Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

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