Post by Fender on Feb 18, 2008 9:16:06 GMT -5
A country in search of an identityThe Kosovan government must find a way to resolve bitter inter-ethnic tensions
Julian Borger guardian.co.uk, Monday February 18 2008 Article history · February 18 2008. It was last updated at 13:00 on February 18 2008.
Kosovars celebrate independence with their new flag
Kosovo is waking up from its 24-hour independence party this morning with an almighty hangover, a lot of problems and no one else left to blame for them.
The government in Pristina will have to try to forge a nation out of the poor Balkan backwater, in the face of determined resistance of a sizable minority.
There will be a lot of practical problems – dealing with an unemployment rate of over 40%, infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, the hostility of Kosovo's former rulers in Belgrade and their Russian backers, all set against the soaring expectations of the ethnic Albanian majority.
But there is a more fundamental question that has to be answered – what kind of nation will the new Kosovo be. In theory, it is supposed to become a modern multi-ethnic society, but it is in a part of their world where the idea of nation is built on ties of kinship.
"This is the question we are trying to answer," said Migjen Kelmendi, a publisher and broadcaster who has been involved in a long and painstaking effort to construct a new national identity. "Should we be a society of values, or of blood, belonging and biology?"
Kelmendi says that Kosovo's Albanians have grown up looking towards Tirana for a sense of identity. They have adopted the standardised version of the language used in southern Albania, although Kosovars speak the quite different Geg dialect. The Kosovar dream was to one day merge into agreater Albania. That now has to be put aside if the new state wants international support and a peaceful neighbourhood. But it will not be easy.
Work is already under way towards hammering out a new identity on aparade ground in Pristina. On a brutally cold morning, a group of young military cadets goes through its paces on a concrete drill field. As dense clouds of jackdaws swoop and wheel above them, they run in perfect formation chanting their determination to defend the new-born nation.
"Bullets don't scare us," they shout. "A just war makes us even braver." The instructors trained for four years in South Carolina, they teach US-style military doctrine and the young trainees all speak English with the same well-disciplined optimism.
"There is no discrimination in our army," said Kadri Berisha, a 24-year-old who was a refugee in Doncaster during the 1998-99 war. "We are looking to the future. Our history is behind us."
Now, instead of saluting the blood-red Albanian banner emblazoned with a black double-headed eagle, they look up at unfamiliar colours. Kosovo's new blue flag, with the country's map in gold and six white stars denoting its main ethnic components, is designed deliberately to look like the EU, UN and Nato colours – a reflection of Kosovo's aspirations.
But history in this part of the world is not shrugged off so easily. The new flag are supposed to be ethnically inclusive, but on the drill field at least, there are no Serbs to salute it. "We tried to recruit Serbs. We went into the high schools to talk to them, but there was no interest," Captain Berat Shala, one of the instructors, said.
The new model army will embody many of the strengths and weaknesses of an independent Kosovo. It will be heavily supported and intensively monitored by the EU and the US to ensure that it sticks to its UN-designed democratic, multi-ethnic blueprint. But it has so far failed to draw meaningful participation from an angry and fearful Serb minority of roughly 120,000. Nor is it clear whether the Albanian majority is willing to give more than lip service to the ideals of the brand new nation.
Fadil Hysaj, a playwright who headed the commission that chose the new flag, admitted he was anxious about the public reaction. "Politically, the new flag is right, but it really doesn't have the emotional effect that a flag should have," Hysaj said. "Removing the eagle, for most Albanians, will be like a surgical operation."
For Albanian nationalists such as Albin Kurti, a former student leader who led a campaign against UN supervision, the new nation has bargained away its soul even before its creation. "A flag should have a history. I don't think people will identify with these ad-hoc flags," Kurti said. He is similarly dismissive of the new constitution, which is packed with safeguards for the Serb minority and the enclaves in which they live. "We're going to have a Serb entity, just like Bosnia," he warned.
If that separate entity does emerge, its centre of gravity will be in the north, along the border with the rest of Serbia and around the divided city of Mitrovica. There, Serb refusal to acknowledge the new state constantly threatens to lead to violence and, with Belgrade's encouragement, could bring about de facto partition. Nato has sent troops to the north to counter the threat, but it will be hard for them to tackle passive resistance.
More than half the Serb population lives south of Mitrovica, scattered in smaller enclaves some of which could be just as big a headache for the Pristina government and its international backers.
In the Lipjan area, near the centre of Kosovo, 10,000 Serbs live uneasily alongside a similar number of Albanians. The local municipality is, in theory, the sort of multi-ethnic paradigm the new country is meant to be, led by an Albanian mayor and a Serb deputy. The mayor, Shukri Buja, insists that he works hand in glove with the Serbs, and claims they are not bothered by the plethora of war mementoes he keeps in his office from his days as a guerrilla in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Outside his office is a panel of photographs of determined young men, and one woman, carrying weapons and wearing KLA uniform. On closer inspection, however, it is clear that most of the faces have been digitally superimposed onto the soldiers' bodies. In fact six of them have exactly the same body. It is a clear case of myth-making by Photoshop; an attempt to build the future on the blood of martyrs.
Buja shrugs off quibbles about accuracy, pointing out that people did not have time to have their picture taken during the war. And he insists that all the KLA paraphernalia should not put off the Serb minority, despite the fact that the guerrillas carried out terrible reprisal killings after the Nato intervention. "They liberated not just us but the Kosovo Serbs too," Buja said. "I don't think any of this history can hurt integration."
A few steps down the corridor, however, his Serb colleagues told a different story. "We've complained to the deputy mayor, to the UN, to everyone, about all these pictures and things," said Lidija Ivanovic, who is in charge of minority affairs. "We don't want to be constantly reminded of the war."
In inter-communal rioting in March 2004, two Serbs were killed in Lipjan and many Serb houses and shops were set alight. There is widespread fear that the same could happen again. Zivorad Borisavljevic looks after a medieval orthodox church in the Serb district – an illustration of the cultural heritage that makes Kosovo such an emotional issue for the Serbs.
"If everything stays peaceful and no one touches us, and there is no repeat of the 2004 riots, the vast majority of us will stay," he said. But that was as far as he was willing to go. Even with a new flag and new national symbols, he is not ready to offer fealty to a nation built simply on shared territory and lofty ideas.
"I can't imagine ever saying I was a Kosovar," he said. "I will always say I am a Serb."
Julian Borger guardian.co.uk, Monday February 18 2008 Article history · February 18 2008. It was last updated at 13:00 on February 18 2008.
Kosovars celebrate independence with their new flag
Kosovo is waking up from its 24-hour independence party this morning with an almighty hangover, a lot of problems and no one else left to blame for them.
The government in Pristina will have to try to forge a nation out of the poor Balkan backwater, in the face of determined resistance of a sizable minority.
There will be a lot of practical problems – dealing with an unemployment rate of over 40%, infrastructure that has been neglected for decades, the hostility of Kosovo's former rulers in Belgrade and their Russian backers, all set against the soaring expectations of the ethnic Albanian majority.
But there is a more fundamental question that has to be answered – what kind of nation will the new Kosovo be. In theory, it is supposed to become a modern multi-ethnic society, but it is in a part of their world where the idea of nation is built on ties of kinship.
"This is the question we are trying to answer," said Migjen Kelmendi, a publisher and broadcaster who has been involved in a long and painstaking effort to construct a new national identity. "Should we be a society of values, or of blood, belonging and biology?"
Kelmendi says that Kosovo's Albanians have grown up looking towards Tirana for a sense of identity. They have adopted the standardised version of the language used in southern Albania, although Kosovars speak the quite different Geg dialect. The Kosovar dream was to one day merge into agreater Albania. That now has to be put aside if the new state wants international support and a peaceful neighbourhood. But it will not be easy.
Work is already under way towards hammering out a new identity on aparade ground in Pristina. On a brutally cold morning, a group of young military cadets goes through its paces on a concrete drill field. As dense clouds of jackdaws swoop and wheel above them, they run in perfect formation chanting their determination to defend the new-born nation.
"Bullets don't scare us," they shout. "A just war makes us even braver." The instructors trained for four years in South Carolina, they teach US-style military doctrine and the young trainees all speak English with the same well-disciplined optimism.
"There is no discrimination in our army," said Kadri Berisha, a 24-year-old who was a refugee in Doncaster during the 1998-99 war. "We are looking to the future. Our history is behind us."
Now, instead of saluting the blood-red Albanian banner emblazoned with a black double-headed eagle, they look up at unfamiliar colours. Kosovo's new blue flag, with the country's map in gold and six white stars denoting its main ethnic components, is designed deliberately to look like the EU, UN and Nato colours – a reflection of Kosovo's aspirations.
But history in this part of the world is not shrugged off so easily. The new flag are supposed to be ethnically inclusive, but on the drill field at least, there are no Serbs to salute it. "We tried to recruit Serbs. We went into the high schools to talk to them, but there was no interest," Captain Berat Shala, one of the instructors, said.
The new model army will embody many of the strengths and weaknesses of an independent Kosovo. It will be heavily supported and intensively monitored by the EU and the US to ensure that it sticks to its UN-designed democratic, multi-ethnic blueprint. But it has so far failed to draw meaningful participation from an angry and fearful Serb minority of roughly 120,000. Nor is it clear whether the Albanian majority is willing to give more than lip service to the ideals of the brand new nation.
Fadil Hysaj, a playwright who headed the commission that chose the new flag, admitted he was anxious about the public reaction. "Politically, the new flag is right, but it really doesn't have the emotional effect that a flag should have," Hysaj said. "Removing the eagle, for most Albanians, will be like a surgical operation."
For Albanian nationalists such as Albin Kurti, a former student leader who led a campaign against UN supervision, the new nation has bargained away its soul even before its creation. "A flag should have a history. I don't think people will identify with these ad-hoc flags," Kurti said. He is similarly dismissive of the new constitution, which is packed with safeguards for the Serb minority and the enclaves in which they live. "We're going to have a Serb entity, just like Bosnia," he warned.
If that separate entity does emerge, its centre of gravity will be in the north, along the border with the rest of Serbia and around the divided city of Mitrovica. There, Serb refusal to acknowledge the new state constantly threatens to lead to violence and, with Belgrade's encouragement, could bring about de facto partition. Nato has sent troops to the north to counter the threat, but it will be hard for them to tackle passive resistance.
More than half the Serb population lives south of Mitrovica, scattered in smaller enclaves some of which could be just as big a headache for the Pristina government and its international backers.
In the Lipjan area, near the centre of Kosovo, 10,000 Serbs live uneasily alongside a similar number of Albanians. The local municipality is, in theory, the sort of multi-ethnic paradigm the new country is meant to be, led by an Albanian mayor and a Serb deputy. The mayor, Shukri Buja, insists that he works hand in glove with the Serbs, and claims they are not bothered by the plethora of war mementoes he keeps in his office from his days as a guerrilla in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Outside his office is a panel of photographs of determined young men, and one woman, carrying weapons and wearing KLA uniform. On closer inspection, however, it is clear that most of the faces have been digitally superimposed onto the soldiers' bodies. In fact six of them have exactly the same body. It is a clear case of myth-making by Photoshop; an attempt to build the future on the blood of martyrs.
Buja shrugs off quibbles about accuracy, pointing out that people did not have time to have their picture taken during the war. And he insists that all the KLA paraphernalia should not put off the Serb minority, despite the fact that the guerrillas carried out terrible reprisal killings after the Nato intervention. "They liberated not just us but the Kosovo Serbs too," Buja said. "I don't think any of this history can hurt integration."
A few steps down the corridor, however, his Serb colleagues told a different story. "We've complained to the deputy mayor, to the UN, to everyone, about all these pictures and things," said Lidija Ivanovic, who is in charge of minority affairs. "We don't want to be constantly reminded of the war."
In inter-communal rioting in March 2004, two Serbs were killed in Lipjan and many Serb houses and shops were set alight. There is widespread fear that the same could happen again. Zivorad Borisavljevic looks after a medieval orthodox church in the Serb district – an illustration of the cultural heritage that makes Kosovo such an emotional issue for the Serbs.
"If everything stays peaceful and no one touches us, and there is no repeat of the 2004 riots, the vast majority of us will stay," he said. But that was as far as he was willing to go. Even with a new flag and new national symbols, he is not ready to offer fealty to a nation built simply on shared territory and lofty ideas.
"I can't imagine ever saying I was a Kosovar," he said. "I will always say I am a Serb."