Kosovo Struggles to Forge an Identity

[Harold F. Schiffman]

December 17, 2007
Kosovo Struggles to Forge an Identity

By DAN BILEFSKY

PRISTINA, Kosovo When Kosovo recently held a contest to design a flag, the
organizers insisted that it reflect the multiethnic population, shunning
the nationalist symbols of the past. But dozens of artists ignored that
edict. They submitted variants of the red and black Albanian flag, its
two-headed eagle proudly displayed at weddings and on the battlefield for
decades. The flag is reviled by many Serbs, who make up a minority in this
breakaway Serbian province.

As Kosovo prepares to declare independence  the culmination of a long and
bloody struggle  this artistic rebellion underlines the challenge this
small territory faces to forge a secular national identity, one that can
overcome ethnic and religious resentments.

Hashim Thaci, the incoming Kosovo prime minister who was the leader of the
rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, expressed the view of many Kosovars when he
recently said, A Kosovo identity does not exist. But that is starting to
change.

How we create a Kosovar identity is a critical question, said Migjen
Kelmendi, a former rock star who is now a linguist and editor. Mr.
Kelmendi is leading the effort to fashion a new self-image for Kosovo. The
Albanian Muslims who form a large majority of Kosovo, he said, think of
themselves in terms of their Albanian ethnicity, and they think that
questioning that makes them a traitor.

An important date for Kosovo passed on Dec. 10, the deadline for
negotiations to end on the provinces status. Mediators from the European
Union, Moscow and Washington reported to the United Nations that the
negotiations had failed. Expectations are that in due time, Kosovo will
simply declare independence.

In anticipation, symbols have been cropping up. Fighters of the Kosovo
Liberation Army have peppered the province with giant monuments and
statues glorifying K.L.A. soldiers and guerrillas, idealized fighters
resembling James Dean, who wield AK-47 assault rifles and stare down at
passers-by on Pristinas main boulevards. The United States is similarly
glorified, with a statue of Bill Clinton in the works and a replica of the
Statue of Liberty atop the Victory Hotel.

Intellectuals and political analysts argue that this rebranding of Kosovo
inevitably trips over history. Albin Kurti, an ethnic Albanian activist
who is under house arrest, contends that Kosovar Albanians are wedded to
their Albanian identity because they have long defined themselves by the
ethnicity for which they were persecuted during decades of authoritarian
regimes.

Our nationalism is a reaction to oppression by Milosevic and war with the
Serbs, Mr. Kurti said, referring to Slobodan Milosevic, former president
of Yugoslavia, who in 1989 ended Kosovos autonomous status and dismissed
130,000 ethnic Albanians from their jobs. The subsequent repression of the
Kosovo Albanians eventually brought Western sanctions on the Milosevic
government and an American-led NATO bombing campaign.

The attempt to forge a new identity also resurrects memories of the
Communist period after World War II when Tito tried to stifle ethnic
Albanian identity as part of his project to subsume ethnic divisions
across Yugoslavia. Instead, Titos effort had the opposite effect. He also
inadvertently fostered a movement among Kosovar Albanians for the
reunification of Kosovo with neighboring Albania  an aim since abandoned
in favor of independence from Serbia.

Yet a new identity is needed if Kosovo is to provide for a multiethnic
state with a segregated Serbian minority and reduce the divisions that
have often led to war, a variety of leaders say.

Agim Ceku, Kosovos outgoing prime minister, argued in an interview that
Kosovo must create a secular nation and draft a constitution like Americas
that recognizes the rights of all citizens. Shortly after becoming prime
minister, he was criticized by some Albanian nationalists for asking
Kosovos Serbs to help build the new Kosovo.

The effort to build a civic society was initially championed by Ibrahim
Rugova, Kosovos first president. Mr. Rugova, an ardent secularist, tried
to create a national cuisine by serving Kosovar dishes like ice milk and
salty cheese. He even tried to rename the Sharr Shepherd, a dog indigenous
to Kosovo, as the Kosovo Shepherd. Such was the resistance to his project
that when he proposed a new flag in 2000, known as the flag of Dardania
the ancient word for Kosovo  some burned it in protest.

During the cold war, Mr. Kelmendi recalled, Albanians in Kosovo dreamed of
reuniting with Albania, which was under a dictatorship and isolated from
the rest of Europe. But he said when Kosovar Albanians visited Albania,
they saw an impoverished people with whom they had little in common.

My father had told me about Albania as if it were a fairy tale homeland,
he said, but when he visited, all I saw was a nightmare.

Historians are also part of the effort to remold Kosovo. Jahja Dranqolli,
a prominent ethnic Albanian historian, said it was time to rewrite Kosovos
history, which he said had been whitewashed by foreign rulers.

We were always part of Yugoslavia or Albania or Serbia, he said. We have
always been living in a shadow world from which we need to escape.

The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, who are 95 percent Muslim, could look to
their Muslim roots for identity, as some did after the war of the 1990s,
when several local imams went to study in Saudi Arabia, and returned
preaching Islamic nationalism.

But Shkelzen Maliqi, a leading political analyst and intellectual, argues
that Kosovars are far more likely to embrace pro-Americanism. He said that
most Albanians were secular, products of a history in which Turks forced
mass conversion to Islam upon Christians. The only Islamic party in Kosovo
garnered just 2 percent of votes in recent elections. The national
liberation movement against Serbia was always careful to play down Islam
and to be pro-Western, he said.

While the debate about a national identity is taking off, Mr. Kelmendi
said it clearly had a long way to go: When you ask a Kosovar, Are you a
Kosovar? they will answer, No, I am Albanian. If you ask a Serb, Are you a
Kosovar? they will answer, No, I am a Serb.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/world/europe/17kosovo.html?ref=world

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