The Soulside sent 3 people to Kosovo for July and August, 2011, to experience and interpret life in post-conlfict transition. Kosovo was theater for a genocide and xenophobic rage waged by Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. NATO intervened and the international community at large has occupied the tiny territory for nearly 12 years. The Balkans is tremendously complicated: the cross roads for communism and capitalism, christianity and Islam, and empire. Yet, those things don’t seem to mean anything when you are actually on the ground, read some of our posts and you’ll see what is really going on… as went the Balkans, goes Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq..
Thirteen years after the war in Kosova women who were raped still have not received the justice they deserve. There has yet to be a single conviction for this heinous crime perpetrated against hundreds of women during the war in 1998 and 1999…These women deserve respect and support from governmental institutions and civil society. →
After we left Kosovo, Sadie and I worked on several pieces for a Balkans publication, Kosovo 2.0. Here is a sneek peek of print version of Sadie’s piece – the cover story on corruption. ‘No One To Blame When Everyone Is At Fault’. →
Last week I published a piece on a recent episode that Fis published, Facebook Generation: The Battle for Democracy. In that piece Fis pokes fun at a fat U.S. Ambassador, Christopher Dell, and his oligarchic greed. Bizarrely (yet fortunate for us) the Ambassador has a facebook account, time to use it, and responded to the post…. but this week the government response is really over the top, check out CNN. →
The elephants in room 2012, is asking us this question: If we can tear down a government with socially curated media, does that mean we know how to put one back together? I think Fisnik is coming closest to answering that question. The Balkans remains a battle ground. →
Predatory privatization practices and organized crime define political economy in Kosovo →
