My experience of the war in Kosovo
My experience of the war in Kosovo

Summary/Abstract: As can be expected, sad stories are today quite common place in the Balkans. Some of them have something unusual, or out of the ordinary, about them; however, most of them are quite prosaic. The most important point they have in common is the appearance of violence. Consequently, my story, namely the description of one period in my life when I was exposed to some hostility and brutality, may be thought of as one more sad story. However, during that period I have not perceived myself as a victim and I still don’t do that, although it is, I hope, clear that victims may appear on both sides, or at least that it is possible that people can exist who support none of the official sides. I find it a matter of principle: namely, to try to be not only objective, but to question and to doubt what seems politically evident. The single fact that I was living in 1999, and for a further fifteen years before, in Belgrade assigns me one of a number of possible truths. I certainly do not mean the so-called Serbian side of the conflict, since I have nothing to do with it, neither ideologically nor, of course, in practice. My truth somehow emanates from the situation in which I have been in the last ten years, and which could be roughly and implicitly described as one of an anti-nationalist, and an engaged anti-Milošević activist, in the autocratic and xenophobic Serbia of the nineties.

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