Blackbird writes from Mitrovica

The base of the pyramid is comprised of the physiological needs: food, drink, sex, sleep, shitting and warmth.  Once these basic needs are satisfied, Maslow theorized, an individual’s needs become increasingly complex.  The need for security of body, resources and justice is followed by a need for friendship, family and intimacy.  Esteem is the penultimate layer in the pyramid, capped by a pinnacle of morality, awareness and humanity that Maslow tantalizingly labeled “self-actualization.”

There was a touch of the Buddha in Maslow’s ideal, but it was presented in a manner that seemed—to our idealistic young hearts—achievable:

"It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming."

Maybe too it is the self-reliance of this final stage that appealed to me.  A man-made Nirvana, theorized by an atheist Jew born a hundred years ago on April Fool’s Day.  Above all, suggested Maslow, it is the tendency of self-actualized people to accept reality in one’s self, in others and in one’s environment.

My first wife left me, and for a long time I forgot about Maslow’s hierarchy, but the phrase “self-actualization” stayed buried inside my head somewhere.

The majority of Kosovo’s citizens have not stepped over the bridge in Mitrovica once in the past decade.  I am of course referring to the vast majority of Kosovo Albanians.  They know that to do so would be dangerous and provocative.  Yet the majority of these same people believe that the northern territory is an integral part of their new state.

Despite having little interaction with the population on the other side, and despite being unable to travel there themselves: everywhere I meet people who vehemently oppose future partition while barely acknowledging the current state of affairs.

UNMIK representatives have a similar tendency to speak about the future while denying the present.

Why does everyone speak about the possible partition of tomorrow while remaining silent about the actual partition of today?

Everyone agrees that the results of Monday’s raid on the court were predictable.  Yet a calculation was made that those predictable results were a justifiable cost.  Arrests could have been made on Tuesday or Sunday, and the protestors could have been denied entrance to the court before they took it on Friday.  If the decision to take back the courts on the anniversary of the March riots was not simply some cruel joke, then it displays a terrible ignorance. 

I am not excusing the actions of the protestors, those people who spoke aloud about their desire to not allow Albanians into the building.  Racists.  Those people who came to the arrest with children and Molotov cocktails.  They were wrong.

But a decision was made to assert authority on the anniversary of the March riots.  That too was terribly wrong, and terribly out of touch with reality.

Political analysis at its best involves insight as well as hindsight. 

It is clear to everyone that Monday’s operation was mishandled.  Every editorial writer and columnist agrees.  But then again: every columnist and editor writer always agrees here.  They quietly agreed not to report on the protests in north Mitrovica before they reached their critical stage.  Then they agreed that courts had been moved to Vushtrri—despite the fact that this was not true. (Only the most urgent detention cases were being heard in Vushtrri; the Mitrovica courts remained non-functioning.) Now they agree that mistakes were made on Monday the 17th.  (And they still agree not to report on the courts in Leposavic and Zubin Potok, both of which are still non-functioning.)

They agree that Serbs in Kosovo cannot be allowed to vote in the Serbian elections.

They agree that recognition from all the world’s countries was forthcoming.  They gleefully rub their hands together as Balkan nations stepped forward in support of the independence.  One commentator crowed that “the noose was tightening” around Serbia.  There was something sad about this need for recognition: this desperate national desire to achieve only the penultimate level of Maslow’s hierarchy—esteem.  There is little discussion of a higher goal.

There are people who say that ethnic cleansing did not happen in Kosovo.  Among those people are some whom I have admired.  Peter Handke comes to mind.  A great writer who is convinced that in Kosovo NATO succeeded in making only “a great theatre.” An international working in my own town believes the same thing.  That there were refugees, but no massacres.  Peter Handke and that international are wrong.  Hundreds of journalists and the reports of reputable aid organizations refute their ignorant claims.  The right of Kosovo’s majority to secede is based on the Serbian government’s loss of moral authority.  But the new state’s right to govern must be established first and foremost on a positive moral authority, and such a moral authority cannot be established on a lack of awareness regarding the current reality, and it cannot be established with the senseless use of force.

There is a great irony that the man who wrote Kaspar—a play about the relation of words to reality—should so adamantly deny the reality of Kosovo.[1] But in Kosovo, a similar disconnect exists between Pristina and Mitrovica.  And it is not enough to blame the Serbs.
It is not enough to say that they acted badly and so they deserve what they get.  The state of Kosovo and the international forces must act in a way that accepts reality.  The reality is that there are people in Kosovo who do not accept independence.  Throwing them in jail will not change their minds.

What will?

Partition is less a question of territorial integrity than of simple human integrity.

During the riots in Kenya, we listened in disbelief to a reporter on the television who said that, while things were bad they weren’t “like Kosovo.” What is he talking about, we wondered.  Kosovo: considered a holiday mission by so many aid workers.  There had been no riots here in years, and certainly nothing on the scale of violence that this reporter was currently witnessing in Africa.

This is one of Kosovo’s curses.  Its name is associated with a horrific tragedy and evil.  For years to come, people will look at scenes of violence and compare them to Kosovo.

But that is only one of Kosovo’s curses.  Recently, I listened to a radio report on Kenya, where the politics are still troubled but the violence has subsided.  A recently returned refugee spoke to the reporter.  He acknowledged the difficulties ahead but declared that, (as a born again Christian) he must forgive his attackers.  This, only weeks after the terror and bloodshed.  No, I had to admit.  Kenya is not like Kosovo at all.

Rugova was a pacifist.  As such, he became the acceptable face of the liberation movement.  But the true heroes of the Albanian majority are the ones cast in bronze in every town square of Kosovo.  The ones with firearms in their hands.  The ones who did not forgive.

People often said to me, “I don’t hate the Serbs.  I only hate the Serbian uniform.  Or the Serbian government.” Or some such thing.  But the truth is, they rarely speak to Serbs.  The question is not whether or not partition will happen.  The question is whether the current state of partition can be overcome.

These questions occurred to me as I walked past the new pastry shop being built in Mitrovica.  It is a new pastry shop, with the same furniture as every other pastry shop, and it stands in a long line of pastry shops, and it will sell the same foods and coffees as those other shops too.  I suddenly felt incredibly angry at the lack of originality here, and it seemed to me that it was this lack of originality that killed that Ukrainian boy.[2] The same Kosovo-is-Serbia, Illyrian ancestors, Skanderbeg, Tzar Lazar; the same old battle cries, status, recognition.  The same analysis that is only the same as everybody else’s analysis. 

In Maslow’s diagram, the highest level of human existence is one of awareness and honesty, both without and within.  Yet, Maslow insists, this is not simply some spiritual stage achieved by the better people among us.  Instead, he claims that it is a human need.  That all humans need to achieve self-actualization.

Many people will behave badly.  They will say and do stupid and terrible things.  They will say that ethnic cleansing did not happen, and they will arrive at the courthouse with firearms and children.  But it is not enough to meet them with force and “to teach them a lesson.” They should be met with an awareness that is greater: an awareness of what is true.  Because everyone’s needs can only be met through a recognition of reality.

What is the reality?

The reality is that a horror was perpetrated by the Serbian government on the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo.

And the reality also is that Serbs have been lied to by their own government.  They have been used like pawns in the villages and towns of Kosovo, and in the wars and diplomatic scuffles of other nations. Serbs have been treated like the wicked stepchild so long, that it should surprise no one to witness riots of people behaving wickedly.  This does not excuse the bad behavior that preceded Monday’s events.  But taking a switch to the stepchild and calling him names is not a step towards a solution.  The switch and the names only reinforce the partition that already exists.  The switch and the names insure that tomorrow will be like today. 

UNMIK handled things badly at the courthouse in Mitrovica.  That is true.  It is also true that two realities exist in Kosovo: each insisting that the other is less true. 

I do not know if Kosovo will be partitioned. 

I only know that it is partitioned.


[1] Handke’s play Kaspar is widely interpreted as a condemnation of society’s use of language as a method of depersonalizing the individual.  It is widely considered to be one of the significant works of German-language theater of the last century.  The character of Kaspar is based on a true story:

“Kaspar Hauser, 1812?-1833, mysterious German foundling. He appeared in Nuremberg in 1828 in a state of semi-idiocy, producing dubious documents and giving an incoherent account of his past, which, he said, he had spent in a dark prison hole... Subsequently the earl of Stanhope, the British historian, became interested in him and assumed responsibility for his education. The boy's death from a knife wound was regarded as a political assassination by those who believed him—without any serious grounds—to be the son of the grand duke of Baden by his first wife. Others believe that the wound was self-inflicted and that Hauser was a psychopath. Thousands of books and articles, mainly in German, have been written on him. In addition, he is the… main character in Kaspar, a play by Peter Handke (tr. 1970) as well as a 1974 film by Werner Herzog.”

[2] “Yesterday morning in north Mitrovica an UNMIK Police officer was murdered. His name was officer Kynol Iyor. He arrived in Kosovo on December 17 of last year as a part of Ukrainian Formed Police Unit. He did his duty yesterday exceptionally well and it cost him his life. I met this morning with the commander of the Ukrainian Formed Police Unit and with the contingent commander of the Ukrainian contingent here in Kosovo. They are deeply saddened by his loss as are all UNMIK police officers. He is survived by his mother and sister who live in Ternopol, Ukraine and he lived to the grand age of 25 until he was murdered by a mob in north Mitrovica.”

Comments (3)

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Mike Z said:

	... DURING THE WAR IN KOSOVO WHEN THE ALBANIANS WERE FORCED FROM THEIR HOMES TO FIND SHELTER IN THE WOODS DURING AN AWFULLY COLD WINTER ,,,WAS THIS NOT AN INTENTIONAL GENOCIDE BY SERBIA ? IF YOU ANSWER ANYTHING BUT YES , YOU ARE OBVIOUSELY BIASED !
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May 04, 2008
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BlueMonkey said:

	... I've enjoyed your writing, both here and at the travelogue. Thank you. It's opening day here in the states. The Cubs have lost, the Yankees have been rained out, Bush was booed throwing out the first pitch last night at the new Nationals field. Life continues.
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April 01, 2008
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R Guraziu, London, UK said:

... Dear Blackbird, No doubt your article has some weight in relation to the situations in Kosovo, however, the use of the word 'shitting' in the following sentence 'The base of the pyramid is comprised of the physiological needs: food, drink, sex, sleep, shitting and warmth.' is a very poor choice even a ‘vulgar slang’ and as a consequence it undermines (in my view) your academic value. Perhaps the use of the word 'to defecate' as a synonym to what Maslow originally described as ‘to get rid of wastes (CO2, sweat, urine, and feces)’ would have been more appropriate in the context. Unfortunately, this is when I (as a reader) was put off in reading further. Sincerely, R Guraziu

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March 26, 2008
Votes: -1