Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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Chapter 5 • Giuseppe De Sario, Laura Corradi, Patricia Ruiz, Enrica Capussotti<br />
blood, history, or land as irreversible and unavoidable factors of tension).<br />
In any case, even before these deep-seated questions found their way into<br />
the narratives, a retrospective “psychology” had taken root, to erode the<br />
multi-ethnic fabric:<br />
Back in 1981 a lot of people died in the protests, then you know you<br />
could see that Serbia had done the things that were seen; you know where<br />
we lived only a very small percentage were Serbs, but you could see they<br />
all had a job; as soon as a Serb finished middle school, he could get a job<br />
if he wanted to work, but in the Kosovo families, and there were a real<br />
lot of them and in many families maybe not even one or perhaps just one<br />
had a job… so how come they got all the jobs? …and if then an Albanian<br />
quarrelled with a Serb… you were scared to quarrel with a Serb that the<br />
police would get you; of course, there’s a psychological side to it… he’s<br />
a Serb? Ah well I can’t say anything; it had been like this since 1981.<br />
[Altin]<br />
In memories of a time “before it all started”, on the other hand, there was<br />
a certain amount of negotiation; the peaceful diversity of the past was<br />
often underplayed or overplayed, and could be described with greater or<br />
lesser emphasis on relationships established with “others” (as they<br />
appeared in the narratives), before they became the “enemy”. Coming to<br />
hate the adversary, making him out to be an enemy indistinguishable from<br />
his peers, on the other hand, has proven less easy than was imagined. The<br />
no-longer belligerent “other”, like the Serb of today, who keeps guard<br />
beyond the borders of the region, worsens and amplifies the hate aimed at<br />
the enclaves of Kosovo which are still inhabited by the Serbs and Romany,<br />
and yet, at least in the minds of the interviewees, it was only through a tormented<br />
path that they arrived at vague though negative definitions of the<br />
adversary. Many interviewees, on the contrary, explicitly avoided generalizations,<br />
allocating individual responsibility to the aggressors from each<br />
group; those that were old acquaintances, those of State armed forces, and<br />
those of the paramilitary groups. They also, however, claimed to understand<br />
the hatred felt by their fellow citizens, neighbours and relatives who<br />
had been subjected to terrible violence:<br />
158<br />
…There are all those desperate cases too; I happened to visit a family<br />
where 46 people had lived in the same house; it was a big house, very<br />
big, and there were only three people left. That meant that somebody had<br />
come, lined them up in front of the house and shot them. There’s no way<br />
you can tell that person that this Serb here didn’t do him any harm; he’s<br />
beyond reasoning because he said to me, “I don’t care a thing about<br />
Kosovo or the republic, I don’t care anything about anybody, I don’t care<br />
whether I live or not because there were 46 people including a child and<br />
an old woman”. That means 43 people were all killed in an instant in<br />
front of the house… just imagine how much they can hate a Serb… that<br />
is, a Serb can’t have any future in Kosovo… [Gjolek]