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An American in Kosovo: Reflections on Collective Identity, National Belonging, and America’s Wartime Legacy

In 1999, I was nine years old. I don’t remember seeing U.S. news coverage on the war in Kosovo. In fact, I wouldn’t learn about Kosovo or the war until nearly a decade later. I first visited Kosovo in 2010. A shopkeeper asked me where I come from. “North Carolina. The United States.” “America! […]

I do not know my father’s name

This is what this looks like: Good afternoon, madam, how are you today? I am fine, dear, how are you? I am fine. I need the xx certificate, please. What is your name? Ajna Jusić. Father’s name? Please, madam, write the name of my mother, Sabina. I cannot do that Ajna, we need your father’s name. Unfortunately, I […]

Urbanization of the past and wars of the 1990s

Fhoto: Ana Vilenica In Serbia today, the history of the wars of the 1990s is bureaucratized, privatized and urbanized as a politically and economically instrumentalized past which is produced so that a new globalized history of capitalism can exist unhindered in its identity crisis phase. It is a history based on privatization, de-industrialization, the emergence of new elites which became […]

Why has Serbia not faced its own war past?

Photo: Remy Ourdan The recently passed life sentence for Radovan Karadžić at The Hague Tribunal, has all but been forgotten in Serbia no more than a month later. That would certainly not have been the case, had the actors on the political scene wanted otherwise, or seen some political potential in that great finale. Truth be told, as a citizen […]

The Old Bazaar – Skopje’s Treasure

Photo: Kristina Lozanovska Author: Venhar Ramadani As you get to know Skopje better and taste the tradition of the capital of Macedonia, you get the feeling that there is a major division in the city – that life in Skopje is split by the ethnicity line – into “the Albanian side” and “the Macedonian side”. This is how Skopje is often […]

THE EMOTIONAL ABOVE ALL

Photo credit: Vladimir Miladinović What seems to be of great importance, to me, is the language we use when facing the past, the language we apply in the communities dealing with “remembrance”. This language requires a new set of terms. A “coded” or “project” language only serves to dampen and understate the impact of the message. Words should not “lose […]

IMAGINATION AS TRUTH

Photo: Vladimir Miladovic The process of building a national identity in Serbia, following the break-up of Yugoslavia, has been deprived of all uncomfortable facts and anything which the society, community or individuals would find difficult to accept. Art, however, has embraced that uncomfortable space, full of the socially unprocessed and traumatic events of the recent past, from the official narrative. […]

The Power of Art in Dealing with the Past

Photo Credit: Korab Krasniqi Dardan Hoti One of the biggest actual challenges is how to properly deal with a variety of issues that affect the essence of the society. When the past is locked inside the drawer of history, the present is burdened and there is no room left for change. Often, this is a consequence of political interference because […]

Is it possible to speak about the past, whilst remaining silent about the present and future?

Elma Selman To paraphrase Idith Zertal (Zertal, 1998), we never deal with the past in isolation, but rather with its manifestations and its (mis)uses, which are often politically driven, and with how it relates to the present, and how it determines the future. It is not possible to simply “leave the past in the past”, which many politicians from our […]

The Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Campaign 1990-1991: Oral History and Memory

Erëmirë Krasniqi, Oral History Kosovo Exhibition: Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Campaign 1990-1991, held from April 25 to May 21, 2018 in the campaign’s birthplace, Peja Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Campaign The Reconciliation of Blood Feuds Campaign began in 1990 as a call for unity among Albanians of Kosovo. As Milošević gained power, the constitution of 1974 was abolished, rendering Kosovo vulnerable […]

Is there a (political) life after war crimes?

The International Criminal Tribunal is expected to hand down its final ruling in the case of Radovan Karadžić on Wednesday, March 20. The ruling will end the process that has been ongoing for almost a quarter of a century. International law experts, numerous accomplices of Karadžić and families of even more numerous victims have been waiting for the ruling for […]

From Forgiveness to Reconciliation: Extending a Hand for a Better ‘Today’

A few days ago we remembered Anton Çetta. More than just Anton Çetta, we evoked the Reconciliation of Blood Feuds and the 20th anniversary of the initiative that reconciled Albanians and released them from enmity, freed them from the prison they had been in for years, from the enslavement of solitude, from the isolation of younger generations, and from their […]

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