North and south

By Finn van der Baan

Monday 20 June 2022*

The first thing we did on this day was meet with the New Social Intiative located in north Mitrovica. They focused on creating dialogue between Albanians and Serbians in order to create peace. After our meeting with them we walked around the city and went to look at the bridge that split the city into north and south. We then met with the International Business School of Mitrovica. 

 

The International Business School of Mitrovica is one of the only higher education institutions which prides itself on having students from multiple ethnic groups. In the city of Prishtina Serbians and Albanians rarely study together, but IBCM prides itself on having a space where Serbian, Albanian, and other minority groups can all interact and study together. The city of Mitrovica is split in the middle by a bridge, in the north of the city the population is Serbian whereas the south is Albanian. This is also why Mitrovica is a good place for an institution like this. Instead of keeping to this narrative that the city is split, they created a space where the ethnic groups come together.

 

Our meeting with IBCM was very interesting and nice to listen to and reminded me of AUC a little. All of their education was in English, this was due to them seeing themselves as an international school. One of their main goals was emulating a western European university. I think that this was probably one of the reasons why they decided to have their education be in the English language. I felt that the English language also served as some type of barrier for a lot of the young Kosovars. English isn’t as widely spoken among the youth as it is in western Europe. Therefore they only attract a certain type of student who have had the opportunity to learn English. However, I also do see the positive aspects of doing it in English as it allows everyone to come together and speak a common language that isn’t anyone’s first language. The price of attending this institution was much higher than attending a public university which can also have an effect on who could apply to be a student there. 

 

When talking to the students on how they experienced studying in a multi ethnic environment, they said they all very much enjoyed it. There isn’t much tension between the different ethnic groups who study at this university, but that makes sense because people who do discriminate would not apply to go here. When we asked the students who they were very close friends with, it was usually the case that they were the closest with people of the same ethnicity. This is not to say that the different ethnic groups aren’t friends, but the closest friends are usually of the same ethnic background. I think that it will take time in order to normalize being best friends with someone from a different ethnic group, but they are making a great start.

 

*Please note that the blogposts are not appearing in chronological order of the days of the trip.