How Facebook Turned Syria’s Kosovo Move into Thaçi Fan Fiction

Syria’s recognition of Kosovo was a Saudi-brokered diplomatic breach in Belgrade’s wall, instantly hijacked by Balkan Facebook theatre to glorify a jailed politician.

The Balkan information sphere, ordinarily a cacophony of bruised egos, wounded nationalisms and men shouting into front-facing cameras, briefly achieved something like unison on 29 October, when a small but symbolically neat piece of diplomacy unfolded in Riyadh. Syria, yes, the Syria that for years clung to Belgrade’s veto logic like a life raft announced it recognised Kosovo¹. Saudi Arabia smiled beatifically², Türkiye hovered in the background, President Vjosa Osmani turned the victory into the kind of poised digital communiqué that makes Brussels feel history is still moving in the correct direction, and for one clean second the story was simple, Pristina had chipped away at the wall. Then the Balkan echo chamber did what it always does, it picked up a clarifying event and smeared it with provincial vainglory. The first splash came from Berat Buzhala, self-styled truth-teller, professional mood-poisoner, and sometime courier of Serb-friendly talking points, who announced³, with the cheer of a man stumbling into relevance, “Urime njohja nga Siria,” and promptly credited the whole thing to Hashim Thaçi’s off-hand suggestion, relayed “nga Haga”, that Kosovo should ask the “autoritetet e reja të Sirisë” for recognition. On cue, two portal-factories “GazetaDemos” and “Korrekt Press,” cloned the narrative, posting solemn tiles with the line: “Hashim Thaçi nga Haga kërkoi që Kosova të kërkoj njohjen nga Siria.” What should have been recorded as a Saudi-facilitated, trilateral diplomatic correction to a fifteen-year obstruction campaign was instantly downgraded to a jailed politician had a thought, the world obeyed; history, once again, is an Albanian WhatsApp group.

Buzhala, GazetaDemos and Korrekt Press routine of psychological warfare.