Kosovo playwright Jeton Neziraj’s recent “hero-to-zero” moment has highlighted the European Union’s inconsistent and odd policies towards Kosovo, he says.

It has also underlined the importance of Kosovo securing a visa-free regime with the EU, having fulfilled all of the conditions demanded, Neziraj says in an interview for BIRN.

Last week, the European Commission recommended proceeding with visa liberalisation, which Kosovo expects to receive any day.

Neziraj, 41, has written more than 20 plays that have been translated into more than 20 languages.

On “Europe Day”, May 9, which Kosovo has made a national holiday, Neziraj received the “European of the Year” award, signed by the head of the EU Office in Kosovo, Nataliya Apostolova, bestowed on him for “promotion of European idea and values in Kosovo”.

Around the same time, however, Neziraj and his team received a rude shock when they were invited to participate in a theatre festival in Timisoara, Romania.

When they knocked on the doors of EU embassies in Prishtina in order to obtain visas, they found them closed. Their visa applications were turned down.

‘Odyssey’ to secure visas ends in failure:

“A play with four actors…” by Jeton Neziraj. Photo: Jetmir Idrizi courtesy of Qendra Multimedia

Neziraj is only one of many Kosovo artists, experts, businessmen and other professionals who have been denied access to the EU because of current visa restrictions.

“When I received the award, I said I felt honoured; I still feel the same, otherwise, I would sound arrogant and cynical. But I said that I see this award as support against the unjust approach that often comes from European embassies in Kosovo every time we need to apply for visas,” Neziraj says.

“My team experienced a real odyssey trying to secure visas to travel to the festival … and, in the end, the trip was cancelled because we could not obtain the visas,” he says.

He called it ironic that the EU granted him such a prestigious award while denying his right to travel to Europe.

The irony was even greater given that that the EU funds more than 90 per cent of the activities of the Prishtina-based cultural NGO Qendra Multimedia, which Neziraj runs.

Neziraj reacted to the visa denial with angry posts on social networks, which reverberated across Kosovo, but also in Brussels and some other European capitals.

“To us, Kosovars, the visa regime has turned into a bugbear which aims to humble, humiliate and dehumanise us. I could not stay calm with the crown of ‘European of the Year’ because I think I would have been too opportunist. My reaction is the least I can do,” he says.

“I could not point a finger at a specific embassy, because among them there were some officials and ambassadors who tried to help us, [so] I made a general accusation, attacking the phenomenon and the racist approach,” he adds.

“This example shows how absurd the current Europe is. We are … considered ‘good Europeans’ only by staying in Kosovo. It seems that the idea of us emigrating to somewhere in Europe terrifies the embassy bureaucrats in Kosovo,” he says.

To illuminate this situation, Neziraj cites the words of the Polish writer and playwright Witold Gombrowicz, who once said: “An artist reminds us of a child who is marvelled by the world without an interest”.

“I would say that Kosovo artists are marvelled by Europe without an interest – and this European fear of us is irrational,” he says, adding that, despite the problems, in the last 15 years, he travelled across Europe with his shows to different festivals and theatres.

“Somehow, slowly, we started to get accustomed to the absurd rules and requirements regarding visa application procedures. However, in last two years, things have changed for the worse,” he continues.

“The procedures have got more rigid and more complicated while the arrogance of the embassy officials has increased.

“For me, this is worrying because it makes a nonsense of our engagement for so-called European values, which I think, we promote with our work and our shows, to which we invite most of European diplomats in Kosovo,” Neziraj says.

Art must demolish myths of history:

“A play with four actors…” by Jeton Neziraj. Photo: Jetmir Idrizi courtesy of Qendra Multimedia

Neziraj says his recent angry social posts criticising EU visa regulations are more than just venting his own personal frustration.

In his opinion, art should serve the truth, and demolish the myths of history, no matter how old or new they are.

He sees his public statements – both against EU officials and local politicians – as a part of his contribution towards a better future, which should include visa-free entry into EU countries for Kosovo citizens.

“Saying the truth sometimes requires courage and readiness to pay the price. Instead of the truth, we often create and trust half-truths or falsehoods because we believe we are serving a greater national cause,” he says.

“But denying the truth does not serve the present or future of any cause. This way, we produce myths and myths like opium, which keeps us in a situation where we are not able to feel the wounds and understand the misery we are stuck in,” Neziraj adds.

In post-war Kosovo, the massive celebrations following Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008 now seem a distant memory, while the country is marred by deep poverty.

“After the war, people had great expectations … but those hopes and euphoria vanished when they faced reality. Our optimism, among the highest in Europe, started to diminish,” Neziraj recalls.

Light at the end of the tunnel has yet to appear, as the country still has one of the highest levels of unemployment in Europe.

Neziraj is very critical also of Kosovo’s own political elite. “Kosovo is still governed by a caste of corrupt politicians, most of them former commanders who became rich after the war,” he says.

“It is a caste of politicians who once helped the liberation of Kosovo but today keep it hostage with their voracity for power and pillage,” Neziraj adds.

In August 2017, when he staged his play “Bordel Balkan” at Prishtina National Theatre, he received death threats from Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, veterans who claimed the play defamed the wartime guerrilla force.

They “demanded the cancellation of the play because, according to them, it offended ‘the values of the liberation war’. They threatened my life. But I never considered withdrawal,” he says.

“We fought with determination, all of the team, to stage the play. And we did it, albeit under strong police protection,” Neziraj recalls.

At some point, the war veterans also asked Neziraj to show them the script of the play, which he also refused to do.

The play, directed by Serbia-based director Andras Urban, is based on a drama by the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus, but relocated to a contemporary Balkan context, and deals with moral transgressions and false beliefs.

“Besides death threats, some veterans protested in front of the theatre on the day the play was staged, and the premiere was held under strong police measures,” he notes.

But speaking up against EU procedures, or staging a play under police protection, is nothing new for him.

“A police presence has been necessary for almost every play that we have staged in the last five or six years in Kosovo or Serbia. We have taken the security issue very seriously,” he says.

“I never considered the withdrawal and going to work in an ‘easy field’ – absolutely not. Threats, debates, critics, noise and attempts at censorship have only showed how important the job we are doing is. They have shown that theatre still matters,” he says.

And, despite the threats that he and his fellow colleagues have experienced, Neziraj says he can see some positive changes when it comes to the freedom to create.

“I measure the changes with the freedom I have as a writer, which has improved year by year. But it has not expanded by itself; I have been forced to fight, in the proper sense of the word,” he says.

Meanwhile, he has never lost a spirit of optimism. “I am like a drummer who motivates soldiers in a battle and who is the last to die,” Neziraj concludes.

Read more:

Artists Take Kosovo’s Isolation Worries to EU’s Heart

Kosovo Playwright ‘Threatened by War Veterans’







