Comments by "LancesArmorStriking" (@LancesArmorStriking) on "BBC News"
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@elfatzeqiri7202
I have spent much more than 2 minutes, and the conclusion is the opposite. The Slavs migrated to what was called Dardania in the 7th century. Serbian rule was well-established from the early 1200's with the Nemanjić Dynasty and lasted until the defeat to the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo.
Only after the Ottoman Turks took over, did Albanians start to migrate into western Kosovo. Then when Tito came to rule, they were transported to Kosovo as cheap labor. This is why there are so many of them in Kosovo today- it's all very new.
I'm sorry, but there is no evidence that either the Illyrians (who only lived along the Adriatic Coast and didn't ever live in Kosovo anyway- so Albanians could be Illyrians, but then they could only claim Croatian coastline, not Kosovo which was deeper into the Balkan land, the Illyrians never lived in Dardania)
or the Dardani (no evidence of Dardanian culture being Albanian- the first mention of Albanians in writing wasn't until 1248, decades after Serbian Kingdom ruled Kosovo and had a culture and presence there for hundreds of years).
It wasn't even Albanian, it was written in Latin. The first evidence of Albanian language in writing comes from 1462! So Albanians will never be able to prove that they are Dardanians- they couldn't even create a writing system until the 1400's. We don't have any writing about Albanians before 1462, and we don't have any records of the Dardanians' culture.
So, what evidence do you actually have? Please, be precise and give dates and times.
I just want to remind you that Kosovo itself is a Serbian word.
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@AmandaFromWisconsin
You're missing the point. Imagine if another ethnic group, while under occupation of a foreign empire, multiplied like rabbits, and then retroactively claimed not only the territory, but also the culture, of your culture's birthplace.
From an American point of view-
Imagine an alternate history. For sake of analogy, let's say the Chinese manage to occupy the entire United States. During that time, Mexicans (who are favored by the Chinese for their loyalty) slowly populate the East Coast (Philadelphia, DC, NYC, Boston, etc).
When Americans get their second independence from the Chinese, the Mexicans secede the East Cost from the rest of the U.S..
They then claim that it's always been a part of Mexican culture, while also destroying national monuments dedicated to the history of the U.S.
That is a rough equivalent of what is going on in Kosovo. Yes, the Kosovans deserve self-determination, but that doesn't take away from the historical robbery that occurred under the Ottoman Turks. Were it not for them, Kosovo would be almost entirely ethnically Serbian.
For a more immediate example, should we allow SoCal to join Mexico because its population has become majority Latin American now?
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@Kizdo69
Only a naive, spoiled brat would use your logic.
You can't be free when you're dead.
You aren't the last generation of your country's history. If staying oppressed means your entire culture can survive, then (most people) would happily make that sacrifice, something Americans aren't very familiar with.
You're effectively an island, and have never faced any existential threats. You've never had to make that choice.
Any land invasion came from an ocean away, and you inhabit one of the best pieces of land on Earth. Everything necessary to survive and thrive has been handed to you on a silver platter.
Fertile land, calm rivers, natural harbors, temperate climate, weak neighbors, the whole nine yards.
So of course you'd insist that it's easy to choose freedom over safety— you barely had to fight for it!
If you're ever occupied by a foreign power, maybe then you'll understand.
Until then, keep your trap shut.
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@shelbyleach4860
Yes, it is incumbent that you provide references. Without a link, or at least a reference, I cannot know whether you just made all of that up in your head. Until you can show me that someone else did research and found that information, it isn't evidence.
From my point of view, it is still opinion (because I have only heard you tell me this.) Do you understand?
Thank you for finally providing something with substance. I am assuming, now, that you're talking about this:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25778
You spent all that time typing, when you could have just posted the link. Again, I'm not doing your work for you. Show the link.
I read the paper. Iain Mathieson wasn't investigating ancestry, he was investigating genetic admixture of Neolithic populations. Not once in the paper were the genetics of modern Albanians or Slavs mentioned. The DNA which he analyzed was 5,000+ years old, and he didn't compare any of it to modern DNA. Are you sure this is the right paper?
Maybe just post the link next time, so there's no misunderstanding.
No, it's not my opinion. I don't care whether or not it's true, but 'Glorious Tom Chang' (the person I replied to before you came in) seems to care. He said, "it always was albanian land populated by albanian people".
I am pointing out that there is no evidence for that claim.
Wait, so finding remains in Kosovo "doesn't matter", but you're still trying to say that they've been in this region much longer than Slavs? But that doesn't matter, right? You just told me it doesn't, so why are you mentioning it?
No, not really. Every survey of the region that we have shows (because Ottomans only surveyed by religion) that Muslims were a minority (less than 5%) in Kosovo by the 15th century. In the 18th century, Ottomans persecuted Serbs and drove them north, while the Albanians slowly multiplied to become ~70% of the population by the 20th century.
They weren't "always there", they just had more children than the Serbs and slowly took over.
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@jawnhansen235
The funny thing is, there wasn't much, if any, ethnic fighting in Yugoslavia. There was a joke, "so, when this guy [Tito] dies, we're going back to shooting each other?"
But, because America's notion of freedom needs to come above everything else, Yugoslavia was bombed, and the Balkans are right back to infighting again.
Bosnia and Croatia are in spats over sea access, North Macedonia almost got into a war with Greece, Kosovo, Albania, and Serbia are a mess, and Slovenia is infested with Albanian mafia.
Freedom indeed.
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@Debre.
You may not care about the stated reason, but those were the motivations of the Americans who, at the time, promised Russia integration.
And you can't really make the argument in hindsight, since none of this had actually transpired yet, and I think much, or at least some, of this mess could have been avoided if the Americans had actually followed through on their promises.
You act like it was completely inevitable that Russia was going to act this way--- and that it's a good thing the U.S inflicted pain on them proactively, because look at how aggressive they've become!
I have news for you: that's not how the flow of time works.
It moves forwards, not backwards, and whatever you may think of the Russian state in the long run, it had genuinely tried to open up economically and politically during the Yeltsin/2000s Putin years.
The poor treatment of it by the West (Washington rigging Yeltsin's 2nd election, on principle alone, should have been enough to convince the Russians to get aggressive (the US did in 2016). But they continued to try and engage.
The extrajudicial killing of Gaddafi was what crossed the line.
The West's continued spite and isolation of Russia created its aggressive behavior, not the other way around. We were duped. Never again.
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@Debre.
And, interestingly enough, you (unlike those Americans) have the benefit of hindsight.
Has the isolation of Russia done anything to stop it? The ruble's value against USD more than halved, and nothing changed.
Russia can barely do business anymore- and nothing changed. In fact, sanctions spurred a domestic food industry revival.
You have 8 years of evidence to suggest that punishment will not alter behavior, and yet you're committed to this idea because... "we need to 'be tough' on Russia!"?
In fact, the further isolation may actually increase the chances that Russia attacks. It was never brought into the international economy, so it had little to lose by engaging in such behavior. America plans to cut it off from the SWIFT banking system, isolating it completely.
If the state survives, what is there left to leverage with? What exactly is America's plan here?
They've even taken to sanctioning before invasion- so if they're sanctioned either way, why not create a buffer with the West?
America's plan, currently, is all stick and no carrot. You can have your ideological reasons to hate Russia, but incentives are not appeasement.
Give Russia something precious to lose (an integrated, diverse economy?), and it will be more willing to negotiate with the countries upon whom Russia would then depend.
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@mirankrka3715
That's simply untrue.
There is no existing consensus on this issue, which comes down to a simple lack of evidence. The cognate was proposed in 1854, and since then we've come no closer to a definitive answer. That should tell you how little there is to say about the Dardanians. There are precisely zero Dardanian (ever) or even Albanian (until 1462) inscriptions to work with.
The issue with trying to link ancient words to a modern language is
1) The existence of the Albanian language is only acknowledged in text as late as the 15th century. So to try and link it with an even older language with no text at all is very, very shaky and nationalistic ground.
2) Especially since most of the connections (like Uscana or Epicaria) are place names, and don't need to come from the same language or culture to be preserved to the modern day.
And very few Illyrian cities resemble any Albanian word today. Just because Georgia is a state in the U.S. doesn't mean it's populated by Georgians. After all, London is a Roman word. Language is fickle. A few cognates don't constitute a proven theory.
Again, Albanians' claims mean very little in the face of a lack of evidence. There is no way to genetically test which haplogroup the Illyrians belonged to because there is no continuous record of their existence, so we can't compare to any modern populations. And even if we could, the 'Illyrians' would have been absorbed into surrounding populations (like Hungarians and Finns being white).
No, please stop lying to me. There is significant debate and (more importantly) uncertainty regarding who the Illyrians were. I'm sorry, but to the same extent Bulgarians can't claim Thrace or Russia can't claim Scythians, Albanians cannot claim Illyrians. There simply isn't any documentation or record of a connection. The best we can do is piece together loanwords from other languages and placenames. That's very little.
As for your last point, again that's unsupported. And frankly ridiculous. To the same extent the Albanians are native to the Balkans, so too are the Serbs.
They've been there for over 1,000 years now. That's as old as any European nation-state. So unless you want to contest territory based on standards that would collapse Europe and give it back to the Romans ("they were there first!!"), you have to recognize that Serbs have a place in the Balkans, and hold the same status as you. The contention is Kosovo, which (again, unless you want to kick French out of France and give it back to the Romans) is their cultural homeland.
Ironically, Kosovars recently tried to register Serbian Orthodox churches as UNESCO Heritage sites- after having tried to destroy them 20 years earlier. Their request was, of course, denied.
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