UNFORGETFULNESS
Do not kill me
For I will die said the man.
The man died.
Do not tear me
For I will wither said the rose.
The rose withered.
Do not put me on fire
For I will burn said the mountain.
The mountain burned.
Do not leave me
For I won’t forget said the woman.
The woman did not forget.
Instant man
He told me his way was the right one
I said everyone has his own way.
He said his dream was the most beautiful
I told him everyone has his own dream.
He said he was the best
I told him everyone was good.
He said he was the richest
I told him everyone is rich.
He said he was the bravest
I told him everyone is brave.
He said he did his job
I told him everyone does his job.
He said he was not the same
I told him everyone is the same.
Don’t become immortal
Do not become immortal,
So the winds will cry over you.
Silk leaf soul,
Full clouds navigating
There are plenty of reasons for the winds crying over you
Do not forget being seen,
Beyond the dried steam.
And do not become immortal.
I understand you
If anyone asks me
So that I have a reason.
So do not forget
Nor don’t you ever die,
And never turn yourself
For the winds to cry over you.
Revision
If you see anything, tell
The real reason
After all, why are you watching
Without still seeing a thing.
Waiting time
Even if you arrive
Without notifying me, I will always
Have enough time
To wait.
Are you coming
Looking out of the cracked glass window
Wreaths of apricots full of yellow berries,
So that you’ll eat eggs at breakfast
Wild goose, cheese made in the basement
Of stone, or
Like never before
Through a wavering of clouds
The white rose catches a butterfly,
To be a happy shadow again.
I repeat: Even if you arrive
Without notifying me, I
I have enough time
To wait, even if you never come.
Breath
On this long beautiful day to complete the speeches
Nonsense is anyone thinking about the crown?
On this day winter swarms of sand in front and back,
Is anyone thinking about the forest crown?
Will an Old boat a Wide bed of Wood suffice?
To keep the question alive: Is anyone else thinking about the earth?
A Hanging Plant
Fire, why are you crying? Who do I ask, why the sea cries
When shaken
A fisherman never returning
To the wooden trough,
Beds in orphanages
Why are they crying? Who do I ask why train sirens cry
At last
Station, why are you crying at the siren fatigue?
Why everything cries when nothing stops.
A Hand
A beautiful girl then
took me by my hand,
Hand in hand and carefully,
not to lose the thin track.
Before I could laugh
She took me by my hand
She said it was time to live.
But in the morning she let go of my hand
And I still keep her by my hand.
Ibrahim Berisha
Components: Political Prisoners
Communists proclaim the realization of Socialist Democracy, though this very soft phrase of words has no taste whatsoever for Kosovo and Albanians. It was the time of the youth and students’ movements in many world centers with demands varying from country to country. This was true for the student movements in Yugoslavia as well. A politicologist, who became part of pressure for change and reform in the centralized state and later also its victim, Marko Nikezić, when highlighting youth demands points out the difference between their demands and those of the Albanians. He notes that the outcome of the student movements in the 60s of the 20th century was not the same everywhere. In the United States the hippies’ students movement was prevailing, followed with an establishment movement in Germany, growing to terrorism in Italy, in a movement of change of the communist system in Czechoslovakia, and in Yugoslavia depending of the republics and provinces and with different purposes. But they all had in common, with the exception of Albanians, a clear message in support of Tito. (Nikezić: 2003)
The policy of arrests and continuous pressure did not change. In addition to the steps made in establishing institutions and strengthening of the formal position of Albanians in Kosovo the “fight against Albanian nationalism and against reactionary and counterrevolutionary forces” continued leading to an ongoing wave of arrests. Nearly always every political or cultural action taken to ensure greater opportunities for Albanians to participate in local and federal governments was in all accompanied by arrests and organized media spectacles of public trials. Charges were issued mainly against Albanian groups dealing with the demand for equality and the Republic of Kosovo, i.e. actions which fall in the peaceful and non-violent domain. Draconian punishments never spared the young men under the age of adulthood.
Even after 1966 and following 1968 demonstrations when a number of young people were imprisoned for publicly expressing their demands for a better position of Albanians in the federation of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav security pressure continues to search for more political organizations with Albanian nationalist platforms mainly those focusing on union with Albania.
It was a long-standing practice. In the late 60’s talking about a Republic of Kosovo became a topic not only among Kosovo Albanian intellectuals and students. Even the leading Albanian politicians started discussions on the establishment of the Republic of Kosovo, always finding a reason for it in the historical and political identity of Kosovo, and the large number of Albanians as an ethnic community, which could not continue to be treated as a nationality (minority) when nations had their own republics in Yugoslavia, such as Montenegrins and Macedonians being fewer in number. However, all of this did not result in a Republic, but rather in a political advancement allowing the provincial party organizations to write their own statutes. In such a process of change students organized a series of demonstrations in Kosovo, demanding openly not only a Republic of Kosovo but also the opening of a University and granting larger national and political freedom. In the 1968 protests, according to official sources, 37 protesters were wounded with one demonstrator killed. After a violent crushing of demonstrations, severe punishment of organizers followed. The most significant changes were made in 1969 when Kosovo’s constitutional position further advanced.
Staging of trials sentencing groups were a common practice in communist Yugoslavia. Even they were accepted some of these large assembly processes, where workers themselves were involved intelligence. Admittedly in some of these large-scale staged trials security officers were also involved. After the Brioni Plenum two major staged trials were also demystified as to show the way the Interior Ministry of Yugoslavia worked. The Prizren Process as it tried to include senior Albanian communist leaders presenting them as enemies (1956), to be later politically liquidated and, similarly a trial was staged in the vicinity of Lipjan are allegedly involving 30 members lacking any basis or argument for this action. (Hoxha,1983) The practice of castigating groups such as that of the Albanian National Democratic Movement involved many young people of intellectual and professional perception, being seen as posing a problem for the future of comfortable Serb colonialism in Kosovo.[1] One of the nationalist political organizations was the Revolutionary Movement for the Union of Albanians founded by Adem Demaçi in 1963. The Revolutionary Movement was the first Albanian national organization, which makes a significant step to the left in Kosovo, although this nuance is hardly noticeable in its program. One of its major goals was “the provision of the right to self-determination to complete secession of the majority Albanian-inhabited areas under the administration of Yugoslavia.” One of the demands was also “the union of these areas with their Mother Albania.” (Gashi, 2010)
The concept of its political leader Adem Demaçi in this period is the “golden middle” viewed in his desire to get in touch with the Democrat Luan Gashi, who led the Albanian League in the USA, an anti-communist organization, which did not accept Enver Hoxha as the legitimate leader of Albania, as well his intention to establish contact with Albanian politics of the time through the Consulate of Albania in Istanbul. Plastic ideas of this movement and its large expansion will be found in the platform and activity of Metush Krasniqi, a rightist nationalist.
Speaking about the nature of these staged trials Adem Demaçi says: “My third sentence had been staged. The first time I was arrested for propaganda and the second time as founding an organization. These two charges I admit. The third time, they sentenced me without any fault. They brought people to the trial that I never knew or saw. The trial was a shame. True comedy! I am a victim. But without casualties there is nothing. I agreed with this role. On the other hand, I am glad that the Serbian colonialists chose exactly me to break, because I knew well that I was indestructible. They made me a martyr. He was speaking about his third sentence that came after Adem Demaçi went through political pressure exhorted by the communist leaders of Kosovo and Yugoslavia for fresh and innocent political victims, in which case he will be sentenced to 15 years of heavy prison. A group of students were sentenced with him, some of whom he barely knew. Labeled as a hostile irredentist group arrests and sentencing of dozens of other groups followed holding the tense political situation in Kosovo bursting with demonstrations of 1981 and all that followed thereafter. In the continuity of the political action of these organizations official sources indicate that in the year 1979-1980 five active groups were discovered in Prishtina and Ferizaj, in addition to the arrests that had occurred earlier in the period between 1973-1975. In 1974 alone, over 100 Albanians were imprisoned, mainly students, and from 1974 to 1981 over 600 Albanians were jailed, mostly young.
In the late 60s and early 70s the powers of the province of Kosovo increased in almost all areas, accompanied by faster economic development, while on the other hand systematic detentions of Albanian youth continued, almost all on charges as irredentists and members of nationalist groups. From today’s position, it is difficult to determine what the source of such detentions was if this might push the clientele communist Kosovo or Serbia and Yugoslavia, but the effect of these detentions was totally opposite of what was said publicly in courts as condemning nationalism. Hundreds of young people are sentenced to decades in prison, almost all of them due to verbal offences, a crime that in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and elsewhere would not even be considered something worth initiating criminal procedure against the youth of these republics. As accounts by the prosecuted Albanians show charges were staged with some involving some small degree of breaches of law, but the entire “hostile act” was blown to such proportions so to create an impression that the alleged group was precisely the Achilles heel, the weak point that would destroy the Federal Yugoslavia.
In 1979-1988, from the entire number of political prisoners in Yugoslavia with over 12 months of prison, 70 percent were Albanians from Kosovo. And, according to Article 133 that sanctioned persons who propagated against the state and the party, of all convicts in Yugoslavia, 58 percent were from Kosovo, while 60 percent of the prison term political prisoners were also from Kosovo. Regarding the unification of “hostile” groups, punishable under Article 136, in Yugoslavia 82 per cent of all prisoners were Albanian. (Popović:1990) The groups convicted during the 1970s and 1980s, along with the label as enemies and nationalist and irredentist Albanians, were also called Marxist-Leninists.
Even the reactions of both Yugoslav and Albanian Communists through speeches and writings in newspapers, magazines, and commentaries on television are not at all impressive regarding some major concern about the acts committed by “the enemies of Yugoslavia and brotherhood and unity”, as they are insulting, offensive and praiseworthy on the other hand for the Province of equality and the flourishing of “socialist self-government”.