What does Kosovo’s president represent?
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga’s speech today at SAIS was what I had hoped. She was forward-looking, even while reviewing the sad history of oppression from 1989 until the NATO intervention in 1999. She was clear about Kosovo’s status as a sovereign and independent state, even if it has not achieved universal recognition and membership in international organizations. She was hopeful about Kosovo’s European aspirations, while recognizing the many challenges that have to be faced, including normalization of relations with Serbia through the EU-sponsored dialogue. She was forceful about Kosovo’s territorial integrity, while emphasizing the rights of the Serbian community under the Ahtisaari plan. She underlined the importance of reintegration of the northern muncipalities, but called for an economic development plan encompassing south Mitrovica as well.
Plucked from a successful career in the Kosovo police, President Jahjaga is quickly establishing herself as a symbol of Kosovo’s youthful aspirations. She is trying hard to represent all of Kosovo’s ethnic communities, not just the majority Albanians, and to stay above the political fray. She embodies commitment to rule of law–her entire career prior to becoming president was spent in law school and the much-respected police service. And though she did not mention it today, she symbolizes the aspirations of Kosovo’s women for a stronger role in a society in which male politicians dominate.
What more could I have asked for? In response to my opening question about pursuing criminals responsible for crime against Serbs south of the Ibar, she emphasized mainly Pristina’s inability to get the full benefit of cooperation with international police organizations, of which Kosovo is not yet a member. I might have liked to hear something more about encouraging all citizens to protect their neighbors and support the authorities in maintaining law and order.
She was clear about protection of minority communities, but a colleague noted that he would have liked to hear more about how all the ethnic groups of Kosovo share a common history and culture. The beautiful Serb monasteries of Kosovo should be a source of pride to Albanians as well as to Serbs. The maintenance of separate, and conflicting, historical narratives is a serious obstacle to reconciliation in Kosovo, as it is elsewhere in the Balkans.
Asked whether she would come to Belgrade to meet President Tadic, she responded she would go anywhere to meet anyone so long as it was clearly understood that she is the president of a sovereign and independent state. That is not likely to happen soon, since Serbia will have elections next spring. But the time will come. If Jahjaga is still president when it does, Kosovo will be well represented.
A few minutes in the “green” room before the talk with President Atifete Jahjaga and Minister for European Integration Vlora Çitaku (that’s Ambassador Avni Spahiu hiding behind me):
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“The beautiful Serb monasteries of Kosovo should be a source of pride to Albanians as well as to Serbs. The maintenance of separate, and conflicting, historical narratives is a serious obstacle to reconciliation in Kosovo, as it is elsewhere in the Balkans.”
It’s more a problem of the Serbs’ accepting that the Albanians have some interest in the churches and monasteries than the Albanians seeing them as bastions of foreign influence. When UNESCO wanted to change how it referred to them (to bring the nomenclature into line with general practice) to Medieval Churches in Kosovo, the Serb establishment acted as though the building were about to be razed and Jeremic went into full attack mode. The region was Christian for hundreds of years before the first Slavs appeared on the scene, so it is probable that at least some of the buildings were pre-Serbian, or that Serbian structures were built on the site of former Illyrian/Roman sites (a new people building on the holy sites of an earlier population is a common phenomenon – Notre-Dame in Paris is underlain by the remains of seven earlier sites), but this is a sensitive topic among Serbs, and archaeologists are unlikely to receive much help in studying the question.
As for conflicting histories, this will be a problem as long as the Serbs in Kosovo continue to educate their children in the myths that pass for history in Serbian schools, as they are promised they can do under the Ahtisaari plan granting them control of their own schools. There should be colorful timelines placed in all schoolrooms depicting the history of the region (starting from the Neolithic – that part could be in sepia, suggesting uncertainty) and illustrating (wordlessly) just how brief Serbian control of the region was. If they were to be entitled “Serbians in Kosovo” or something similar, it might be possible to get them into KSerb classrooms. (I wonder, would the tribes in my area be willing to contribute to designing something similar for Massachusetts history?)