interview by Sladjana Arsic
In that ordinary life, several printed media in the Serb language are fighting for survival in Kosmet in several ways. Print runs are limited, distribution even more limited, so that, given the circumstances, editors usually opt for monthly publication. The publications are not accessible to readers in the rest of Serbia, as you are unlikely to find Jedinstvo from Pristina or Glas Juga, whose offices are located in Laplje Selo near Gracanica, on newsstands. The situation with radio stations is similar. Upon leaving Bujanovac or Presevo you are unlikely to find a radio station broadcasting in language other than Albanian on the dial.
We talked with Zivojin Rakocevic, editor-in-chief of Glas Juga and KiM Radio about the daily life in Kosovo and Metohija, about changes after June 1999, living conditions and conditions for journalistic work in the most problematic part of Serbia and Europe.
BLIC: What is the situation around Gracanica and Laplje Selo, where the offices of Glas Juga are located? How many Serbs and Montenegrins live in the region?
RAKOCEVIC: Villages that are today referred to as central Kosovo are located in the hinterland of Pristina. Today, they constitute a community of 20,000 people and cover a territory of ten kilometers in diameter. During the first three years [after 1999] that territory was secured by veritable little fortresses, with barbed wire, sand bags and heavily armed Swedish soldiers, whose zone includes Gracanica and its environs. With the arrival of French General Marcel Velentine, who became the KFOR commander, fortifications and check points were dismantled, as the internationals found that image unpleasant, since barbed wire and 21st century do not go well together. However, that decision deprived Serbs of protection, and few weeks ago two persons were killed in Lipljan close to the location of a former permanent KFOR check point.
Everything in Gracanica and nearby villages today, with the exception of the monastery, is a simulation of life in Pristina, institutions that used to operate there and the urban spirit that a few individuals are trying to maintain.
What are the connections between the so-called enclaves like?
We should never use the word enclave, as its original meaning implies a human community that exists on somebody else's territory. The complexity of the Kosovo conflict includes a linguistic component as language was a characteristic that frequently led to the loss of life. That linguistic war led to a confusion in which inhabitants of Kosovo became Kosovars, which was supposed to be a new identity. This term has slowly started spreading even to Serb majority territories, for example to Belgrade.
Fortunately, due to efforts of a small number of individuals, some important international institutions in Pristina have dropped the term Kosovar, as it was explained to them that that term is offensive for Serbs at least to the extent the term Shiptar is offensive to Albanians.
Could you tell us about language use in the new institutions?
In those places it survives, the Serb language is a shall, a husk boiling down to a few hundred words and literal translation from English that keeps the English sentence structure. Translations and official documents in "the Serbian language" are usually literal translations and most frequently totally unintelligible, and are a testimony of a suffering of a language and a people. I do maintain a small archive of such documents. During the first year [after 1999] groups of Albanians would patrol streets checking what language was spoken. They were some sort of self-appointed "language police". They would collect fines for speaking of languages other than Albanian. Thus, for example, the fine for the use of Serb language in Pec was $20, and $10 in Kosovska Kamenica, which has the reputation of a town where Serbs and Albanians tolerate each other. Let me mention a recent example, also from Kamenica. An Albanian who lives in Belgrade asked for bread in Serbian in a local bakery, and an Albanian kid, the salesperson, charged him $2 for a loaf. Why so expensive, the buyer asked? For you it's more expensive, was the kid's reply. Fortunately, all ended well after an intervention by the Kosovo Police Service.
In general, undemocratic and backward societies wage wars against language use, and the use of Bosniak language in Kosovo boils down to the unfortunate dilemma from the Republic of Srpska: is it belo or bijelo? [referring to minor differences between the ekavian dialect of Serbocroatian language, mostly spoken in Serbia, and the jekavian dialect, spoken in Montenegro, Bosnia-Hercegovina and parts of Croatia]
How do you manage to publish Glas Juga in such conditions? How does KiM Radio operate in such conditions? What does it mean when you say you are an independent medium?
We must improvise all the time, as we are frequently forced to work without electricity, phones, under candlelight and with obligatory [armed] escorts that enable us to reach distant and isolated settlements. Very few people from the world of media and culture remain, which is why we keep emphasizing the importance of learning and education. I feel enormous satisfaction when we are able to offer to someone who hasn't seen a magazine in his native language for four years a picture of his life or when we realize that a family living in the center of Pristina listens to a 30 minute show about a religious holiday, broadcast daily, on their feet. It goes without saying that that family cannot freely walk to the St. Nikola church in the very same Pristina.
All in all, the magazine and the radio station are an attempt to establish institutionalized continuity on another basis and to bear witness with well organized archives and with accuracy that implies distance from daily emotional and other stresses inherent in the life in fenced-off space.
What do you mean by that?
After the burial of Miljana Markovic, she was killed near Lipljan, close to her village, we returned to our offices burdened by heavy depression that we hadn't noticed before. What is happening? Only two-three days later we started talking about clear blue eyes of a twenty-four-years-old young woman, about a gaze that spoke something very important... From your point of view, this may sound histrionic and pathetic, but life and images remain as a grave warning for those who organize round table discussions regarding the incidents in connection with the sausage festival in Turija, but are reluctant to inform the public about a double murder of Serbs in Kosovo.
In your opinion, why is that?
Because populists have destroyed most of our truths, because they used every suffering as construction material for the tower of their power and authority. That is why today people are afraid of the truth from Kosovo. All those who based their power on this territory, without any work and responsibility, are running away form their own bad conscience. The local, Albanian nationalism that worked on the destruction of Yugoslavia for decades has produced all sorts of demons all over the former Yugoslavia.
What is the biggest problem for Serbs, apart from safety?
Fear. An omnipresent fear that has become a part of our lives, a part of every activity, every spoken word. Fear of accidentally crossing the invisible line and stepping outside the pen protected by armed soldiers from abroad.
I'm afraid that it will be very difficult to cure that fear and it will persist for a long time. Also, violence that forces us into ghettos and inability to resist that force result on a sort of warped "ghettoized" conscience. Just consider the effect of daily concern whether you may offend someone by speaking your mother tongue. Such thinking leads to permanent psychological damage and shame, because you are ashamed of yourself.
Where and how did you spend June 10, 1999?
I was in Pristina with friends. We talked about what we were going to do next. Some of us had been educated abroad, as for example Sanja Josifovic-Elezovic, who had a masters degree from the Cambridge University, and we were convinced that a normal democratic order would be established soon, that institutions would be working in no time, that individual human rights would be protected and that criminals would be prosecuted. However, none of that happened, the cycle of violence continued, and the city was surreally distorted, with trucks driving people and possessions away, to some safer lands. That atmosphere of total disaster, with continuous river of refugees flowing from Metohija, who brought on tractors stories about people from the forest and burnt houses, "victorious" arrival of the Russians to Pristina and euphoria it prompted... It's difficult to talk about it even four years later.
What has changed in Kosovo and Metohija since then?
There is no segment of life that hasn't changed. A big shift has taken place and it threatens to destroy and erase all evidence of our cultural and spiritual presence here. More than a hundred churches and monasteries have been destroyed, names of cities, towns, streets have been changed, everything connected to Slav presence in the province is under attack, while a flood of KLA veterans has destroyed every attempt to reconstruct a semblance of normal life. Tribal and patriarchal structures have taken control of all segments of life, from politics to human trafficking, and the international community hasn't noticed that Albanian suffering, the justification for the military intervention, has been displaced by Serb suffering, which continues unabated until today.
What do you expect from the future?
Our future depends on our efforts today, because every man or woman, every spoken word, affects the fate of our people. Therefore, I expect that we shall again live together, next to each others. Current warlords will not survive. They do not have the cultural code that would enable them to persevere in power or through history.
You are an optimist and believe that Kosovo would not become independent?
There is no full sovereignty in the modern world, it is an anachronism, an old story, while every normal society is a mixture of nationalities and cultures. We had such a society.