Kosovo Serbs stuck between Pristina and Belgrade „Trials“

By Darko Dimitrijevic, editor of Radio Gorazdevac

Judging by everything that has been taking place in the north of Kosovo lately, what ordinary people are experiencing and suffering, the kind of chaos in which, under the pretext of establishing democracy carried out by Pristina and Belgrade, people are subjected to a „Trial“ in which the innocent are condemned to suffering and discrimination from all sides.

Franz Kafka, in his famous novel The Trial, described an alienated world that gradually seems more normal and acceptable to the reader with each page. Even though the Brussels dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina aims to improve the life of the common man, that common man has always experienced the „Trial“, being condemned to some forced decisions instead of prosperity. After Albin Kurti came to power in Pristina, after ten years, the Brussels dialogue managed to paint a similar reality for Kosovo Serbs; the same one that Kafka managed to present to his main character Josef.

Thanks to different processes and systems of unequal opportunities, discrimination and humiliation, the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija have become alienated from themselves. The people are judged from both sides by imposing solutions and political representatives. With the fact that in Kosovo’s „Trial“, unlike Kafka’s, the epilogue is clear. The people are the sole losers.

On the one hand, Kurti condemns the entire population of the north of Kosovo in advance and on a daily basis and tries to impose solutions under the pretext of the rule of law and democracy, regardless of the fact that such values do not go hand in hand with weapons and the imposition of political will. Kurti is doing in the north exactly what Milosevic did in Albanian-majority places during the nineties. Just like in Kafka’s novel, where some kind of blame is levied on Josef.

On the other hand, the people are condemned by the authorities in Belgrade to rely on the people from Srpska Lista, who blindly listen to the Belgrade authorities and Vucic, although he often presents himself at spectacular meetings as if he is the one listening to them.

The Serbs in the north of Kosovo are condemned to some kind of hooded mob with criminal fighting methods, which even hinders journalists from doing their job. This kind of struggle for rights and justice is a battle lost in advance.

If you are fighting for your rights, why do you need hoods and masks? You need to keep your head high and nose clean! Unfortunately, I have the impression that many young people wear these masks out of fear that they will be arrested solely for being present there.

The repression that Kurti is trying to establish in the north is opposed only by clean noses and exposed faces, not hoods and other criminal methods.

The regime in Belgrade was never fundamentally interested in the opinion of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija. In the last 30 years, with the exception of Oliver Ivanovic, that opinion was imposed by Belgrade on all politicians, on officials who always „knew what we needed better“ than we do.

The government will not and does not want to accept the fact that the values and our heritage in Kosovo and Metohija are not defended by remote control from Belgrade, but by existence and presence in every place, from Lesak in the north, to Strpce in the south and from Gorazdevac in the West, to Pasjane in the east. All this time, no one asked the people, who live in these, but also in all other Serb-majority places, anything, instead, opinions were only imposed on them.

During the last decade of the rule of SNS and Srpska Lista, the imposition of opinions was at a historical high. This led to very bad interpersonal relations and conflicts within the Serbian community. Among brothers, relatives, work colleagues and in all segments of society, it has become a reality in the last ten years.

In the last decade, every critical thought has been stifled, the intellectual elite has died, doctors, university and high school professors have fallen silent. All those who should be the first to raise their voices when the basic principles of a society’s system are violated have become silent. Instead of building these principles, they continued to render them meaningless and damage the reputation of once prestigious institutions. The professors of Pristina University in Kosovska Mitrovica, doctors, prominent cultural figures fell silent.

The guilt of the Serbs, just like in Kafka’s „The Trial“, rests in their very existence. Serbian existence and rich cultural and historical heritage bother Kurti, who shows with every example that he does not want the Serbian community within his system. It is continuously tried in various processes. Many court processes in Pristina are constructed and ethnically motivated, often with undisguised motives.

On the other hand, the Serbs in Kosovo also bother Vucic, who is not used to fighting for the people by all political means. He gave the Kosovo Serbs the false hope that he would defend them with „clubs“, raised the army combat readiness, sent various groups with hoods, his men set up and removed barricades, and ordinary people always suffered because of it. One gets the impression that in this latest „Trial“, directed by Albin Kurti and Srpska Lista, the people of the north of Kosovo have been condemned in advance.

The lukewarm and almost non-existent reaction of the international community also contributed to citizens living in this reality. Their passivity in the „Trial“, as well as the rewarding of the political elites in the Balkans, who have a deformed system of values, has largely contributed to the damaged interpersonal relations in Kosovo and beyond.

As long as the political court only whispers to us from both sides and the accused in those processes obey without a word, without a normal system of values, without radical desires and ideas, without empty nationalism, we will have injustice and „Trials“, which will continue against the people.