A FRAGILE DEMOCRACY

One thing that we have learned on our filming trip is that just because a country is independent does not necessarily mean that it is sovereign. Take Kosovo for instance: although it is a functioning parliamentary representative democracy with independent judiciary and legislative branches, much of the country’s infrastructure is still greatly influenced to various degrees by international organizations. The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), The European Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), an International Civilian Representative, and the NATO police force called K-FOR still control or oversee many of the country’s foreign and domestic policy decisions and – in spite of Kosovo’s independent status – occasionally even go so far as treat the country more as a protectorate by negotiating or making decisions on its behalf.

One example of this is the rather startling fact that even now, almost nine months after Kosovo declared independence, the UN continues to negotiate with Serbia about the terms of Kosovo’s independent status. Obviously, that is a concern to people in Kosovo: many of them feel that because they have been promised a democratic state that the international community should not barter their country’s territory on their behalf.

A few days ago, we go this letter from our friend Igo Rogova in Pristina:

Dear Friends and Supporters:

I am writing on behalf of the Kosova Women’s Network (KWN) to request your support. You may be aware that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in consultation with the Government of Serbia has put forth six points that would give Serbia broad administrative powers over Serb majority areas within the Republic of Kosovo, including police, judiciary, transportation and infrastructure, boundaries, customs and religious sites. The six points threaten Kosovo’s territorial sovereignty, violate the Constitution of Kosovo, conflict with the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement proposed by UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, and jeopardize the fragile peace that has been secured in Kosovo and South East Europe. Further, Serb citizens living in enclaves in Kosovo have indicated their opposition to increased Serbian governmental influence.

Since the democratically elected National Assembly declared Kosovo’s independence on 17 February 2008, Kosovo has been recognized by 52 UN member states, including 22 European Union members. Kosovo has also been recognized by all bordering states except Serbia, including Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania. In accordance with Article 1.1 of our Constitution, “The Republic of Kosovo is an independent, sovereign, democratic, unique and indivisible state.”

The Constitution of Kosovo protects the rights of all citizens, including Serb citizens, rendering Serbian governance unnecessary as well as illegal. The Constitution guarantees Serb representation in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo (Art. 63.2(1)), seats as Ministers and Deputy Ministers (Art. 96), access to media in the Serb language (Art. 59(11)), representation on the Kosovo Judicial Council (Art. 108.6(3)) and national language rights (Art. 59(11)). Efforts have been made to include Serb citizens in public institutions, such as the police force.

Thousands of Kosovar citizens plan to march through Prishtina starting at noon on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 to oppose the six points. Citizens will emphasize the illegality of the proposed Serb Government administration through their motto, “Sovereignty comes from people.” The motto echoes Article 2.1 of the Constitution of Kosovo, which states, “The sovereignty of the Republic of Kosovo stems from the people, belongs to the people and is exercised in compliance with the Constitution…” KWN, as a member of the organizing committee together with 20 other organizations, fully supports citizens in this effort, agreeing that any political decision concerning Kosovo should be made by citizens rather than imposed by outside international bodies.

We request your full support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo. Please join our efforts and the present efforts of the citizens of Kosovo in whatever capacity you can, through advocacy or information-sharing, to oppose any agreement that would give Serbia administrative power over any part of our country. We hope you will join us in calling for international pressure for Serbia to accept the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo, the Kosovo Status Settlement proposed by UN Special Envoy Ahtisaari, and deployment of the European Union Rule of Law Mission (“EULEX”) in northern Kosovo. Such recognition as well as retribution for crimes committed against the citizens of Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 should be a precondition for Serbia’s European Union integration.

We thank you in advance for any support you can offer.

Sincerely,

Igballe Rogova
Executive Director, Kosova Women’s Network


Nearly 100,000 people marched in Pristina on Wednesday to voice their opposition to this six-point plan. The United States, of course, says that it intends to support Kosovo’s government. More information about the UN’s six-point plan can be found here and here.

THE BEST LAID PLANS

It isn’t easy being a documentary filmmaker and a control freak at the same time. While Michaela and I always conceive our films along certain storylines and go into our shoots with a plan and a focus, those storylines can change radically as we uncover new information and the best scenes take on a life of their own once we start filming. To be honest, this spontaneity is actually part of the fun, as it keeps us both on our toes and allows us to reveal something unexpected to our audience; it’s also one of the things that I think makes a film and its protagonists come across as engaging and alive, as opposed to a documentary film where the action is highly scripted. But like anything, this type of filming has its ups and downs – and one of the downs on this particular day was that everything seemed to be going terribly, terribly wrong.

The day had started out promising enough: we had driven to a small Serbian enclave to meet a man who had agreed to share his point of view on how Kosovo’s independent state had affected him and his neighbors. The fact that he would speak to us at all was somewhat of a coup; isolated and feeling discriminated against by larger Albanian Kosovar society, the Serbs who live in these enclaves are quite mistrustful of American or European journalists or filmmakers and largely reluctant to speak to them. But because we were coming with a mutual friend – someone who lived outside his community but had provided significant assistance to this enclave through an international NGO – this man seemed eager to meet us and let us incorporate his story into the film. So here we were, sitting in his dark living room while his very kind wife served us delicious Turkish coffee and he and our mutual friend toasted the occasion with locally-made raki.

Three hours and several rounds of raki later, his mood had changed from friendly to dark. He wanted to talk to us, he said, but didn’t feel safe doing so. What if word got back to Belgrade that he had been complaining about Serbia’s role in controlling the enclaves? What if his neighbors didn’t like him talking to foreign journalists? What if we took his words out of context or mis-translated him? We should have brought a Serbian journalist with us for his protection. We should have found a way to meet him outside the enclave. We shouldn’t have come. Suddenly, what had seemed like a genuine connection and friendly rapport had gone sour. When I asked our translator afterwards if he had any idea what had gone wrong, he theorized that perhaps the unexpected visit of a young neighbor had given our potential protagonist cause to worry: that explanation in itself was revealing of the tensions and anxieties faced by people living in the enclave. But whatever this man’s reasoning, it was clear that no amount of reassurance and discussion was going to change his mind.

What to do? If someone really doesn’t want to speak with us, there’s not much to do but be gracious about it and thank them for their time – at the very least, we have learned something new and there’s always the chance that that person will change his or her mind down the road. If we were doing an investigative piece or an expose about something that would be one thing, but to be able to make this film we need collaborative relationships with our protagonists – so on this sad day, we found ourselves back out on the streets of this old and semi-deserted town, wondering what our next step would be and feeling profoundly disappointed at seeing a very promising lead evaporate right in front of our eyes.

But thankfully, the day was not yet over – and as we walked back towards our car, we happened to pass a group of K-FOR soldiers who were making their daily rounds. Knowing that the area was the responsibility of the German and Austrian forces, Michaela greeted them in German, and almost immediately found herself in a friendly conversation with Commander Manfred Hofer of Camp Casablanca, which oversees security for the southern part of Kosovo. What luck! We had been negotiating with the K-FOR headquarters for weeks, trying to get access to film there, and now here was someone who could make that happen in a moment.

By the time we were on the road to Peja/ Pec again, Michaela had Commander Hofer’s card tucked neatly into her wallet and an invitation to film with him both at the K-FOR base and in the enclave the next week. A tidy lesson for the documentary filmmaker with an inner control freak: good things can happen even when the day doesn’t go according to plan!

THE US CONNECTION

Traveling abroad in recent years, I have become accustomed to polite but pointed questions about the perceived failings of US foreign policy and jokes deriding our current administration. Not so in Albanian Kosovo: in all of my travels, I have never experienced so much unflagging pro-American sentiment.

There is a long-standing relationship between the Albanian people and the American people. At the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, President Woodrow Wilson interceded in a plan that would have divided Albania up and given it to Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy. Instead, Wilson advocated for – and got – Albania’s independence. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the United States took in a wave of Kosovar refugees looking to escape the increasingly repressive Yugoslav state, and in 1999 the Clinton administration not only led the NATO bombings meant to stop the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians but also took in over 20,000 refugees fleeing the war. The second Bush administration continued this favorable attention by flooding the region with aid in the years since the war, acting as the driving force behind international support for Kosovo’s independence, and setting in place a very active Chamber of Commerce working on attracting American investment to the country.

The Albanian and Albanian Kosovar communities have repaid this American support at every possible opportunity. In Kosovo, there are streets named for Bill Clinton, Wesley Clark, Bob Dole, Madeleine Albright, William Walker, and Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel. American flags often fly on government buildings next to the new blue and yellow flag of Kosovo and the striking red and black flag of Albania. There is a replica of the Statue of Liberty on top of the Hotel Victoria. You can buy “I Heart America” t-shirts in Pristina. Albania was one of the first countries to offer troops for the US-led military offensives in Iraq and Afghanistan, and when President George W. Bush became the first serving American president to visit Albania in June 2007, he was mobbed by adoring crowds. American visitors to Kosovo generally receive a enthusiastic triple dose of the famous Albanian hospitality: I met plenty of other Americans who noted with amazement how many people wanted to shake their hand, professed their love for America and their heart-felt gratitude for America’s support, or refused to accept payment for some service or meal because the customer was American.

This unabashed faith in America’s power to do good in the world reminded me of a man I met several years ago, when I was filming a short documentary about a group of friends from a gay country and western bar in New Orleans who had banded together to help repair their neighborhood after Katrina. Houcine was originally from Tunisia, but had lived in New Orleans for almost eighteen years, building a great career in New Orleans’ jazz world and becoming very active in his community. When I asked him how he had come to live in the United States, Houcine told me that coming to America had been a dream ever since he was a kid. He recalled that in Tunisia in the 1960s America was seen as the true force of democracy, and that the love for America was so strong that after JFK’s assassination, he and his friends and neighbors had walked for miles to gather around the closest television so that they could watch the funeral and mourn with America. Even as many of his neighbors in New Orleans became bitter or cynical about the government’s handling of the Katrina disaster, Houcine’s feelings about the United States were so strong that he found it difficult to criticize the country that symbolized so much to him as a youth and had given him the opportunity to live openly as a gay man as he never would have been able to do in Tunisia. As I listened to him speak, I was struck by the chasm between America’s standing as a global symbol of democracy then and now, and I felt sad that a generation’s worth of work to build legitimacy for U.S. democracy promotion abroad has been so carelessly thrown away.

Certainly, the United States’ foreign policy in Kosovo has not been without its detractors, and not every Kosovar that I met (especially Serbian Kosovars) believed that American policy in the region was without an ulterior motive. But as an American who has witnessed a lot of anti-Americanism abroad in recent years, particularly in Europe, it was certainly a surprise to see that the United States as a symbol and instrument of democracy still stands so strongly intact in at least one part of the world.

THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE

Between us, Michaela and I speak English, German, French, and enough Spanish to get by in a pinch. What we don’t know – and which would obviously come in very much handy here – is either Albanian or Serbian. Because of this, we hired a translator. Fluent in Albanian, Serbian, English, and German, Kesi worked as a professional translator in Germany for many years before moving to Kosovo to start a business as an environmental engineer. He’s quick enough to do simultaneous translations, which really helps keep the flow of an interview going. He is culturally sensitive to the idiosyncrasies of both Serbian and Albanian culture. He is fun to be around, which is a big bonus since we are all spending so much time together. As the person we had planned on working with turned out to have taken another job when we arrived, we are especially lucky to have found Kesi through the friend of a friend.

In the United States, the idea that language is political is usually framed in terms of “freedom of speech” or of a powerful person strategically using euphemisms or vagueness to conceal or prevent thought or action. Both of these issues were relevant in Yugoslavian Kosovo too: conditions were hardly conducive to people expressing themselves freely or hearing their realities reflected in the words of those who governed them. But there was also another dimension to the politics of language, which was that although Albanians made up almost 70% of the population, the language of public life was Serbian.

This meant that while Albanians were free to speak their own language at home, outside the home - at school, at work, and for any business related to the State - they were forced to use Serbian. This had been the case since the Yugoslav state was formed in 1918. Although Tito eased this a bit by stopping the “Serbian-izing” of Albanian names and allowing some Albanian-speaking schools to be established, Serbian nationalism rose again after his death and saw many of those changes reversed. The Albanian-language university in Pristina was closed in 1991. Government funding was withdrawn from the few existing Albanian-language schools. Street signs were renamed in Serbian and written in Cyrillic script. No state-owned television or radio was allowed to broadcast in Albanian. In the U.S. it is easy to forget this language aspect of human rights, because English is a world language and it would be almost impossible to take away our right to use it when we please. In Kosovo the effect of this policy was to reinforce a structure where Albanians and Albanian culture were continually suppressed – something which greatly contributed to ethnic tensions and resentment.

Since the end of the war, Albanians have regained the public use of their language, and Albanian now stands with Serbian and Turkish as the country’s official languages. Additionally, Kosovo recognizes Gorani, Romani, and Bosnian. Sadly, the legacy of the language policies of the Serbian nationalists who long controlled the region is still divisive: although many Albanians learned both Albanian and Serbian in order to get by, few Serbs of the same age group speak Albanian - which helps make it difficult for Serb communities to become a part of the new Kosovo. And unfortunately, fewer and fewer young people of either ethnicity are fluent in both languages. Young people of both groups are usually working very hard on their English or German, as most of the few well-paying jobs are with internationals, and knowing these languages can be a ticket to opportunity. As Kesi pointed out one day, it will soon be easiest for people to speak to each other in English, which isn’t even one of the country’s official languages.

THE SECRET LIFE OF SHOES

Kosovo is somewhat of a dusty place. Much of this dust comes from the country’s power plants. Some of it comes from the poor emissions standards on cars, the many unpaved roads, and the constant construction. All this dust makes for consistently dramatic and beautiful pink and orange-hued sunsets. It also makes for very dirty shoes.

The first week that we were here, Michaela and I both noticed that not only are Kosovar women exceptionally lovely but that they always seemed to have perfectly clean shoes. We marveled at this: our own shoes seemed to have a permanent layer of brownish-red film. Like many civilized people, Kosovars remove their shoes inside their homes or when visiting other people’s houses - and as we placed our own dusty boots next to a row of perfectly polished, carefully-lined up shoes and slid on the slippers offered by our host, I felt a tinge of embarrassment at their condition.

This awareness of my dirty shoes took on a new dimension after my few days in Kosovo, when we moved from Pristina to Peja/ Pec. The morning after my first night there, we went outside to put our boots on and head off, only to find that they were completely clean and blacked. As we stood there being pleasantly surprised, the woman who ran the house where we were staying walked past me, lifted up my shoe, ran a shoe brush over it a few times to knock off any minor dust that had settled on it overnight, and handed it to me to put on. I thanked her mightily in my limited Albanian, but wondered whether I might inadvertently have offended her with my rude shoes. I made a mental note to ask a friend later about it.

When I asked my friend later, she told me that hospitality in this part of the world is such that often your shoes are attended to by your hostess and brought to you again clean when it is time to leave. In Kosovo, it is sign of respectability to have clean shoes. Your shoes may be worn, but at least they should be clean! Look there, she said, and pointed out a young woman across the street. The woman was getting ready to go into a government building and looked to be dressed for an appointment, with a briefcase and a slightly nervous look on her face. As I watched, she took a small piece of cloth out of her bag, knelt down gracefully, and wiped her heels clean with a quick and polished movement. Then she stood up, and after quickly assessing her work she continued into the building. My friend looked at me and smiled. You might want to get one of those pieces of cloth, she said.

BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A TIRE?

It was the end of a very long day and we were speeding down the black road, headed back to our home base in Peja/ Pec. Scarfing down cheese burek from our favorite fast-food take out place in Pristina and gulping down Schweppes Bitter Lemon, we were keeping each other awake by singing bad old songs from the 70s. Kesi, our translator, was regaling us up with a hammy version of Take Me Home Country Road when we all suddenly became aware of a strange sound accompanying his crooning.

We fell silent and listened. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. By now we were noticing that the ride seemed rougher than usual as well. I think I had better pull over, Michaela said, and eased our trusty Opel onto the narrow ridge of grass that lined the roadway.

We got out and examined the tires. Sure enough, the one on the front right was hopelessly deflated. A look in the trunk revealed that the spare was also completely flat. The three of us looked at each other dejectedly, suddenly feeling the cold night air of the mountains pressing in as we realized that the closest help was miles away. I tilted my head back and noticed that I could see the Milky Way quite clearly. All around us it was very very quiet. I checked my watch and saw that it was 11:45pm. We still had over 30 km to drive.

Kesi had just gotten on the phone with his younger brother when a pair of bright headlights came roaring over the horizon, headed our way. An ancient Honda Civic rattled loudly past us and pulled into the driveway of a partially-built brick house about twenty feet up the road. All of the car’s doors flew opened at once and four men spilled out, accompanied by a blast of techno music. The driver, wearing a tan Member’s Only bomber jacket and pulling deeply on the cigarette hanging from his lips, strode purposefully to the trunk of the car and yanked it open so the others could peer inside. The tallest, an older man wearing a suit, glanced in the trunk and nodded his approval. In low tones, the four of them had a short, heated discussion, slammed the trunk shut, and were headed back into the car when the driver saw us standing there staring dumbly. He stalked over and pointed at us. As Kesi explained our situation, the man abruptly turned back to his car, reached in the trunk, and came back with a spare tire. He tossed it on the grass in front of us, turned away without saying a word, got in his car, and sped off. The whole thing had taken about three minutes.

As nice as it was to have the spare, we were still without a jack or tire iron. Soon, however, another car sped into view: Kesi’s younger brother. With barely a hello, he jumped out of his car with tools in hand. Quickly, he replaced the tire - and merely nodding in the direction of our profuse expressions of gratitude, he jumped back in his car and peeled off in the direction from whence he came.

Back on the road again, we rode in silence, reflecting on our good fortune in having had our situation so handily resolved. It is interesting, I remarked, that in a country where it sometimes seems to so difficult to arrange a simple appointment or make plans for anything ahead of time that every significant problem that we’ve encountered seems to miraculously work out with so little effort. Kesi laughed. That’s the upside of our national culture of spontaneity, he said. In Kosovo, someone is always available to help.

PEJA, PAST AND PRESENT

While filming in Kosovo, we have been living mainly in Peja/ Pec. Situated at the foothills of the Accursed Mountains on the border of Montenegro, Peja/ Pec emerged as a regional hub in the middle ages and is now the second largest city in Kosovo. It is framed by some of the country’s most beautiful scenery: rugged mountains above, rich, fertile valleys below, and the Bistrica River running through the center of town. There is nothing starting the day by enjoying a coffee on one of the house’s three patios while taking in the view. We are very happy to be staying here.

The 1999 war hit Peja/ Pec particularly hard: nearly all of its Albanian residents were displaced as the Yugoslav army and Serbian police burned down over 80% of the city, including many traditional stone kullas and Ottoman-era homes. Although its setting is still quite beautiful and much of the city has been nicely rebuilt, almost everyone that we met from Peja/ Pec still greatly laments the loss of the city they knew. To make the loss even more acute, few residents have anything other than their memories to help them recall what that beautiful past looked like, as they were not allowed to take any of their belongings when they were forced to leave. You can still get a tiny glimpse of what the city must have looked like from a walk through the few remaining buildings of the old bazaar, but the old city is lost forever.

Staying in Peja reminded me of a book that I read many years ago in an urban planning class in college. Written by Bogdan Bogdanovich, a former mayor or Belgrade and a virulent opponent of Serbian nationalism, The City and Death discusses the consequences for urban environments in civil war. Bogdanovich muses that the seemingly gratuitous destruction of everyday built environments (such as houses, shops, squares, car parks) is done not simply to terrorize the population. The destruction actually reflects the conqueror’s desire to completely eradicate any trace of human or material variety in his quest to construct an “uncomplicated” historical narrative that denies the complexity of the place’s history. He suggests that perhaps this widespread destruction of the buildings of civilian life should be prosecuted as a distinct form of political violence. The civilized world, Bogdanovich writes, will never forget the way we destroyed our cities. We Serbs shall be remembered as despoilers of cities, latter-day Huns. The horror felt by the West is understandable: for centuries it has linked the concepts 'city' and 'civilization' - associating them even on an etymological level. It therefore has no choice but to view the destruction of cities as flagrant, wanton opposition to the highest values of civilization.