When Michael Martens Mistakes Judgment for Journalism

Michael Martens writes from Berlin as if Kosovo were his classroom, Vjosa Osmani his pupil, and German diplomacy exempt from responsibility for Balkan bloodshed.

I will say this plainly, because euphemism is how bad arguments survive. Michael Martens did not write an article¹ to inform. He wrote one to posture. And the problem is not that he criticised President Osmani. The problem is that he did so from a position of assumed authority he does not have, with a framing that is careless in its effects and indulgent in its prejudices.

I read his piece and kept asking myself a very basic question. What is the point of this article anyway. What does it add, other than giving Kosovo’s pro Belgrade media ecosystem exactly what it always looks for, a German byline² that can be laundered into a false claim of consensus. We have seen this trick before. One article becomes “Germany thinks”. One columnist becomes “the West says”. And suddenly a domestic propaganda line aligned with Serbian interests is dressed up as international judgment. Martens knows this environment exists. He knows how his words travel in Kosovo. Writing as if that context does not mat…