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 />
Albanian people. Stories of forced exile usually tended to emphasize the<br />
warm welcome given to refugees from Kosovo upon their arrival in both<br />
Albania and Macedonia, by the Albanians living there.<br />
This discourse on the solidarity of “compatriots” contributes to the depiction<br />
of Albanians as friendly and generous, but also draws a cultural line,<br />
identifying all Albanians as members of a same national community.<br />
Nevertheless, the social and cultural differences between the Albanians of<br />
Kosovo and those of other regions were most often, to a greater or lesser<br />
extent, openly recognized, and in some cases blamed for an even more difficult<br />
adaptation to the hard life of a refugee.<br />
In conversations with Ardita, for instance, the memory of “Albanian solidarity”<br />
was overshadowed by a memory of oppression, when this very<br />
kindness turned into the forced acceptance of a host community’s very different<br />
customs. In her account, Ardita described how an Albanian family<br />
in Tetovo hosted her and her sister. At first, her description of the accommodations<br />
pays due gratitude to the hospitality the two girls received:<br />
“The family lived in a village, the place was nice. They tried to bring us<br />
closer to them as much as they could and took good care of us”, she said.<br />
Then, however, Ardita’s memory swung back to the limitations they had to<br />
accept:<br />
They were very old fashioned and very religious, therefore women were<br />
very discriminated against. They had to stay in the house and not go outside<br />
without a male adult; they acted with us in that way, as well. We had<br />
no choice but to adapt to those circumstances, even though we tried<br />
sometimes to fight against those old fashioned habits. But we had to put<br />
up with being shut in the house since they didn’t allow us to move<br />
freely... Just because we were women. Women there couldn’t go into<br />
town freely. If they had something to fetch from town they had to be<br />
escorted by the head of the family… so women couldn’t move without a<br />
male escort. We weren’t used to things like that…<br />
These limitations on movement worsened the suffering associated with her<br />
condition as a refugee, and even more so, when being forced to remain<br />
inside the house seemed a denial of Ardita’s right to seek news about the<br />
family she had left in Kosovo. In her words:<br />
During that period we were very sad and bored, we were in a very bad<br />
psychological state… also, spiritually we felt very bad… We constantly<br />
received bad news about our village being attacked from every side.<br />
Someone told us that there were many victims, massacres were being<br />
performed, and we had no news about the rest of our family there. We<br />
wanted to get information somehow, but couldn’t since we were stuck<br />
inside the house. I felt very bad.<br />
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