Blood Debt: Feudal Familial Law in the Balkans

[snooper2]

VICE

Published on Apr 2, 2015
In some parts of the Balkans, families still live by a centuries-old law called "the Canon," which recognizes the right to vengeance—if a man from one family kills another, the family of the victim must respond in kind. This "debt" is usually executed by the eldest male member of the family. It is his duty to avenge his loved one—if he refuses, he declared a coward and renounced by his family.

VICE Serbia recently traveled from East Montenegro—where some families have experienced four cycles of vengeance—to the north of Albania, where some children never leave their homes in fear of being killed. Along the way they spoke with families of murder victims who, disappointed by the corruption of the official justice system, have taken judgment and punishment into their own hands.

[raging moderate]

1. One of many macabre details of feudalism we will have, if we don't prevent it.

People have forgotten many of the rotten little details of the autocratic top-heavy social order the Republicons are trying to restore. It was not really as benign as the sugar-coated fantasies shown in Disney's "When Knighthood was in Flower" or Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind." (A land of peace and plenty, my Aunt Fanny!)
The last time this happened in the world, they had some small excuse. Everybody was pretty desperate, and death lurked around every corner. Everybody suffered, with frightening winter cold seeping into every dwelling, with smallpox ravaging the royal families as well as the poorest peasants. Terrible disasters struck indiscriminately without warning. They did not have our resources, our knowledge base, our communication network, our distribution infrastructure, our storage facilities.
What excuse will we have, if we let this happen again?