POLITICS OF THE BODY LANGUAGE
For a moment, the whole Balkan looked like a remote school left under the care of its pupils. The pupils spend their time running run up-and-down, bullying each other, inflicting all sorts of soft and not-that-soft torture… Only when starting killing each other, would the teachers react. First strongly, then less strongly, then they would find new caretakers… And everything would start from the beginning…
Few weeks ago I went to an electronics shop to get something for my computer. While waiting in the queue I noticed TV screens right next to me. Programmed to the same channel and without sound they all displayed the Foreign Secretary David Miliband as a guest on a regular TV show that otherwise I would have been watching at home.
At first I turned my head the other way, as it seemed pointless to watch a politician while not being able to hear what he was saying. However as usual in the shops, my eyes were rotating around the displayed products and so David would gain-and-again "stand" before me. My attention caught his composure or as they say his “body language”. I noticed how face was changing as he was speaking. In other words, he was talking with his brain and not his mouth only.
The event took place right around the visits by the Kosovar and Serbian delegations and their talks with the Trojka in London. While listening to the two delegations Miliband'body language was somehow popping before me as a unique criteria with which to measure the political will of the Balkan politicians. In order to be as fair as possible to them, one needed to “switch off” their sound too and judge them on solely on the body language. Not because for example “ the democratic state” about which spoke the Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, demanded the question on what basis was his government denying to two million of people their democratic rights? Nor because, say “going forward” of the all-men all-Albanian Kosovar delegation, begged the question “how far behind should stay women and other non-Albanians of Kosova?” But because “Miliband criteria” asked us to listen to the politics without words.
What seemed striking through such a silent message, were their similaritities. No matter how divided their messages, their body language almost identically seemed to be saying: “We have come here to impress you. To convince you that we, and not the other side “our enemies”, deserve your attention”. In other words, everything went according to the well prepared, well rehearsed scenario…
What was lacking was spontaneity. The spontaneous movements of "Miliband" that caught my attention that day in the shop.
No matter how full of modern democratic terminology Jeremic's speech laid in a context of “undeniable right to Kosovo” judging by his body language, even to him looked to be sounding as if coming from the Middle Ages…
For their part, the Kosovar delegation looked absent. As if tired of repeating their position and now didn’t understand why they needed to go on talking. “Look”, their body language was saying, we have even prepared a Treaty for good relations according to the Western standards. What else do you want from us…?
Of course I may be influenced by the overall situation in the Balkans and so be fully subjective. I admit that for a long time, I have been comparing the situation in the Balkans with that of a special school where pupils rather than concentrating on their education, spend their time fighting for the attention of the teachers. As if even they didn't beleive or didn't wish to graduate and so take the responsibilities of an adult life…
A couple of weeks later as Miliband was meeting the Kosovar delegation also in London, I recalled his body language from that shop... “Wonder” I thought while waiting in front of the Foreign Office, “I wonder how do the world leaders talk to our Balkan politicians these days. How, say Miliband is talking right now to his Kosovar guests - with his brain or merely his mouth?”
Unable to imagine Miliband in the “Balkan surroundings” my imagination went back to the school analogy... For a moment the whole Balkan looked as a remote school somewhere in the outskirts… You know, the type of school even God (of course if there is one) has forgotten. A school where teachers don’t even visit any longer but have left it under the care of some of its pupils, selected according to their personal criteria, usually the level of obedience… And so the pupils run up-and-down, bully each other, inflict all sorts of soft and not-so-soft torture on each other… And no one can see anything... Only when they start killing each other, do the teachers react… First strongly, then less strongly, until they find new caretaker pupils… And everything starts from the beginning…
Kim bytyci
posted by Euro-Korrespondent @ 2:48 PM
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