Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...
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Chapter 3 • Anton K. Berishaj<br />
resentatives of the State respected out of appreciation, rather than fear.<br />
Loyalty to the regime, where it existed, was not spontaneous, but enforced<br />
by memories of the horrific consequences of rebellion.<br />
In the 1950s, the dissolution of rebellious formations in Drenice might<br />
have sparked the change in the strategy of the active opposition. Collective<br />
rebellion splintered into individual rebellions, each organized within family<br />
networks and involving at times, a circle of close relatives, and at<br />
others, an entire clan. This strategy of organized resistance also included<br />
individual acts of revenge, aimed at specific organs of the regime. At the<br />
same time, however, this familial organization provided a means for the<br />
opposition to escape the harsh crackdown imposed by the State. The louder<br />
an incriminated person screamed out the consequences of his resistance,<br />
the greater the rallying endurance of the community, and the more plentiful<br />
grew the incriminating acts of violent protest. The media was hardly<br />
involved at all, or, if it was, was so select that it served the interests of the<br />
opposite side. It justified the State’s punishments and withheld the facts,<br />
for fabricated political truths do not have to be fetched from an ancient<br />
past, but fabrications, without the aid of the media, are difficult to construct.<br />
At the time, in Kosovo, the media thus worked only against the<br />
Albanian community. This pattern of resistance, repression and justification<br />
went on until the beginning of the 1980s.<br />
Exposing the violence:<br />
the media as an alternative form of revenge<br />
During the last decade of the previous century, the evident changes in the<br />
reaction of the Kosovar Albanian population to State violence were intrinsic<br />
to a mindset of political survival and resistance. A pluralization of the<br />
Albanian political scene in Kosovo began, but with flexible, slow and cautious<br />
strategies. The first effort appeared in the form of networks created<br />
with the Pro-Yugoslav democratic force, the UJDI (Ujedinjena<br />
Jugoslovenska Demokratska Inicijativa, Iniciative Jugosllave e Bashkuar<br />
Demokratike, the United Yugoslav Democratic Initiative). Under this title,<br />
a number of somewhat moderate intellectuals cooperated, but remained<br />
faithful to the idea of preserving cohabitation. From its onset, the group<br />
was unable to realize or even conceive of any common objectives. In<br />
Kosovo, its members were soon branded as “Yugo-nostalgic” and as carriers<br />
of a failed idea, while on the pluralistic Kosovar Albanian political<br />
scene, the UJDI was only a temporary gathering without the ambition to<br />
adhere to any political topic.<br />
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