Awakening of Albanian Leaders?!
AIM Pristina, 5 December, 1999
Violence manifested during celebration of the Albanian Day of the Flag excited a large portion of the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. Among information of world agencies and local media, one caught special attention: the murder of a professor of Serb ethnic origin and injuring of his wife and her mother downtown Pristina in front of a mass of several hundred people who were standing-by. However, this case reached its full effect of condemnation only as part of the general result of the violence: seven or eight dead persons and several ten of wounded and injured plus terror due to general turmoil of "fireworks" caused by shooting from all types of small firearms and thousands of petards. All this in a day of joy because Kosovo Albanians for the first time after 87 years could freely celebrate their greatest national holiday, the Day of the Flag. Many consider this turmoil as an ill omen, having in mind most probably the events that have taken place and still are taking place in Albania.
This was the atmosphere which perhaps for the first time created in the ethnic Albanian political and public in general a critical mass which sincerely condemns and rejects primitivism, roughness, inhuman and uncivilised behavior in its own ranks. This time things are grasped at the roots as something that needs to be changed in the general social mentality of the Albanians. In a part of the political and intellectuals public this disposition is established as the need, and even an imperative to reexamine the former and create new social, political, cultural, psychological... matrix of behavior and awareness of the present and the future of ethnic Albanians. It is estimated that only in this way can the Albanians be permitted to enter new civilisation trends, start reconstruction and development, and achieve their political and other aspirations.
Such approach to things surpasses the ugly and sporadic assaults on members of the minorities, especially the Serbs. The position of minorities is still an acute problem, but with more chance to be overcome in a more normal way now with daily political pressure which is part of the efforts to create a new civilised ambience in Kosovo. It is understandable that one must count on it that others will join in these efforts. In this sense longterm and difficult tasks are set. Deadlines should be considered in a relative sense, because when the Albanians are concerned there are only sporadic public appearances of individuals which still have not acquired the form of a public debate. Indeed, the whole problem has only just been opened, and its framework just indicated.
Respectable member of the Academy of Sciences of Kosovo Rexhep Qosja assesses current and longterm aspects of the problem as acute. Concentrating on the current problem of assaults on members of minorities, that is, the Serbs, in a concise but very comprehensive analysis Qosja addressed a very dramatic appeal to the Albanians: "Warnings addressed to us by those who mean well... should be taken most seriously... and as soon as possible - today because tomorrow it may be too late". All things considered Qosja's analysis may perhaps be the first public presentation of the real dimensions of the acute problems of minorities. It is important to underline that it is done and looked into without opportunism and calculations customary in the behavior of some of the Albanian politicians. Those who attack members of the minorities are instigators of major violence in Kosovo and dangerous social evil-doers, Qosja believes: "I am convinced that those who replace tolerance with prejudice, humanism with hatred, democracy with violence are doing their own people and the future of Kosovo the worst possible service. They mar the reputation of their people in the world acquired with great sacrifices and they seriously jeopardise the prospect of a just and final resolution of the issue of Kosovo which still has not been solved".
Qosja's analysis was pubblished in Koha ditore daily on 2 December. However, the problem has been observed before and set in broader dimensions. In Koha sot daily, in the issue of 28 November, Adem Demaqi poses this question as an urgent need to change the Albanians themselves: "The destiny of Kosovo will in the future depend entirely on our profound change from what we used to be and still are into what we should be... We should work with all our might on re-establishment of sound criteria and evaluations according to world standards... revive and cherish sacred human values from our tradition and without hesitation adopt all sacred human values of modern civilisation such as humanism...".
To the acts of violence committed in the last days of November, the only politician who reacted in the name of the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo through the customary party mechanisms was Bajram Kosumi. Having noted that the number of the killed and wounded during the celebration was terrible evidence of the level of culture, Kosumi continues: "On this occasion the question which arises for all the citizens of Kosovo is whether we all wish to create a modern or keep the anarchic and primitive cultural ambience? Perhaps this first 28 November observed in freedom is the most appropriate opportunity for the society of Kosovo to answer this and numerous other essential questions without solving of which true freedom of the people and of Kosovo cannot be achieved. The society of Kosovo may create its future only if it initiates the process of profound transformation in all its systems. Only in this process and not in reciting folklore patriotism, the society of Kosovo can free itself of the mentality of a slave who unexpectedly realises he is free".
With different variations this problem is most comprehensively presented by the Albanian writer Mehmet Kraja in a series of contributions he has published in the past few weeks in Koha Ditore daily under the general title: After Return Home. He most directly discusses this in the contribution published on 24 November. Restructuring of the view of the world as Kraja calls this process "...implies primarily adaptation of ideas to new conditions, their accommodation and modernisation. Concerning this point no delays or stagnation should be permitted because time lost is irretrievable... The Albanians ought to start thinking differently about themselves, about political development, economy, culture, prospects, general progress, internal and external integrations, everything else. They ought to create a new set of ideas". In order to make this, as Kraja calls it, great turn, the Albanians should critically evaluate their heritage and the inherited view of the world. It should be done constructively and profoundly because only in this way can lasting values be distinguished from those which are inappropriate and useless in new circumstances. Kraja advocates an operational selection of values and ideas which he classifies in three categories. In the first would be those which are useless and which, although Kraja does not say so explicitly should be rejected. In the second would be values and ideas which should be kept in historical museums, and in the third those which are still operational and which can be included in the new corps of views of the world.
The atmosphere favourable for pacification and prevention of these forms of violence is supported by the media. But it remains to be seen whether the daily pressure against crime which is directed against minorities and the atmosphere of democratic political and intellectual debates about what and how should be changed in the heritage and the inheritted view of the world will parallelly be maintained. In view of the disposition in the leadership of some parties it seems that this will not be easy. Reactions of Albanian parties were typically political, that is, to a considerable extent calculating. The exception was, as mentioned, the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo of Bajram Kosumi. There were quite a few sharp words, but also formulations which point out that Albanian parties not even concerning such serious and exceptionally dangerous incidents can free themselves of calculating wooing of voters.
Formally, the power here is held by the United Nations civilian administration (UNMIK). It is deeply involved in all aspects of life in Kosovo, therefrom in politics as well. But the impression is that international structures are not at all familiar with internal Albanian political life. The foreigners stationed here and those who occasionally visit Kosovo most often are not aware that they can fall victim of irrational double-dealing insincerity of Albanian politicians. A part of them say one thing when talking with foreigners and something completely different in closed meetings with their party comrades, and something else for the public. In fact, it is very difficult to tell what some of them actually think or whether they think at all of anything else except of the approaching possibility of coming into power.
AIM Pristina
Fehim REXHEPI
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