Kosovo

I unfortunately don’t get to see as much as I’d like when I travel. In fact, except for students’ faces, dinner and a walk nearby, and my hotel room, I see very little. That said, I’m not a passive traveler sitting around each place I go to. In fact, my job at this stage is to interview candidates for our exchange programs in the US. The great thing about this is that they’re an interesting representational sample of each place and region I go to, and there have been a few notable trends in each of the towns I’ve interviewed in. To stipulate, we generally try to get a feel for our candidates’ interests and perceptions, tolerance and curiosity. However, we don’t ask about racial or religious preferences. Further, we ask whether their parents support their participation.

So what have been the trends? In the town of Vranje, Serbia, several students seemed overly interested in hip-hop and black America. Many said they would like to see blacks and get to know them. In another Serbian town, students spoke of the major intolerance of their country—the hooliganism, intolerance, and resulting violence. (Related xenophobia even led to a French football fan being dragged out of a café in the middle of the day in Belgrade a few weeks back and beaten to death.) Lastly, in Serbia, several students said their parents were divorced. This is quite unusual in this part of the world (though less so in cities), but I was in an unusual part of the region—the mixed Bosniak-Serb town of Novi Pazar. From what I’ve gathered, students’ parents were married before or at the start of the Balkan conflicts (1992-95) there, and as a legacy of Yugoslavia (many people having taken on a “Yugoslav” national identity) and pre-ethno-nationalist political rhetoric. Unfortunately, the war between Serbia and Bosnia tore people apart. Old prejudices were resurrected (or fabricated?) and relationships with friends, neighbors, spouses became subject to political, religious and ethnic disputes. Who’s Christian/Muslim, Serbian/Bosnian? Tragically, likely other family members in this strong kinship-based society pulled couples apart, and thus their children (our student candidates, born between 1993-95) suffer the burden of life without one of their parents at home.

Even worse though is the situation for some where I was this past week. In Prishtina and Prizren, Kosovo, I heard at least half a dozen (if not more) students say they’d lost their fathers. While we never ask why, I spoke to my colleague and driver there, both who said that it was the stress of society, and perhaps more so the 1999 conflict and its aftermath that have made life very tough in Kosovo. Indeed, most of these young deaths are cancer, brought on by stress as a result of unemployment, vices (primarily nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine in this part of the world), a lack of exercise, and the resulting feeling of no integrity, no doubt. I do hope and believe that this next generation who we’re interviewing will change things though. With Euro-Atlantic integration, visa free travel, better education, and stamping out corruption, I think the Western Balkans will see better opportunities for its people.

Kosovo was incredibly interesting overall. Not recognized by Serbia, entering the country from Serbia meant there was no official border or passport examination. As I’d been there before but never for more than half a day, staying five days allowed me to pick up a bit more of the language, and to get a feel for things. For example, my nice hotel in the capital, Prishtina hosted several European bureaucrats. Over breakfast and dinner I was able to see and hear them work on what are myriad projects and measures being taken in what is a very conflicted yet recently independent little country. Indeed, Kosovo only got its independence last year, having been under the auspices of the UN and NATO since 1999. However, the country’s independence is contentious, to say the least. It violated the 1999 UN treaty with Serbia that ended the conflict, which said that Serbia’s territorial integrity shall not be violated. Kosovo, being a former province of Serbia, is thus seen by Serbia and other governments as having declared independence illegally. For the record, I don’t support this notion. Kosovo is 90% ethnic Albanian and moreover, could never be governed by Belgrade again. Yet it matters because next week begins the trial in the UN’s International Court of Justice which seeks to challenge Kosovo’s independence. Serbia has of course made the case, but as an Economist article this week discusses, not only do Serbia’s allies (primarily Russia) have concern about the independence of Kosovo and the precedent it has set, but other countries with separatist minorities are reluctant to see the case condoned. They fear it may incite such minorities with territorial ambitions in their country to push a little harder.

Something else I only saw in Prishtina was the loudly pronounced anti-establishment movement. I say anti-establishment, because the movement, Vetëvendosje (‘Self-determination’) is opposed to a continued international presence but also the government that cooperates with them. I frequently saw graffiti illustrating this, and riots this year which caused material damage to UN vehicles and buildings were incited by Vetëvendosje. Given a EU security force that was established in cooperation with Serbia, they see this as violating their autonomy. I thus saw a good deal of anti-EULEX propaganda.

But Prishtina has actually thrived from the international presence. A decade of international peacekeepers, bureaucrats, and their money has created a layer of society that wouldn’t have existed otherwise—a clear upper class. I heard about nice houses and neighborhoods, but what I clearly saw were the nice hotels, restaurants, and bars that cater to the elite. They are, admittedly, a treat to visit given the lack of such diversity elsewhere in the region. “Culinary cosmopolitanism,” as my travel guide said. Yet I can see why there’s resentment—bureaucrats earning daily what an average person earns monthly is a bit disturbing, particularly when the work they’re doing is not seen as beneficial to the country.

Beyond all this, Prishtina lacks historical character, though is set nicely in a valley and creeping up over hills. Fortunately, the rest of my trip was had in Prizren. Just over the mountains from NW Macedonia, it felt a world away. A Serbian town in medieval times, Prizren thrived under the Ottoman Empire as a trading center. When it became predominantly Albanian, I’m not sure, but the combination of its religious and cultural history, not to mention the setting and architecture, makes it a gem in this part of the world. To briefly elaborate, the town is in a hilly, not yet mountainous area. But built on an incline along a freshwater, mountain like river, it has centuries old Orthodox churches and Islamic mosques. Further, there’s the “carsija,” a Turkish word used in most cities in the region to describe the old market part of town. Right in the center along the river, the carsija has 19th and early 20th century structures housing excellent restaurants and shops. Right near the city library where we were working was an excellent sweet shop with more kinds of baklava than I’d ever seen! (I was only able to try a couple of kinds…)

Beyond its lengthy history, Prizren is famous for hosting the “League of Prizren” in 1878. The League was a coming together of Albanian intellectuals at the time, who attempted to lay out an Albanian state from the provinces of the then disintegrating Ottoman Empire. In the end they were unsuccessful, but the building and its museum are a reminder of this event and source of pride for Albanians.

Unfortunately, Prizren was subject to a great deal of vandalism in March 2004 during significant rioting and conflict throughout Kosovo. Nearly three dozen people died in the country, though none in Prizren. But the town’s Orthodox churches and monasteries suffered greatly. One up above the town near the fortress looks intact from below, but an image from above shows quite the contrary. Unfortunately, several churches bore this fate, and are now barb-wired off and not used. Not to mention the Serbs who lived there previously have all but left.

Yet as I returned to Skopje the other night, we drove through what is a Serb enclave in southern Kosovo (most Serbs live in the north of the country). I’d heard positively about the area before, as its natural beauty is splendid and the ski area there is an example of Serbs and Albanians living cooperatively. Yet a Ukrainian KFOR (NATO military) contingency in the middle of the village was a reminder of the delicate peace and safety that exists in the country. Indeed, if five years after the first peace (1999) there was such rioting and killing as there was in 2004, it seems a possibility that with Serbia bullying the country, another five years later it could happen again.