The
Interviews- Page 13
�elja
Bajrami
 |
Watch
a Video
excerpt of the interview.
"We
have music, and if somebody doesn�t have music, then they�re nothing." |
Plemetina
Village
Where
were you born?
SB: I
was born here.
What
kind of Roma are you?
SB:
I am Egyptian.
We
have music, and if somebody doesn�t have music, then they�re nothing.
Life
here is terrible. No one can celebrate any holidays, because no one has
any money.
What
kind of Roma live here?
|
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SB: Every kind of Roma.
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Svestenik
Emil
 |
Svestenik=
priest. Emil did not give his last name.
Emil
requested that we not videotape him.
"They
have many children. And why not? Thank God! But if you don�t have the
necessary things, it�s tragic." |
Bostan-
Novo Brdo
Bostan�s
Roma call Emil Srpski Cigani- a Serbian Gypsy. Some say it because it�s simply
a name they�ve heard others use. Others say it with anger. Emil is an Orthodox
priest who cares for the now-depleted Orthodox flock of Bostan and the
surrounding villages; many Serb houses here have been destroyed or occupied.
Bostan�s Roma are Muslim; there aren�t enough Serbs left to make a
congregation. So the Svestenik acts as a caretaker for an old church whose front
gates are covered with dried, smashed eggs. Some locals regard the church as a
leftover from an earlier regime. Their children vandalize it.
Emil
hails from northern Serbia, where Roma have been sedentary for 200 years or
more. He is, culturally, educationally, and economically a Serb, or at the least
a northerner; he and the Muslim Roma of Bostan grew up in different worlds.
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Emil's
interview became, in the end, a plea for us to look into the case of a Roma
professor who cannot secure work in the new Kosovo because of his race. Emil
mentioned the man's name; we knew him. He was a professor at Pristina's Roma
school until its demise in 1999. He was the only Roma PhD in Kosovo. Emil
denounced the racism of the new authorities- both internationals and locals.
Even a brilliant Roma couldn't get a fair break. Emil suggested that we
interview him.
We
did not tell Emil that we knew the professor well. We lied and promised we'd
look him up. Two years before I tried to hire that professor for 500
Deutschmarks a month- a competitive wage, more than a judge's monthly pay. The
professor skipped two interviews; we gave him one last chance, and he blew that
too. UNMIK Gracanica educational officials had tried to employ him as well. He
was chronically late and did no work. They were forced to let him go. The
professor was an unemployable because of his conceit and his habits. But he
played the racism card- one of the few Roma in Kosovo that had absolutely no
right to. In a province where Roma have little chance of securing work outside
that which involves wielding a shovel or pick, that professor was the one man
who had all the weapons of education and connections at his disposal. But he
would do nothing but sit in his sweatpants and whine about the injustice of it
all.
|
We
recognized that the professor had a story to tell, and we sought to interview
him weeks before we came to Emil. He opened the door of his home, heard our
pitch, and demanded a few hundred Euro for his time. We wouldn't pay; he shut
the door.
Emil
was as seduced by the professor's story as we were, years before. Emil's a good
man, in a tough parish that is not his home, serving a flock of the depressed
and near-dead. Tough as his situation is, he still had time to plea for his
friend, and I regret lying to him and pretending not to know the professor.
SE: You
can call me priest Emil of Bostan.
Where
are you from?
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SE:
I�m from the Vojvodina*. I came here eight years ago.
(* The
Vojvodina is the northernmost area of
Serbia-
a predominantly Hungarian
region.)
Did
you attend school?
|
SE: I
finished school in Sremski Karlovci,
and later I worked in the Vojvodina. I now work here, as a priest.
Do
you know many Roma here?
SE: Of
course. I have Roma friends. Roma are mainly Muslim; they have their own
religion, different from the Orthodox. But that is not important; the most
important thing is that we�re all people.
Everyone
has their own religion, but as I said, we are people. Some Roma are really
smart, and they live better. But too many Roma are uneducated. That�s a kind
of bad religion. Seventy or eighty percent of Roma are uneducated; they don�t
care about school. Many of them don�t have regular jobs.
|
They
have many children. And why not? Thank God! But if you don�t have the
necessary things, it�s tragic. This is a big problem in
Serbia
.

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Mihrije
Lugović
 |
"I
knew those songs once, but I�ve forgotten them." |
Kosovo
Polje
How
old are you?
ML: I
am 67 years old. My father�s name was Demo, and my mother�s name was Azemina.
Where
are you from?
ML: We
used to live in Gjilan*.
(*Gnjilane/
Gjilan- 36.5 kilometers southeast of Kosovo Polje)
In the
past, on Djurdjevdan, we would go out early in the morning and we would swim in
the river; before, it was better than now.
My
father would sing many songs about Saint Vasilija*.
I knew those songs once, but I�ve forgotten them.
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Mikra
Kurta
 |
Mrs.
Kurta is an IDP from Crkvena Vodica.
Watch
a Video
excerpt of the interview.
"Our
neighbors; we never had problems with our neighbors."
|
Plemetina
Village
Mikra
Kurta and her family fled Crkvena Vodica; they
squatted in an abandoned home in the Plemetina Mahala. The previous tenants had
fled abroad in 1999.
The
owners returned from
Germany
in 2003. Mikra and a dozen others were evicted with
a few day�s notice. They moved into a roofless, gutted home on the Mahala�s
edge; several locals stretched a tarp over the place where the roof used to sit.
How
old are you?
MK:
I�m 75 years old.
Where
are you from?
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MK: I
used to live in Crkvena Vodica, but now we live here. We owned six properties
(in Crkvena Vodica), but the Albanians burned and destroyed them. Albanians
burned all the homes there- not just my homes.
How
long did you live in Crkvena Vodica?
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MK: I
lived there for 45 years.
Did
you have many Serbian and Albanian neighbors in Crkvena Vodica?
MK:
Yes, we lived with Serbs and Albanians there. Our neighbors; we never had
problems with our neighbors.
How
old were you when you were married?
MK: I
was very young when I married.
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