Astrit Istrefi, political and security analyst, Kosovo on the panel “History and future of uncompromising commitment to democracy, human rights, and media freedoms”, at the Conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024 Skopje.
When we talk about the actions and strategies, there should be a matter of prioritization, and the prioritization may mean, well, what is it that should be addressed and should be addressed now, immediately, because that is having the highest impact in Europe and wider world.
And second would be what could be mid to long term, medium to long term. The one that we should recognize, and I think we should recognize also the inaction, is that Ukraine, people in Ukraine, every second is life or death. And it’s three years since 2022, but it’s 10 years since 2014. And I think our freedoms, our freedom, our democracy, our security is threatened by Russia.
And we cannot say we stand by Ukraine. I think we should say Ukraine should win the war. Not we will stop the war, but Ukraine should win the war, and we will help them. And Russia should be defeated. I think that is really critical. We were talking here about empathy.
We were talking here about kindness. I think it depends, whom do you show that empathy or kindness? To whom? To Russia? How? Nobody can say that we will beg Russia to stop the war and they will just leave. They will never do it. They have to be defeated. They have to. Wars in former Yugoslavia did not stop because somebody was begging, because we should have shown force.
Not we, we could not, as Albanians in former Yugoslavia, nor Bosnians could do that, but someone did. And that was United States, that was NATO countries that put an end to the war. And I think that should be act now, for the sake of all of us, but mostly for the sake of people in Ukraine that every second for them is life or death.
I think where we stand now, it’s just repeating the same things that we have been saying for such a long time. I may say I’m the youngest one here in the panel, but I have 50 years, half a century of life experience in the Western Balkans and work experience on peace building. And I failed on the second. Life is still going on.
But let me tell you one thing. We are talking about disinformation and we are talking about far-right nationalism. I don’t think it mattered 30 years ago whether it’s far-right, is it extreme, is it whatever, what it mattered, that we had a problem and that problem led to a bloody war, led to ethnic cleansing and led to genocide. And what we are living today is everything less of that. And it should be a recognition that Western Balkans cannot be “Business as usual”.
I think when we talk about European integration, there should be bold steps made to ensure that EU accession is successful and NATO accession for the countries that want to join.
There is, by the way, one country that doesn’t want to join, one or the other. But I think for the other countries there should be more bold steps and decisions made. And I think this may be a weakness that authoritarian leaders recognize. They do recognize. You need European Union to talk for 10 years about whether it’s good to act on this or that. You don’t need Putin. And I’m not saying Europe should become Putin, but I’m just saying that if we recognize the threat, if we are able to anticipate what’s coming up, then we should act quicker than that and more boldly than that.
And I think what we are losing in the Western Balkans, we are losing young people. And with that we are losing a new generation of young people, of young leaders who may as well strengthen the democracy in our countries, and also build a different vision for the Western Balkans. We don’t have them. The longer it takes, the less democracy we will have and more authoritarianism we will have. It is proven in the last five years there is less democracy and more authoritarian tendencies in the Western Balkans.
And the last one, many mentioned here the political opposition. And I would agree that political opposition has an important role to play to defend democracy, to defend human rights.
But there is one thing, and this is specific to our context and to this geographical space, and this is connected to our recent history. Political opposition would want to gain power, but when it comes to disputes, to tensions, to conflicts with other nations, they do not have a completely different view on how the issues may be resolved. Political opposition in Greece would not have the same with the one in North Macedonia. We had some leaders, and I think we did not, we lost that momentum. We did not capitalize on that, but not the political opposition. I think we are making a big mistake.
That is not the same in Serbia. That is not the same in Bosnia. I think we should recognize that it’s good for the democracy of those countries. The more democracy there is, hopefully the less conflict there is, but that they do not hold a completely different view to what those nationalists have in mind.
And when it comes to Western Balkans, I think if we are talking about war, if we are talking about violent conflict, I will say it is possible. I have lived enough in this country to say that it is possible. If we are seeing terrorist acts happening and people being killed by armed groups, it is possible. The only thing that nobody can say for sure is the scale, but that violence can happen, war can happen once again in Western Balkans.
I think there are two, recommendations, at least I don’t know whether these resonate with anyone else, but resonate with me, is that we should not stop building alliances across the border, borders across the ethnic groups, across the Atlantic, to fight for democracy, to fight for human rights, to fight for freedom.
And second is, I think we have to be smarter into building our own narratives in what democracy is and what we fundamentally, with all our human beings, believe is.
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski/ CIVIL
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.994398716055531&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995019619326774&type=3
#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995771969251539&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.996548069173929&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.993726732789396&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
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#DefendingDemocracy PRESS CONFERENCE
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