Jëlldëze with her father, mother and sister-in-law, 1982.

Lecture for women in Krushë, 1999.

Lecture in Kabash, Has, 1999.

Meeting of the Albanian League. Tirana, 2007.

Pristina Hospital, 1998.

Mushnikovë, 2001.

Jëlldëze wIth her grandchildren, 2008.

Jëlldëze Gorani

Prizren | Date: August 31, 2013 | Duration: 130 min.

I remember once as a child I told my father, ‘I would like to attend schools, as many schools as there are.’ I didn’t know then that high school or college existed, so I think that wish has come true, with whatever means there were for education, I made it. This path that I have chosen [gynecology], this too made me satisfied in life because I could help, but it was a sensitive work, because a woman who comes here [the clinic] leaves her family, most of the time a mother leaves her children. She becomes healthy, so you have a big responsibility to send her back healthy to her family. But sometimes situations are tragic, the tragedy is big in this field, and very sad. Conditions were very difficult at the beginning of this work, [we had] very little means, and weak equipment. I was forced to improvise a situation, a woman’s position in order to intervene…We worked with technicians and with nurses without anesthesiologists and assistants. Having success was a big satisfaction, when success happened (smiles).

Dua Dauti (Interviewer), Donjeta Berisha (Interviewer/camera)

Jëlldëze Gorani was born in Prizren on March 7, 1944. She studied medicine in Zagreb. She is a gynecologist, a fundraiser for hospitals, and an advocate for women’s health education.  In 1991, the Milošević regime fired her from her job. She opened a private practice and also worked for Nëna Terezë hospital in Arbana and Nëna Terezë maternity clinic in Pristina. Until 2002, she headed the Department for Health-care, Social Work and Gender Issues in the Municipality of Prizren. She currently practices medicine in Prizren.

Jëlldëze Gorani

Childhood

Jëlldëze Gorani: I hardly spent my childhood in Prizren. Of course, in the beginning I remember my parents, grandparents, I remember also my mother’s grandmother, vëllazërit.[1] My parents…my mother was a housewife, my father lived from agricultural revenue, from a farm they had near the village of Theranda[2] in Sneglenace, where I attended elementary school and finished the four years, actually not in Glenace but in the nearby village of Caparc. I remember my parents as calm, understanding, accepting of what they had, of course, with the understanding that we, their children, with the hope that we would live a better life than they. Thus, they really pushed for us  to continue our education, not only I, but my four brothers as well. They also achieved enough, but it was interesting to me that they didn’t stop me because I am a woman.

Prizren at that time was like an old city, because it still has its ancient characteristics, because there were not the interventions that ruined the beautiful look that it had during the period of my childhood. I remember, if I describe the yard, my house, I remember the gurgling of the brook that flowed through every yard, the flowers, fruit trees in blossom, and that care, that great interest that my parents had for the house and the yard so it would look more beautiful.

Since I was the eldest child, I remember my mother as very young, with those clothes of hers, in the afternoons, when she finished her work, she would place a flower on her head, usually a carnation or a rose that smelled good. I smelled it whenever she hugged me.  But this time was very short and the regime of the time threw us out, how should I say it, it sent us by force to the village of Glenace, and we had to spend our life there, and work as farmers. And as the oldest, I had to continue elementary school, which I completed in Cafarc. There, I remember the children in the village. I remember the women, women who left an impression on me, and in a way they impressed some ideas that played an important role in my life later on. I remember my father, when he came back from meetings, he would share news with us: that someone’s child died, that a woman died during childbirth, and a woman was sent to the hospital and died there. So these were…news that I accepted in silence, without discussing it with my parents, for what reasons did they die? Why do children die? I asked myself these questions.

Life in the village was very difficult, but also in Prizren at the time the economic situation was very difficult: clothing was lacking, food was insufficient, and thus the mortality rate of children was very high. Women in their thirties looked like they were fifty years old.  I saw this also in school, where the teacher for example was forced to break one pencil into four parts, making it just long enough so that we could hold it in our hands. Sometimes he even found notebooks. I remember the teachers, Sinan Futko, then Hamdi and Zytri Bardhi, and they were all excellent teachers, all but… I remember Marie Don Gjonaj. We saw them as our second parents, they travelled from village to village, so from Glenace to the village. We had to bring our food with us. We had difficulties on the road because there were two big creeks that we crossed, how should I say it, like small rivers, but we had to cross them and there was no bridge, the villagers had left a barge, as they called it, and we held each other’s hand in order to cross the water. It was especially difficult in the wintertime. When it was frozen, we were afraid of falling, but no one ever fell, so we crossed like that.

The clothes were very poor, I remember when my mother wrapped me in her light woolen wrap that she called atki, it was made of soft and nice material. I remember…as if I was on my mother’s lap. I didn’t feel the cold with her, although, when we were in school, the difficulties were very big there too, one stove was turned on, and all of us would gather around it, the ice that formed on the feet from the road melted, and our feet got wet, and the teachers took good care to ease our commute. We were taught in one classroom, there were two grades. For example, when I attended first grade, the first graders were in two rows, while in the other two rows, the third grade students were in the two rows, then, the second grade with the fourth grade, that is how we mixed. First, the teacher worked with the first grade, then with the third grade. Later, when I was in second grade, he started working with the second grade and then with the fourth grade. I don’t know, somehow he combined [the classes], but somehow the process worked. I remember that sometime, near the half of the first grade, I arrived at the letter K. It is somewhere the 15th letter, I don’t know which one it should be, and now I can’t remember is it the 14th or the 15th, and the teacher ordered me to gather all the girls and teach them at home, because I was at that letter and they were a little far behind. I remember my mother saying, “It’s a problem, what to feed them with?” because the kids got hungry and asked for something to eat.

I remember these things from that time in school, those four years passed, then I returned to my grandmother’s in Prizren, I continued school at the Bajram Curri elementary school. There I had the good support and understanding of the professors, because they were teachers from the fourth grade up. But there was one big problem, because I didn’t know the Serbian language. I finished eight grade without learning a single word.

At the time, when I went to the village with my parents, I was not yet old enough to go to school, do you understand? {turns towards those present} We were forced, the regime of that time forced my parents to move from the city to the village, where we had our land, so we could work it and live from those earnings. We didn’t have the right to have shared croppers to work the land, and bring us the earnings. We didn’t have the right to receive those earnings.  We only had to work the land ourselves and live from the earnings. However, I had an opportunity at that time to work, in a very difficult time of our life, and of our people.

Dua Dauti: How did you experience that move from Prizren, and how did your parents experience it?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Of course, I was very happy in Prizren, I was with relatives, with my peers, with family.  Play was interrupted, life changed, life in the village was very difficult, very little income there, not only our life, but also [the life] of every villager there was very difficult. There were neighbors whom I saw, people, who slept with livestock. It was something impossible, but that was the reality.

Dua Dauti: Maybe this didn’t happen when you were in Prizren.

Jëlldëze Gorani: Of course, of course. Life was completely different there, our life was completely different, but also life in the village was completely different. There was no reason, for example, to take a sick child and go to the doctor. They accepted what God gave, and what he took. If God wants it, he lives.

Dua Dauti: Was there a doctor in the village at that time or…?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Not a single doctor, doctors were rare here too. Here doctors too were rare. At that time, I think it was Dr. Dauti, Dr. Durmish Celina, these two, maybe also some others whom I don’t know were of other nationalities. However, I’ve heard about them. My mother was related to Dr. Durmish Celina’s family, and she received advice from him through my maternal aunt, because my aunt married into the family. Often she gave those advices to other women in Prizren, for example about hygiene, how to use soap, or in the case of a child’s temperature, how to place wet clothes. Those things were more elementary, and I noticed that the women of the village came to ask her, “What to do?  The child is burning.”  This was their question.

Dua Dauti: Later on, you return to Prizren, after you finish fourth grade. You continue the fifth grade in Prizren, and at this time you lived with your grandmother. If you can, explain a bit the relationship you had with your grandmother to us, her attitude toward school, toward you.

Jëlldëze Gorani: Grandmother was a woman who unfortunately didn’t know how to read, how to write. She would be a good novelist. Her stories were so beautiful, with the description of the event, starting with the description of  the weather at that time, for example when an event happened, then the description of the place where the event happened, the different colors, for example what were they wearing …She knew how to tell the story so beautifully, listening to her was pleasant. She was very capable, for example, [she knew how] to make handicrafts, she knew how to spin wool and knit socks, knit sweaters, we learned many things from her. She was a very capable woman in cooking dishes as well.

Dua Dauti: Since you know the difficulties of that time, what were the social and material conditions? For example how hard did she have it…

Jëlldëze Gorani: I didn’t feel that difficulty because she treated me like her own child. She was a very wise woman, with great understanding, and studying was a priority. She never asked me to work, unless I had the time, the opportunity to help her. Otherwise, my first and only obligation was studying. It is good to point out, when it comes to reading books, having my uncles there, I noticed that they had much contact with the city library of the time. I had the opportunity to read books, but unfortunately I didn’t know the Serbian language. Unfortunately, I had that one teacher, [because of him] I couldn’t catch up with that language until the end of elementary school. Then, in high school there was a woman professor of Serbian language. She guided me to continue reading Serbian literature from the library, and I learned the language from books. Well, that was important, because most of the subjects were in Serbo-Croatian. It was difficult for us. Sometimes you had to memorize an item to be able to explain it. But, until we learned it, I didn’t learn the language well enough to know the subject I was preparing.

Dua Dauti: What about subjects in high school, were the majority of subjects in Albanian or Serbian language?

Jëlldëze Gorani: No, the majority was in Serbian language. Later, gradually, after new staff came, we also had lessons in the Albanian language, with the arrival of [new] staff.

Dua Dauti: Was Serbian language required before one could start high school, or…

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes that was important, I started to learn Serbian language in elementary school, the first four years.

[1] In Albanian vëllazëri, vllazni in the northern Gheg language, brotherhood, a community sharing a patronymic, a settlement and strong family bonds.

[2] Also known as Suhareka.

Youth

Jëlldëze Gorani: They [the parents] returned, yes, they had already returned [to Prizren]. They had returned since the first year of high school. They saw that as a pretext for the education of my four brothers, they also wanted to be educated. They finished elementary school there, so they had to continue further education, so we [all] returned. They sold that part of the land that the government had left them, and returned to the property they had here in Prizren. And all the children continued education. My oldest brother Halim, he graduated in agro-economics in Zagreb. This Isa Qerqizi, he also finished technology in Maribor, Slovenia, and Besnik, who passed away, he graduated in geology in Zagreb, but just before graduation, because of a very serious illness, we lost him (cries). And, the youngest one Ilir, he is a graduated economist, he finished university here in Pristina.

There were those who came for my mother’s sake, quote and quote, telling her, “Don’t let your daughter go. Where your knee is, that’s where you have to keep your daughter.”[1] And she explained, “Well, what can you do, she doesn’t listen to me. I don’t understand…youth, now she has decided, what can I do to her now.” But my father played a great role comforting my mother, “Don’t worry, she can go and she can do whatever she thinks.” Meaning, she was responsible for her life, and so really that’s how it was, it was their trust that played a huge role. But others influenced me too. There were many obstacles to getting an education, there were many. Not within my family, but later on, during my studies, during my specialization, there were people who tried to create obstacles, but I never wanted to confront them, or judge them, why they acted that way. I accepted that, how to put it, in silence and with patience. Maybe people were surprised that I didn’t respond, but that silence and that patience for me was a question mark. I also asked why they wanted to create obstacles, for what reasons. However, it looked like because of that silence, for example, that patience, they felt embarrassed for that which…

This atmosphere in my family, especially my parents, my brothers were little, was a relief. Another relief was that my paternal aunt Hasije Turtulla was in Zagreb, she lived there then. Thus travelling there, I knew someone close would wait for me. With all my difficult circumstances, I had no idea that I could finish that university. In the last class, our supervisor asked, “What do you want to study?” I told her… she raised her shoulders, “It is impossible,” she said, “It’s an expensive school.” And really it was. One book for example at the time cost 60 dinars, and my scholarship was 40 dinars. What about paying for the apartment, where to eat, if it wasn’t for my aunt? She provided education tools, books, notebooks, food and clothing and all (cries). But it was also in other moments that I felt the family warmth, when I returned home from classes, I was with my aunt, and this was that other moment.

So, all this made studying easy, but the situation changed somehow when my elder brother came to study in Zagreb. I had a great desire that they also continue [studying], and the biggest success was that they were registered, but the continuation of his studies was a problem. He didn’t have a scholarship, and there was no space for him to live with us, at my aunt’s. So somehow we helped him to lodge privately, and I wrote an appeal to the Education System of Zagreb, to enable a loan for my brother and me to get educated. The maximum credit was approved. I didn’t expect that they would offer me that much money. I remember it was 350 dinars, and my 40 dinars up to my third year, when my brother came it increased to 60 dinars. It was sufficient income for both of us. Then I paid this back when I got a job, I paid back the loan, but it was a lifesaver.

During the school period, during my education, I had a friend, not only one, but there were a few of us. One was from Macedonia, two were Hungarian, three were Croatian, and we were all together. Luckily, none of us ever failed a year, we passed every year, one by one. At the time, when I was waiting for the loan, the biggest problem was for my brother not to go back, so one of my friends named Stanka Fosi helped me. She took me to an office of the Catholic Church that helped students regardless of who they were. I remember that the help I received there was welcome until the loan was approved. Even that help I received, it bothered me for years, regardless that they told me I didn’t have to pay it back, it was free, but for years I thought that God will give me, so I could pay it back somehow.

Indeed, after 40 years I met this friend who had helped me then, because I went for…She lives in Varazhdin, so I went to her. I went as a guest, it was a reunion after 40 years. It is very interesting, we spent five years together and on this occasion I stayed for only five days. During the meeting with my colleague Stanka, I opened up this conversation about my determination and my desire to pay back that money and so it happened. We went to those offices where she had sent me and there I deposited the money the way I wanted and it ended in some way. Then I felt at peace, I am sure it will help another student, maybe a bit late, but it will have its own purpose.

Naturally, life influences a person and one’s decision about what to do. As an excellent high school student, I loved chemistry, and I thought that I would study that. However, influences, the rreth[2] had an impact, my childhood perceptions while I was in the village, my father’s stories: a child died, a woman died because she couldn’t give birth…and I had another experience there. We had a neighbor giving birth for the third time, she couldn’t handle it due to bleeding, and died. Maybe a small intervention would have been sufficient for this woman to survive.

Dua Dauti: This incident happened when you were in elementary school?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, in the elementary school in the village. She was very close to my mother. Her death had a deep impact on me. Her daughter was my friend, this was a very important moment in my orientation, and then, the contact with women. They were suffering to have one, even here in Prizren, to have a woman doctor. We are freer, I believe we understand better a woman’s perception. Having this in mind, I finished college, and my male and female colleagues, they all had legal medicine as their last exam, I had obstetrics. So I finished college with that in mind. Then here in Prizren, luckily, I got in the specialization. I had great support from colleagues, but I had problems in my department. It wasn’t doctors…I am not saying doctors, now I feel bad that I have to separate our doctors and those of other nationalities, there was a blockage, a lack of collaboration, and I needed knowledge, to learn the craft, to master it.

Dua Dauti: Was this during your specialization?

Jëlldëze Gorani: During specialization, yes, if you didn’t have a job offer, then you didn’t have a way to practice that job. Reading is not enough. It is not enough just to understand theory, you need to put theory into practice. Not them. I am sorry I have to reveal the truth, for five years, for how long I stayed there, I only performed one major surgery, a more serious one that was required in the clinic to continue further, to continue somewhere outside Prizren, because they didn’t give me work. I was an assistant, I mean, I had the opportunity to imitate with my eyes, how to say it, learning through seeing. But when I went to the Skopje’s clinic, even there I had problems. First, I had to prepare some documents here in order to be accepted in Skopje. An employee who worked at the Medical Center, she stopped the process under the pretense that I didn’t have the approval of the board for specialization. However, she was discovered, so because of that, my practice lasted five years. But with my going to Skopje, there was a resistance there also. They wouldn’t give you a locker to leave your clothes. Or they wouldn’t give you work so you could work, for example they offered me the work of a nurse or a midwife. Accidentally, they learned that I graduated in Zagreb, that I had some kind of prestige, how to say it, some kind of status in that school, and they changed their attitude immediately. I was also very busy in Skopje and that is where I learned my craft the way I wanted, I had an opportunity to work even in the operation rooms, also to lecture, practice, exercise and all of it.

Dita Dauti: When you came back after your studies, meaning you did your specialization here in Prizren, were you the first woman obstetrician?

Jëlldëze Gorani: No, there was one before me, the first doctor was Dr. Jemine Trambari, but as a gynecologist I was the first, yes.

Dita Dauti: Then, who stopped you? Who were other doctors, were they….

Jëlldëze Gorani: There were other doctors, there were other doctors. For example they said, “You got specialization in obstetrics?” “Yes I did.” “Ok, so you will work in Zhur.”[3] They never encouraged you. Do you understand, at least giving you some kind of encouragement? Our doctors helped, yes our doctors did. There was Dr. Ramizi, he was the head of department, but he could only have so much courage.

Dua Dauti: Was the staff mainly of Serbian nationality…

Jëlldëze Gorani: They were Macedonian, from Macedonia. They didn’t give us work at all.

[1] Colloquial, “Keep your daughter at arm’s length.”

[2] This is the social circle, includes not only the family but also the people with whom an individual is in contact. The opinion of the rreth is crucial in defining one’s reputation.

[3] Zhur is a small village in the region of Prizren, close to the border with Albania.

Activism

I don’t remember when I started this activity. It was based on demand, more or less. But with the appearance of non-governmental organizations, it was a good way of mobilizing women to raise awareness about their health. I responded to their call and participated in their meetings. We held meetings in the schools, we held them in rooms, mosques, everywhere. It was interesting because there was a lot of interest, and the familiarity with the women was very good. The questions that were posed were freely [expressed] questions. There were not only married women, but there were also girls, who also posed different questions. I remember a case when I was in Romaja and in Gjonaj. A Canadian journalist came to pick me up and we went there and when we arrived, no one was there. She was surprised, “We came, why is there no one here?” In a little while the whole classroom got filled, we were in a school. Then we had the possibility to hold gatherings in a clinic. And honestly it went well, it was interesting because she was surprised, “So much interest by women who are interested in their health.” They asked a few questions, and she was impressed, then she also asked a few questions in relations to women’s health here in Kosovo.

I believe that I had something to offer, more so to motivate them about their health, to seek solutions, yes, medical solutions, not superstitious solutions, solutions with results. This did not only happen through the meetings, non-governmental organizations involved the media, I was also in the media as a journalist, the same as you are here today, I also appeared on local television, I participated in the questions from viewers, listeners, these meetings flowed. In fact, one never lacks advice even in a gynecological check-up, I wished to allocate a few moments, or as much as the patient need, for advice. It is very important for you, but it has also an impact on others. Someone comes and says, “My mother sent me to get a check up.” Or, “My mother in-law sent me for a check up.” For me, this is enough, that she, I mean someone, has a positive influence so they would come. However, the possibilities for our women to go to the gynecologist are a bit difficult. She should have the right to walk from the street straight into the clinic, without any guidance, how to put it, none whatsoever, they could ask for help directly. But coming from rural places is a bit difficult. Someone has to bring the women, someone must accompany them, and that costs women economically a little. Also, the possibility to get away from home was a problem. There are a few problems with women coming for check-ups, but definitely it is better than before.

Earlier, women came in the final hour [of pregnancy]. In the department there were women whom we placed in the halls at the last minute, breathing heavily, exhausted. But later they always sought help, and then we had the possibility to help. Therefore, mortality was higher at the time when they came in their last moments, than later.  Now I cannot say what are the conditions in the department, however, the difficulties have been reduced. Now, even births are more limited. In the past, in the women’s history of births, you could find ten-twelve [births], while now only two or three. I mean, they limit [the number of] births, and it is very important. They are looking for solutions and family planning that is very welcoming for her health, for the health of the child, and the whole family, but also society. In the past, even the conditions were difficult, but now, even women’s nutrition is different. In the past, it was likely that almost half of the women were anemic, with kidney problems, infections, now it is a bit different.

Dua Dauti: Mainly, from organizing meetings with women, what was the main point that was covered by your lectures? Or what were the main points they were interested in, and posed more questions on?

Jëlldëze Gorani: The topics were different, the themes were of that nature that only they could have discovered in their bodies. I mean, they mentioned the different things that they were able to diagnose themselves, in their own bodies, for example, cancers, breast cancer, cervix cancer problems, which show signs that everyone can detect. Their interest in coming and having tests, especially recently, so they could discover these difficult illnesses at earlier stages. These were their questions. Naturally they were interested also in pregnancy, even more so their interest was in contraceptives, there was a great interest in them and still is. A woman comes for a different illness, but she is also interested in contraceptives.

For example, in my job I was very happy if one of my visits ended successfully, and my patients were satisfied that I could tell them that they didn’t have to come back for a follow-up. Sometimes I think this is my reward, how to say it, sometimes I don’t even think when a patient asks me and I tell her if she could afford it, it has never happened that a patient has said, “I can’t afford to pay this much” and I didn’t check her. I would never find peace if I did no to the checkup, just because she couldn’t afford it, no. Only then am I satisfied, if I finish my additional checkups, or a follow-up and sometimes I call them myself, because sometimes one visit is not enough, you can’t be satisfied about the illness flow and its end. You need a few visits and because of those few visits, our patients are not able to pay. So what interests me about a patient, I call her until I am satisfied that the visit is finished, the illness takes its course, I mean, her healthcare has been achieved.

Perhaps I would have been prepared a little for us to have some freedom, since we had none. However, what we have achieved, I think it’s satisfactory. I notice that youths can be organized culturally,  or via sport activities. They can easily study within the country or abroad. There have been some constructions and various advancements; destructions have been overcome. There is some progress, but there are some things that worry me, especially some injustices in children’s employment … in youth and women employment. The state has to act there so we’re not only a number, and youth’s and women’s abilities are not neglected, but they’ll be appreciated and supported.

Professional Life

Jëlldëze Gorani: Work was often done through improvisation. Lack of gloves, lack of tables, crowded mess among patients, high demands, little possibilities, small number of beds, so all this in general presented difficulties. But during my specialization I didn’t have any difficulty, maybe because I loved this craft, maybe it is because of that. The biggest difficulty was later, when I finished, then after the death of doctor Ramiz, the other doctor who was Macedonian died also and I was left alone. Occasionally there was another Macedonian there, but he left the department, he said that he wasn’t able to handle it, so he was going to leave, so I was left alone. That was very difficult to handle, because you couldn’t know everything, I mean, when you compare surgery with other medical fields, it could be like fire, for obstetrics is like flames. To arrive at that point, it is an emergency. You had to be fast there, to be exact and dedicated.

So there, while I was alone, understanding that the job done alone was difficult was a problem. It was impossible to handle it physically. You had to… calls lined up one after another, they were emergencies, surgeries, births, and they too were urgent. But the routine things as well had to be necessarily done, for example patients’ visits, interventions that are handled every day, abortions and examinations.

Then there was an intervention, a doctor from Gjilan was brought in, and he was Ramadan Maliqi.  So he took the responsibility for half of the month, and I had the other half of the month, it was easier to handle, until our doctors who were in the specialization came from Prizren. Then work became easier. However, the difficulty of the work in our department increased due to the political situation, we lacked many things: blankets, sheets, medication, thread, gloves, everything was on the verge of poverty. You had to deal with it and with the financial shortages that we had in our department. I remember some women who had the courage at the time to act. We were in that…  they were Edita Tahiri, her sister Shyhrete, and some others, I can’t remember now, maybe I am doing an injustice. We gathered and went to organizations, we collected money and deposited that money in the bank to be able to buy necessary things for the hospital with that money.

Dua Dauti: What year was that?

Jëlldëze Gorani: This was when I was alone, but the specialists had started coming before the 1990s.

Dua Dauti: So you voluntarily went to collect money?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, we went and we collected money. We went to different organizations, factories, even to the private firms, there were retired people, people had willpower to help.

Money was collected, deposited in the bank and from that money we bought a lot of things, for example, beds and other necessary needed things like sheets, blankets, medication, we bought it all for the department. At the end we had some left over money so we bought an incubator, a mobile incubator for the premature children who had to be transported to some other center, where they could be treated better, because our conditions did not offer a chance for their survival.  But the transportation was very difficult because they had to have an optimal temperature, and that very special care would have been possible only thanks to this apparatus.  In the meantime, they fired me from my job and this incubator was left behind. It was ordered from Belgrade and remained there, then they notified me that it was ready, and so we got the equipment. So, we thought not to give it to the department, since they removed the majority of us doctors, and thought that we would return the equipment.

One day the police of the time surrounded my ambulatory, I don’t know how many of there were, but there were policemen in the yard, inside the ambulatory, on the street, inside the house and one soldier was with them. They threatened us and wanted us to give the equipment to them, we were upset, not that we needed that equipment, but why would they remove us, when almost none of our doctors were working there. There was…but not all. So they took the equipment. I had the equipment at my brother’s because it was pretty big, he lived alone and had space where he could keep it safe. They went and took the incubator but they also took my brother, so they could question him, naturally to interrogate him, there was a difficulty there, I had to plea with them to free my brother because he was not guilty of anything. Then he was freed, and they didn’t have any reasons to keep me there, they took the equipment. What I mean, that was a kind of oppression from the regime of that time to make things more difficult. I must say this, we were forced to ask for signature, I mean in the organization, that was the hospital requirement, but in these circumstances to improve work was not possible. Then another difficulty came when they fired me from my job.

Dua Dauti: So you mean they fired you from your work once, then came…Can you explain how did this happen, how did they tell you, was it a process of firing you from work, or firing others? Most likely, it wasn’t just you…

Jëlldëze Gorani: The whole atmosphere was something like that, like they were going to get me, to undertake something to remove us.[1]  But we believed that they didn’t have the reason to remove us, for what reasons? I remember that day. It was August when I had returned from vacation, after half an hour of work, I had a small intervention on a mother, and another intervention, when they gave me the notification of having to leave my job. They removed me then by force from my supervisory job, they brought another Serbian doctor, and she told me that I had to leave, or the police would come. And indeed, I was called by the directorate downstairs, two policemen had come, and they addressed me for making trouble at the hospital so I had to leave.

Dua Dauti: What was the content of the decision, what did they offer you?

Jëlldëze Gorani: I don’t remember now what it was, but I did ask the director, I said, “I want to know the reason! For what reason? Did I do anything to a patient, or any other injustice, did I make any mistake by law?” There was a lawyer there. “No,” he said, “there is no mistake.” Then he said, “Ti si bila bezprekorna, moraš da ideš  [You made no mistakes. But now you have to go]. You have to go.” Then, the policemen turned to him and said, “Why did you call us then when she does not need to be fired? Why did you call us?” He said, “She has to be removed.” Then I turned to the policemen, “Just two minutes until I get some…I will change and leave.” And that’s what happened. I left.

Dua Dauti: Were you the first in the department to…

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, yes I was the first. It was known, of course I consulted the lawyer, since this was a legal matter, “Can you tell me what’s this?” He was silent and didn’t answer at all. I told him that I would tell him why I was being removed. Since I have this name I am being fired, but if I were Zvezdana [a Serbian name] then they would give me a piece of paper that it would be all right, I will not be fired. The policeman said, “You are doing politics here.” I said, “Yes, it is politics, it is nothing else, it’s only politics that is firing me.” I walked out, then I continued privately in my clinic, but they didn’t let me be in peace, they did not leave me in peace even there. They did not let me be, because they began to be impressed by, for example, the name of the clinic that was not written in Cyrillic. They came from the municipality, saying that I had to write it in Cyrillic because all the companies in town, 90% of them, were like that, so I said, “I would like to be 10% and not 90%, but 10% if there were any…So let it be.” There were patients there and froze, one of the patients said, “Are we bothering you, maybe we should leave?” Because she [the patient] came unexpected. “No” I said, “You are not a bother, but he is bothering me.” So he went back angry saying, “Since we are bothering you, then you are going to go to court,” and it happened. But the judge couldn’t do anything, I was freed because they had no right to place such demands on me. So I was not sentenced a fine, but the judge was not a Serb, he was a Muslim, he was Bosniak. He looked at justice as it was, and didn’t distort it.

Dua Dauti: Was it the same year when you were removed from work…

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, yes it was 1991.

Dua Dauti: So, the moment you were removed from work, you opened the clinic and continued working?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, yes.

Dua Dauti: During the work at the clinic, were there other difficulties besides the case you mentioned…

Jëlldëze Gorani: Until that regime lasted there were difficulties, for example when inspections came, they would find problems with documentation, or other things. For example it would bother them that the documents were in Croatian, the objective was to cause a problem, I understand. But this does not qualify as a problem, it is not a problem, whether it is written in this or that language. They saw that as a problem. Or one time, for example, I will never forget, “No, you will open another door here.” Or another time, “No, close this one, there should be no communication with your home.” There was no reason, all the time they made these requests.

Dua Dauti: Mrs. Jëlldëze, you have been awarded a prize, and can you explain what for have you been awarded?

Jëlldëze Gorani: It was interesting, those awards, acknowledgments, I don’t really mention them, the biggest acknowledgment for me comes from the patients (smiles). That makes me happy. This award was for my good work. So, I went there to get it, and it is interesting there was a professor and his question was, “How long have you been there in Prizren?” I said, “I am by myself.” He said, “How does your government allow you to work?” I think there, he was right, because a human being is a live being. Everything possible could happen to a human being. For example, during the surgery one can die, for example one can get into hypoglycemia, one’s blood sugar is low, and it wouldn’t be possible to continue the surgery. I conducted my surgeries with nurses and midwives, it was not allowed, by I had no other choice.

 Dua Dauti: So what years were you in Belgrade?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Before 1990s, it was 1986 maybe. In 1987, I was in Slovenia in order to master a surgery technique in a more natural way, not through the abdomen, but in the abdominal way. That was a great lesson, and being treated like a human being is really satisfactory. Their intellectual, academic behavior, was a big deal. Work started at seven thirty in the morning and ended at seven thirty in the evening, with only thirty minutes break for lunch and everybody back at work. But the benefits were great. But I didn’t get to work a lot there, only about four years.

Dua Dauti: I mean, you worked in Slovenia, yes?

Jëlldëze Gorani: No. It was, how to put it, it was only training. Medicine does not remain still, it has its development, new information, so one needs to continue, to learn something else, something better, another change for us to implement at work. Such where the possibilities then, and because of the staff, because I was alone, but the possibilities were different, because of the situation, more so for a doctor of another nationality, but I was alone and I could take this, after new colleagues came to the department, I was able to go.

Dua Dauti: Let us go back in time, when for example, it is very interesting for us to know how, as a very well-known doctor, how did you experience the moment that we are now talking about, an important award that you received in Belgrade, and four-five years later you were removed from your job by people of the same nationality. What were your emotions at the time? How did you experience the time, from a successful doctor that you were, succeeding in your career, you were alone, you had a lot work, and then comes the moment of separation.

Jëlldëze Gorani: All that mistrust then, even though I never knew how to hurt any patient, whoever they were, whatever nationality they were. For me they were patients, and I helped them with all the dedication, all the capacity that I had. I never expected a thank you, I didn’t expect it because that was my duty. However, this is how you are rewarded, that was, how to put it, it was a big punch. But it is no surprise to receive that from that kind of regime, it is not a surprise. They were thinking differently, but I am happy that the outcome was not what they expected, it didn’t come to be.

Dua Dauti: During your work in the hospital, before your removal, did you have any problem or difficulties with other doctors who were not of another nationality?

Jëlldëze Gorani: No, no! In other departments not at all, no. It was the leadership who didn’t behave well, but also the colleagues whom we mentioned in the beginning, but later no, they were not bad. When I returned as a specialist, even the doctors of the other nationality in this obstetrics department were fair and different.

Dua Dauti: I mean, there was no reaction or something, while the situation worsened?

Jëlldëze Gorani:  Yes, yes.

Dua Dauti: Let’s talk about difficulties at work in the 1990s, those which were presented as political difficulties that we mentioned a little, so you had different types of pressure from the police, as you said. You mentioned two, three cases. But other difficulties, how did you maintain the office with all those material difficulties?

Jëlldëze Gorani: I have no knowledge, after I left, of the situation in the department, like that…

Dua Dauti: I am talking about your clinic…

Jëlldëze Gorani: Ah that, in my clinic things were fine, I tried to do something. For example, our students were learning in private homes, especially high school students, nurses and midwives. They finished their residency with us, that was a satisfaction, that I could offer something. There were also doctors who completed their practical work here with me, because they didn’t have the right to complete their residency in the hospitals at the time. Supposedly they finished their education from unaccredited institutions in Pristina. Even the colleges organized their work in private homes, which is why they didn’t accept them in the department, so they went to private clinics, finished their residency. There were also students, I mean, I also had students. There were also doctors in specializations, and doctors who had finished college, they completed their residency here, but also high school students.

My removal from work was, I think the government wanted to remove witnesses from what was going to happen at work, also to remove us from the  workflow because people had expectations from us. Then, we had to improvise in my private practice and with this I felt that I was able to do something for the patients. Then I got involved with the clinic Nëna Terezë[2] in Arbana. I worked there during the entire time, until the war was over and I was on the night shifts at the hospital Nëna Terezë in Pristina.  My experiences vary quite a bit, especially since it was a greater responsibility, with greater anxiety, with greater fear, a greater job than in the Nëna Terezë hospital. We were forced to fight for every red blood cell, we were afraid that some woman might have bleeding because the process of birth is always followed by bleeding, and the issue of blood transfusion was a difficulty. That [the blood transfusion] wasn’t in our hands, that functioned in the hospitals, that was in their hands, i.e the Serbian regime.

Technicians who determined the blood, the blood type, and enabled the transfusion, existed, but the conditions were very difficult, and we avoided these interventions because blood transfusion is like surgery or like the transplant of an organ. So blood itself represents an organ for the human body. It was difficult to see patients who… you would feel touched when the children came on behalf of their families to pick up the women with their babies. That poverty… they would wrap babies in their swaddling clothes, their feet would show because the clothes were ripped off, old, and the women were anemic, and malnourished. All this left a heavy impression about people’s circumstances. But people’s actions didn’t stop, these later culminated with the appearance of the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] soldiers, who fought.

They begun the war in February 1998, I had the opportunity to see their wives, their mothers who came for appointments, and to hear their sorrows. When a mother said, “I don’t know where my son is, I wonder if he has a drop of water to drink?” (cries) those moments were very difficult. Personally a person cannot boast that one has achieved something without the help of the rreth. However, I think, the freedom that I won, the support from my parents and the rreth, who helped me a lot with my education, I consider that an achievement. Another difficult work period for me was when I was left alone in 1984.  At the time, not only was I left in a difficult position, since I was left alone in the department, but I was also concerned with women’s health. At the time, two good people helped me and they saved  the department, they understood that gynecology was a pillar of health, without which the hospital couldn’t exist. They were Mrs. Hyrmete Qipa and Mr. Besnik Dauti. With their contribution this problem was solved, and I felt relaxed and able to act, and able to work.

My other achievement, I am a mother of two wonderful children, who represent the meaning of life for my husband, my life partner, and me. Also, I have five grandchildren who are an elixir of life. They make my life beautiful, they give motivation to my work. A single greeting is enough, a single smile of theirs, a single hug of theirs, for me the whole day is beautiful, and all life is beautiful. These are…

Maybe in the end, [I have] a short message that I would give to every young man or young woman who takes the direction of healthcare, medicine, especially in women’s health, since that represents half of our population. Women contributed a lot to history and the recent history. We had women who have been active even in war, but also helped with washing, sowing the KLA soldiers’ clothes. Even more so, women were threatened with knives, there are about 20 thousand who have been raped, who now live on charity and this really hurts me, this government should offer them material and human support. So the young people who take this direction must care of caring for women, I would want them to do this with a lot of dedication and willpower, because it is difficult. But if they love the profession, then they would think only about [women’s] illness, not money, but women’s health. This will be their best and the most enjoyable compensation.

[1] By 1991, after Slobodan Milošević’s legislation made Serbian the official language of Kosovo, Albanians were removed from public service jobs.

[2] Mother Theresa, the self-help organization that during the 1990s, at the height of Milošević’s repression, supported the parallel society of Albanians, expelled from all state institutions and services.

War

Jëlldëze Gorani: If we consider our times of war, because we can’t focus only on one war, but in these lands there were wars even a long time ago, about which I’ve heard, read, and my fate was to also witness one. Since our wars began, even at the time of Skanderbeg, who put us on a European path and didn’t endure the Ottoman rule, in the middle of that misery in which people lived and in that darkness, with no education, whether in culture of in the economic life. Those times were very difficult. So, all those wars, all his goals had a big echo even in later wars, especially in the period of the Rilindjes,[1] when the intellectuals of the time lived in a very difficult political situation, but they were capable of organizing people politically, but also militarily.

The times were very difficult not because of the war against Ottomans, but right after the withdrawal of this regime, the wars with our neighbors began. The Congress of Berlin, on July 13, 1878, gave independence to Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria, but for us Albanians there was no autonomy, which had been demanded from the then Sublime Porte. So Europe didn’t award us any freedoms, but even our lands were given to our neighbors. People weren’t quiet, they always reacted through wars and actions, but also suffered the consequences.

In 1844 Ilija Garašanin brought Načertanije[2], and with that he gave the Serbian principality a government program to remove Albanians, to create their state, with the Kosovo lands of Kosovo and Macedonia. In his Načertanije, there was his intent to empty Albanian lands from ethnic Albanians, to conduct ethnic cleansing, so they would be colonized by Serbs. Because of this, the agrarian reforms were approved, through which our people suffered the most, especially from November after the year 1912, the time when Turkey destroyed the League of Prizren. The destruction of our people didn’t stop, and later we have 1937, when Vaso Čubrilović[3] issued a similar memorandum for emptying our Albanian lands. What Ilija Garašanin had succeeded [in obtaining] in the lands around Niš and Vranje, this one continued with Kosovo. He also held high positions, he was the Minister of Agriculture in the newly formed state of Yugoslavia, and with the agricultural reforms the colonization then continued. So, after the war we had a military regime in February of 1945, while the colonization of Albanian lands happened in November 1945. So, this is how it went, one in connection with the other.

The Ranković[4] regime arrives. But I would like to mention the formation of the Yugoslav state at the meeting of AVNOJ [Anti Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia], it comes to a point, how to put it, the pardoning of Četniks.[5] In one way, they gain an amnesty and their activity in Kosovo continues, it mobilized the best youth of Kosovo at the time. Supposedly, they sent them to the war with Croatia and Vojvodina, but through Montenegro, so in Tivar they kill them all during a single night, 1500 young men.[6] This continued later in smaller numbers, thus the extermination of youth continued. Now, I mentioned ethnic cleansing of our lands, they achieved this in the year 1912 until 1918, half a million Albanians migrated to Turkey, while thirty thousands went to Bosnia and other places, but I believe the numbers must be larger.

So here we have the continuous migration of Albanians during Ranković’s period, and the methods are similar to that of weapon collection and the pressure imposed on the people, especially the most renowned families, forcing them to leave their homes, and go, miserable like that, to Turkey. There is a poem by Mehmet Akif[7] on his father’s tomb that says, “Wake up father…” He wrote it in 1913…”Wake up father because in your house sleeps a man with a beret.” So, this means that the Serbs occupied the houses that were left behind.

Next, Ranković’s time was quite a long time with consequences for the displacement of Albanians. Later we have Milošević. I experienced this period and that of Ranković, I was then a child in the village of Glenace, I remember they talked about the interrogation of people, searching for arms for which they were forced to sell everything they owned, so they could buy it somewhere. Even though they didn’t have arms, they were tortured. I don’t forget one case, when they came from Theranda, i.e. from Suhareka, the Serbian police took the men to question them in search for weapons, but women and children saved the men. I still hear their screams, but this was the time of Ranković that was common in many places, whether in cities or rural places. Milošević’s time began with a few methods, such as purging people, that was in 1979.[8] The purging was that they forced all the people who were employed whether in education, or science, to be purged, and people no longer could endure it. When the demonstrations of 1968 occurred, demanding the [Albanian] flag and placing it on the League of Prizren[9] building, my husband participated in them. I heard about that, while I participated later in 1981, when the demonstrations began even here in Prizren.

In the spring of 1990, the poisoning of students began,[10]  as well as the police attack on the army in the village of Zhur.[11] I experienced the arrival of the children killed behind their backs very badly, holding the children with wounds in their heads and brains falling on their shoulders, I can’t forget that scene. Also [I can’t forget] the destruction of extremities by bullets which pressed and minced the flesh, through extremities.

Now, the poisoning of children was very dramatic, a thing that the Yugoslav regime didn’t admit to, but called it Albanian separatists playacting, or they would say that they are acting like actors at Cannes. But the poisoning didn’t occur only in schools, they also happened in preschool institutions. Even three-year-old children were poisoned. What is strange in people’s attitude, Serbian doctors refused to treat the children and the students, denying that they were sick. Many of our doctors volunteered. At the time, it is believed that about seven thousand children were poisoned.

Dua Dauti: This was in the 1990s?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes in the spring of 1990. At the time there were reactions in Europe and in all Yugoslavia, a seminar was held in Zagreb and the humanity of medicine was tested there, was discussed there. However, later on poison was found in children’s urine discovered by the toxicologist Franjo Plavsić in Zagreb, this was verified and Bernard Kouchner[12] accepted that there were poisonings here. There were many activists. We accepted them, I wasn’t a specific specialist to treat those students, we all participated in treating the students and recording their stories and I was there together with other colleagues. It was a very dramatic scene, the students were unconscious with a very fast heartbeat, with hallucinations, with headaches, and stomach aches. Their look was very dramatic. But, for us this this was enough that the truth was discovered and we were surprised that the government of former Yugoslavia didn’t take it seriously, but it became apparent that the Serbian military agents of Belgrade had conducted this poisoning of the children.

Dua Dauti: So these children belonged to which schools mainly?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Schools…regardless of schools, what I mean is that children were poisoned from age three and after, even preschool children, as well high school and middle school.

Dua Dauti: So, when you heard about this as a doctor, where you working in the hospital?

Jëlldëze Gorani: Yes, because they removed me later, in 1991. The police accompanied me out, and it was a bit interesting because their reason, to tell you the truth I don’t understand it much, it was banal, supposedly I was working in the afternoon and late. But this probably was their justification. The point was that I was removed because of some crimes, crimes had happened which looked less…trying to register after every school was cleansed, schools and hospitals were cleansed of Albanian doctors.

Dua Dauti: So the children received this First Aid at…

Jëlldëze Gorani: In the hospital. They brought them from the schools and they were in the emergency room.

Of course this [recent] war lasted from March 23, 1999 when it was announced that NATO along with the KLA would take action, because I don’t believe without their help the war would be successful until June 10th, when the capitulation of Serbian and Montenegrin government occurred and they signed [the peace accord] in Kumanovo and the war ended. During the war it was very touching because people were kicked out [their homes], the doors remained open, the tables set, and they were forced out of their homes by force.

We had almost one million people actually being exiled from Kosovo, fleeing through mountains, almost seven thousand were in the mountains. The birth of children, the suffering of children, their deaths, their transfer to Macedonia, Montenegro, to Albania, this was what I experienced every day seeing them in the streets, because I was away from the hospital, [I knew] only what I heard, “What happened?” “They’ve brought dead people, wounded people.” Besides that, we also had, I heard about the elimination of documents. So, it was ethnic cleansing organized by Milošević’s state, who did what Šešelj[13] told him, that the Albanian people had to leave Kosovo, dead or alive, and that they had to replace them with Serbs from Croatia and from Bosnia. He did that, but with the help of NATO and the KLA the country was liberated. The people, how quickly did they return, regardless that there were mines, or that their homes were destroyed and that institutions were destroyed or religious buildings were destroyed, impressed me. With my own eyes I saw the destruction of [building of] the League of Prizren, the destruction of the bazaar in Gjakova, as well as the destruction of the bazaar in Peja. The people experienced all of these things.

During the war I suffered a little in my private life because I had my son then in Macedonia in that humanitarian catastrophe in Blace.[14] He worked for humanitarian organizations for months… I didn’t hear any news that he was alive (cries) and later it was possible for me to hear [from him], but there was no peace, not only here in Prizren and in Kosovo, but there was no peace in Macedonia. We heard the bombs that were being dropped all the way from Skopje and I constantly wondered if my son was somewhere nearby. But the news did have an impact and one could calm down. My daughter was here, she was in a condition, she was pregnant and I was afraid for her (cries). So…those months of the war were difficult. Everything calmed down after the war. June brought quiet, the return of the people, streets livened up, the stores began to open and life became more normal. We began to experience freedom.

Dua Dauti: During your career at Nëna Terezë, can you tell us a bit about that period, how was the organization Nëna Terezë founded, and about your work there, I mean some details.

Jëlldëze Gorani: The Nëna Terezë organization opened a clinic in Arbana and doctors of various fields participated there, both internists and other obstetricians worked there, not only me. We had a schedule and nurses helped us without any compensation, the patients’ visits were sufficient, [this was] strongly emphasized. The Nëna Terezë organization helped us also with medications, and all doctors showed great volunteerism. In the Pristina hospital the staff was also very active, including the nurses. We had patients there too, those who were forced to stay especially after giving birth, usually after a few hours they would let them go home, but I had cases who stayed all night until the next day. We also fed the patients, we would take food from the staff, there was a mutual humanity.

[1]Rilindja – National Renaissance, also known as Albanian National Awakening (1870-1912), a period of literary and political development of national consciousness among Albanian intellectuals in the Albanian populated territories of the Ottoman Empire, but also the broader Diaspora.

[2]Načertanije (Outline, 1844) a secret document that codified Serbia’s expansionist program to include all territories where Serb-speaking people lived, or the “liberation and unification” of all Serbs into a single Greater Serbia state. It was adopted by the Serbian Minister of the Interior and leading personality of the Kingdom of Aleksandar Karadjordje, Ilija Garašanin (1812-1874), but in fact it was a Moravian enthusiast of Slavic unification, František Zach, who inspired the document.

[3]Vaso Čubrilović was a Bosnian Serb political activist and academic, a member of the conspiratorial group Young Bosnia, which executed the assassination of the Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. He advocated the ethnic cleansing of minorities from Serbia, notably the Albanians of Kosovo, in a memorandum published in 1937 and entitled Iseljavanje Arnauta (The Expulsion of the Albanians).

[4]Aleksandar Ranković was a Serb partisan hero who became Yugoslavia’s Minister of the Interior and head of the Military Intelligence after the war. He was a hardliner who established a regime of terror in Kosovo, which he considered a security threat to Yugoslavia, from 1945 until 1966, when he was ousted from the Communist Party and exiled to his private estate in Dubrovnik until his death in 1983.

[5]Serbian movement born in the beginning of WWII, under the leadership of Draža Mihailović. Its name derives from četa, anti-Ottoman guerrilla bands. This movement adopted a Greater Serbia program and was for a limited period an anti-occupation guerrilla, but mostly engaged in collaboration with Nazi Germany, its major goal remaining the unification of all Serbs. It was responsible for a strategy of terror against non-Serbs during WWII and was banned after 1945. Mihailović was captured, tried and executed in 1946.

[6]The massacre of Tivar (today’s Bar) in Montenegro was the mass killing of Albanian recruits from Kosovo by Yugoslav partisan forces in 1945.

[7]Mehmet Akif Ersoy, a Turkish poet, writer, and politician of Albanian origins.

[8]In fact, Milošević’s ascension to power began in 1987, when at the Communist League of Yugoslavia’s Plenum he embraced the cause of Kosovo Serbian nationalist and immediately afterwards became President of Serbia.

[9]This is the building where the Albanians of the League made their besa (sworn alliance) in 1878, now a museum. The current building is a reconstruction of the original one, which Serbian troops burned down in 1999.

[10]In March 1990, after Kosovo schools were segregated along ethnic lines, thousands of Albanian students fell ill with symptoms of gas poisoning. No reliable investigation was conducted by the authorities, who always maintained no gas was used in Kosovo and the phenomenon must have been caused by mass hysteria. The authorities also impeded independent investigations by foreign doctors, and to this day, with the exception of a publication in The Lancet that excludes poisoning, there are only contradictory conclusions on the nature and the cause of the phenomenon.

[11]In March 1989, riots broke against the police station in Zhur to protest Milošević’s revocation of Kosovo autonomy and one man was killed.

[12] Bernard Kouchner is a physician and politician, the founder of Médecins sans Frontières. While he was France’s Health Minister, Kouchner had made a statement recognizing that Albanian students in Kosovo had been poisoned. After the war, in 1999, Kouchner was appointed as the UN Special Representative in Kosovo.

[13] Vojislav Šešelj (1954-)  is the founder of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party. In 2003 he surrendered to the International Criminal Court for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2016 he was acquitted of the crimes.

[14] Blace is the border crossing point between Kosovo and Macedonia, where during the war hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians who had been displaced by Serbian troops, camped while waiting to be granted entry in Macedonia.

Feminism

Jëlldëze Gorani: Every injustice against anyone, regardless whether the person is a woman or another gender, young or old, every injustice touches me, thus surely I am for that. I support women’s struggle for gender equality, especially when they struggle against the male gender due to their patriarchy, when the male gender shows a repressive behavior towards women. What I heard about feminism, as a direction or as an organization, is that it is quite old, it has appeared sometimes in the sixteenth century after the French revolution. Then women started to get organized and make some appeals and fight mostly the injustices that existed, in order to be able to reduce those injustices, and to increase their rights. We had appeals for example for education, requests for employment, even requests for political participation.

The difference between men and women, when we observe the way it appears in the family, because children, when they are born, are all the same, but their upbringing starts to make differences, for example toys, clothes. This difference is made worse and aggravated in adolescence. A female child is not given the right to speak, she must think that others must take part in her decisions in order for her to decide. She doesn’t have the freedom to move, so some difference exists, also the education of youth was such, especially in a strict family, where feelings and instincts are old, or there is a backwardness  to educate the young so they  will create a similar family, and for me this is a more primitive family. Therefore, it is not a question of the female gender winning the rights that belong to this gender, but the female gender must win her rights based on human rights and her individual work, not to have thirty per cent [pink quota] maybe it is fifty per cent, based on the size of the population. But those women who have the opportunity, the bottom line is that they are the mothers of a child, mothers in a family, mothers in society, those women have an opportunity to contribute to the society and should not be obstructed, but supported for their work that they offer to society.

When you compare these things with the time when I was a child, today and then, there are differences. There was no education, then, illiteracy was high, and women were veiled. However, today it is different, women participate in education, in sports, and we have their participation in culture. Maybe in politics their participation is truncated, it is limited, but women have to fight for their equality and their rights. But for that right, a woman must use the wisdom and intuition that a woman has.

The head must be used to think, to use logic and make decisions. Then she must be responsible for her behavior, not as a woman, just as…she must stop some behaviors because she would dishonor us. She has to think about her honor and her family’s honor, and not let others impose things by saying, “This is what you have to do otherwise you will dishonor us.” That’s why the child has to be educated the same, whether it is a boy or a girl, to give them rights so they decide how to behave with the family and in society, also for example the other gender. It is not a small thing for example, the large amount of rapes that are occurring and also physical attacks on women, on females, we also have killings that happen and are emphasized. It is not only in the Kosovo society that this happens, we also have it in the region and we hear about it everyday in the media. These things begin within the family, we have to educate families, boys and girls, more or less, some kind of equality in the right place so they can think for themselves, and act for themselves, not impose anything, but through behavior itself, with good examples and with education in every aspect, be it in media, or be it in society or even in the family.

I notice very little differences, but in rural areas there are still problems, for example, women coming for checkups must still have a companion. She must have the possibility to leave her children with someone. For example, being late, it is noticeable if someone is absent. They cannot bring a woman for a checkup, she has to wait because she cannot come alone, she must necessarily have a companion. There are still those [cases]. She could be an example if she can come by herself. She has to fight for her seriousness, her gentility, for her behavior, she must earn the trust, so she herself would be interested in her own health, and come to the doctor by herself. There is a choice of doctors lately. For example, if she comes here for a checkup, the husbands ask, where [should he] take her to a clinic where only women work. There are new worldviews.

Dreams

Jëlldëze Gorani: I remember once as a child I told my father, “I would like to attend schools, as many schools there are.” I didn’t know then that high school or college existed, so I think that wish has come true, with whatever means there were for education, I made it. This path that I have chosen [gynecology], this too made me satisfied in life because I could help, but it was a sensitive work, because a woman who comes here [the clinic] leaves her family, most of the time a mother leaves her children. She becomes healthy, so you have a big responsibility to send her back healthy to her family. But sometimes situations are tragic, the tragedy is big in this field, and very sad. Conditions were very difficult at the beginning of this work, [we had] very little means, and poor equipment. I was forced to improvise a situation, a woman’s position in order to intervene. We worked with technicians and with nurses without anesthesiologists and assistants. Having success was a big satisfaction, when success happened (smiles).

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