? I mean, if you are talking too much about this subject, it will happen one day. Self-fulfilling prophecy. There surely are people left that want to create a newly independent state. And indeed, there are many reasons to be warned, but you have to give the region the time to be itself. And by calling on unsolved minority claims, it is my opinion that the longer you wait and the more you fear that some groups may separate, this will actually happen.

So, just wait and see. There isn't anything burnt now. Except for a frontier post and some embassies...

While writing my article about my journey in Kosovo - which is almost finished - I offer you a photographic journey troughout Kosovo. With some powerful, and for me, very speaking photographs, I want to give you an image of a country that isn't officially a country.

Some sort of French skitown...? Or something else?

No, just the surrealistic skyline of Prishtina.

...Thanks to Swedish KFOR-troopers who protect the area

...is the Serbian orthodox monastery in Gracanica quiet and peaceful on this cold winter day.

A sense of peace. The road sign for Gracanica in both Serbian and Albanian.

Statue of Albanian national hero Skanderbeg, in front of the European headquarters in Prishtina.

A young democracy; past elections, hope, future...but mind the barbed wire...

Prishtina: city of contrasts. Trendy, much-frequented cafés, ugly gray Yugoslav buildings, gently people, heart-attack-style traffic, snow, coldness and a sort of unseen, dynamic energy, in this city that wants to be a capital.