Kåre By Will Norton, Jr.
T
he conflict between radical Islam and the West has been fought for centuries in the Balkans, and everywhere there are memorials to the dead from one conflict or another. I realized the enduring nature of the conflict several years ago at a reception on the top floor of a bank building in Belgrade, Serbia. My host and I looked down on Belgrade Fortress, situated where the Danube and Sava rivers meet. “That fort has changed hands dozens of times between the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans,” he said. The next day we were to hear a speech by Boris Tadić, the president of Serbia. He would tell us that his administration was committed to bringing to justice those who had committed war crimes during the recent Balkan conflict. *** Last October an associated (cq) professor at NLA University College, the secondlargest private higher education institution in Norway, and I were in the Balkans to attempt to move the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communication to one of the public institutions of higher learning in that newly formed nation. If the program is transferred, we are hopeful that Meek School faculty will teach journalism and integrated marketing communications in Kosovo in the near future. Kåre Melhus covered the Balkan conflict. He is a graduate of Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois, and was awarded a graduate degree in journalism by the University of Missouri. His school offers a master’s degree in global journalism and has been involved in establishing graduate journalism programs at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communications in Pristina, Kosovo. The sculpture in downtown S arajevo is of a father, Ramo, calling his son Nermin to come out of the forest so that he can stay alive.
Melhus
