Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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<strong>Psychosocial</strong> <strong>Notebook</strong>, Volume 2, October 2001<br />
The main aim of this question was to evoke memories of the gradual deterioration<br />
from a situation of coexistence between different social groups<br />
to open social antagonism and war, and to analyse the cultural resources<br />
used in the narratives to create and sustain a meaningful explanation of this<br />
change. Most of the refugees seemed to agree about the different phases of<br />
social antagonism as it escalated along ethnic lines.<br />
Social relations between the different ethnic groups were considered sound<br />
until the first Albanian demonstrations of 1981. The situation before that<br />
was generally reported to be good and without problems. Most of the<br />
people interviewed described how interactions were constructive, collaborative<br />
and positive at the workplace; Albanians and Serbs worked side by<br />
side, exchanging favours and developing friendships. Instances of mutual<br />
support and cooperation between Serbian and Albanian workers or farmers<br />
were very frequently mentioned. Interethnic relationships were also<br />
positive between neighbours. Nearly all of the refugees reported having<br />
established good relations with the Albanians in their neighbourhood,<br />
while some even remembered exchanging favours across ethnic lines.<br />
On the other hand, it is important to underline how many of these interactions<br />
were (to use an expression often recurring in the interviews) “standard<br />
and correct relationships”. These bonds were those of standardized<br />
civility; exchanged favours, occasional visits, greetings in the street, at<br />
work and between neighbours, rather than deep interpersonal and affectionate<br />
relationships. It is important to distinguish between these so-called<br />
“sound relationships” (formal and culturally codified forms of social interaction)<br />
and true friendships, which were much rarer. What was usually<br />
described as peaceful coexistence, often appeared to be in reality a rather<br />
peaceful form of mutual indifference. Bare tolerance was what ultimately<br />
seemed to exist between these different narcissist collective formations<br />
living under the hegemony of the Yugoslav discourse of collective and<br />
homogenous “brotherhood and unity”. According to its refrain, internal,<br />
national or cultural differences were to be ignored in the name of an<br />
enforced homogeneous and classless identity essential to the national<br />
Yugoslavian Communist Regime. Thus, the collapse of this narcissistic<br />
and (disguisedly) Serbo-centric discourse following Marshall Tito’s death,<br />
allowed both the Serbian and Albanian communities to express what had<br />
been repressed. Social antagonism and inequalities were exposed and<br />
given ethnicized narcissistic interpretations, and national identities, once<br />
hidden, resurfaced.<br />
It might be said that these tensions emerged from the specific nature of the<br />
political, social and economic condition of Kosovo as part of Yugoslavia.<br />
Although even a brief analysis of the nature of social antagonism in<br />
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