Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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Chapter 1 • Silvia Salvatici<br />
Contradicting this, Adem told the students that the “villagers” do not care<br />
about their house ( something he himself considered the most important<br />
investment of a family), preferring to use the money they earned from their<br />
city jobs to buy two or three cars. As a consequence of this, he continued,<br />
the villagers allegedly did not have a place to house their families, and<br />
cluttered Pristina with too many cars. Taken together, these convictions<br />
remind us of the popular stereotype of the “country bumpkin”, but further<br />
point to the fragmentation of the Kosovar-Albanian community. This division<br />
is also perceived, with varying degrees of awareness, by the Kosovar<br />
Albanians, although routinely buried by the suggestion of a monolithic<br />
national identity.<br />
The migration from village to town also seems to have created deep rifts<br />
within the Kosovar-Serbian community of Northern Mitrovica. In conversations<br />
with Vladimir, the negative image of the “villagers” re-emerged,<br />
this time in an even more violent tone: “You can recognize them immediately”,<br />
he said. “They are very different from people who have always<br />
lived here. The way in which they behave… how they speak… When I<br />
hear them speaking I vomit.” In this community, the migrant villagers have<br />
fallen from favour, from being the butt of jokes to being seen as “bandits”.<br />
In Vladimir’s words:<br />
And how do they survive? They set up these horrible kiosks, these little<br />
shops… illegally, of course. And they steal. Mainly they steal. They<br />
come to town because they know that now there are no rules, no controls.<br />
They are all the shit of this town.<br />
Here also, the political radicalism of the migrants was seized and held<br />
responsible for both the divisions within the Serbian community, and the<br />
tensions between Serbs and Albanians. As Vladimir continued:<br />
They are extremists. They don’t want peace. They say that the Albanians<br />
don’t want peace, but it’s their responsibility. THEY don’t want the<br />
peace. People from the town are different, although they don’t take any<br />
initiative… they just tolerate them. I don’t understand why they don’t do<br />
anything. Those villagers are what bothers me the most about the situation<br />
nowadays in Mitrovica North.<br />
According to widely held opinion on the village migrants, Mitrovica has<br />
not only shifted to a more radical political position (with a consequent<br />
exacerbation of the tension between theirs and the Albanian community),<br />
but has also undergone a change in its appearance, living space and social<br />
life: “I was with my colleague a few days ago”, said Biljana, a resident of<br />
Mitrovica:<br />
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