Pristina is the only major city in Europe in which freedom depends on ethnic or religious background. This is not happening in a war, nor under a totalitarian regime of a Balkan nationalist leader, but in the very presence of more than 30,000 armed NATO led troops and thousands of UN personnel. Three years after the war Serbs do not have safe access to schools, the University, hospitals and other institutions in any major Kosovo's city. Nevertheless, there are Serbs who dare walk in the streets defying pervading ethnic hatred and intolerance of the Albanian population. But these mostly young people are always careful to speak English in public. Many of them carry fake ID cards with foreign names, still issued by international organizations for which they work, in hope of protecting their lives in this city of hatred.
International visitors who come to Pristina usually do not notice the atmosphere of ethnic discrimination in the streets. They cannot know at first glance that almost all smiling faces in shops, restaurants, and in the streets are those of Kosovo Albanians or internationals. For them the bustling Pristina life is an indicator of the mission's success. However, a deeper look reveals that the city of hatred lives based on quite different principles. The most discouraging part is that many internationals slowly get used to this situation and do not do anything to try to improve it. On the other hand Kosovo Albanian intellectuals and political leaders simply ignore this reality. While speaking of democracy and Europe in public, paying a lip service to the international media, in their everyday life they tolerate or even support the society based on ethnic discrimination and hatred. In the best case they do nothing to change it.
While in Serbia and Croatia during the totalitarian regimes of Milosevic and Tudjman many civil society groups and NGO's, students and young people bravely stood against the rule of terror, in Pristina one cannot find a single individual or a group that would publicly raise its voice against the discrimination of Serbs and other non-Albanians. This is simply a taboo and a usual explanation is fear, although no one dares name those they fear. While Kosovo Albanian media daily publish vitriolic attacks on Serbs, which is regrettably tolerated by the UN Mission and OSCE as "free speech", the life of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo's capital is becoming more and more unbearable. Probably, Pristina will in the end be truly multiethnic, but only with Albanians and other internationals who came to Kosovo to help them earn their "freedom".