[albanur]

Alexandra Channer, 2010

Book Review

A man of outrageous personal courage

Shkelzen Gashi – Adem Demaçi Biography


Shkelzen Gashi has written a biography which tells the story of a man distinguished by the most outrageous personal courage. The book describes the life of Adem Demaçi, the most well-known of the Albanians of Kosova who was imprisoned for his political beliefs and activities, in Yugoslavia, after the Second World War. Oddly, little has been written about Demaçi, apart from accounts by other witnesses of the time, and as Gashi points out, today Kosova’s school pupils learn almost nothing about the significant role he played in the national movement. This biography is therefore a very timely and important addition to the body of academic literature about Kosova’s recent history.

Demaçi is presented above all, as a political character in this book. His life and actions are set against the backdrop of a colonial relationship between the Serbian state and the majority Albanian population of Kosova. The reader follows him across a wide span of history, as Demaçi starts school during the Italian occupation in the Second World War, and the book ends at the present day. Experience of collective repression, particularly in the 1950s, and the 1990s, provide the context for the formation of Demaçi’s political beliefs. Gashi cleverly weaves in many intriguing scenes from Demaçi’s life to illustrate this, all of which manage to convey to us the man’s very unique character. Gashi describes the young boy listening to his mother explaining how her four uncles were executed in front of her by Serb forces in 1912 in their front yard; his parents in desperation planning to emigrate to Turkey in the inter-war period; his teacher explaining how as a little boy he burst into tears in class, when he suddenly understood that the axes on the Albanian flag meant it was under occupation. Gashi also brings out the importance of education and teachers in Demaçi’s life. It was his teacher Kolë Nikaj from Shkodra who first inspired him; and the ranks of activists in the movement Demaçi founded in November 1963, were like him, the first generation of Albanians educated in their own language in Kosova.

These glimpses of Demaçi’s life also suggest that some of his characteristic and dogged determination derives from his mother, who tells him during detention before his first trial that she is not worried if he hangs, because it is for his country; and who encourages him to carry on his work regardless of her, because as she says, one day she will die, but not Albania. Despite having founded an illegal movement, quite often, Demaçi comes across as a loner, operating with one or two people, outside the institutional and mental framework in which most other people functioned. Demaçi’s determination not ever to be humiliated is expressed as an often breath-taking foolhardiness. During his first trial, Demaçi shocks the court by not only accepting all of the charges against him, but launching into a political speech in which he forcefully attacked the injustices of the Yugoslav regime. Later, as spokesman for the KLA, he was living an exceptional life, walking the streets of Prishtina each day during the bombing, and driving through Serb cordons into KLA zones in the countryside, without thought for his own personal safety. In fact, quite often, Gashi quotes him fearlessly daring a Serb soldier or policeman to shoot him. The Demaçi who Gashi describes, is a man who simply refuses to submit to physical or political oppression, and whose understanding of freedom is something that has to be lived every day in order to be freedom. It is this personal conviction and grasp of his human dignity which, Gashi’s book implies, makes Demaçi so fearless in the face of power.

A word should be said about Gashi’s approach. His goal is to write a straightforward and objective biography, which serves as a source for all those doing further research into this intriguing period of Kosova’s history and he does indeed provide a wealth of very useful information for future scholars. The absence, however, of a strong authorial voice, occasionally leaves the reader lacking explanation for some of the puzzling changes in Demaçi’s political life, as well as creating uncertainty about how to assess whether the presentation of facts is balanced. This is troubling in particular with regard to Gashi’s treatment of the role of communist Albania in Kosova. In contrast, on this issue, he clearly betrays his preferences. Without producing convincing evidence, Gashi unjustly accuses Enver Hoxha and his partisans of being complicit in the Tivar massacre, and of a total abandonment of Kosova. Nor does he explain that Demaçi’s strong criticism of Hoxha was an exception amongst Albanian nationalists in Kosova after the war.

The book brings to light the rather surprising switches in method that Demaçi made. Thus we come across him in different periods organizing an illegal movement, working for a newspaper, leading a human rights organization, engaging in a political party, and acting as the political spokesman for the Kosova Liberation Army. Demaçi makes some puzzling leaps between methods of resistance, covering the entire spectrum from pacifism to guerrilla warfare. Finally, his political goals also change, shifting from national unification, to the rather unexpected ‘Balkania’, a confederation of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosova and finally, the independence of Kosova. Whilst Gashi presents these transitions in Demaçi’s life, he does not offer his view of why Demaçi made these decisions.

At the end of the book, one is left musing whether Demaçi was a lost opportunity for Kosova. In Chapter Six, he is released, after twenty-eight years in prison, and is visited by thousands of people, but is hesitant to seek any position of command, and initially supports the work of LDK. Later, as Gashi tells us, Demaçi and Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Democratic League of Kosova, develop a strikingly adversarial relationship, although the reasons for this remain unclear in the book. Demaçi remains a powerful voice, but the central ground is taken over by other characters, and in explaining his reluctance to lead, Demaçi argues that it is the idea which is vital, not the man. This is, in a sense, the message of Demaçi’s life and this book is thus not only a powerful story of his life, but also the story of a powerful idea. It is through Demaçi’s actions and long imprisonment for this idea, that he keeps it alive.



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