Page 653 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

vival in this limited. Without the valleys of the Drim and Var- dar that we can call the Serbian Tibar, Seine or Thames, blessed and naturally rich valleys in the center of Serbian lands, which are unfortunately in foreign hands, the Kingdom of Serbia has not secured its survival. That is happening to the shame of civilized europe. What is happening to those Serbian valleys? They have been transformed into the asian slaughterhouse where plague and other political diseases have captured the Serbian body. Our brothers from Šumadija, sons of a free Ser- bian Kingdom, do not want to hear about this. even if Otto- man Turks ate us all alive like birds eat grasshoppers in the fields, no one would turn their head toward us; as if we were indian pariahs or Chinese-japanese Manchus, children of some Samoyedic people from the asian steppes. The Šuma- dija Serbs [in Principality of Serbia] unwillingly hears about misfortunes that happen every day in the valleys of rivers Var- dar, Lim and Drim, as if something were offending him in those stories. about the events in the valleys of rivers amur, Nile and Mississippi he gladly listens, writes and reads. When some- thing happens elsewhere in the world, no matter how small or insignificant, our writers race with each other as to who will be the first to write and inform the public; while all the slaugh- ters and arsons in the Serbian lands that border the Kingdom of Serbia remain without a word written or spoken in the Ser- bian state. Not a word about their brothers in blood, faith and interest.
From the following words we shall see how liberated Ser- bian people perceive themselves and their still oppressed and unconsolidated fatherland at this crucial moment. Better to say, we shall see how they cope with non-patriotism and an- tipathy in front of their enslaved brethren. antipathy (lack of compassion) is the mother of all evil and root of all disaster, as much as bold brotherly love and sympathy (compassion) are the only salvation to a country or fatherland.
Woe unto us! The seed of poison, hatred and envy has been increasingly sown in the place of brotherly love and justice. Trickery has became familiar to us together with all kinds of unpatriotic hypocrisy. We see many ungrateful sons turning weapons against their parents and their entire fatherland with fervor and impudence, overlooking the defeat that threatens our entire fatherland and nation, only to realize some harmful fantasies of their own. This depraved direction has led us into a state where diligence has turned into laziness, working into waste of time, saving into luxury.
We too understand, gentlemen, what the freedom is that you write about in your newspapers. Freedom is the daughter of every truth, the mother of humanity. in the captivity in which we find ourselves now, man is but a conscious animal that anyone can slaughter. You had more luck than we did because you gained political independence and freedom. Un- fortunately, you have used that sanctity of humankind for evil and you became true slaves of your fiery passions, indulging your personal desires and your harmful sophistry, which en- slaved you.
in that way, oh you learned ones, you truncate people’s rights gained by blood, ruin the traditions of your ancestors by foreign and corrupt journalism; you tread on your faith, language, and hearthstone, and you trample on what is most sacred to people. You shackle them in steel chains, you im-
Archimandrite Sava Dečanac, leader of the Kosovo Serbs, in 1878
pose on them something they will not accept for some time and suffocate all domestic progress.
We also know that a free press in the hands of patriots is the strongest foundation of human progress. The living word gets wings through it, wings to take the truth to the world, to serve the truth, to perfect humanity, to spread knowledge in order to make it the common good of all humankind.
Unfortunately, sinister Serbian men of letters betrayed this sanctity, too. We can see that many of them write who-knows- -what praises with their own free hands, but their head is a slave chained by alien fantasies. They think that with their hands, they achieve the goals of the press, that they are spread- ing knowledge, but the head heated with foreign heat always goes off the track and instead of spreading knowledge, they deliver scandalous scolding in their scribbling, they curse and blaspheme all that is honest, holy and noble for Serbhood.
What harm has not been done by this scribbling, partisan, non-patriotic, unconscious and unreasonable press?! it has created horrible demoralization and plagued the spirit of our deceived nation. it has created an impediment to the internal development and external liberation and unity of all Serb- hood. Such a press has created all that devours and erodes the social limbs of our national body, until we are wiped from the face of the earth. in one word, that press has done everything that is necessary to undermine the foundations of Serbian progress and survival, and everything that would help our enemies—the gravediggers of our tribe, better to say, all that hell could think against us, the Serbian press stoked it with fanatical enthusiasm. That could only happen in a country
Sources and Testimonies
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