Part Four
Anita Susuri: I also want to talk about some events that preceded 1999 and all the consequences that came. There were also the demonstrations of ‘81, you were a teacher at that time…
Mejreme Shema: Yes. The demonstrations of ‘81 happened, for the first time, in April. I was hired at the Workers’ University. These demonstrations included students, teachers, people, students, everyone. This is a part that’s still debatable, because no one claims the organization — who organized it, who did this. It’s still unclear. Some names come up in conversations, people were arrested, but no one says, “Yes, I was the organizer.” It started in the Student Canteen. A sort of protest, about the food, about this, that. Then, they went out into the city, into the streets. In the evening, the students and others were blocked here at this 1 May place…
Anita Susuri: Now it’s October 1.
Mejreme Shema: Yes. October 1, sorry, October 1.
Anita Susuri: At that time, it was May 1.
Mejreme Shema: And maybe it was October 1 even then, but that’s how I remember it. Professors from the university would go up to the door to see the student, and they were standing, they stood there. I was coming up and I saw my entire class from the Economics High School. They didn’t know how to go back home. I said to them, “Come with me this way.” I took them to my house, they washed their eyes, washed their hands and everything because of the onions, from the tear gas, and I said, “Rest.” I sent them as far as Dubrovnik Street near the Economics Faculty, and said, “Now you go out to the road.” They said, “Now, professor, we know, we’ll wait for the bus to go to Podujeva.” I said, “Don’t group up, no more than three together. Go one after the other, three by three.” And they went.
What to do? I came home. We had some younger neighbor boys. I said to them, “Get up, see where the bread truck is going.” They would go and take [bread] from the trucks that delivered to the bakeries. “Go, turn it back, take it to the students who are locked inside the building.” They went and delivered two or three trucks, took bread and whatever was there. “Where do we leave these?” “Leave them at the door, they’ll come and take them, don’t worry.” In the evening, I made tea. My husband was listening to the news. I had the children, my daughter Besa, Artan, a girl named Vlora, and some other boys in the basement. I made tea, put sugar in, poured it in plastic Coke bottles, two per person. The kids were small. “Go to the door, give them to someone, they’ll pass them on.”
Hot tea takes away the poison, but cold water doesn’t, it just bloats you. That’s how it was, many times. My husband would say, “What are you doing in the basement?” “Nothing, I’m just fixing something.” The kids would go, bring things, others would come, take things, all of it. I thought, “Interesting, no one talks about these things.” Instead, they invent stuff that never happened at all, but don’t talk about things like this. That tea, someone drank it, may the devil take them. They should’ve asked, “Who made it? Who brought it? What was it?” And so on. But I didn’t get involved because I no longer believed [in the organization], that belief had disappeared. I didn’t trust those organizations, because they were all connected to outsiders. I didn’t have anything like that.
But I wasn’t indifferent, I mean, I tried, in my own way, to help people. Whether at school, with this, with that, I gave students, let’s say, even just a chance to pass. Once it happened at the Economics School, a student went against me. He said, “Really, you’re only a woman, otherwise I’d show you.” I said, “Oh really? Whom are you going to show? Get up, come with me to the principal.” And I took him to the principal. I said, “Take him, do whatever you want with him.” Now, one doesn’t know, maybe he had some issue, some problem, and expressed himself like that. Not because of me. Later he did something else and was expelled. He came to take exams at the Workers’ University. When I saw him, I stopped and looked at him. He said, “Professor,” he said, “you were right. I really had some problems, some issues.” I said, “I’m glad you realized that,” and I helped him.
They needed something, work, something. Because what could you do with just primary school? We helped. We helped those from Macedonia, from Montenegro, from Ulqin — Albanians — come here, because over there they had no opportunity to get an education. But later, they helped us back during the ‘90s. Every Albanian school in Macedonia gathered funds and sent them aid to us. The same happened with those from Montenegro, from Bujanoc, from Medvegja. Somehow there was… I mean, once I said, “What is this union even?” My father would say, “My daughter, the union is the right hand of the government.” I’d say, “No, dad, now it’s in our hands.” He’d say, “Alright, I’ll show you, you’ll see.” And when you look at it, he was almost right. Because people, their greed, their desire for position, divisions and things like that, even that went too far.
We, in secondary education, didn’t continue after the war, we returned to the schools, to work, to give our contribution. To this day, I’m in contact with those colleagues. And I say, they were very good, not just because I was the only woman, but what a struggle it was to reach a decision. Because they were all men, you know, men and all that. I was just a woman. It was not like, “Let’s leave it to her.” No, no. There was debate. “Should we do it this way or that way? Why this way?” Or, “Why with so-and-so this way?” I’d say… I’d say, “Maybe he has some private business.” I’d say, “What does that have to do with me? Nothing. Not with me or my husband. But they have their own interests and so on.” Until the vice chairman, Isa Bicaj, was forced to expel him. He said, “Don’t ever come here again. We have our duties, and we carry them out.”
We left it then. We said, “Now it’s a new form of life, we have to get involved in development and all that.” We got involved. To tell you the truth, my brother was very active, and it should be said, at Normale he led the demonstrations. After I was removed from work because I was sentenced to one month in prison for the ‘68 events, I went and enrolled in higher education, language and literature. I found colleagues, I found girlfriends, it was good, we got along well. We had a… and the teachers were good and everything. So, on November 28, we told the teachers, “Honestly, we’re not coming to class,” our group. We said, “We’re not coming to class. We’ll celebrate, some at home, some wherever.”
We went to have a coffee, the school of higher education downstairs, in the basement, and then each of us left to go home. I went from there straight to the faculty. I had something, a certificate or I don’t know what, to pick up. By chance I ran into Isak, I knew him from before but I’d never stopped to talk to him or anything. I said, “You know what, I need some material in Albanian.” I had to do something about the ancient period. “Can you find something for me?” “Of course, no problem.” Just like that. One day, one meeting, something like that. I mean, it never crossed my mind, I wasn’t interested, nothing. I returned the script and everything.
One of my friends asked me, “What’s going on with you?” “Everything’s fine, all good.” “No,” he said, “you’re hiding something.” “What should I say, I have nothing to say.” “No,” he said, “it’s about Professor Isak.” “Oh dear God, me with him or anyone?” I said, “I’m telling you, there is nothing, it didn’t even cross my mind, at all.” “No,” he said, “the whole faculty is talking.” You know how people are. I said, “No, I swear, I never even thought of it. But let’s see, they say he’s a good guy.” “They’re praising him a lot.” “Well, okay then, if they’re praising him and something comes out of it, it’s good” (laughs). And that’s how we started.
Then during that time, in that period, I went to the SUP, they had taken me. When Feriz Krasniqi was elected rector, in the morning I went to prison. We were at the school of higher education, and we went as delegates, Banush and I, Banush Gjemshiti, his house was right at the beginning of the Gjergj Fishta School. We realized that the Youth Chairman and such positions were being assigned to whoever wanted them, the committee made the selection, and he simply said, ‘I’ll do it.” Drita Dobroshi said, “I choose him, you have nothing to say.” Then I said to him, “Sit down, this isn’t something you can fight, just stay seated.” He said, “This is done.” In the afternoon, there was a cocktail party. I went to the cocktail party, talked, and stayed a bit. I had friends from the gymnasium and others, I knew some like family, and I stayed with them. Meanwhile, some professors came, and also this Rozhaja guy. Now someone heard there was singing or I don’t know what. I don’t know, I stayed a bit and then left.
Isak came later, after I had already left. It wasn’t a big deal, he said, “Let me go a bit.” I had gone home. The next morning, the police car comes, “We left it at the market over there so we don’t come to the house and cause problems.” I said, “It’s the same whether it’s there or here.” “We’re going through the market and picking you up,” the two investigators in the front, the driver behind. “Tell us, what happened?” “I swear, I don’t know what this is about.” He said, “What was going on last night? Did you students have a party or something?” I said, “Is that what it is about?” I said, “Nothing happened there.” He said, “Something like that, I don’t know what.” “Alright,” I said. “Did you see anyone? When you know something, then you start figuring it out.”
I went and said, “Oh God, you never let me go, never leave me in peace.” “No,” he said, “it’s just like this. We need you to tell the truth, can you?” “No,” I said, “how can I tell the truth when I don’t know anything?” (laughs) He said, “Did you take part?” I said, “Yes, I was there. I didn’t like how the voting was done and all,” I said, “but there’s nothing you can do, you can’t influence it.” “What about the party, the cocktail?” “Yes,” I said, “I was there.” All those party people were students, and I sat with them. I said, “with so-and-so, with so-and-so,” I said, “I sat a little with them and then went home.” “Did you see, did Dervish Rozhaja come?” I said, “Yes, I swear I know Dervish Rozhaja, but I’ve had no dealings with him.” He was a student of English.
“They,” he said, “sang,” he said, “some of the professors sang patriotic songs.” I said, “No, not while I was there.” Dervish Rozhaja always used to sing that one, “Raise the glass” [Cakrroma gotën], he always did. But saying that he sang it, they made it seem like he also sang other songs. I said, “No, as long as I was there I didn’t hear anyone sing anything, no songs. There were no songs,” I said, “it was a cocktail. You take a glass, have a drink, talk.” There was a student, I don’t know, maybe from Presheva or something, Daut Depërtinca, he had finished pharmacy school, worked in a pharmacy, was a medical student, and he was family. We were sitting there together and all.
I said, “I’m telling you who I was sitting with, go ask them, and good night.” “Good night.” I went home. Nothing else. I went, finished that, came back, I met Isak and I told him. I said, “Well, I just came from…” Now, it was the matter of this Krasniqi, Feriz Krasniqi, being elected rector, you know. But… I said, “No, I don’t know Feriz,” I said. “I know he’s Selim Krasniqi’s brother,” I said, “but I don’t know him because I’ve never had a chance to meet him. I know Selim,” I said, “because I’ve had the chance to work with him at the hospital,” you know. “No, but…No,” I said, “I don’t know anything, don’t know what to tell you.” But I was telling Isak, he had found out earlier but acted like he didn’t know, you know. Nothing.
Anyway, that thing was done. Then Feriz Krasniqi was elected rector. Coming out of the SUP in the center, I ran into Selim. I say, “Oh Doctor Selim, I just came from the SUP,” I said, “they asked me about Selim.” (laughs) “Do you know him?” “I told them I don’t know him.” We laughed. Well, okay. Then a kind of freedom started, a kind of opening. People were trying to change their lives a little, to change their mindset and all, but the bad ones stay bad forever, you know. They try to change, but it’s useless. As they say, “The wolf changes its fur but not its habit.” You always had to be careful, stay alert and all, but…
Anita Susuri: And when did your husband realize that you had been involved and engaged in activities like that?
Mejreme Shema: Well, to tell you the truth, as students and all that, surely he also found out. But after we got married, I mean… and now fear. Last year we were in Graz at our son’s place, because our son lives in Graz. On the way back we dropped off our daughter, the one who lives in England, in London. On the road, he starts telling, “Hey, you Artan,” he says, “this was the situation: either I had to leave my job or separate from my wife.” I look at him. I knew about it but I didn’t make a big deal out of it.
Because I know when Rifat Berisha’s brothers were killed in ’49, the eldest daughter of Tahir Berisha was married to someone, since they had been friends during the war and after. When Rifat was killed and everything, that guy left his wife to keep his position. And I wouldn’t… people talked, “He doesn’t want to let her work, that one doesn’t want to let her work, a villager,” and stuff. I’d say, “No, man,” but sometimes a person has their own problems or conflicts. My father used to say, “Oh my daughter, look, if there are more of the good things, take those good things, because about the bad, everyone has some flaw, they can’t all be perfect.” “Oh father,” I’d say, “until he finds out, sometimes I’m about to explode” (laughs).
When he was talking about it, he said, “This and that happened.” They had to go and question them, “differentiate” them. “Why did you marry so-and-so’s daughter, from an enemy family?” He said, “In no way is that even a possibility. My family is my family. And in the end, let them fire me, it’s not a problem.” They themselves didn’t have the courage… because he was very quiet, didn’t talk much with people and stuff. But no, he didn’t stop, and nobody could say, “That guy said this.” You could never hear anything bad. I was a bit more open, because I knew the teachers and all that.
There was this Bashota, a professor at the Law Faculty. He was friends with Rifat’s son. When that guy was expelled from school, he graduated, and Bashota sent him a letter. We received that letter. He wrote, “Congratulations on graduating.” And they [the authorities] caught it. [Isak] hung out with professors who were more active in the Socialist League, in the party and all. Each one had a little something. You couldn’t work at the faculty if you weren’t a party member, that was impossible at that time. But now it depends, some knew how to do the job properly, they didn’t deal with bad things.
In conversation, he said, “Let me talk to Isak.” He said, “Isak, this and this, they’re saying they want to interrogate you.” “That’s out of the question, I don’t even want to hear about that.” Then they went to the Committee and said…There was this Petar Jakšić, he had been my teacher, he taught me Serbian in elementary school. They said, “We can’t interrogate her because she’s not coming.” “Leave it,” he said, “I’ll use the opportunity and interrogate her.” Who knows how it came to that point, he called me in and talked.
He said, “She used to be my student, and she was a very good student. She has a good family and all, but what happened with her, I don’t know. I have no knowledge of what she did or where she went. And as for her husband, I haven’t asked where he’s from. But I think the family shouldn’t be judged for these things, either leave the wife or keep the job.” Then it calmed down, they didn’t, they never called him again, nothing. In ‘79 I started working.
Anita Susuri: You said that in the ’60s you started in house-schools…
Mejreme Shema: Yes.
Anita Susuri: Where did you say this school was?
Mejreme Shema: You mean the house-schools?
Anita Susuri: Yes.
Mejreme Shema: Well, we were like a workers’ university, we had the department of accounting, law, and trade. So, we trained the students. There was also an elementary school within the workers’ university. There were more Roma than Albanians, but whoever had failed the year or something would go there. Still, it became very attractive. In this school, people worked, got a higher salary and such, they would come and finish it. They had finished elementary school and wanted to finish high school that way. Some were expelled because of the demonstrations and such.
There was a girl they called Shote Galica. She had beautiful, long hair. All the teachers were going to look at her and stuff, and I didn’t know anything. Then a new principal came, he was a very good man. He later became the director of the prison. Then from the director of the prison, they brought him to us at the University. I went to sign something. He says, “This and that, professor…” I said, “Honestly, I didn’t know.” He said, “The teachers and all, I had to dismiss them.” I said, “You did wrong, principal.” I said, “Why dismiss the teachers? You should have just told them, ‘Go to your classes, don’t make noise’.” “No, because then the higher-ups would give me problems.” So he dismissed them.
There was another one, somewhere around Dobreva, a good young girl. She had also been expelled. She came. Two teachers were working in commerce and in economics, in administration, and were also teaching. One day she was teasing someone. Her brother came and said, “Honestly, professor…” I said, “Let it be, I’ll handle this.” We finished the lesson and we got in the car, one of my colleagues had a car, and I said, “Let’s go home.” We were heading in the same direction.
He said, “Honestly, that student of yours isn’t normal,” and so on. I said, “Alright, but have you seen her records?” He said, “No.” I said, “Go check with the principal. Does it say that she was expelled from school because of the demonstrations? No. She was expelled because she did this and that.” “Well then, what do you want?” I said. “What do you want? I’m not defending her. If she really did that, well then, here’s the principal, we’ll take the documents and look at them. After all, there are procedures, ways of expelling someone. But not like this, saying, ‘You’re keeping so-and-so and not expelling her.’ It’s not my job to expel anyone. She hasn’t done anything to me, and I have no document saying she was expelled because of the demonstrations or anything like that.”
Later, I found out, she was the daughter of one of my father’s friend’s sons, when we went to a condolence visit, a group of us teachers. “Are you this person?” she said. “You saved my school year.” What can you do? Then our school reached, let’s say, the level of other schools, meaning, it changed its form from Workers’ University and became the School of Trade and Hospitality. After the war, we worked near Gërmia, where there was kind of a dormitory, or whatever you’d call it. During the war, Serbs, Croats, and Serbs who had fled lived there. That place was given to us to hold classes.
As a unionist that I was, I immediately got involved, figuring out how to clean the schools, to clean and fix them up. I went to the UNHCR, the UNHCR is across from the police station, you know that building that stands out. I asked around, didn’t know where. I said, “This and that,” and they said, “Very good that you’ve come. This afternoon there’s a meeting at the sanitation company,” it was called Technical Hygiene, cleaning. They said, “There everyone gathers with KFOR and others to clean the city,” they said, “And you’ll be responsible for the schools.” I went. They received me well. I took all the documents, all that.
“What do you want?” I said, “I want, first of all, to clean up the schools, there are more schools in Pristina and everything, but then also in other cities, ” I said, “because we entered in them just like that, quickly, without painting, without cleaning, without anything at all,” you know? They assigned me a foreigner from the health organization. Some Sara from England. We made a plan for how, what, and where for each school. Supplies, the trash bins, how the students would draw for example something from the war, you know? One school to do drama, theater. Another school to write essays. Another school to draw.
I still remember today, the school near the medrese, the May 1st school, I think it was, near the medrese. A student from the elementary school wrote, “Oh man, I can’t hear the teacher explaining because of the chainsaw cutting wood.” And another one drew a barrel bursting with garbage and wrote, “The city is filled like this barrel, bursting with trash.” With all those works we made the annual calendar for ’69, well, not ’69, I mean ’99, for the year 2000. They distributed them through KFOR and all around. At the Grand Hotel, they bought around 20 of them and all that money I collected was used to help the schools and all that.
It turned out very well, a very good activity. Honestly, I didn’t even have time to go home and change, just how I went through the schools, like that, I gave TV interviews. I didn’t even watch it, because I couldn’t. I went to my school, my colleagues, my friends, only came to take photos. Nobody would pick up a rag to clean. I was with the students. The students listened to me a lot. “Let’s go!” “Oh professor, we’ll do everything for you.” Whether it was cleaning the windows, or sweeping, or pulling out the weeds, or removing stuff…
Then we organized a small cocktail for the principals, for some union members. There wasn’t much of that at the time. Near Dubrovnik street, there was this kind of place. And there we did a kind of cocktail gathering for some principals. We stayed, chatted. I’m very glad that it was a good initiative, and then I gave [parties] for colleagues in other places too, but it didn’t continue. But it was lucky the foreigners took it in hand. Over there in Prizren, the Germans cleaned it, they organized it, and so on. They got involved.
Anita Susuri: I want to go back to the war period. Were you here when the bombing started and everything?
Mejreme Shema: Yes. In March, I mean, that’s when it started and so on, and the classes were stopped. We came home, thinking we’d return to school within a month, within a week. But I had this kind of belief that it was impossible, you know? We had people from whom we got information, we had those movements and such. Some people, some even volunteered, whoever could go, up to age 50 or so. Not everyone could go to help. We were expecting the army, but there was no regular army. It was all volunteers, kids who didn’t even know how to use a rifle.
But there was such goodwill, that they went out, they contributed, and all that. We coordinated, we talked. Even we, as the union, collected money. We didn’t have much, about 150 Marks was the salary we received from the 3 percent from abroad, for teachers. But we split that and helped the war zones, Skenderaj, Gllogovc, Komoran. In fact, I had a bit of a conflict because the ones from LDK wanted to send more here and there. I said, “No, it doesn’t work like that,” I said, “it works based on the number of teachers in each school. [Money] doesn’t get distributed equally. In Komoran there are 20 teachers, in Gllogovc there are 100. It must be divided.”
Twice we sent aid. We collected it, others took it and delivered it to help. When all this started happening, soldiers and all that started showing up, you couldn’t move around to take them their salaries and such aid, but somehow, one way or another, but somehow it still got through. It was difficult for everyone. I had my father sleeping in my apartment. He was old, a bit sick, [there was also] my brother with his family, plus we had my father’s maternal uncles from Drenica who were directly involved in the war, and had sent their wives and children here to our father’s place.
I had my brother with his children, he was separated from his wife. He lived down in the center, they called it “Bahollt.” There was a car company called Bahollt. I went in the morning, picked him up and said, “Look, come because you never know how things will go, come to my house.” My brother worked at the bank, and at that time the bank was in the process of bankruptcy. A group remained, both Albanians and Serbs, who were staying on during the liquidation. He was required to go to work every day. It began. To tell the truth, at first, it was very hard. Because I was involved, I was in the third branch [of the movement].
We were also at the Women’s Forum and in the executive committee. We received instructions on how to place the wool blankets, how to keep the windows so the glass wouldn’t shatter and so on. But nobody had told them, everywhere and completely inexperienced and all… what could we do, I was with the little boy and I said, “Come on, let’s take some bottles, make them into Molotovs and leave them by the stairs. Maybe someone will even throw them at them.” After three or four months, when I saw them still there where they’d been, I had forgotten that we had left them. “Who left these bottles here?” Then it hit me, those are Molotovs.
It was hard, there was fear. Then I also had my daughter with her little daughter. She lived down below, but came here right when the bombing started. We were scared, we were covered with onions and stuff [for tear gas or protection]. Now, we would take shifts, someone would go up high to watch the street, taking turns. For over three months, I didn’t even change my clothes. Never in my life had I worn jeans. I don’t know whose jeans they were, I just grabbed them, also a blouse, never changed. To be ready. On the first day we said, “Let’s go to the attic, do something,” you know? I sent the boy and the girl up. I thought, “Dear God, if the roof falls in, with the tiles, it’ll be worse.” Right here where we all are, we had nowhere else to go. But we made it through.
Anita Susuri: Did anyone come to make you leave?
Mejreme Shema: No, here they didn’t make us leave. They didn’t remove us. They came, they entered the house, they came inside twice. “Who is here?” I told them, “I have my brother with his family.” “Do you have anyone else, any outsiders?” I said, “No, there isn’t anyone else,” and really, there wasn’t. Later on, at some point, the daughter of my maternal aunt, who had been somewhere else, came with her husband for two or three days.
Then one night, some people came from Podujeva who had tried to leave for Skopje and couldn’t, so they returned. They had nowhere to go. They said, “Oh, we have nowhere to go, can we stay? We’ve knocked on every door and no one has opened it.” I said, “Come in. Here’s a room. Here’s what I have, sheets and such.” They said, “We don’t want any food or anything. We’ll leave in the morning.” And really, they left in the morning without any problem, thank God.
There were others, people came and stayed because they had nothing else to do. Once I was just coming back from having coffee with a neighbor, and just as I was returning, I saw the police beating someone in front of the door. I came upstairs and said, “Oh Isak, I see they’re beating someone.” It was like that. That man’s wife [was sheltering] some students from Klina. I told them to jump over the fence, and go into the neighbor’s yard, because no one was there, just to hide in the corner. I said, “Stay there until I wave my hand to show that they’ve left, then you can come back.” I forgot about the husband who got beaten. The poor man barely made it into the house. What could you do?
I jumped the fence straight to the neighbor’s house. “Anton, are you okay? Do you need anything?” “I’m fine,” he said. I said, “Stay a bit longer,we don’t know if they’ll return or not. Vera will be back soon anyway, she’s coming.” I looked to the other side, no one was there. I said, “Come on Vera, go.” Honestly, they beat him really badly. There wasn’t anything like forced expulsion, but people were leaving. As soon as they heard we were organizing watches or doing something, the next day they’d be gone. They’d say, “Mejreme, we have to leave because of the children.” I’d say, “What are you telling me for?” “What can we do?” they said. I said, “I’m not planning to go anywhere. I’m staying here.”
Some of them returned. They hadn’t been taken; they came back. When I saw the lights on, I said, “Who entered? The problem is someone else must have entered.” When they came out, they said, “No, they turned us back.” I said, “Good, they did the right thing. Come, stay home.” But there wasn’t really any big trouble here. Two or three times, some trucks came by and unloaded right as they reached us, then ran out of supplies. They said, “We’ll be back, we’ll bring more.” People kept going, picking things up, thinking that after the war ended, we’d all be compensated. But what compensation? They just wanted to count how many people were left, figure out a percentage, and be done with it. “Come on, let’s make some sort of agreement,” they’d say.
We didn’t go to collect anything. They were giving things at “Bankosi” over there. We didn’t go to take them, and no one came back to give us anything. The distribution was done, we understood that later. Earlier, when the massacre of the Jashari family happened, that was very hard too. We gathered as women and teachers. I even wrote something about the women’s march… I met Xhemajlie there too. We went to bring bread to the Jashari family. It was symbolic, what bread can you really bring? They stopped us before we even got to Fushë Kosovë. “Turn around,” they said, and we turned back. I was supposed to go, get ready to go, leave earlier to get to work. They went and turned back at the American Embassy, leaving the bread there, pretending that we weren’t allowed to go further. You know, those kinds of things, peaceful, democratic actions without trouble.
Anita Susuri: The war ended when the KFOR troops arrived..
Mejreme Shema: I went out with my daughter, we went out. Right near the Grand Hotel we ran into some journalists, some were speaking French, others English. We started explaining, this is how it was, this is how things happened. My daughter translated into English, and then she became involved in those circles. She would go to the war sites to translate, where fighting had occurred and people had died. Especially the BBC, from England, from London, had a big presence. She even got involved directly, when he was wounded at the Jashari site when she went to report with him. He got hit by a bullet. But he had a phone, and that phone… he had pounds, [British] money, and that’s what saved…
Anita Susuri: The journalist?
Mejreme Shema: The journalist. It saved him, she took him to a mill at the Jashari’s, there was that mill. She has been here a few times now, gave interviews and so on. The first photographs are by them, of children running, escaping there, there. It was difficult for everyone, for everyone. But what happened at the end, let’s say it like this, no one does you more harm than yourself. If someone else harms you, you’re defended. But if you do harm yourself, you can’t be defended by anyone.
They got involved in bad things, with looting and all that, and then even the people became irritated with the army. So it turned out they weren’t fighting to liberate Kosovo, but to take power and gain wealth. That same story still continues. Now, wherever you go, if you try to do something good, [they say that] he’s not with them. You held power for 20 years, may the devil take you, and signed off on everything, and now in two years you want to fix everything? You can’t lay a foundation in two years.
Anita Susuri: Mrs. Mejreme, if there’s anything you want to add at the end, if you’ve forgotten something or want to say more…
Mejreme Shema: Look, you never say everything. Things come to mind later, something, this or that. Then there are some things people keep to themselves a little, think about sharing in other ways. Not everything is for here, but maybe for memories, or…But overall, I’m glad I was part of all these movements, that I followed them. Maybe not very actively, because I had this principle, I wouldn’t get involved somewhere if I didn’t know who was behind it or what it was. It’s better to contribute in other ways, in other forms.
The goal wasn’t to end up in prison. If Adem Demaçi, from his first prison sentence, had stepped back, maybe things would’ve been better. You can’t do anything from prison. He sacrificed his life, his youth, the best years, his family and everything. And for what? Okay, that’s all fine, but in prison… He himself said, “You can’t do anything from prison.” People can create illusions, but you don’t have the possibility, you’re locked up all the time. But people create illusions, some this way, some that way.
Now this issue with the veterans, it got bad. The number went up. And now it’s creating problems. The minimum wage isn’t for veterans, it’s for those who work. And the possibility of giving them some money under the table, not paying taxes, that’s a way of… how should I say… taking for oneself. People abroad don’t do that. In Austria, for example, you have to give 40 percent to the state. But you have good living conditions, everything is how it should be. Here, 2 percent, 3 percent, it doesn’t work. There are, I’m saying, some things, but maybe with time, we shouldn’t… Everything shouldn’t be prioritized equally. Those who helped you, yes, they helped you, but they can’t always be in charge. You have to know, either it’s this way or that way.
As for now, analysts, journalists, they seem to feel sorrier for Serbia than for Kosovo. They’re ready to devour Albin Kurti, I don’t know why. When they were the ones who did all these things, signed off on everything and now they say, “You ruined our relations with America.” Who ruined anything with America? America has its own affairs. It knows what it’s doing and how. It doesn’t listen to Albin or anyone else. It follows its own path. Of course, it has its norms, its standards, it’s a global issue. It’s not just Kosovo’s issue, it’s a global issue, global change. Our people? A disaster. Sometimes when I hear them, I wonder, are they even normal? (laughs)
Anita Susuri: Let’s end the interview on a more positive note. Today you live here in Pristina, you’re retired, do you write or do anything else?
Mejreme Shema: Yes, yes. I also worked in the Women’s [Trade Union] Network. When I left the union, in 2000 we left the education union, I remained in the Union of Independent Trade Unions and I formed the Network of Women Trade Unionists, at the Kosovo level. I collaborated with the international trade union network, with unions around the world, in Europe. I had the chance to travel to almost all former Yugoslav republics, except Belgrade, where I never went. I would justify it by saying, “I don’t have a passport. I don’t know where to get one.” So I didn’t go.
Even though the discussions and seminars were in Serbo-Croatian, many Russians would participate, and Russians, French, etc. But it wasn’t done in Albanian because there were few of us, even Albania had limited presence. They would complain and make problems, I didn’t complain because I knew Serbian, English, and Albanian. Just some small things. But we contributed, a great contribution, during that time. From 2000 to 2014 I led as coordinator of the Women’s Trade Union Network.
We did many activities, campaigns. Everything the government is doing now, we did already in the unions. We sent letters to the Prime Minister, to the union associations and others. Honestly, no one responded. Now there’s a need again. All of that, I have all the documents. Now these associations are dealing with it. I’ve taken part in a few things later on, but I’m not very fond of that whole “gender equality” concept as it’s being done now.
Gender equality is not abstract, it doesn’t fall from the sky. You have to create the environment first within the family. If you don’t have understanding in the family, and you don’t change your family and your children a little, then you can’t bring about change in public and elsewhere. And it shouldn’t be personalized. I’m divorced from my husband, and now all men are bad? Or this one, or that one, that’s not right. You have to consider what you contributed to that family in terms of gender equality. As for me, I worked a lot with my children and I never made a distinction between daughter or son, never anything like that. They were treated equally. No one was allowed to say, “You’re a girl, you can’t do that.” They were raised with that mentality, and even today they contribute [to society] with it.
My daughter is a professor at the Faculty of Music, she’s also an analyst. She worked with the Germans at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, which is an organization that deals with unions, associations, all of that. She says what needs to be said, she says it the way it should be said. Sometimes they pick on her, not because she rushes, but because she says what should be said. It’s better to speak correctly than to say what someone else wants. But here, no one even listens to what someone is saying, it’s all, “Oh no, what’s going on? I don’t even know what she’s saying.” (laughs) But I’m saying, I worked a lot, and we were engaged with women, with girls, with everyone. But it was a bit limited, the level was low. Because even the unions didn’t function as they should have.
People in politics didn’t engage with women, with these issues. They were more involved in other matters. Only now is a newer, better approach beginning, one that tries to combine these rights a bit more. I’m not a supporter of the idea that if a woman has fought with her husband, or he’s beaten her, then she should be the one to leave, go stay in a shelter with the children. No. I would take the man and kick him out of the house. Just like the rest of the world does. The woman, the mother, with the children should stay in the house. You [the man] do what you want. Take it to court, get divorced, that’s your business.
But as long as the court hasn’t ruled otherwise, she should stay in the house. Where’s she supposed to go? One apartment with ten people, arguing, fighting, shouting, different problems… It just creates more and different problems. But here, the law doesn’t function the way it should, it should. The man is the one who can more easily leave and find other opportunities. But our men, “The house belongs to my father, to my mother, not to me,” they always find ways to avoid their responsibilities.
Anita Susuri: Alright, Mrs. Mejreme, thank you very much, it was a pleasure!
Mejreme Shema: Thank you as well!
