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 />
Such has been the experience of many women, changing their lives, forcing<br />
them to make certain choices at school and at work, and often causing<br />
suffering, due to their solitude and their distance from their parents:<br />
And it was hard for us; anyhow, food was not lacking, but it was hard for<br />
us young ones without father, mother and my brother, always she [pointing<br />
at Lindita] cried at night, she was two, I mean, only two years old,<br />
she woke up at night and cried, called her mother, and after she fell<br />
asleep I felt like crying, because I felt so lonesome, without parents…<br />
[Merita]<br />
Question: Now, you want to stay here, in Italy, but before the war what<br />
were you thinking of doing in Kosovo? Continue studying?<br />
Find a job, and what kind? Or did you not think about it?<br />
Ornela: Before getting married I lived with my uncle; and he did not<br />
give me permission to go to school, and certainly not to<br />
work… I worked in our fields.<br />
Question: And is there anything in Kosovo that gave you pleasure and<br />
that you miss, and would want to see again?<br />
Ornela: In the event of returning, I would like my family to return<br />
too, from Germany, because I suffered a lot during their<br />
absence.<br />
Another element of the Kosovo conflict made its way into schools and universities,<br />
sparking resistance and protest. The battle waged at school hides<br />
many themes, as the events placed adolescents in a position of resistance,<br />
and therefore was a political experience. Yet the protests were also a “generational”<br />
experience, as they led to events and later to memories which<br />
were to prove decisive to the identities of many Kosovar adolescents of<br />
several generations. One evident effect of this part of the conflict is that<br />
many adolescents, both boys and girls, found therein their initiation to the<br />
discord of Kosovo, from their demonstrations ending in clashes with the<br />
police and arrests, to their exclusion from places of study and exercise.<br />
Question: And when did the arrest take place, in 1989?<br />
Altin: On 27 March 1989, there was a demonstration, a protest, in<br />
the morning… then they took us to the police station, the<br />
group I was in was about ten strong, then they put us in a<br />
cellar with no light, there was nothing and you could see<br />
nothing, we lost the sense of time, we were down there for<br />
thirty-eight hours; we were in there and we were lucky to<br />
have been arrested at the beginning, because afterwards all<br />
kinds of things happened and we did not even know it; when<br />
they released us, I went outside, and I noticed that nowhere<br />
in town could you see a civilian, there were only police, then<br />
I went to see a friend who lived nearby and he told me that<br />
there had been a semi-war, this in Suhareke (Suva Reka).<br />
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