This has some time coming, and there are some two year old facts in this post, but thankfully Wikipedia tracks ALL changes which will help me demonstrate my point.
This is about Kosovo, and one particular individual that at a crucial time has represented Kosovo. …
It was the beginning of March 2011, and everywhere on the news the main theme was the arranged talks between Kosovo and Serbia (to those without any recent Balkan history knowledge, there was a war between these two countries in 1999, and Serbia sought to ethnically cleanse Kosovo; NATO intervened stopped that, and there has been diplomatic war between the countries ever since, with Brussels acting as the responsible parent). These talks were supposed to be a very important point in history where the two parties could negotiate with each other how to cooperate in the future. The Serbian representative was Borko Stefanovic, and the Kosovar representative was Edita Tahiri.
The talks were set up to be held on Seven rounds, where on each round different things could be negotiated. Really important stuff for Kosovo.
I’m not really a news person, and I’m not always very up to date when it comes to the happenings of society. But when I’m interested in something I tend to go deep and explore it by seeking as much information as possible. Just like my friend that reads everything about Arsenal FC, I read everything about bits of random stuff. 🙂
But the reason for this blog post didn’t require too much effort, or digging around.
News got out that the first stage of the negotiations didn’t go as well as Kosovo had hoped. Being out of the loop on such things I decided to update myself with some information, particularly, who were these two people representing their countries. I had heard Edita Tahiri’s name, but had no clue on what she did, or her credentials that she must have had to take on such an enormous task. Also, who was this ‘Borko’ guy? As anyone who wants some quick and easy information, I went on to the what is now 6th most visited website in the world: Wikipedia.
Type in Borko Stefanovic, and see some very basic info of the guy, that was contributed by some welsh history guy named Ian. That user was/is probably a person with an internest in Balkan history, and was probably following these negotiations closely. Thankfully for us, he was also a Wikipedia contributor, and we should all commend these kind of people that contribute to the Wikipedia community and document people and events. I see, that he had created an article on the Negotiations as well as Edita Tahiri. Thanks Ian. But not only that, Ian went that extra step and updated the Edita Tahiri article with more additional info.
*Enough with the links. I hate them as well, but these were there just to legitimize my words. Now for all you lazy folks out there I will lay out my experience with pictures.
I was doing this research as the second round of negotiations was going on. Looked at Borko’s Wikipedia Article and it looked like this:
Ok, basic info, something that i felt could have been acquired from the first page of a Google search query.
Then I clicked on the “Belgrade-Prishtina Negotiations” link. Read a substantial bit good info on the negotiations. Went ahead and clicked the “Edita Tahiri” link.
To my surprise I was greeted with this:
That in Wikipedia standards may be classified a very large sum of words! What the…?! Since Borko’s article was just a stub, and she has a thesis-long Article just on her Career, I initially thought, this woman must be our very own Kosovar Hillary Clinton! Woohoo! Go Kosovo? Yes, never knowing anything about a person, and that person being really competent, are two things that don’t really happen in such a small country where word gets around very quickly. So having reservations I began reading what was written. And as with any boring subject, you skim over, and think in your head, OK, good, nice, OK… wait wait…what?
“…she was taught by the famous American professor and dean of the John F. Kennedy School Professor Joseph Nye.“
That edition of the article in addition to that quote also mentioned everything she had accomplished. It was like a really long, and puffed up resume. Ok, that could be it, someone had gotten her resume, and conjured up a Wikipedia article from it. Where’s the reference, let me see where this info came from. Couldn’t find a reference. The only two references at that time were probably the ones that that guy Ian had put.
Knowing someone’s resume is one thing, but knowing who you were lectured by is really intimate. I went to a place where Wikipedia visitors don’t even know exists. The version history! Just for info, it’s located here:
Something really interesting going on in the version history. I see that the article was started by the same user that had started the Borko article and the Belgrade-Prishtina Negotiations Article (which I later learn is Ian). However, the biggest contribution was by an anonymous editor. As you can see here:
That’s really interesting! Who could know such intimate stuff about a person, and that feels compelled that they should let the world know (through Wikipedia) about the achievements of Edita Tahiri?
I asked Google about that IP: 194.78.202.178, and went ahead and clicked the second link, (because it was a link from ip-address.com; which looked like a reputale IP info database), and it was interesting what I saw there:
Update 2014: rechecked the IP with a different IP checking service, it still says Brussels:
An IP Address from Brussels, contributing on an article of Edita Tahiri, a not very well known Kosovar. If you go ahead and go back to look at the Belgrade-Prishtina Negotiations article, you can see that it says…. oh, I know you’re lazy, I’ll upload the relevant part:
As you can see there, the second round of negotiations was held on March 28th. That was 2 day thing as well, just like the First round. So, 29th of March, Belgium, and that was done after 22:00.
So, this just means that it couldn’t have been anyone else but Edita Tahiri herself writing about herself, on her own Wikipedia Article. I’m not saying that’s a prohibited thing, sure, go ahead and update your own Wikipedia Article, but to add that much stuff on it, and just like a resume! Come on!!!
So, this was all I needed to see to conclude that she was probably not the best person for the job. If you send someone to represent a whole country, that someone should have her country’s interests before her own! How about putting that extra effort it required to write that wikipedia article into bettering a whole nation’s outcome?!
From this we can derive one of two outcomes.
The first one is that Edita Tahiri even after all her education and training still lacks the confidence to be in the international relations field, and that she has to spell it out for the world that she is competent. I don’t believe this is the case, because I don’t think she would have gotten this far if she was lacking self-confidence.
The second, more likely outcome is that she is on a level of vanity that is bordering on narcisissm. Who would go to such great lenghts to write about oneself? Having such pride in oneself, while on such an important role, I believe is not very productive. Why would the country of Kosovo or anyone else for that matter care who you are or what you did?! All they care about is a better future, and you’re there to represent them and fight for that potential better future. Nobody cares if you’re the Hunchback of Notre Dame as long as you’re doing a good job! (As if people cared if Napoleon was cute or tall and handsome! He conquered!) Why not have a bit of nationalism, considering you’re on such an important mission?!
However, considering the text that was obviously written by her on that Wikipedia Article, one can easily deduce that she must be an intellectual narcisist. As Andre Green defined it, as a form of illusory dominance by intellectualization through suberabudant self-confidence. That may be it.
Of course she’s not a body narcisisst or she would have taken better care to look more aesthetically pleasing.
Another question that intrigues me, is that why did she in the first place not create the Wikipedia Article herself? Was it that she was lacking in the technical know how? Maybe she’s constantly Google-ing herself, and has a keen interest on what people think of her. Maybe she has a Google Alert with her name?
Today, the Wikipedia entry on Edita Tahiri looks good enough, with some basic information, as is the usual norm with such people in such positions, and also adhering to Wikipedia principles of referencing information.
Therefore, when evaluating when someone is suitable for a specific mission, it’s better to evaluate that person’s priorities rather than professional accomplishments. This way, a more balanced negotiation can happen, because you can very safely assume that the person on the other side of the negotiation is prepared to go to even self sacrifice for his/her country!
Thanks for reading 🙂
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