Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
This rather superficial view of the early political activity that grew out of
the climate of organized and systematic state violence enacted against the
civilian population of Kosovo, nevertheless hides a plethora of stances and
strategies. Within a short time, the political scene would witness the evolution
of opposition to the regime, from a reliance on the rigid principles
of the Kanun 1 (with its “eye for an eye” philosophy), to a highly sophisticated
strategy where violence was made politically advantageous through
the lens of the media.
In this later change of strategy, a population unprotected by State law
sought support in the power of the media. Such a powerful response to violence
was created in the pen of the journalist and the eye of the camera,
that, to some extent, media exposure provided an alternative to traditional
vengeance. Meanwhile, the practice of consulting with the male head of a
wronged family to elaborate a means of taking revenge against the perpetrators
of violence committed within the circle of the close family (traditional
mediation), proved ineffective and antiquated in the new circumstances.
Kosovar Albanians began to learn the civilizing effect of transparency,
everywhere exposing violence through images, recordings, eyewitness
accounts, etc. For the first time in history, the long-violent
Kosovar Albanian shamelessly sought and attained revenge by means of
cameras, journalists, photo-reporters, foreign humanitarian workers, etc.
Kosovar Albanians no longer hesitated to go naked, baring raw marks of
violence in front of witnesses, neighbours and family members, ready to
show that they had been wronged.
One example of this can be taken from my own experience: one day, the
Serbian police located a house, the basement of which the University of
Pristina’s Philosophy Department had made into a makeshift lecture hall.
At the beginning of a faculty meeting, the house was surrounded. We were
all made to walk through the hallway under the batons, kicks, and fists of
the police. As we were expelled from the house, we found another group
of policemen there to meet us and finish the operation. Many colleagues
were harmed. Was this not unscrupulous violence aimed at non-violent
teachers, a challenge that demanded revenge? It happened, however, that
the group of students watching this affront in silence from adjacent houses,
and even the victimized teachers themselves, sought “healing” of these
wounds not by seeking more violence, but by unravelling their story to a
few journalists. I gained the impression that the presence of this small
group of journalists was a gesture of sympathy and curiosity, as precisely
at that time, fighting had erupted in Drenica and other places. Despite this,
the interviewing and posing for photography went on with such theatrical
ceremony that it was almost as if the beatings had not been degrading at
all, but had somehow made us proud.
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