“Stacy Sullivan a Bard of our Century”

(By Valon A. Syla)

Hello and Welcome. You are listening to UNMIK on Air.

Today we present an exclusive interview with the Senior Editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Stacy Sullivan who has just published a book with St. Martin’s Press entitled Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America - How a Brooklyn Roofer Helped Lure the U.S. into the Kosovo War.

UN Radio in Kosovo correspondent, Valon Syla sat down with Sullivan the day after her Kosovo book launch in early September. He presents this exclusive look at an American author who was forever changed during her time Kosovo.

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There once existed a class of people that made their way going from one battlefield to another, following heroes and leaders through victory and defeat - they were known as Bards, and they sang their history, as Homer did for the ancient Greeks.

Speaking with Stacy Sullivan one gets the impression that you are sitting with a bard… a bard of our century who never thought that her reports would be an important narrative component in Kosovo’s history. But Sullivan's book, “Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America” is already gaining huge interest in Kosovo and in international literary circles.

Stacy Sullivan covered the Balkans for Newsweek, and in 1998 when the war started in Kosovo, Sullivan felt compelled to make the trip, knowing little about what to expect.

Sullivan - “I did a big story then for the New York Times Magazine, that was showing the connection between the Albanians in the United States who were raising money, and their families who were in Albania running weapons and family members in Kosova who were fighting. And I wrote the magazine article and I thought that I was done.”

In fact, ending this article was the beginning of a series of events that culminated in the writing of this book.

Sullivan explains how she ultimately came up with the subtitle to the book - “HOW A BROOKLYN ROOFER HELPED LURE THE US INTO THE KOSOVO WAR”

Sullivan - “So I went into the Bronx, started asking around, somebody directed me to this roofer in Brooklyn Florin Krasniqi. At that point I realized that Florin was much more involved than just raising money. Basically a third of the reporting of the book comes from here on the ground, a third from talking to people in New York and probably a third is research.”

Sullivan decided to use real names in the book, except for one girl, a rape victim whose name she wanted to protect. Sullivan says that using real names was an integral part of the storytelling, and admits that she has not felt threatened by revealing such intimate details.

Sullivan - “People who read this book conclude that I am a pessimist, about Kosovo and the future. And I just really hope that they will prove me wrong… and that good things will happen here.”

Tempered by a practical understanding of what people are capable of in conflict, Sullivan’s view of the potential backlash of such conflict is indicated on the first page of the book. Borrowing a quote from Fredric Nietzsche...

Sullivan - “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. By using that quote I don’t mean to say that what the Albanians did, the revenge attacks, were as bad as what the Serbs did… I don’t equate them as equal… but I do think that when you see horrible things happen, you become capable of doing terrible things. And I saw them happen.”

The book is written in a narrative style that definitely makes for an easy read. Stacy Sullivan uses a technique of writing that reminds the reader more of fiction than of factual interpretation.

In Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America, we see the story from Sullivan’s senses - a subjective truth that harkens back to the Bards of days past. Her narrative style is politically neutral - carefully written so as not to take sides in the ever-tricky Balkan disputes. And if Sullivan’s task was to discover and expose the truth… in the way of our century, with history being made as we see it happening - not years later - in total hindsight - she has accomplished this goal.

As another author Chris Hedges has commented - “Stacy Sullivan chronicles the awful machinery of war, the high idealism and base cynicism, the brutal politics and utopian visions which propel young men itnto battlefields and often leaves them broken and scarred.”

This concludes today's edition of UNMIK on Air, thanks for listening and stay tuned for more cultural happenings in Kosovo.