They have been in the waiting stage for years now, and it is unlikely that anything in their lives would change, because they are used to living on the edge and under frequent bad news.
Even though they depend on high politics, they still have to live, and life on Kosovo is something that cannot be understood through official talks, political statements and photographs of handshaking with national and EU flags in the background.
A great majority of people who feel strongly patriotic at the mention of Kosovo is prone to advocating extreme solutions and a tough stand. But, it’s easy to lead the new battle of Kosovo from the comfort of your living room, far away from the ticking bomb.
Because, in the “southern Serbian province” people are living crumpled between poverty, pride, violent actions of the authorities from Pristina, demands from Belgrade and the Serbian-Albanian criminal brotherhood.
South of the river Ibar, Serbs depend more on the Kosovar institutions and their fellow citizens who live south of the river that divides the province. In some towns where there are parallel Serbian and Albanian municipalities the Serbs are forced to cooperate with the administration installed in Pristina, because that is the only way they can solve a particular problem.
A couple of former Serbian police officers from the Kosovo Police Service complained that their families are at a loss because of patriotism. They took Belgrade’s advice, left that Kosovar institution, but they haven’t been able to find another job, apart from the one in the field. The Serbian institutions have little influence on the lives of people down there.
A good example of the everyday life in Kosovo is the constant changing of the license plates when crossing from the south to the north part of Kosovska Mitrovica. There were even a couple of attacks on Serbs who forgot to change the Kosovar plates when entering the north of Kosovo.
I was a witness of an absurd Kosovar contrivance at the border crossing at Merdare–the people who, all the way to the boarder, talked about the repudiation of Kosovar institutions, at the Kosovar part of the crossing took out their Kosovar ID’s. On the other side of the crossing the Serbian police officers got to check their Serbian ID’s. Live and learn.
On the north of Kosovo, to where you could only come by “smugglers routes” over the mountain Rogozna during the blockade of the Brnjak and Jarinje crossing, the situation is a little different. The presence of Serbian institution is evident, but there is no economic progress.
The facades are gloomier and gloomier and the roads are not being paved. Just like the Albanians are not accepting any kind of connections except the solid borders with Serbia, the citizens in the north part of Kosovo are resolved not to accept any kind of authority from Pristina.
They showed they are ready to defend that part of the territory with barricades and with guns. It is hard to imagine that they would easily swallow the suspension of Serbian institutions, which is what the German chancellor put as a condition of Serbia’s progress to the EU. It is difficult to imagine something like that, even if Belgrade suggested it. But statements about the need for the suspension of parallel institutions are still less dangerous than the violent suspension of what’s left of the local Serbian municipalities.
True, they can maybe encourage some unilateral, violent act of Pristina. And that is where high policy intersects with people’s lives.
Kosovo is the ticking bomb of the Balkans, but the trigger is not in our hands.