Tales from a little corner on south-east Europe, where everybody’s dream is to become rich! - Part 4

I took a day off yesterday, as I saw myself unmotivated. But today has come with a decent level of motivation. In my first article I said that inferiority is one of my countries biggest enemies. Some people might argue that we have other problems to deal with, which may be right, however in my opinion this flaw has been hunting us for a long time. Inferiority in what aspect you might ask. Well pretty much in every aspect. There is a vigor thought in our minds that whatever foreigners do, it has to be better than ours; and to an average student it is pretty devastating. It's not that it might affect my future somehow, but studying and doing your best to contribute to the community, but still seeing your hard work being flushed down the toilet just because you are not German or American made still kills you in a way. It's like being an immigrant in your own country.

I am continuously how did we come to this moment? And I had to go back in history, because the answer is not in our time. My generation is a product how our ancestors acted. I read history books that say Kosovar people were proud people, who fought for themselves, were bright, protected their own and had and had love for their country. In fact, in every Albanian history book, Kosovars are described as the first ones to hit their swords and guns to protect the Albanian land from any threat. How did we change so drastically to not have faith in each other?I

I think we did it unconsciously. My people have been through a lot these last hundred years. Several wars, foreign enforcement , low education and poverty has brought us to this point. And all this repression, revived in our minds the instinct of survival. We were ready for compromises , just so we could live to see another day. And than what happened? Well, people flew the country. In the during late 70's 80' and 90s', a lot of people were out of their homes, seeking for a better life in Europe or elsewhere, but also to help their families back in Kosovo. And during these times, these people would travel back and forth in their holidays to tell their families back home of how good they have it in Europe, how life is not such a challenge there, and how money grows in trees. It doesn't, but that's how it looked like. And it was not that the things were changing here.

We were still to face another war against the Serbian repression, which than made even more people fly out, since it was dangerous to live here. I and my people will always be grateful and thankful to what Europe and USA did for us. They did save our as**s. NATO's intervention is what made us see hope in this world, that there was someone who really saw the injustices that were being done to us. And they even helped us to gain our independence in 2008. But they couldn't watch after that, not after helping us in times of peace, and they shouldn't. I believe that a country that is independent should work hard for itself, educate it's people, bring the best out of them.

Fast forward 10 years to 2018, with millions of dollars and euros flowing, into our country as aid, what did we do? We are one of the must corrupt countries in the world, unemployment is somewhere at 30%, the people who are currently employed in the private sector, get mistreated, only a minority of them have insurance, 60 hours work week, our students score almost the lowest in the PISA test, you are not eligible for a job in a government institution if you don't have a relative or someone who you know really well, already working there. If in need some ministers family tree, sometimes all you have to do is ask for the list of employees in that ministry. The NEWBORN as we called it, looked like it was an ungrateful baby!

Now remember some rows above when I told you how Kosovars who would live in Europe or elsewhere would come back and tell all those beautiful stories about those people there, and how life was good? It all adds up, those stories, the corruption and theft in Kosovo, the lack of prosperity. We have come to a time in which we cannot believe each other. This is why we feel inferior to foreigners, because we have shown the worst of us to each other. We are prone to believe more to believe to an Austrian guy that we never met, than our neighbor next door, and I am not exaggerating. And the root of the problem is here, not somewhere out of Kosovo. The only thing we need to resolve these problems is education, because by education we understand the meaning of "collective good", and when a people of a country work collectively among each other, there is no place for theft, corruption or inferiority. That is prosperity and progress. That's when can say "BAC, U KRY"