Post by bato2 on Jun 2, 2009 10:08:38 GMT -5
Author: Arianit Dobruna
Uploaded: Tuesday, 02 June, 2009
‘Speak Serbian that God may understand you’
– Serbian proverb
A minority must be able to speak the language of the majority. This is not happening in Kosovo right now and it will be today’s minority children who will suffer, unable to function beyond the limits of their communities.
Kosovo Albanians stopped learning the Serbian language at school in 1990, as they dropped out of the Belgrade-enforced education system and into a parallel one funded by a 3% income tax collected in the diaspora. This meant the freedom to learn from history and literature books written by Albanian authors, albeit often in private homes or crowded facilities.
Now Kosovo Serb children have their own parallel education system, with Serbian-only teaching. In their schools, they learn English but no Albanian, although Albanian is the native language of more than ninety per cent of the population in Kosovo . Moreover, seventy per cent of the population in Kosovo is under 35, and anyone under 30 who might still have had a couple of years of Serbian language instruction cannot or does not want to speak any Serbian. If, before, the Serbs did not really have to learn Albanian, since the Albanians could - and had to - speak their language, today learning Albanian is a necessity in order to function economically in Kosovo. Otherwise, there will be no future for the Serbs here. While Serbian is an official language along with Albanian across Kosovo, this is hardly decisive if only 6% of the population is Serb. Luckily or tragically, it is small details like this, rather than the kind of laws and protections which the Kosovo Government enacts, that will determine the future of the Serb community here. When those Serb children are 18 and about to go to university, they will most likely choose one with classes in Serbian in urban Serbia. At employment time, a job in Serbia will be their only hope, since they are unable to communicate with customers in Kosovo outside of their villages. Hence, only the old with remain and continue farming until their death.
The decentralization mandated by the Ahtisaari Plan will further strengthen Serb-Albanian divisions in education and other public services. When asked, most of the Serbs involved in the parallel education system will tell you that this is a way for them to secure their identity and survival here. They do not realize how such a choice defeats that very purpose. For them, this is a emotion-loaded issue and counter-intuitive. They refuse to acknowledge that, at least in Kosovo, God no longer speaks Serbian. Albanian was the language of the majority here prior to 1999 as well, yet many of the parents of these children are equally unable to speak Albanian, a reflection of the old Serbian-dominated power structure. As they see it, for them and their children to learn Albanian now is tantamount to treason.
A slightly different situation obtains with the Roma minority. The education plan is for them to attend most classes in Albanian, with two hours of classes in Romani language and culture, so they can preserve their identity. They already speak conversational Albanian; but the social and economic circumstances to stimulate them beyond the basics are not present in every family, which means that they will be unlikely to be able to function competitively in the workplace.
A lot of foreign money is being invested in the Roma, but unless they are able to secure basic economic independence, that will not be very useful. It is useless to teach the Romani language if those children are likely to drop out from elementary school, and as parents will be unable to provide economic support, so that their own children in turn will not have to drop out of school as they did.
My London friend put it best: ‘the roots of the problem for the Roma in Kosovo lie in the uncertain future. The sooner independence is recognised as a permanent fact, the sooner minorities will be able to take decisions about education that are rooted in an objective understanding of their future needs. And that's when they can start campaigning for an approach to education that is able to accommodate their aspirations within a stable society.’
The average age of Serbs living in Kosovo today is 50. In 20 years this average will be even higher, as the young continue to leave for more plentiful educational opportunities in Serbia and jobs that currently pay on average twice as much as in Kosovo. Learning the dominant language of Kosovo is a prerequisite step for any chance of reversing this trend.
The key for prosperity for all the minorities in Kosovo – Serb, Roma, Turkish and Bosniak - is ability to function in the dominant language – in this case Albanian. Anyone who has helped them achieve this goal has ensured the basic condition for the long-lasting survival of the group and its identity, which I understand is the ultimate goal.
www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2591