UNMIK ON AIR

17^th November 2003

MITROVICA YOUTH FACING THE REALITY

(By Zoran Culafic)

Dragan Petrovic: The conversation amongst young people today usually starts with stories our parents told us – stories about how it was nice in their time, and we compare it with our life today. So we are just trying to find a solution, to make our own life to be as nice as the life of our parents was, if not possible to be better – so, instead of looking at the future we are now looking at the past.

That was Dragan Petrovic, a 22-year-old student from north Mitrovica talking about the generation’s reality today. In the post-conflict Balkans region, Mitrovica is not different from any other ex-Yugoslav town.

Hello and Welcome to this edition of UNMIK on Air.

Many elderly people in newly born Balkan countries are still living the warm memories of Tito’s days, when at least there were no wars and bloodshed. Today the younger generations are facing a reality, which is quite different from that dream like picture and many are deeply confused when then look into their probable future.

Ljubisa Vracarevic is a rock-and-roll-guy from Mitrovica, he graduated some years ago from the Faculty of Electronics. Despite his professional education, he was forced by his financial situation to accept work in different fields with many UN organizations, and today he works for the ICRC in Pristina. We met him in a Mitrovica café-bar.

Ljubisa says he considers himself lucky today, he lives in his own apartment in Mitrovica, where he was born 31 years ago.

Ljubisa Vracarevic: I think that my generation was forced to be politicized to be more precise, politics took away from us our youth when we’ve just entered life, when we’ve started to study, wars and economic crisis begin so, we did realize how politics unfortunately very often badly influenced our private lives.

Vladimir Mitic, comes from Aleksinac, a small town in southern part of Serbia, he is a English language and literature student at Mitrovica University; Vladimir agrees that young people unfortunately are living under the huge pressure of daily politics.

Vladimir Mitic: it is absolutely not normal. I’m 20 years old and it would be normal for me to think about going out at night, meeting some girls and not to care a bit about politics. Politics should be the last issue of interest for me however, we’re in times when if I want somebody to hear my needs, then I do have to be politically active, otherwise no one will ever listen to me.

On the other hand, young people face an irrational times, where criminal become idols for the majority, instead of promoting positive and human issues. What future could a country expect where children are taught that the major value is not education and hard work, but rather organized crime, claims student Dragan Petrovic.

Dragan Petrovic: People see idols in those who drive luxury cars. Namely, the person who has easily turned rich is an idol now for every one of us. And that person is still around us, we see how he lives and that his business is flourishing, although the majority of people are aware that his business is illegal. What is even worse, we see that such person is closely linked with political structures that support him, and of course he is financially supporting politicians as well. So what’s left for the kids who are supposed to grow up in a normal environment, thinking about school, good books and friendship?

The lack of perspectives, mistaken life values, widespread use of hard drugs like heroin amongst young people, is the picture youth is being confronted with, not only in Mitrovica, but throughout the region. On top of that, there is the huge gap of misunderstanding between K-Albanian and the Serb community, mainly caused by the lack of perception of each other. In such an environment it’s no surprise that the wrong stereotypes are a dominant form of expression.

Vladimir Mitic is year and a half in Kosovo and he never even thought about it prior coming to join the University in Mitrovica after he failed to pass entry exams at Belgrade university. For Vladimir Kosovo was as distant at that time as some Africa’s country, he said.

Vladimir Mitic: The last thing I used to think about was Kosovo. My attitude was even the same about Serbia, we don’t need it if it causes such problems to us those holy objects and sacred things should be displaced in Serbia, nothing wrong in that, it already happened in some cases in the worlds history; I absolutely did not care about what was happening there when there was something about Kosovo on TV I used to switch the channel. I was not a bit interested in what was going on there, but since I came here to Kosovo, that picture has changed a lot, I realized that it cannot be solved by such radical methods, there must be a dialogue. My opinion has changed a lot since I’m here.

Dragan, Ljiubisa and Vladimir have no connection what so ever to each other yet they all seem to agree on one point and that is that dialogue is the future and the only way people will begin to understand each other.

And that’s all from this edition of UNMIK on Air, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.