OPINION: Tatjana Lazarević
For years, the images of Patriarch Pavle and Metropolitan Amfilohije reminded me more of real people—figures of great importance in the fateful and grim times for Serbs in Kosovo—than of a mural painted on the side of an apartment block that, with its shaky foundations, is sinking into the ground. The artist captured it skillfully: the gentleness in one face, the steadfastness in the other, and the depth in both pairs of eyes.
Not once did I walk down Sutjeska Street (where Oliver Ivanović was assassinated in 2018) without feeling the clash between painted holiness and the stench of four dumpsters that stood, immovable, in front of them. Yes, in front of the two saintly faces stood four garbage containers, a reminder that in this remnant of a city, where I have walked its streets for over half a century, beauty or well-done work has always been a rarity.
Things do get done here, though—swiftly, with little regard for legality and plenty of spite toward one people. For the past four years, Kurti’s government has reminded Serbs of this in the same way Vučić’s has for years before—through cheap but effective propaganda, common to both autocratic regimes. A project that began in 2013, delayed by a year or two, is now nearly completed.
“Kosovska Mitrovica—because from here there is no going back.” This graffiti was not written in 1999, when several hundred Serbs in North Mitrovica truly resisted retreating, while waves of their compatriots poured out of Kosovo for weeks—down the Ibar, toward Raška and Kraljevo.
And not necessarily because there was nowhere to go. Serbia was just behind them, as it is today, when the daily lives of Serbs from the North unfold at Jarinje, in Raška, Novi Pazar, and Brnjak.
Those who remained in Mitrovica after the war did so because they believed they were simply staying in their homes, that others would one day return to theirs south of the Ibar—not because they wanted a border drawn on the river.
The border on the Ibar first appeared in graffiti—drawn by the very same who, in Brussels in 2013 and 2014, „sold it off„ or „handed it over„, whichever made it easier to convince themselves. They knew they were giving away what had already been lost in ’99, something they would later cover in layers of vulgar pseudo-patriotism and nationalism, just as graffiti and murals multiplied: “No surrender—KM stays,” “We’re here—we’re watching you,” “The Northern Brigade lives,” “Don’t worry, we’re here”…
It never crossed their minds to remove the four dumpsters marring the view of two Orthodox elders, nor to replace the secret police slogan “When the army returns to Kosovo” (painted in front of the most beautiful school building) with a renovated playground for children, a clean courtyard, or perhaps a line from Ljubivoje Ršumović (a renowned Serbian children’s poet)—about how one defends a homeland with beauty, knowledge, honor, and good manners.
Now, Mitrovica is being repainted by those who stepped into the places their predecessors abandoned on command, saying they’d had “enough.” They are repainting with such zeal and ruthlessness—under the ever-present watch of police-intelligence structures and ethnic force, wrapped in the propaganda cloak of “law and order”—that their efficiency reduces the whole scene to a bare truth: “We’ve taken even this last city from you!” Or rather, its last fifth.
They ‘paint‘ even their international partners—but not to fool them, rather to help them close their eyes for the sake of history and their own careers. Easier, then, to overlook that in their missions they never upheld the values taught in their diplomatic schools: democracy, responsibility, equality, and the protection of the vulnerable.
With the latest wave of administrative suffocation, discrimination, and security persecution of Serbs in the North, Kosovo as an international project—from military intervention to liberation and the building of a multiethnic, democratic, and successful society—risks collapsing into absurd theater. If fake news hadn’t already taken root as truth long ago. Kosovo cannot be a multiethnic state with 93–96% of its population belonging to a single ethnicity, just as it could with its roughly 300,000 Serbian citizens.
It could have at least become such a society—had it truly implemented its Constitution, with every special protection mechanism for Serbs and other minorities. Imagine, with the same zeal Osmani and Kurti put into defending borders, speeches about a vibrant democracy of young Kosovans, or Kurti’s own desire to rid himself of that very Constitution. They wouldn’t have even needed Ahtisaari’s package of minority protections to become a state resembling the Western model.
The gray of the walls blends seamlessly with the dumpsters in Sutjeska—just as little as Oliver Ivanović’s steps ever belonged there.
They say memories should be left to rest where they were born, while yin and yang take care of life. Belgrade’s yin and Pristina’s yang “take care” of the Serbs in Kosovo. Two crooked halves, seemingly opposite, fused into one perfect balance: no Serbs, no problem.
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