“Speak Serbian for the God to 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 Serbian language in 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, although often times in private homes or crowded facilities.

Now Serb children have their own parallel education system with Serbian-only teaching. In their schools, they learn English but no Albanian, although for more than 90% of the population in Kosovo Albanian is the native language. Seventy percent 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 Serbs did not really have to learn Albanian because Albanians could and had to speak their language, now learning Albanian is a must to function economically in Kosovo. Otherwise, there won't be any future for Serbs here. While Serbian is an official language along with Albanian across Kosovo, this is barely essential if only 6% of the population is Serbian. Luckily or tragically, small details like this will determine the future of the Serbian community here. Not the kind of laws and protections that Kosovo Government enacts. When these children are 18 and they are 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, as they are unable to communicate with customers in Kosovo outside of their villages. Hence only the old with remain who will continue to farm until their death.

The Ahtisaari Plan-mandated decentralization will strengthen further 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 don’t realize how their choices defeat the purpose. For them this is a loaded emotional issue and counterintuitive. They refuse to acknowledge, that at least in Kosovo, God has stopped speaking Serbian. Albanian has been the language of the majority here prior to 1999 as well, although many of the parents of these children can’t speak Albanian either, a reflection of the old Serbian-Albanian power structure. For them and their children to learn Albanian now is tantamount to treason.

A slightly different situation is with the Roma. 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 are not there in every family to stimulate them beyond the basics, with them likely not being 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 a basic economic independence, that won't be much useful. It's useless to teach Romani language if those children are likely to drop out before finishing elementary school and, as parents, can't provide economic support so that their children in turn don’t have to drop out of school like them.

My London friend put it best, “the roots of the problem for the Roma in Kosovo lie in the uncertain future.  The sooner that 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 bleaker 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 destructive trend.

The key for prosperity for all the minorities in Kosovo – Serbian, Roma, Turkish and Bosniak - is being able 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.