New Kosova Report

Columns

You Took Away My Flag: a Musical About Kosovo was performed at the Strawdog Theatre in Chicago on June 12, 13, 19, and 20, 2009. All four performances were sold out, and there was extensive press and media coverage in this American city of three million people.

I wrote and produced the musical over the last year because I believe that the story of centuries-long efforts by Kosovar Albanians to break free of foreign domination is one that audiences around the world can relate to. It is the story of human dreams passed down from father to son and mother to daughter, the story of love threatened by war and tradition, the story of brave young men and women taking matters into their own hands when their parents counsel patience and passivity, the story of ordinary people whose aspirations to live lives taken for granted elsewhere are held hostage by great-power politics. I was moved by the story in the larger sense, and the way it played out at the individual level, as I talked to and befriended hundreds of Kosovar Albanians and a smaller number of Kosovo Serbs in the course of conducting research for my two books about Kosova: Kosovo Liberation Army: The Inside Story of an Insurgency, published in English by the University of Illinois Press and in Albanian by Koha Press in 2008, and The Road to Kosovo’s Independence: Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan, to be published next month by Cambridge University Press.

Audience reaction to the musical was enthusiastic. As a result, I have assembled a group of investors and a new creative team to remount it for an eight-week run in Chicago in a larger theatre, beginning in April, 2010. An independent film-making company is making a movie out of the underlying story in the musical. Discussions also are underway regarding productions in New York, Detroit, and Madison, Wisconsin, although these discussions are quite preliminary.

The extensive public, press and media interest in the subject was good for the musical, but it also reveals a serious challenge for Kosova’s future: as the conflicts of 1998, 1999, March, 2004, and February, 2008 have disappeared from the news in the U.S. and Europe, almost no one has any real understanding of how Kosova got to where it is today or what the pathways are for its future.

Public opinion is shaped much more by nationalist Serbian propaganda than by those who know and appreciate the real story. Virtually all of the print articles about the musical prompted a flurry of angry letters presenting the Serb point of view. Although most of the letter writers did not see the musical, they accused me of pro-Albanian bias, incompetence as a lawyer and law professor, of being a CIA agent, and of being a Democrat—a jumble of the usual hysteria alleging that Albanians are threats to Europe because they are drug runners and Islamic fundamentalists.

Except for my musical itself, the Albanian side of the debate was not expressed. Where were the Albanian letter writers? Why are they not as active as their Serb antagonists? Why does not the Kosova government and the Albanian-American community monitor the press and media and have a rapid-reaction squad to make sure the Albanian point of view gets expressed? Bill Clinton and George Bush both showed the necessity of such rapid reaction strategies for anyone who wants to shape public opinion or build an image for a political candidate—or a new country.

Nor is Kosova’s story adequately presented on the Web. The good news is that a Google search turned up, on the first few pages of hits, dozens of website maintained by NGOs, or other states, that present balanced facts and constructive opinion about Kosova. The Prime Minister’s site also showed up. Only two extreme Serbian sites were presented on the top three search-result pages.

Someone who looks specifically for websites sponsored by the government of Kosova finds an improved situation compared to that a year ago but it still is embarrasing. The website for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is better than it was, now including a link to an IPAK page encouraging investors to invest in Kosova. But one looks in vain for any argument about the legality of Kosova’s independence, a subject likely to attract public attention in the months to come. Where are the actual arguments that Kosova and its friends are presenting to the International Court of Justice? Bizarrely, the page labeled “success stories” for investment in Kosova is blank. Surely at least one success could be written up and posted on this page. Aesthetically the Foreign Ministry web presence is attractive; it is entirely pedestrian in content, however.

If one goes to the English pages of the Ministry of Culture website, one finds lots of pictures of the Minister but concludes that Kosvoso has no culture—no music, no theatre, no sculpture—and no sports, because the web pages dedicated to those subjects are all blank—“under construction.”

Someone interested in investing in Kosova might be expected to consult the website of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. If he did so, he would likely go away frustrated and focus attention on another country. No information of any real use to an investor is there. Clicking on the link for information about registering a business leads to a deadend. Clicking on the tourism link produces an error message.

One need only compare these websites to those maintained by the governments of virtually every American state and many municipalities, or with similar sites maintained in English by the governments of Serbia or Albania to realize how embarrassingly lame, amateurish, and bureaucratically-oriented is Kosova’s web presence. Most people who do not know much about Kosova go to the Web to find out more. They would not come away with a good impression. The government web pages exist to promote Kosova, not only the public images of the ministers.

The only reason the KLA-led insurgency of 1998 and 1999 succeeded was that Kosova was pro-active, creative, and energetic in using all available tools—letters to the editor, media appearances, blogs, and Web postings to mold foreign public opinion. Where is this spirit and energy now, when it is needed as much as ever?

I will continue to do everything I can to get Kosova’s story out. I could use a little more help. Far more important, Kosova could use a lot more help.

More information about the musical is available at www.youtookawaymyflag.com

Mr. Perritt is Professor of Law at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. You can find more about his work in Kosovo at operationkosovo.kentlaw.edu .

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Europe's Saboteurs

Henry H. Perritt Jr.
It has been fourteen months since Kosovo formally declared independence and ten years since Serbia lost de-facto sovereignty over Kosovo. Fifty-eight states, including the U.S. and most of Europe, have recognized this reality. Read More Add Comment (9)

God has stopped speaking Serbian

Arianit Dobruna

“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.

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First birthday report

Henry H. Perritt Jr.

New-born Kosovo celebrates the anniversary of its independence on Tuesday, and it is appropriate to assess the state of its growth and development. The one-year old is energetic, showing signs of maturing, and there is every reason to believe that it can grow into a happy, productive, and honorable adult. There are, however, many challenges ahead. It is too soon to tell how well Kosovo will meet these challenges.

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The penny and its worth: Part 1, Kosovo by metaphor

Blackbird

“How do you explain to people who’ve never been allowed to travel to New York that the idiotic carousel, constantly spinning sights and sounds round your head there, without your blessing or permission, may not be wholly benevolent? How do you explain the conspiracy to steal attention, to interpret every minute of your waking life as an opportunity to sell you something, to people enraptured by the conspiracy’s most perfect instruments, television and the disorienting environments of the Europa Center and other shopping malls? The answer is, you don’t. Like Americans, they’ll only insist on learning for themselves, and when that carousel starts gathering momentum, they won’t have the slightest idea what hit ‘em.”

“On countless fronts, keeping up appearances will now replace all deep reflection and self-scrutiny.”

- Jonathan Kalb, Berlin by Metaphor, from Free Admissions: Collected Theater Writings, 1990

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