Finally!

After sitting on the edge of my seat all morning, listening to the rrr fm election coverage and watching the AEC online tally updates, the result we thought we could only hope for came in.

Australian's have finally shown that there is more to life and politics than the economy and low unemployment.

The most brilliant Tracee Hutchinson had this to say before the election:

"Today is the day for Australia to reclaim its sense of justice, humanity, equality and pride. Today is the day we tell each other and the world that we are a decent, good-hearted, generous people who reach out and reach down and walk tall because of it."

The coalition had been eroding our soul for too long, and thank god enough Australian's realised this and, as Kevin Rudd pointed out in his victory speech, many voted for, or preferenced, Labor for the first time. A strong message for conservatives everywhere.

National Loyalty

How far should you go for the sake of national loyalty?
Will reason and logic ever win through?
Would there ever be true integration and equal-opportunity?

From openDemocracy.

By Paul Hockenos for openDemocracy (19/11/07)

“But how important is Kosovo to the Serbs in reality? There is a dark joke inside Serbia that if a Kosovo under Serbian rule would mean (on equal-opportunity grounds) Albanians being granted one-fifth of places in the national parliament, on hospital boards, in the judiciary, the education system, then the Serbs would turn and run in the other direction. The imbalance in birthrates is a horror-scenario for Serb nationalists. In fact, many Serb citizens (and off-the-record, even politicians) acknowledge that Serbia would benefit enormously from cutting loose Kosovo and concentrating on its own problems. But saying this aloud in Serbia is treasonous.”

A quick walk in Mitrovica north

The view from just above the new church - looking over the centre of town.

Is this where they got the Ghostbusters car from?
The UAM building... I spend altogether too much time in my dungeon like office here...

View from downtown public square (that's round) up to the worker's monument on the hill.
Protest sign in centre of town earlier this year. Its no longer hanging here though...

What people are wearing in WTK

Gervy has urged me to look at what people are wearing...

Dapper white suit and a serious mullet...
Wedding outfits, but this was not her wedding... (apparantly you wear it to the next wedding you go to!)
Traditional cultural dress.... to cook flia for 'tourists' (mostly just locals from the city)

Not that I'm nearing middle age, but for those that are:

A (Secular) Prayer for Those Approaching Middle Age

Oh Almighty Charles Darwin,

We who are staring down Forty, beseech thee to aid our passage into middle age.

Protect us from a Mid Life Crisis. We Gen Xers have always been inclined to question the path we have chosen anyway, and indeed have always been inclined toward red convertibles.

Let us constantly renew our taste in music so that those ten years our junior will not be able to tease us for being old fashioned. Let us always be into at least one artist who's first album came out less than five years ago.

And we beseech thee to not leave us to rely on shitty "yoof" radio stations for these cultural insights.

We beg of you for the time and the stamina to go to loud venues and not feel the need to sit down after an hour of standing, listening to the support band. To phrase it another way: protect our knees from the ravages of time.

May we never become one of those people who prioritizes their superannuation over all else. Retirement is followed too closely by death to consider. May we have careers which enable this business to look after itself. And further let us not degenerate into to time-clock punchers waiting on their widening arses for their retirement.

Protect us from our biological clocks. May our ova be plentiful and our spermatozoa motile, up until the moment we get our shit together and finally combine one with the other.

We also beg of you to provide a steady supply of friends so that when they move overseas or we have falling outs, there is always other members of the circle indeed other circles to provide us with drinking companions.

And let not technology overwhelm us. When the things we are familiar with are inevitably superseded, may we be in a position to swap our vinyl records for CDs, our CDs for downloaded MP3s, our MP3s for whatever comes next. May we move from personal websites to forums to blogs to myspace to facebook and on to twitter with ease. May we not be confronted by some new phenomenon and decide just to give in and leave it to "the kids."

May we struggle successfully through downturns and housing bubbles, and not become a slave to a mortgage. May there never be a day where paying something off means we cannot do brunch. May we be inner urban wankers until the day we die.

And may those of us who mis-place our partners meet new, incredible people and form relationships which are the envy of all. May our children not mock us for reproducing so late, and hence being a bit lacking in the "running around kicking the football" department. To phrase it another way: protect our knees from the ravages of time.

And we bid thee, keep our ears functioning despite far too many loud gigs and thousands of hours with Rob Zombie blasting down our headphones. Yay verily for cupping our ears and saying "what was that, sonny Jim?" at the age of 42 will suck dogs balls.

For all these things we beg thy true grace, oh mighty Darwin.

Thank you. Ramen.

A quick walk in Mitrovica south

The new roundabout in the centre of town is almost finished, and while not designed in the most appropriate way for pedestrian and vehicular traffic, has turned out ok. There is a feature fountain in the centre, interesting given the water shortages the town has, and there are even decorative lights in it at night, even when the rest of town has no electricity!
I liked this shot showing the various means of transportation used here. Its just missing a horse or donkey cart...


An apartment block facade being refurbished, by a company that has a presidential candidate as its head. Elections will be held in Kosovo next week, there are around 100 parties vying for seats in local and Kosovo level assemblies and a rather complicated voting ballot for those who bother to show up and vote.


Speaking of elections, this is the Municipal building in south Mitrovica. A slightly depressing kind of a place, with dark empty corridors hiding seperate offices - open plan has not caught on here.

In case I am feeling homesick I can come and look at this shoe store and its lovely picture of Sydney Harbour... or the clothes shop down the street with a kangaroo on the window. Neither of these businesses have anything to do with Australia per se, guess they just like the name/imagery... most businesses in Kosovo tend to take some kind of well known place name or brand name with no fear of copyright infringement. One of my favourites is a burger place in Peja called 'MegDonalds' with the golden arches and all!

Today

Gervy has insisted I write more often and more about my day to day life... so here is the first hastily constructed post to satisfy her whims.

This morning I woke early to a loud gust of wind rushing past my windows, prompting me to get up to see if it was a serious storm or not, only to find snow falling on snow covered rooftops for just the second time this season here in Mitrovica.

Here is a picture of the first snow of the season last week:
The beauty of snow cover is that apart from improving the look of many of the ugly buildings around, it also covers up the rubbish strewn about the place and Kosovo starts to look like an attractive place... almost.
That's a bit harsh I suppose, there are some redeeming qualities of the landscape here in certain locations, but when you spend so much time in the cities and on the main roads between those cities, it can be hard to remember there is beauty hidden away here. Like this:



There are things to make you laugh though. Last week, as I was waiting for the winter tyres to be put on the work car (the tyres have cute little pictures of snow flakes on them!) , I took this photo:

This is in the middle of the capital city, Pristina. A group of cows walking down the street (the wrong way down a one way street too) and noone bats an eyelid. What I couldn't figure out was where they (there were about 5 of them) came from or where they were going to! As far as I could see there were no nearby fields, and no market areas, nor could I see anyone guiding them. Maybe they were just popping down the shops for some sugar?

Kevin 07

Life

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it - W.M. Lewis

My New Favourite City

Lisboa / Lisbon has streaked ahead of the competition after a wonderful (too-short) 5 days there.

It has seemingly everything you could want in a city! History, modernity, tradition, poetry, music, architecture, stencil art, cool bars, diverse restaurants, a river, great weather, amazing food, close to surf beaches, fantastic public transport (trams AND funiculars - yay!) and pedestrian friendly! Well apart from all the big hills and thousands of stairs, that is.

View of Lisbon from the freestanding elevator tower

The most divine custard tarts ever made - at Pasteis de Belem

An alleyway in Alfama district

The Calatrava designed Orient Train Station.

Some of the Stencil Art in Barrio Alto

15 minutes - more like 2 minutes

I've been mentioned in the main Kosovo newspaper!
Here is the translation....

All together for a better city

UN-HABITAT officers have presented the results of Visioning Workshop of Mitrovica “ Make better Mitrovica Together” that was held in Skopje, in January of this, where were planners and Civil Society representatives from two sides of this city.

Economic crises and low life quality which is faced by the citizens of two sides of the city, was the starting point for discussions and dialog between two communities.

Presentation of these result was done by the UN-HABITAT representative Natalie Mitchel, while in maps where exposed all the ideas and the visions for improvement of living conditions in Mitrovica, which was the main aim of the workshop.

According to UN-Habitat representatives, the results that came out from this workshop will be handover to municipal authorities as a help for drafting MDP and UDP.

Source: Koha Ditore, 12.07.07

State of EXIT

Now that was a festival!
EXIT - 4 days of music in an old Fortress overlooking Novi Sad in northern Serbia, practically in the backyard for those of us working in Kosovo, was an awesome way to spend a summer weekend.
In fact it was 4 nights, with the bands not starting each day till around 7pm and DJs played till 8am, which left days free to sleep in, hang by the riverside, walk around Novi Sad and regroup. We also made the excellent decision to rent a room in an apartment rather than camp out, which meant plenty of quiet, comfortable and cool rest was possible with access to a bathroom and kitchen - and all closer to the fest than the festival camp area.

Now 6 hours in a clunky old bus meant it didn't exactly feel like it was in the backyard, but the travel was worth it. I arrived late on Thursday and managed to catch the end of The Prodigy's set, which sounded amazing and the atmosphere was electric, it seems they still got it. Some fireworks followed to officially launch the festival then Groove Armada hit the stage and had even our died-in-the-wool rocker friend dancing along.

Highlights would have to be a very cool Beastie Boys set with loads of old-school tunes including Egg Raid on Mojo and No Sleep till Brooklyn as well as quite a few of the new instrumental jams, Basement Jaxx impressed me despite not knowing much of their set and had me dancing like a fool and unusual for me, I also enjoyed dancing till dawn to a set by the dj Roger Sanchez.

I was sceptical as to whether CSS would translate to a main festival stage, after seeing them earlier in the year at a small venue in Sydney with a bad sound mix... but they pulled it off, sounded fantastic and were lots of fun. I especially loved the singer stripping off several layers of dodgy jumpsuits and having the attitude to make it seem cool.

Lauryn Hill seemed to pull some kind of diva stunt, going on late and playing past the timeslot, delaying Basement Jaxx for over an hour, which did not impress the fans... but she played some Fugees towards the end when we wandered over which somehow made up to it.

There were loads of stages, but just the one main stage, which made it easy to catch the extended sets of the major acts. None of those paltry 45 minute sets here!

Everyone was friendly (well, almost everyone), the weather was perfect, despite the huge crowds there was never a problem to get where we wanted to go (except to get beer during a main act set) and to top it off it was cheap!

There were messages of peace and ending discrimination, with many organisations granted stalls and space on site, harking back to the original intentions of the first EXIT festival in 2000 to bring youth together and move past the period of war in the former Yugoslavia.

While there is still much tension surrounding Kosovo, it was heartening to know that several hundred kosovars travelled from Pristina to the festival to enjoy it alongside people from all over former Yugoslavia and the world.

Gandhi

"We must become the change we wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

Vidovdan

I have just learnt a little about June 28th, and its significance in this region particularly.
Vidovdan, St Vitus' day is a religious holiday on the Serbian and Bulgarian Orthodox calendar.

More importantly, it is the date that the following events occured:

• on June 28, 1389 the Ottoman Empire fought against Serbia in the Battle of Kosovo.
• on June 28, 1914 the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke triggers the First World War.
• on June 28, 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending the First World War.
• on June 28, 1921 the Serbian King Alexander I of Yugoslavia proclaimed the new Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, known thereafter as the Vidovdan Constitution (Vidovdanski ustav.)
• on June 28, 1948 the Cominform published, on the initiative of its Soviet delegates Shdanov, Malenkov and Suslov, in a "Resolution on the State of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia" their condemnation of the Yugoslavian communist leaders - this happening is seen as the date that marks the final split between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
• on June 28, 1989 — the 600th anniversary of the battle of Kosovo — Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević delivered the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle.
• on June 28, 1990 draft amendments to the Constitution of Croatia, which deleted references to the Serbs as a constituent nation of Croatia, were revealed by Croatian President Franjo Tuđman.
• on June 28, 2001 former Yugoslav leader Milošević was deported to The Hague to stand trial. (He died while imprisoned.)
• on June 28, 2006 Montenegro was announced as the 192nd member state of the United Nations."[wikipedia]
  

Tim Judah wonders if it can really be a coincidence that, "with uncanny regularity, the most momentous events of Serbian history have often taken place?" (guardian.co.uk).

What will happen this year? Will they take the occasion to make a point about the status negotiation process?
At least one group has set off on a march from Belgrade to Kosovo for the occasion wearing t-shirts that say "Vidovdan march 2007" [reuters.com]
though the request to march to Gazimestan (the site of the Battle of Kosovo) was rejected in favour of bussing people there.

The reason I have just now leant of all this day and its significance? I have been told to stay in my apartment for the next three nights between 7pm and 8am "for my safety". Those staff not already living in Mitrovica have been restricted in coming up north.

I am currently feeling something between fear and fascination as to the likelihood of any trouble surrounding this 'holiday'. Fear of unrest and a need to evacuate, fascination with the possibility of being caught up in such unrest (as wrong as that sounds). Something tells me all will be calm, but should there be any trouble I'm sure I'll be hightailing my way out of here quick smart, I'm no war tourist.

Culture Week, Kosovan Stars

It is Culture week in Mitrovica south and last night there was a free concert in the city centre featuring a competent backing band and a rotating list of local female singers, as well as a somewhat disturbing display by the local karate club.

One of the singers was Rona Nishliu, who I have been seeing on local tv a lot recently. A pretty daggy video (you can see on YouTube here - watch for some terrible dance moves and worse outfits) has been playing, I've seen her sing 'live' on a show reminiscent of Countdown, seen her in a kind of game show, and popping up on things that look like variety shows.

So you can imagine that after this much exposure I had it in my head this chick was a bit of a celebrity, so it was fun to see her up close and personal singing her hits and some rather cheesy cover versions of american songs both solo and with the other singers at the concert. It was almost Kosovo's answer to the Young Divas.
Anyway, it turns out this girl is some kind of over achiever, go-getter, and the more Kosovo can get of them, the better!

"Rona Nishliu was born in Mitrovica and attended high school in Pristina, both in Kosovo. In the top 1 percent of the student body at the American University in Kosovo, Nishliu is also a well-known singer in the Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia regions and was one of five finalists among seven thousand participants in an Albanian Pop Idol show. She is the host of a daily radio show for one of Kosovo’s most popular radio stations, Bluesky Radio. She participates in various volunteer activities, including initiating and organizing Kosovo Remembers, a concert to support the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina Fund. She also works with movie and documentary companies and collaborates with international artists visiting Kosovo." rit.edu

Click and feel good...

Some cool Melbourne peeps have put together this click to donate website - reminds me of the old click once a day hunger site for the world food program - which, it seems (as I just looked it up), is still going...

Anyway, go ahead and click away, add a button to your site, spread the word... and help in some small way some worthwhile (mostly Aussie) charities.

In this day and age?

Can this be true?

“The Serbian government is prepared to choose Kosovo over Europe”, says Sabine Freizer, Director of Crisis Group’s Europe Program. “The West needs to prepare to live with an isolationist and nationalistic Serbia in the coming years.” ICG

and everyone is just asking "why?".....

Fur Babies

Conversation on Saturday night:
Her: "So we have to send our two cats to live with a friend in Vienna regularly so that they get enough stamps in their passports"
Me: "Your cats have passports?"
Her: "Yeah, we had to get them Austrian citizenship"
Me: "And you fly them to Vienna regularly?"
Her: "Yeah, we book those special half-seats at the front row on Austrian flights that they use for kids"
Her: "It was so hard to get the cats to sit with a straight face for the passport photo"

They really love their rescued cats here in expat-land.
Apparently, there are such a thing as EU Pet Passports that make it easier for pets to travel with lesser quarantine restrictions.
It also apparently makes it much easier to then have them 'migrate' to places with strict rules, such as Australia. Which is where these guys already have a few cats that live in their beachside apartment with cat-sitters they employ while they work overseas.

Is this taking the "fur baby" thing too far?

Eurovision Controversy!

It has been claimed that the winning song at Eurovision was, at least partly, a copy of an Albanian song.
"A striking similarity exists between "Molitva" sang by Marija Serifovic in Eurovision 2007 and an albanian song "Ndarja" performed by Soni Malaj in Top Fest 3 in 2006, Albania" esctoday.com

It would be controversial enough just to claim they copied the song, but for it to be Albanian raises the stakes so much higher given the tensions in the region.

So much for Eurovision changing the world and bringing peace to the region!

P.S. Seems we weren't the only ones thinking about possible conspiracies regarding the political influence of winning the contest...

"Probably the most outrageous story concerning the singer appeared on May 9, in the Serbian tabloid Press. It claimed that the Western powers fixed the Eurovision contest in order to ensure Serifovic's victory. "Lulled by a triumph in Helsinki, Serbs are expected to calmly swallow the imminent secession of Kosovo," the paper claimed." time.com

Perhaps Eurovision really can change the world?!

The Eurovision Song Contest, that cheesy, bizarre and addictive event where European countries (plus a few hangers on) compete for musical glory (or infamy) was held on Saturday.

Out of all the bubble-gum pop, dramatic rock, folk-punk and cross-dressing madness, the winner was a love/religious ballad from Serbia called 'Molitva' sung by Marija Serifovic.

As the BBC said this morning, International success is something Serbia has not experienced in some time. Serbia will now be the host of the finals next year, a boon to the country and the region. You cannot begin to understand how exciting and important this is around here.

Our first thoughts of course went to the possibility of Kosovo being a semi-independant state by then, and of the huge desire of locals for Kosovo to have an entry in the contest. I wrote a while back that it would be one of the more important measures of independance for Kosovans - who needs membership in international organisations, as long as you've got a song in Eurovision?! Imagining a Kosovan entry into the Serbian-hosted Eurovision event was almost too freaky to contemplate. But could it be the ultimate reconciliation?

This morning there was news of the nationalist, hardline, speaker of Serbia's parliament, Tomislav Nikolic, stepping down from the job after only 5 days and it somehow felt like Eurovision may have played a part in the decision.

"opposition MP Nenad Canak said Mr Nikolic's nationalist and anti-European stand no longer had a place - especially as Serbia had just won the Eurovision song contest. Mr Canak said Serbia's neighbours had all awarded his country maximum points in the contest. But Russia, described by Mr Nikolic as Serbia's only friend, had only awarded his country five points." bbc.com

Block-voting aside, this victory was pretty astonishing and has the potential to influence far and wide. We asked ourselves at one point if there was some kind of underlying conspiracy leading to the high votes for this song?

Can Eurovision change the world? It certainly has the hearts and minds of millions in its grasp... and therefore great potential to influence.