Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

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