Life in Kosovo discusses about emergency situations
Tonight, Life in Kosovo will broadcast a debate on the emergency situations in our country.
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Every Thursday starting from 20:30, Radio Television Kosovo, RTK, broadcasts the TV debate show "Life in Kosovo", a joint production of BIRN and RTK.
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National Identity New Challenge for Kosovo
24 May 2007 Albanian, Serb or Kosovar? Kosovo struggles for an identity.
By Krenar Gashi in Pristina
Kujtim Salihu, A Kosovo Albanian student, is leaving for an international competition in Vienna but has no idea what nation he will be representing.
“My ID card says Kosovo UNMIK,” said Kujtim. But that is a designation that pleases no one. Kujtim, for example, says he is Albanian and that Kosovo is just a geographical region where Albanians live.
Many of his fellow-countrymen disagree with him. They consider themselves to be members of a Kosovar nation. A UN decision on Kosovo’s independence is fast-approaching, but a consensus on this thorny issue looks as far away as ever.
International attempts to mediate between politicians in Kosovo and Serbia over the region’s status failed so a UN diplomat suggested independence under international supervision. Although Russia disagrees, the Security Council is likely to go along with him and create an independent Kosovo whatever nation the people living in it decide they belong to.
Fadil, who emigrated to the United States during the 1999 fighting between Serbia and NATO that led to Kosovo’s status as a self-ruling part of Serbia, does not see himself as Albanian at all.
“I’m a Kosovar,” he said proudly, and welcomes elements in the UN plan that say Kosovo should have its own anthem and flag. And these key symbols have to be decided on as soon as possible, says Nexhmedin Spahiu, a political analyst and advocate of the Kosovar identity.
“Very soon it might happen that Kosovo’s president will meet the president of Serbia and Kosovo won’t have its own flag at the meeting”, he wrote in a recent column.
Popular debate over what the flag should look like, and what anthem they should pick, has become widespread. Many artists have designed flags.
But many residents feel they already have a flag – the red banner of Albania with its double-headed eagle.
“I will never feel anything special for the flag of a future Kosovo state,” said Kujtim. “I will teach my children that our flag is the Albanian flag.”
Kosovo Albanians have a particular affection for the Albanian flag because during communist times they were barred from using national symbols. The flag became associated with a striving for freedom in all senses.
But they had no actual connection to Albania, which had a very isolationalist foreign policy, from World War Two until the late-1990s. Some people in Kosovo say they have grown apart from their ethnic kin and cannot be counted as part of the same nation.
“We are just very different to the Albania Albanians,” said Fadil.
Politicians have promised that Kosovo will be a state for all its citizens, whatever their ethnicity. And that, along with the new symbols, will create a whole new nation automatically, said Spahiu. He pointed at Switzerland and the United States as examples of nations made up of more than one ethnic group.
“The UN proposal is the primer for a Kosovar nation, as it explicitly states that Kosovo should have its national symbols. This means that Kosovo will become both a state and a nation,” he told Balkan Insight.
“When the majority of people living in one territory decide to be part of a political construction, part of a state, then this state can be called a nation. Individuals may not feel they are members of this new nation but this nation will be created if it has the majority of the people.”
But it may prove a struggle to convince people from both sides of Kosovo’s ethnic divide that they are Kosovar first and anything else second.
“I will never declare myself a Kosovar,” said one young Kosovo Serb. “That would mean I was betraying my nation and becoming an Albanian.”
And some Kosovo Albanians feel the same way.
“If Kosovo Albanians become Kosovars, then I will register myself as a member of the Albanian national minority living in Kosovo”, wrote Bardhi, a student, on the Prishtina-TEAM internet forum.
Krenar Gashi is BIRN Kosovo Editor. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.
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The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
Comments:
Kosovo independence
Posted: 2007-07-17 03:54:56,
It’s about time to recognize the historical right of Kosova to have its destiny fulfilled-That is full independence. Kosova never was a Serbian province. It was there, since the times of birth of European civilization, a very distinct Dardanian/ Illyrian identity. Always populated by Dardanias who, although under constant pressure of forcefully migration by Tito's Yugoslavia & Milloshevic's Serbia, still make up 92% of the population. Serbs always have been a minority there. We know that Serbs appeared in Balkans (then Illyria) only by the 6th Century AD. They have always been a minority and 'the story' of Kosova being the heartland of Serbia is just a pure Serbian nationalist fantasy. Facts Speak Louder Than Words and Serbian’s Lies Will Collapse by Themselves. Serbs always have been considered as oppressors there, not just by Albanian majority, but also by other ethnic groups to. Serbs just occupied Kosova during the rise of the Serbian nationalism early 20th cent. from Ottomans who by then were loosing the Balkans after 500 years of occupation. Now Kosova should be Free!