“Letters to a Close Enemy”

Saša Janković
FOTO: Saša Janković

By Saša Janković

Dear Mr. Deda,

Thank you for accepting this correspondence. Unlike other people from the region, I don’t have a close acquaintance, let alone a friend, among the Kosovo Albanians, and I feel poorer for it. Of course, I don’t expect that we will become friends through this exchange, but I do hope that your letters and perspectives will help me better understand and appreciate our Balkan region. You see, I’m a Serb, but also a Balkan native, though on visa forms, there’s no such option in the dropdown menu. Anyone who has traveled the world or attended a major international event knows how, at the end of a reception, dinner, or concert, we tend to gather and start talking about „our“ topics in one of „our“ languages, while others watch us with a mixture of confusion and concern, bracing for an incident every time someone raises their voice, only to be even more perplexed when the laughter erupts.

It’s been suggested that we come up with a name for our correspondence. My suggestion is: “Letters to a Close Enemy.”

Let me explain:

I understand that our letters are intended as a public dialogue between two people from nations that have been in conflict for a long time, but also a dialogue between two “decent intellectuals.” There’s an expectation for us to be politically correct.

But I’ve grown wary of political correctness. It’s increasingly used less to address important but sensitive matters in a respectful way, and more to avoid saying anything meaningful at all.

Therefore, I see this correspondence as potentially valuable only if we strip it of “political correctness” and its companions—“tolerance,” “compromise,” and similar buzzwords. We’ve spent decades simulating progress with them, always taking one step forward and two steps back.

For example, the tolerance that’s promoted as a goal really just means enduring, putting up with something. I wonder how we reached a point where Serbs and Albanians are supposed to be content with merely “enduring” each other.

Are we really to see ourselves as two evils whose highest achievement is mutual tolerance?

I say “evils” because one can only tolerate something bad—nobody has ever had to “endure” something good. Good is desired and embraced, not merely tolerated.

Here, for decades, projects have been written about tolerance, and money has been spent on it. Some sincere people call for tolerance, but so do all the pretenders when they want to (falsely) present themselves as European and worldly.

I expect much more from us and from life in the Balkans. And I believe that public figures, especially, must set high goals, offering people something worthy of their dreams of a better life.

So why propose “letters to a close enemy”? With what seems like politically incorrect, but actually honest and clear language, I want to state that your nation and mine are, at present, enemies. This is a historical reality, and by all indications, it will remain so for a while longer. But I hope not forever.

If we fight for today’s, objectively opposing, goals in a way that doesn’t disfigure our faces and poison our lives—if we refrain from causing the deaths of more brothers, fathers, mothers, and children—we stand a chance of moving beyond being confined and defined as two evils on the same patch of land, who, with great effort, merely avoid violence and instead endure and tolerate each other.

And then, someday in the future, genuine reconciliation, national cooperation, and friendship between Albanians and Serbs could be a powerful reality, a great goal, a good worth all the sacrifices and efforts of today.

To conclude my proposal for our discussion: If we currently have opposing national interests (we seek territorial integrity, you seek statehood), do you think we can navigate this conflict without further poisoning our relations? As rivals who neither hate nor degrade each other, but rather respect one another in the struggle? Civilized, close enemies? And in doing so, perhaps we can give future generations a chance to evolve into nations that cooperate, grow not at each other’s expense, but by complementing and protecting one another, eventually putting an end to the Balkan powder keg paradigm.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Saša Janković

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