A Reflection on Kosovo, Dreams and Hopes

By Daria van Duren

We have now all been back home in Amsterdam for more than a week. There has been time to rest, time to work on our projects, and time to reflect on everything that we have experienced during our trip to Kosovo.

For our project that we worked on during the trip, Maaike, Noé, Lily, Lara and I interviewed people in Kosovo about their dreams. We have conducted interviews with about 15 people, which we then transformed into a Humans of New York inspired book which consisted of a quote from the interviewee, accompanied by a photo of them. For our project, we talked to many people and each conversation was very valuable and has taught me quite a lot. Our conversations with these people focused on their dreams and hopes for the future and the struggles that they currently face, but often also touched upon many other topics.

By focusing on dreams, we wanted to learn both which issues the people in Kosovo currently face, combined with what their ideal future would be which would then also explain what these issues would look like solved, and how this could be achieved. With such a topic for our project, we learned a lot about which issues Kosovo’s inhabitants currently have to deal with. It’s close to impossible to draw conclusions from our conversations, but we did come across some recurring themes. Dreams that were often mentioned were stability, security, safety, EU integration and visa liberalization.

We also learned that the living circumstances in Kosovo are so dire for some people that they did not even feel like they could dream at all. And we learned that a wish for stability and safety should not be a dream: It should be a human right, as said by one of the persons we interviewed. 

The trip to Kosovo, and our project in particular, has really made me reflect on how privileged I am. This really changed my perspective on my own life and that of others, and I feel more inspired to help others ensure basic human rights and achieve their dreams, and to be even more grateful for my own life. I have the privilege to be able to dream, and I have the privilege to not have to dream about things such as stability, safety, a job or being able to travel to other countries as I am lucky enough to not have to worry about those things about which a lot of people who live in Kosovo unfortunately dream about.

Peace lab has taught me many things. It taught me valuable information about the complex situation in Kosovo that I did not know before. I was totally unaware of how many issues Kosovo, a country in Europe, which is relatively so close to home, still faces. Peace lab has also taught me that being kind is so extremely important. And that being able to dream, especially about other things than basic human rights, is something that should never be taken for granted and should be made possible for everyone.

I will forever be grateful for this trip! I can’t wait to return to Kosovo one day and to see all the beautiful places that we visited and especially everyone that I talked to again.

Anthems and voice

By Tara Goodsir

Hey family and friends of my Peace Lab fam and other friends, hope everyone is doing well wherever you all may be! I would like to center this blog post around voice; having one and using it or not having one, and the problems and necessities that come with speaking on behalf of others. Before I get more into that, I’ll tell you a little more about the project that Maud and I were doing for this course. 

When we were a couple of days in to Peace Lab, Maud came to me with a rather interesting article, written in 2018 and one that discussed Kosovo’s ‘national anthem-situation’. We learned that the anthem does not have any lyrics, just a melody, and that the title of the anthem was ‘Europe’. The composer, Mendi Mengjiqi, does have a text that goes with the anthem, but is saving it for when hethinks the people are ready. We were intrigued. Our goal was to ask people about the anthem. Do they identify with it? Do they know that is is called Europe? A question we introduced during the trip was ‘Do you know the national anthem (at all)?’.

When we came back to NL, we made a podcast that presents the region’s anthems and uses history to contextualize them. I can now proudly say that we are on SoundCloud! The link is at the bottom of this blogpost, in case anyone would like to listen to it. In an attempt to put our experience and conclusion into a couple of sentences, I would say that Kosovar Albanians, although they do know of the official national anthem and sometimes do not criticize it, identify more with the Albanian national anthem. Kosovar Serbs relate more to the Serbian anthem. Of course, we elaborate on this in the podcast, and explain people’s opinions more specifically. 

But this is also where I would like to link it back to speaking on others’ behalf. A lesson Anne has tried to teach us way before Peace Lab, is that it can be harmful to speak on behalf of others, as it is hard to do so without altering what is being said. My experience in this course, with this project, has taught me a lot about that. We were not using actual recordings as we felt it was unnecessary, but it is only afterwards that you become properly aware of the fact that you will have to rephrase and interpret the things people have told you. This can hardly be done objectively. So although we did our best, this project is definitely one that, given more time, could become something that even better represents the people that we talked to. For instance, we could have used actual recordings of people, worked with translators (although that brings other challenges with it), and just talked to more individuals. 

What I learned is that it is very hard not to speak on other people’s behalf. Especially when you come back home, and you’re trying to tell your story and also other people’s stories. The problem is you may get it wrong. Nonetheless, speaking on other people’s behalf, frustrating as it may be, is closely linked to speaking up for people. When I am telling a story that is not my own, I do so with good intentions. I think we can all agree on the importance of speaking up for people whose voice is not heard, or at least not in that particular place and time. 

So one of the lessons that I learned that applies not just to this trip but always and everywhere on the globe, is to always try and find a balance between speaking up for people whilst avoiding speaking on people’s behalf. 

 Another thing that relates to many different areas, both socially and geographically, is to use our experience in critically evaluating the state of human rights in a particular place, and apply that in our home country also. 

As for other things that changed for me, I definitely learned more about how to interview and question people in such a way that it is pleasant, or at least as pleasant as possible, for everyone participating in the conversation, as well as about how to make a podcast! 

Lastly, I think everyone can grow by visiting places that are not covered positively in the media, as you learn that media coverage is, albeit valuable, just another viewpoint. As for my viewpoint, I had the best of times in Kosovo. Anne created a little school of life for us in that wonderful place, I learned so much!

All the best and see ya on soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/user-877562473/about-anthems

A reflection on Peace Lab

By Lara Riemens

Now that Peace Lab is all done, time to think back on what this past month has been for me. Back in Amsterdam, we had some projects to finish in the last week. Maaike, Noé, Daria, Lily & I, following our trip to Kosovo, compiled a book about the dreams of the people of Kosovo that we met. During the trip, we interviewed the people of the different places and organisations we visited in order to better understand what people we met dream about and what their wishes for the future are. 

Wherever possible, we would take a photo of them and upon returning we combined all their interviews in personal profiles about each person and their dreams. The project was inspired first and foremost by dreams, because we feel that dreams are a powerful and hopeful concept that we can all relate to. We believe that by learning more about people’s dreams, this would tell us a lot about the people of Kosovo and their hopes. Prior to visiting, we had only learned about the grander plans for Kosovo’s future on a national or international level. We were hoping to better understand what individuals in Kosovo want for their future and to what extent this aligns with Kosovo’s future. 

Especially considering that Kosovo is a newer state, still changing after its past of war, we were interested to see whether that meant that the dreams of the people of Kosovo were different from, or similar to, our own and to each other’s. We were surprised to find quite a variety of responses to our question: “What is your dream?” When speaking to young Albanian Kosovars, they felt like they defied expectations and dreamt about making a change in their future. On the other hand, some of the Serb Kosovars we spoke to admitted to not having a dream because they felt like their situation was too insecure to have them come true.

A big takeaway for me personally was that everyone’s dreams were highly influenced by what they experienced their situation to be like. Some of the people we interviewed were driven precisely by the fact that living in Kosovo came with certain obstacles in their way, whereas others seemed to be tired of waiting for these obstacles to change. This is at least how it seemed to me, and both sides are understandable. 

For me, during the trip to Kosovo, I became more aware that simply being from Kosovo meant these people lived a different reality than I ever would. Being able to travel in Europe freely, for example, is something so normal for me yet almost impossible for most of the people we spoke to. Peace Lab & Kosovo taught me to be more aware of privileges like these. Besides that, talking with people from a ‘’post-conflict country” (a term which some of our interviewees did not like) made me realize exactly how complex peacebuilding is. I knew of course that conflicts have multiple layers and interests to them, and so does resolving conflicts, but hearing people talk about their daily lives in this context made the complexities all the more real. I learned that there truly does not seem to be a solution that satisfies everyone, something that the more idealistic side of me still hoped. On the other hand, our project also illustrated that many people dream of similar things, like feeling safe about what the next day will bring. Despite different ideas on how this would be achieved, what gives me hope is that perhaps united behind the same dream, a society could build a sustainable peace.

Looking back on Peace Lab and our trip to Kosovo, I don’t think I will ever take another course like this. This course took learning outside of the classroom to another level and even though we’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg that is Kosovo and its people, it was fantastic to get to be a part of it. We met wonderful people, were surprised by their kindness, openness and hospitality and even made some friends along the way. Peace Lab was something  I will take with me to wherever I go next.

Graduation on 1 July!

By Laura van der Wal

I am graduating AUC today. After I send this last email to Anne with my second blogpost and my final report, I will start getting ready to go to Carré. I do not feel nervous yet about graduation, nor proud or sad for that matter, but I expect a whole bunch of feelings to hit me somewhere soon.

First of all, I want to give a big shout out to this amazing course for being able to get me newly excited about the wonders of AUC and its people. After coming back from exchange in the beginning of my third year, I only had one more semester to go at AUC, in which I also had to write my capstone. Before returning to Amsterdam, I promised myself to not be the third-year student that does not engage anymore. I vowed to still go to the events, to make an effort to meet new people and to try my hardest for all my courses. This did not happen, not very surprisingly. I returned to my comfortable group of friends, did not attend many of the events and certainly did not feel inspired by each of my courses. 

However, upon handing in my capstone and this final semester almost coming to an end, I started Peace Lab. It changed my whole attitude. My main challenge academically has always been my worries for the future. I am very good at pressuring myself to do too much, because I think I will lack behind if I do not always work hard. 

During our trip in Kosovo, I tried to reflect upon this and think a lot about my future. The different organizations that we visited, provided me with perspectives of how my future could look like. This enabled me to think about what it was that I actually want to do with my life, instead of trying to build my CV. 

Standing at this crossroad between my bachelors and whatever there is to come, Kosovo helped me become calmer. I see similarities in the way I am scared about the future and the people in Kosovo are scared about the future. However, I make myself scared even though I have all the privileges of traveling, studying where I want and significant economic freedom. And, the people in Kosovo remain courageous even though they are ‘trapped in a cage’. The people I have met, taught me patience, courage, confidence and made me realize that it is also okay if you do not know what the future holds. 

The people in Kosovo urged me to let go of this worry for the future and live more in the moment. In addition, I have made new friends at AUC, which was very unexpected during my last few weeks. I can confidently say that I fully engaged again in this last month of my journey, as I had promised to myself.

In this way, Peace Lab 2019 enabled me to get out of my AUC comfort zone again, just before the very end of it (when it would have been too late). And for this, I will be forever grateful.

Post-Peace Lab Depression

By Ruth del Pino Bleijerveld

The post-Peace Lab depression has hit us all hard, but thankfully, we all are gathered together on a boat in the middle of the Amstel canal to ease the pain. While chatting and enjoying the breeze, we serve ourselves bowls of pasta and fruit salad, which Erik so kindly has spent all morning preparing. We chat, enjoy the music, soak the rays of sun into our skin, and absorb the sound of the buzzing energy of Amsterdam on a (very rare) sunny day. 

The last time we were all eating together, we sat at Rings in Prishtina, enjoying dinner at a large dining table, until suddenly we were told to divulge to the rest what our best memory of the trip was, and our learning point. Many of us found difficulty in putting into words an experience that is not easily reduced to language, and instead, resorted to tears. Bardha, one of our hosts, spoke about how lucky she was to be able to interact with us, and although we are a few years younger than her, she felt as if the age difference wasn’t there, because of the multitude of knowledge and experience that we brought to her. I would be lying if I said that this didn’t provoke a knot to form in my throat. I looked around and saw the watery eyes and smiling faces of my roommates in Bardha’s apartment. After 9 happy days and nights of cohabitation and belly-aching laughter sessions, we had formed a sisterhood. 

There was a specific moment during our trip that I remember as being impactful, a learning point, if you will. Perhaps it was the fiery rhetoric coming out of Petrit Selimi’s soul, in that fancy conference room of his Millennium Foundation office, but at some point I felt something click. I felt as if he had been feeling the same sense of urgency at improving people’s lives, empowering them and also, a sense of anger at those who were impeding this. 

During Selimi’s heated monologue, I realised that given my privilege of having a passport that allows me to travel limitlessly, I ought to advocate for the rights of those who don’t in Kosovo. How can we expect a society that is locked up in a cage to be progressive, women-empowering and focused on peace and reconciliation? - he said (and I paraphrase). This speech truly energized me to act with conviction and advocate for what I believe in, whatever path or career life leads me towards. 

I had many moments like this, sitting in the office of the European Youth Parliament, or listening to the presentation of editors at the creative and humorous magazine Kosovo 2.0, but most of all, I had these moments of deep empathy and solidarity through mundane conversations with Bardha. She and I were able to bond about silly things like the pain of waxing, latin reggeaton music, and good-looking Spanish actors, but we also had more serious conversations about the courage and forgiveness it takes to move beyond conflict management to conflict resolution. In short, I had so many ‘best memories’ and ‘learning points’ that to condense this into a single one would not do this journey justice.

Coming home

By Minouche Tas 

And so, we’re back. I’m currently a day away from graduating from AUC, and only a week and a bit has passed since returning from Kosovo. We’re still in touch daily with some of the friends we made in Prishtina and so much of this last week has been spent engaging with our time there, through working on our project, that time has blurred a little and I can’t quite fathom how and when and where or why we are where we are now...

At the beginning of Peace Lab, Audra and I jumped at the chance to take a more creative approach to our research project in Kosovo and I almost instantly began fantasizing about creating a soundscape of layered words, voices, songs, noises, and whatever else we could accumulate to provide an immersive impression of our time in Kosovo that we could share with others upon our return. 

We quickly realised that adding visuals would create a more complete sensory experience and more accurately convey the multidimensional portrayal we were keen on achieving. So, we spent practically all day every day recording and filming everything we could think of. We recorded birdsong, people running up echoey stairwells, water fountains, car horns, interviews, the clatter of cutlery, laughter, cafe chatter, meetings, songs on the radio in the bus, club music, background noises in bars, street musicians, the call to prayer, grass swaying in the wind, footsteps on gravel, and much more. 

Among the things we filmed were mosques, Orthodox churches, libraries, roads, people chatting, people walking, monuments, landscapes, prominent historical sites, the hubbub of city life, smiling faces, birds, children playing, lakes, dancing, traditional festivals, exhibitions, cloudscapes, lightning, sunsets, valleys, our meal times, pavements, mannequins, I could go on and on but I’ll spare you the extra reading. 

Basically, we had my massive camera on us at all times and Audra’s phone was always ready to be whipped out at the shortest notice to record whatever sound or sight caught our fancy. We felt as though we had accumulated far too much material and it was indeed an overwhelmingly huge amount but when we returned to Amsterdam we realized we could have done with even more. However, I must say I’m grateful we didn’t, as selecting which moments to include or leave out was difficult enough with the hours and hours of audio and over 800 videos we had procured during our time in Kosovo. 

After days upon days of all-consuming editing we were finally finished. The end product became a collage of sounds and videos woven together (at times abstractly) to create an immersive sensory experience laden with moments both powerful and menial to communicate the multi-faceted nature of our time in Kosovo and provide a more nuanced, complex image of a country that is often reduced to a limited, single story.

Unfortunately, we are currently unable to share the video as some quotes we used from our interviews were off the record. So, we’re waiting for permission from one of our sources to make the video publicly accessible.

We found Dutch peanut butter in a supermarket in North Mitrovica

Everyone enjoying their new purchases after visiting Kosovo 2.0

Besnik Nurkollari, AKA the self-proclaimed “Kosovo John Lennon”

I find it hard to put my finger on why, but our time in Kosovo has felt like a month and also just a day. Going through the endless hours of footage that Audra and I had accumulated for our project throughout our trip was tinged with moments of nostalgia and memories already forgotten. 

On our last night in Prishtina we were asked to share our highlights from the trip and I pretty much found the whole thing to be a highlight. I loved bumping into “the Kosovo John Lennon” on his way to film his latest music video at the same fortress in Prizren where we had just completed a mini photoshoot at, the churches and mosques we visited were awe inspiring, the people we met were impressive and kind, our visit to Kosovo 2.0 was inspiring to say the least, learning some words in Albanian from our friends and struggling with the correct pronunciation was rather amusing (we ended up using the only word we were sure of, “faleminderit” meaning thank you, in every exchange we had), being taught a traditional Albanian dance by the same friends and putting our lessons to use the very next day with a party of 250 Albanian war veterans celebrating the anniversary of a battlefield success some 20 years prior was a definite highlight, and the Field of Blackbirds on our way home from Mitrovica was a particularly powerful experience. 

 The sky was overcast, storm clouds brewing, and there we were in this incredibly historically significant site for Serb nationalism in Kosovo, a prominent tower inscribed with an ominous curse promising to destroy those who dared forget this history or betray their blood. But overhead the blackbirds swooped and sang, weaving in and amongst the tall pines and disappearing out over the mountainous horizon. I was preoccupied with getting everything on film but this gated space, surrounded by fields sprinkled with wildflowers, swirling grasses, and decaying stones, provoked a pensiveness unlike that which I had experienced in other places. The overwhelming history of the place, echoing battle cries and faded bodies fallen, has carried the weight of Serb nationalism in Kosovo for more than six centuries. Symbolising the “heart of Serbia”, its significance ties it eternally in the minds of Serb nationalism, as the crucial essence of Kosovo, to Serb identity.

Peace Lab has been a beautiful way for me to wrap up my time at AUC and finish on a definite high. The freedom and creativity of our project and the way the course was structured felt like a little nudge towards the untethered prospects of life after AUC for me. A stepping stone in the process of finding my feet with a little less structure and a little less guidance and learning to trust my passions, interests and instincts, and the intersection of these while producing meaningful work that inspires me.