„Kosovo is a multilingual society and this value is deeply rooted in our country (…)Kosovo remains strongly committed to promoting the value of multilingualism, in view of that this value is a means of preserving the rich and diverse character of our society. The Government of the Republic of Kosovo will also redouble its efforts to ensure the protection of the right to use official languages. Happy European Day of Languages!“, Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on the occasion of the European Day of Languages.
Kurti congratulated the European Day of Languages by sharing a photo of him posing with the long-time commissioner of languages employed in the cabinet of the Prime Minister of Kosovo – Slavisa Mladenovic. Kurti thanked Mladenovic for his ongoing cooperation.
The Kosovan Prime Minister also listed what he described as successful results of his joint work with the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation and the Office of the Commissioner of Languages:
„We founded the Balkanistics Program at the University of Pristina, where students from all communities can learn the languages of the Balkan peoples. This academic year, 15 students enrolled in this program and we hope that this number will increase in the coming years; The framework curriculum of Kosovo has opened up the possibility of integrating community languages as electives; We launched an initiative to establish a translation and harmonization unit to tackle multilingual legislation; We supported the online platform ‘VOC-UP’ for language learning, through which more than 70,000 citizens of Kosovo attained at least basic knowledge of the Albanian or Serbian language“.
Contrary to these positive messages coming from the Kosovo Prime Minister’s office, Kosovo Serbs testify to a different situation. Even though Serbian is the second official language according to the Kosovo constitution, representatives of civil society, journalists who report in Serbian, and citizens themselves, have been sharing their bad experiences for years – only a fraction of which has been recorded in studies and recommendations.
Milica Andric-Rakic from the New Social Initiative reminded that language rights are the most perceptible part of Ahtisaari’s plan, noting the “lack of progress” in that field is thus most visible.
In her words, Kosovo institutions have been failing to respond to the problem of lack of quality and educated staff for decades. The Balkanistics Studies Department is a good reaction to it, but it is clear that this would not have happened without serious pressure from the OSCE, the British Embassy, and the IOM, she underlined.
„There lies the problem, the level of respect for language rights largely depends on foreign funds and the work of international and local NGOs, and this is unsustainable unless that approach is institutionalized. All the results listed by Kurti are the results of international and local NGOs – not the government of Kosovo,“ said Andric-Rakic.
The once-a-year affirmation of the language of local communities also does not make sense, she emphasizes, if the rest of the year the top government uses one of the languages of the non-majority communities in order to “disregard the interests of that community precisely by using that language through the phrases ‘Zajednica nuk kalon’ and ‘Jo Zajednica’”, she said.
Miodrag Milicevic, the director of the NGO „Aktiv“, says that despite the efforts of the Kosovo government to present the situation regarding the use of languages in the best light possible, the use of the Serbian language in everyday life remains one of the biggest challenges in the communication of ethnic Serbs with the majority Albanian community and official institutions.
One of the basic problems at the institutional level is the lack of political responsibility for the long-standing situation in this field, which is almost equally present in nearly all public institutions, Milicevic stressed.
This problem is particularly evident in access to information of public importance.
„Going to the bank, the post office, social services department, the tax service and many other institutions of public importance is a challenge for citizens but none of these institutions in charge of direct communication with citizens are ready to fully and adequately respond to it,“ he said, adding:
„Frequent indecipherable translation, or the absence of any translation, is an obvious violation of the rights of the Serbian community in Kosovo guaranteed by the law and the constitution. Many of these cases have been documented in numerous reports of local and international organizations, but there is no political will for any changes that would fundamentally solve this perennial problem.“
Therefore, the use of Serbian, as the second official language in Kosovo, must not be seen as a privilege of one community, but as an obligation of institutions to adequately and fully respond to the needs of the Serbian community, concludes Milicevic.
The European Day of Languages is celebrated every year on September 26th. It was introduced by the Council of Europe in 2001. Its goal is to promote and inform the public about the importance of language learning both within schools and outside them, and to increase the level of multilingualism and mutual understanding.
A discussion „How we communicate – the use of language in Kosovo and Metohija“ was held on Monday in Gracanica, organized by the Cultural Center „Gracanica“ and the Society of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
