AIDA Nederland

 

FREE WORDS AND FREE PEOPLE

There was a real war in Kosova, and in times of war, intellectuals,
just like everyone else, have two choises: to fight, or not to fight. I am
not pondering over this ancient dilemma, as I think concrete facts talk
enough about it. I want to give my own viewpoint for the role of the
intellectual in periods of violence and human degradation,which have been
lasting for almost two decades in Kosova.
I abandoned Kosova in 1992, beacuse of my husband’s political
activities. We settled in Skopje (I have the Macedonian citizenship), and
my husband went on working as a journalist for the Kosova newspaper
"Rilindja"-"Bujku". We had been living there for two years already, when
one night, at 2.30 a.m., four Macedonians, who said to have orders from the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, searched the house for two hours, and left
taking my husband away.The next morning, a cousin went to inquire at the
Ministry about him, and was told that we had probably had a nightmare. I
did not know where he was until 65 hours later, when he was released.
Five years later, when Bllace happened ( the Macendonian border
to Kosova was closed and refugees where left for many days outdoors with no
water and food), I often thought about that night, when an unnamed force
took away my husband. I remembered how scared I was, and how I tried to calm
down my baby (seven months old) breastfeading him, how I covered
the head my other son (two years old) so that he wouldn`t hear
the noice of the "police" and would go on sleeping.

I remembered how I did not utter a word, and how I wished them to leave as
soon as possible, without doing something to my children. Those people
arrogantly pulled down everything in our apartment, until they collected
every scribbled piece of paper and some valuables they liked, and when they
left,I said nothing, and my husband said nothing, as we both wanted
everything to end quick. I remembered how my husband stepped out of the
door staring at the baby in my hands.As soon as the door closed, I started
making telephone calls to everyone I knew, of whom very few were surprised,
and even fewer could help.

I recollected all this in Tirana (where we moved soon after my
husband`s release), when the war started, when refugees ran away, and
especially when Bllace happened. I saw photos of people fighting for a loaf
of bread, and there were daily reports of people dying from thirst and
hunger. Intellectuals were also pushing their way in the crowd to fetch
some food, they were also protecting their wifes and daughters from being
taken away or raped, they were also shitting outside, wherever they could
find some empty room. They belonged to a mass of bodies, fighting for their
own existence, merged in a totally meaningless lack of power.

In privileged historical retrospect,I can only break bad news to
those who think that intellectuals play a significant role during periods
of violence: they are left with a powerless, even bizzare role, coming from
the shocked realization that one has little control over one`s life in such
times.There was a rare case of the intellectual power to act, the case of
Fehmi Agani, one of the most remarkable political figures of the pacifist
movement, who chose to hand in to the Serbian police, rather than have
twenty young men executed in front of him. He stepped out of the train
crowded with Kosovars fleeing to Macedonia:maybe he couldn`t imagine
himself as a future leader of the people he could easily allow to be
executed in front of him,maybe he was pointing to the future, to the young
men like his son, who will build a free Kosova. For me, he is a real
intellectual, implying here the ambiguity of this term, which stands not
only for proffessional achievements but also arouses many positive
connotations of one`s personality.

Now, in the postwar period,intellectuals first of all need to go
back to a normal life, they need work environments which should enable them
to create freely without having to subserve to any political force.In order
to prevent the repetition of our tragedy,there is a strong need for the
change of the dominant discourse of hatred, which has provided for
nationalist prescriptions, a need for the true intellectual voice to be
expressed, a voice which has been customarily silenced. We need to change
something about the specific isolated and frustrated upbringing of our
children which has led to particular sets of moral ideologies which now
need an Europian integration.Unfortunately,the rationalization of the
Serbian view for domination over Albanians, seems to have been prefered
from most of the Western countries up to now. What bothers me is a kind of
a universal willingness to comemorate suffering experienced rather than
suffering caused. Historical actors of the Kosova crimes must be given the
chance to experience feelings of guilt and shame, by opening museum
exhibitions or by other ways, especially if, judging by interviews of
Serbian paramilitaries, few of them were cured of their war enthusiasm by
actual experience of its horrors. Historical interpretation and school
education must help to heal the exposed scars of memory: Serbian children
have the right to learn that their fathers had build a totalitarian state
which aimed the extermination of another nation.

We, Albanians, attribute great moral and ideological power to
literature, even to poetry, which elsewhere is the most elitist genre. This
is partly due to the fact that many important political figures in our
history belonged to the field of literature, and partly to the fact that in
socialism literature has striven to become less "priveledged" ,more popular
and "simpler", available to"common folks". Consequently, there has been
quite a lot of "popular political" poetry published, wherever Albanians
live, some of it written as visionary, prophetic, or oratorical pieces
about a new world, with tones of delight and enchantment, which few, if any
modern writers would think of producing nowadays.I think that after this
war, Albanian writers are made to realise that they are not supermen, that
the political character of literature is not necessarily its main quality -
it is rooted on the personal awareness of the writer, just like in any
other kind of literature. The war we experienced does not possibly breed
virtues like chivalry, courage, honor, manliness, or even patriotism :
there was ethnical cleansing, and Kosova was almost empty for quite some
time. This picture arouses nothing else but the experience of bare
destruction, humiliation and shame.After the transformations which have
taken place during the afterwar period in Kosova, there is no room for
rhetoric or ideology to limit literature.There is room for images which
must be thrusted once again into the foreground of our consciousness, if we
want to see ourselves and the world around us truly. I wouldn`t like to
exaggerate the role of the text and of the writer, as maybe "Write now",
might slightly suggest, with its bare imperative form in present tense,
which besides the urgency, straightforwardness and direct insistence also
emphasises a metaphor of the intellectual potence. The Kosova writer, just
like everyone else in Kosova is a war victim,a piece of body without name,
and this causes a crises in his/her moral values. As Brecht puts in lines a
kind of feeling of guilt:

"Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence against injustice!"
("To posterity", trans. H.R.Hays)
Writers, stereotypically as more delicate souls, are probably
struck more harshly by the feeling of guilt when there is terror going
on,as well as by the burdened conscience during periods of violence and
degradation.This feeling may reach even a scepticism about writing at all:

You are free now, the word was told
Worn out, it could not say I don`t care
Why should I care
If I wasn`t uttered when I should have

The word was told you are free now
It is so hard it said, it is very hard
to beleive one is free
after having gulped one`s own syllables

You are freedom, it was told
The word beleived it
opened her mouth
and instead of sounds
blood came out

(From "Word" by Xhevahir Spahiu, trans.L.A) I hope and wish that our words will refill with meanings and
wisdom of times of freedom, but they need strong, free and self-confident
personalities to utter them,a strong and free state where real
intellectuals may exist.

CHILDREN RHYMES

Children in my country
don`t stamp their feet
in front of toy shops

They play hide and seek
in midst of squares where grown ups
stamp their feet and shout
in front of twinkling preachers

Children in my country
don`t sing hey diddle diddle
the donkey and the fiddle

They raise two skinny fingers
above their heads
their eyes twinkling
shouting de mo cra cy

Two childish fingers
de mo cra cy

Two long ears
above the round face
of the globe

Lindita Aliu

 

CURICULUM VITAE

I. PERSONAL DETAILS

NAME: LINDITA
SURNAME: ALIU-TAHIRI
DATE OF BIRTH: MARCH,16, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH: SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
NATIONALITY: ALBANIAN
PROFESSION: PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
STATUS: MARRIED,TWO CHILDREN

II. WORK EXPERIENCE

Sept. 1983/ Sept. 1984 Journalist in the Albanian newspaper in Kosova
"Rilindja"
Sept.1984 / Sept. 1987 Professor of English at the University of Prishtina,
Faculty of Natural Sciences, Prishtina
Sept. 1987/ June 1994 Professor of English at the University of Prishtina,
Faculty of Philology, Department of English
Octo. 1998 /Sept.1999 Professor of English at the University of Tirana,

Polytechnic University

III. EDUCATION

1975/1979 Secondary school in Skopje
1979/1983 University of Prishtina, B.A. Degree on English and American
Language and Literature
1984/1986 University of Prishtina, Master Degree in Linguistics
Jan. 1985/April University of East Anglia, England, postgraduate studies in
Stylistics
Sep. 1986/June 1987 University of Chicago, USA, postgraduate studies in
Linguistics

V. PUBLICATIONS: Two books of poetry: "Mure"(Walls), Prishtina, 1984,
"Ndoshta do të ishin me të mëdhenj" (Maybe they would have been greater),
Prishtina, 1990
Studies in Linguistic Criticism,published in literary publications
in Kosova
Translations of English and American writers in Albanian, such as
Conrad ("Heart of Darkness), Woolf, Hemingway, Golding,
Dickinson,Leguin etc.

VI. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

June/Sept.1988 UCSD,California, Research Assistant in the
June/Sept. 1989 project "Albanian -English Dictionary"