Introduction
This article studies the beginnings and development of women’s socio-political participation and activism within the nonviolent civil resistance movement that arose in Kosovo between 1989 and 1997, as well as the gendered dynamics and forms of resistance that the movement developed with respect to their participation.Footnote 1
Women’s socio-political participation in Kosovo throughout the 1980s and 1990s was strongly influenced by the political developments in the autonomous province within Yugoslavia. In 1980, the death of Josip Broz Tito, leader of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY), lead to severe consequences in Kosovo, traditionally the poorest territory in the federation (Woodward, Reference Woodward1995, 340–342), and precisely where the initial protest movements in favor of its disintegration started in the early 1980s (Hetemi Reference Hetemi2017; Schwandner-Sievers Reference Schwandner-Sievers2013; Judah Reference Judah2008; Malcom Reference Malcom1999). The pluralism or “policy of decentralization” (Clark Reference Clark and Bartkowski2013, 281) that spread across the federation after the Cold War took place “under sharp ethnic divisions” (Pula 2005, 5) in Kosovo, which were accentuated when Slobodan Milošević, who represented “the champion of suffering Serbs throughout Yugoslavia” (Clark Reference Clark and Bartkowski2013, 281), took control of the LCY. The Albanian population rallied around the upgrading of Kosovo’s status from an autonomous province to a republic within Yugoslavia, which was countered with high levels of state violence throughout the 1980s. The Serb population, a minority, was closely linked to Serbian state institutions and regime. This occurred in a context in which the consequences of the degrading economic situation, the increasing violence against the Albanian population, the constitutional changes in 1989 (i.e., revoking Kosovo’s autonomy within Yugoslavia), and the hardship of everyday life throughout all Kosovo gave rise to the Albanian-led nonviolent civil resistance movement from the late 1980s to the early 1990s (Pula 2005, 5). This peaceful resistance movement’s objectives were to build Albanian-led parallel state institutions, find a nonviolent end to the conflict, claim independence from Serbia, and acquire international recognition.
The increase in the violence at the hand of the Serb regime and the lack of any references to Kosovo in the Dayton accords in 1995 led to a large portion of the population abandoning the option of nonviolence. Footnote 2 In 1998, armed conflict broke out between Serb and Yugoslav armed forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which also emerged during that period. In response to the urgency of the situation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) initiated an international intervention in 1999 in order to stop the conflict and protect the Albanian population.
The eruption of the last war in 1997 and 1998, the subsequent NATO intervention in 1999, and postwar reconstruction and the peacebuilding processes have brought a visible increase in research on Kosovo, but it principally concentrates on conflict and post-conflict dynamics. Research about the civil resistance movement prior to the last war has been explored with regard to the image of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) led by Rugova, its repeated requests for passive resistance, and its lack of success.Footnote 3 Yet, the participation of women within the nonviolent civil resistance movement and the features of this participation have not been extensively researched and are still largely unknown, although its massive scale has been identified (Clark Reference Clark2000; Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014). Research into this area is starting to develop, led principally by local academics and activists. Linda Gusia and Nita Luci’s (2014) work on women’s engagement in Kosovo analyzes how changing gender relations have influenced women’s emancipation, principally in connection with the politics of national identity and state building, narratives of re-traditionalization and modernity, and the intersections between gender and national politics. Eli Krasniqi’s (Reference Krasniqi2011) study into women’s participation in the Ilegalja underground movement revealed how women directly participated in and contributed to the movement, as well as how they started to focus on women’s rights in the 1980s. The Kosovar Gender Studies Center’s (KGSC) work (2008) has researched women’s participation in civil society between 1980 and 2004, mapping their participation in Kosovo from the development of women’s activism until the initial years of the postwar reconstruction and peacebuilding processes.Footnote 4 However, the initiation and development of women’s activism in Kosovo and their social and political participation is still notably under-researched. The purpose and motivation of this article is to contribute to the research line opened by the aforementioned studies and to further research women’s social and political participation in Kosovo, making visible and acknowledging women’s socio-political participation and agency. To that end, I will trace how women’s activism visibly increased and developed in the context of nonviolent resistance prior to the war, identifying the principal characteristics of this participation, which are also central to the study and understanding of women’s activism in the postwar context. How did women’s participation combine with traditional gender roles and national discourse? What were the major challenges that women encountered? In answering these questions, I try to explain how women’s claims were linked with traditional gender structures at the time and sidelined within the broader nonviolent civil resistance movement. Several women’s rights activists established women’s organizations that would function independently from the resistance movement, but they also encountered difficulties when it came to carrying out their work, as they were challenging the patriarchal gender structures of the time.
In light of this article’s objective of tracing the development of women’s socio-political participation in Kosovo prior to the last war, I refer to two principal factors that influenced this development: women’s differentiated participation in the political sphere and civil society and the intersections and encounters between the concepts of gender and nationhood. These two factors have characterized women’s socio-political participation in and development of the nonviolent civil resistance movement, and they have also implicitly contributed to the lack of recognition given to women’s social and political agency in Kosovo. I will repeatedly refer to these two factors, as I understand that they are interlinked with the temporal, spatial, quantitative, and qualitative development of women’s socio-political participation.
This work draws upon fieldwork carried out in Kosovo between 2011 and 2014 and interviews carried out by the author during this period with a total of thirty-two Kosovo Albanians who were active in the civil resistance movement or have done in-depth research on the movement. Most of them actively participated in the nonviolent civil resistance movement prior to the last war (a total of 26), while some also worked specifically on the defense of women’s rights (a total of 16). While all of them define themselves as activists, 24 of them state that they directly participated in the nonviolent civil resistance movement, while eight of them also participated in the creation of parallel women’s organizations. Five of them are also researchers that have researched the subject. In addition, everyday conversations were valuable (though these are not acknowledged in the list of interviews conducted). Likewise, the aforementioned studies on the participation of women in civil resistance and civil society (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014; Krasniqi Reference Krasniqi2011; KGSC 2008) were central for writing this article, as they constitute the principal pillar of previous research on the subject.
I divide the text in two main parts: the first provides the background of the time period analyzed and the second focuses on the participation of women and the gender dynamics of the nonviolent civil resistance movement. At the beginning of each part, I briefly contextualize it by introducing the socio-political background. Thus, in part one, I introduce the overall situation and development of women’s situation and socio-political participation (up to 1989), which comprises the background to the development of their political agency. In part two, I explore women’s participation within the resistance movement between 1989 and 1997 through their participation and activism in the Women’s Forum (WF) of the LDK and within independent women’s organizations. Then, I explore how women’s activism merged and evolved toward the activation of the resistance movement. Lastly, an analysis of reactions against this activism leads me to conclude that women’s participation was encouraged as part of the nonviolent civil resistance. However, it was associated and linked with its private sphere—hindering any other attempts to act outside of this space—and identified as counterproductive for the principal objective of the movement, independence from Serbia.
Background to the Development of the Socio-political Agency of Kosovar Women
Although women developed their own socio-political agency, their socio-political participation has been, in general, silenced, both inside and outside Kosovo (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 212). This agency evolved, in broad terms, under strong patriarchal power relations and was influenced by differences between urban and rural areas. In this section, I will explore the influence of these factors on the development of the situation of women in Kosovo, linking it to the development of women’s socio-political participation in the nonviolent civil resistance movement.
Socio-economic differences between the rural areas and the main cities—Prishtina, to a great extent, but also various sectors in Peja, Mitrovica, Gjilan, and Gjakova—had an impact on the beginnings of women’s social and political participation. Historically, rural families lived in a single household, closely attached to traditional cultural and historical values, with cattle breeding and other agricultural activities as their main economic activity. Compared to urban areas, poverty levels were higher in rural areas. Citizens in Prishtina lived in smaller families and economic activity was mainly in the service sector. This created and reproduced specific social structures, which affected families’ everyday life, and, as a consequence, women’s situations. Although patriarchal power relations were common in both spaces, women in rural areas lived tied to the family household, whereas in the city they enjoyed more freedom.Footnote 5 At the same time, since World War II, Kosovo suffered the most conflicts within Yugoslavia and was also the poorest in the federation (Woodward Reference Woodward1995, 342). This necessitated the development of specific survival strategies, principally the strength of the patriarchal family institution (Backer Reference Backer2003) and migration (ESI 2006). Especially in rural areas, the survival of the Balkan patriarchal family or zadruga, in which patrilineal and patrilocal systems were enabled (Backer Reference Backer2003, 43; Kaser Reference Kaser2008; Reineck Reference Reineck1991), directly affected the situation of women.Footnote 6 Collective households with hierarchical and patriarchal family organizations were central, placing women—especially the youngest ones—at the bottom of this hierarchy (Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, and Fetahagić Reference Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, Fetahagić and Spahić-Šiljak2012, 101).Footnote 7 These family dynamics brought the lowest investment rates in women’s employment and education (ESI 2006, 2). The economic situation prompted men to work abroad, often for many years, meaning that the wives of those men who migrated lived with their husband’s family, which often degraded their position and situation. In more urban areas, this migration meant that women in some cases became family heads. Many started to work out of the household.
Concerning policies that aimed at ensuring gender equality, once in power, Tito set out policies regarding gender equality for the whole of Yugoslavia, but they failed to reach Albanian women in Kosovo, who were mainly Muslim.Footnote 8 The party thought of these as the most regressive women: their public participation was very scarce and any step forward did not last long (Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, and Fetahagić Reference Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, Fetahagić and Spahić-Šiljak2012, 102–103). The Communist Party (CP) established two main campaigns in Kosovo: literacy campaigns from 1945–1946 and a 1947 campaign to ban the use of veils that covered women’s faces (Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, and Fetahagić Reference Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, Fetahagić and Spahić-Šiljak2012, 102). Kosovar Albanians more than 10 years of age were illiterate at a rate of more than 75%. During this period, approximately 90,000 people were taught to read and write. The following year, an anti-veil campaign launched, as coverings were conceived as an obstacle to the socio-political participation of women in Kosovo. Between 25,000 and 30,000 women stopped using veils. In 1951, a law banned their use (Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, and Fetahagić Reference Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, Fetahagić and Spahić-Šiljak2012, 102). Although the socialist model was adopting measures to officially diminish gender inequality, the Albanian population in Kosovo saw little influence from these measures, perceiving the socialist government as an “antagonist” (Woodward Reference Woodward, Wolchik and Meyer1985, 250) because the measures were often imposed through high levels of violence. Citizens held on to their culture, tradition, and values as a form of resistance, reinforcing their identity, but also provoking a harshening of the family organization, and, as a consequence, the restriction of women’s lives.
From the Zadruga to the University and Ilegalja
During the 1960s and 1970s, positive changes in the situation of women were palpable, as the educational level in Kosovo increased threefold (Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, and Fetahagić Reference Mlinarević, Čaušević, Gashi, Hasečić, Fetahagić and Spahić-Šiljak2012, 98). In the second half of the 1960s, the women’s movement in Kosovo began its trajectory—linked principally to the national cause and education—within the contexts of the protests in favor of the opening of a university in Prishtina, and within their participation in communist organizations. Prior to that, few women participated in public protests and demonstrations, for these were not identified as a space for women. Participation was seen as dangerous for them (KGSC 2008, 21–22).Footnote 9 However, education became a domain where women began to speak out, showing that they dared to take risks in this sphere. From there, many women joined the national movement (KGSC 2008, 22). In 1968, Flag Day brought a visible change.Footnote 10 The Yugoslav government banned the use of the Albanian flag. So, protests were organized; these protests were where slogans in favor of republic status for Kosovo and the opening of a university were heard for the first time ever. Women’s participation was, however, conditioned: in general, men forbade women from participating as organizers or appearing in the first rows at demonstrations, afraid of the dangers associated with instigating the protests, though they did help “in other ways” (KGSC 2008, 22). As an activist who participated in these protests explained in an interview, women’s participation was regarded as radical—it was unthinkable at that time.Footnote 11
The opening of the University of Prishtina (UP) in 1969 was a breakthrough in Kosovo, including for women: the chance to complete a university education without having to travel to other universities in Yugoslavia had a direct impact on their economic, social, and political participation. It was a turning point for the political activism of women, as more than half the women who studied there became activists in the following decades (KGSC 2008, 23). Women started joining protests in favor of a better political and economic situation in Kosovo. In the 1980s, they also protested in favor of the Kosovo Republic or unification with Albania.Footnote 12 They directly participated in the creation and running of different cells or groups (KGSC 2008, 25), which were part of the underground resistance movement, Ilegalja, identified as a continuation of Kosovo’s liberation struggle after 1945 (Schwandner-Sievers Reference Schwandner-Sievers2013, 955–956).Footnote 13 Given that this was a clandestine movement, the extent of women’s participation remains unknown; it was mainly university students, including women of various ages and with various roles (Krasniqi Reference Krasniqi2011, 4).Footnote 14 According to a woman activist in the movement, the main reason women joined Ilegalja was the national cause.Footnote 15 For most women, their empowerment and the fight for their rights were secondary factors, as they believed the former would bring the latter. Nevertheless, their participation challenged the patriarchal roles of Albanian society. As Krasniqi states, these women did challenge traditional gender roles, having to overcome a “double burden”: they had to face not only the Yugoslav regime, but also the traditional patriarchal values of their own society (Krasniqi Reference Krasniqi2011, 11). This double barrier caused great hardship for them socially due to their “overly liberal way of living” (Krasniqi Reference Krasniqi2011, 14).Footnote 16 Women also undertook grave risks if police associated them with this movement. Both women and the movement, though, took advantage of this, for women were not suspected by the Yugoslav regime.Footnote 17
Women’s participation in Ilegalja became the first step in their active participation in the construction and development of the future civil resistance movement. Their participation in this underground movement meant joining the struggle for national freedom, although initially very few participants in the movement and its cells were aware of women’s rights. According to interviewees who participated in the movement and researched it, an awareness of women’s rights started to develop through the discourse about human rights at the end of the 1980s.Footnote 18 Women in Ilegalja started working on their empowerment in social and political situations. The movement defended the equality of men and women, which would be achieved through national freedom.Footnote 19 In contrast, many women working in Yugoslav institutions chose a separate path to reach the same objectives: they actively participated in the CP and related institutions, even attempting to create an independent organization.
First Steps of Women’s Rights Activism: Independent Women’s Association
During the early 1980s, although the everyday life and activity of most women in rural areas revolved around the private sphere, a change started to happen: women were steadily moving to Prishtina to pursue their studies, increasingly completing higher education and joining the labor market and politics through the ranks of the CP and its institutions. Simultaneously, the Serb political elite increased media attacks against Albanian women in Kosovo, which peaked around 1987. Yugoslav state propaganda used many tools against them, including Yugoslav media to “dehumanize” them in the run up to the war (UNFPA 2005, 6), identifying Albanian women as “birthing machines” and “uneducated slaves” (KGSC 2008, 59). In this context, a group of women activists set out to build an independent women’s organization in favor of women’s rights, without links to any political party. In 1989, when it became possible to register independent organizations outside the CP, women activists proposed the creation of the Independent Women’s Association (IWA), with the aim of defending women’s rights. The initiative, although unregistered, gathered 1,300 signatures in about two weeks in order to create and run the association.Footnote 20 It “transformed itself from a small organization of urban intelligentsia into a mass social organization,” women’s emancipation and political agency being founded within the new developing political agenda (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 202). In the meantime, the LDK, the first Kosovar political party, which legally registered in the same year, was becoming the main image and body of the Albanian nonviolent resistance. Within this framework, a proposal to join the LDK reached the IWA, and following an internal debate, the IWA joined the LDK.Footnote 21 Hundreds of women who signed up for an independent association joined the LDK, a political party fighting for national freedom through civil resistance.
In this section, I have looked at the overall situation of women in Kosovo and their initial steps throughout the 1980s in order to provide a general background for understanding women’s activism within the civil resistance movement in the 1990s. I explained how, although they lived under a strong patriarchal system, women started to participate in the public sphere, principally through the defense of educational rights and an independent platform for the defense of women’s rights. In the next section, I will analyze the increase in women’s socio-political participation throughout the initiation and development of the nonviolent civil resistance movement, as well as the challenges this participation faced. I will focus on the participation of women in the political sphere, or the LDK, and women’s participation in civil society or the newly created women’s organizations, which was marked by the aforementioned assimilation of the IWA by the LDK.
Women’s Participation in the Nonviolent Civil Resistance Process, 1989–1997
In 1989, Serbia revoked the autonomy of Kosovo within Yugoslavia and expelled thousands of Albanian citizens from their jobs, provoking massive protests. This caused severe economic, political, and social problems. It also directly affected gender relations and the situation for women, as it not only excluded the Albanian population from any political power, but it also dismissed Albanians from their jobs en masse: hundreds of women, former doctors, teachers, lawyers, or civil servants of the Yugoslav regime became jobless. They were once again bound to the private sphere (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 202) as a result of a process of re-traditionalization. This was reinforced by the lack of freedom of movement, with few jobs for either women or men, and as a consequence, with no reason to go outside the private domain. The socio-political participation of women that took shape during the 1980s steadily increased up to the end of the civil resistance process. Although this growth was gradual, women with a direct relationship with the nonviolent resistance project numbered tens of thousands in the 1990s (Clark Reference Clark2000, 73). Women “from all social strata” participated in the process of building and developing the Kosovar Albanian nonviolent civil resistance process against Serbian violence (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 201), enabling the socio-political participation of thousands of women. Although this participation was steady and extended throughout Kosovo, it was sidelined. In this section, I will analyze the characteristics behind this process, offering an overview of the evolving political situation and focusing on the participation of women within the LDK and the newly created independent women’s organizations.
The nonviolent civil resistance movement started to arise in a context where, between 1988 and 1989, miners’ protests were increasing. These protests were against the expulsion of Albanians from their jobs, the expulsion of the communist politicians Kaqusha Jashari and Azem Vllasi from the CP of Kosovo, the segregation in schools, and the constitutional modifications that revoked Kosovo’s autonomy within Yugoslavia. The continuous strikes by more than 7,000 miners—and a hunger strike undertaken by around 1,200—led to demonstrations by approximately 100,000 people throughout Kosovo (Pula Reference Pula2004, 803). This was identified as the start of the “Albanian Intifada” (Maliqi Reference Maliqi and Magaš1993, 180). However, the revolts, which at first seemed to be growing more and more violent, transformed into a nonviolent civil resistance movement (Clark 2001, 46). This context opened up with the new political opportunities that arose after the fall of several socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, creating an atmosphere of “democratic spring” and convincing people that there would be a space for socio-political pluralism (Pula, Reference Pula2004, 804), where Albanians saw a chance to “reform” their society (Clark Reference Clark and Bartkowski2013, 283; Luci Reference Luci2014). Political parties and organizations that were created within this new context include the LDK, the Council for Human Rights and Freedoms (CHRF), the Social Democratic Party, the Youth Parliament, the Nënë Tereza humanitarian organization, and Motrat Qiriazi—the first women’s organization.Footnote 22 The LDK, lead by Ibrahim Rugova, obtained more than 7,000 members in a short period, becoming the main image of the nonviolent civil resistance movement. The links between the LDK, the CHRF and the Mother Teresa organization can be identified as a reaction against Serbian violence. The modus operandi of these three entities, which transmitted a nonviolent attitude toward and reaction to Serbia’s violence, also became an effective control system against any kind of violent reaction against Serbia, giving citizens an instrument for everyday resistance and survival (Clark Reference Clark2000). In this context, the campaign between 1990 and 1991 to end blood feuds was linked with the unity of the population. Hundreds of families lived in deadly risk due to blood feuds and a campaign to end this dynamic resulted in the reconciliation of at least 2,000 families, which some identified as a modernizing step toward democracy and national unity (Clark Reference Clark2000; Luci Reference Luci2014).
The nonviolent civil resistance movement aimed to create parallel state institutions, claim independence from Serbia, and obtain international recognition. It had two principal pillars that evolved successfully: the education and health systems. The parallel education system was a response to the ban on Albanian students attending schools and university; the parallel health system responded to the very poor health conditions that the population was suffering.Footnote 23 In addition, a voluntary tax system allowed the parallel institutions and the nonviolent civil resistance movement to develop in terms of funding.
The parallel institutions, where the debate on independence was taking place, claimed independence in 1991, after 99% of the voters favored independence in the referendum organized throughout the whole of Kosovo (Poulton and Vickers Reference Poulton, Vickers, Poulton and Taji-Farouki1997, 155; Pula Reference Pula2004, 807). The parallel state was comprised of different ministries and organizations under the Republic of Kosovo (Pula Reference Pula2004, 815). In 1990, Serbia had declared all Kosovar public institutions illegal, appointing Serb citizens to manage them, while Albanians were isolated. The parliament, consisting mainly of the LDK but with representatives from other smaller parties, got together for the first and last time in 1992, due to violent pressure from Serb military forces. By then, the segregation between the Serb and Albanian populations was visible. In this context, most citizens had links with those organizations that opposed the social and political situation and Serbia’s severe political violence, mainly within or connected to the LDK.
The nonviolent civil resistance process gave women the opportunity to participate in the public sphere. As Luci and Gusia (Reference Luci2014, 203) explain, the new rise in Albanian identity brought a new period of activism for women, offering new political scenarios for the development of new agencies. Here, the previous assimilation of the IWA by the LDK shaped women’s agency within civil resistance: women’s activism was split between participating in the LDK and those working independently, following the IWA’s initial objectives. While the women who joined the LDK mostly participated in the WF within the party, those women working outside the LDK, those who had refused to join the LDK and those who later left the party, joined the ranks of the blossoming independent organizations for the defense of women’s rights.Footnote 24
Women’s Participation in the Democratic League of Kosovo
Women mostly participated in the LDK through the WF, which was officially founded on March 7, 1990. The creation of the WF can be identified as a strategy to bring more women into the movement, but this branch did not participate in the presidency of the party.Footnote 25 The presidency decided this body would manage the most important issues, such as foreign and international affairs, economy, the management of resistance, and so forth, and the WF would address lesser or secondary issues, which were identified as issues of interest for women, such as women’s rights, women’s and children’s health, and so forth.Footnote 26 Party regulations did not allow the participation of the WF’s presidency in the LDK’s presidency.Footnote 27 However, Edita Tahiri—Head of Foreign Affairs and the only woman in the presidency of the LDK during the civil resistance period—and later Melihate Termkolli—member of the LDK presidency from the months prior to the armed conflict up to 2008—often bridged the boards of the WF and the LDK, even though being a member of the former impeded participation in the latter.Footnote 28 Nevertheless, Tahiri’s case was an exception in terms of women’s participation in the LDK. In general, the WF worked as a side group, away from any direct participation in the decision-making bodies (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 204). The division of work was visibly gendered: the LDK’s main goal was national freedom—equality between men and women would be achieved through, or after, it.Footnote 29 By 1995, the WF had spread throughout Kosovo to the same degree as the LDK. Like the LDK, the WF had branches in all villages, with an assembly and different committees. These were parallel to the party’s main committees and functioned outside of them, although cooperation did occur.Footnote 30 As the LDK was identified as a substitute for the CP (Pula Reference Pula2004), the WF was also identified as being a substitute for the CP’s WF.
These internal dynamics of the WF gave rise to a conflict between women’s activism and the national cause. Women’s actions within the civil resistance could be identified as more extensive geographically, but women’s role, as far as the LDK was concerned, was identified with the resistance’s private sphere, limiting it to “being supportive and supplementary to the interest of nation” (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 204).Footnote 31 As a result, many women left the WF, feeling it had become a barrier to, rather than a tool for, the defense of women’s rights.Footnote 32 Those women joined independent organizations that had already been created, mainly women’s groups, since they saw them as their only choice for the defense of women’s rights. These groups became a necessary and indispensable tool for the everyday survival of the population and the development of civil resistance, which suggests that if women’s political activism could be developed and strengthened, this was principally because the LDK was not the only source of resistance. It was away from this main pillar of resistance where the work of independent women’s organizations and the defense of women’s rights was carried out, embodying the defense of women’s rights within the nonviolent civil resistance process.
Women’s Participation in Independent Organizations
The newly created women’s organizations worked according to the ideas that the IWA defended, conscious that their situation outside the LDK was marginal.Footnote 33 In the very early stages of civil resistance, there were no organizations working for women’s rights or gender issues. Between 1989 and 1998, several women’s groups appeared and flourished: (1) Association for Eradication of Illiteracy, (2) Motrat Qiriazi, (3) League of Albanian Women, (4) Circle of Serbian Sisters, (5) Centre for Protection of Women and Children, (6) Women Artists and Veterans of Education in Kosovo, (7) Legjenda, (8) Aureola, (9) Elena, (10) Sfinga, (11) Centre for Recovery of Mother and Child, (12) Elena Peshkopia, and (13) Media Project (KGSC 2008; Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014). The principal objective of these groups was to satisfy immediate needs, mainly in the spheres of health, education, and humanitarian aid. They shared a common aim: the defense of women’s rights, since they considered these rights to be neglected on an everyday basis.Footnote 34
When analyzing these organizations’ work and activism, it is clear they had no forethought or planned strategy. When interviewed, activists tend to define their work at the time in the following way: “We did not know what we were doing, we did everything out of need”; “We did not have any clear strategy.”Footnote 35 They improvised their work and reacted to socio-political needs by developing a gender and feminist approach. According to the KGSC (2008, 79), there were four main reasons which drove women to start independent organizations in Kosovo: (1) they wanted to improve the overall situation of Kosovo; (2) they wanted to work independently from the LDK, based upon women’s needs and their own methodologies; (3) they wanted to promote women’s rights and improve their lives; and (4) they wanted to influence the socio-political situation by documenting all violations of women’s rights. Based on these four factors, the work of these organizations can be divided into five lines: education, health, documenting violence against women, inter-ethnic cooperation, and internationalization of women’s situation.
Education
Although one of the main concerns and pillars of the LDK and the resistance movement was the development of their own educational system, illiteracy rates among women were very high.Footnote 36 The parallel system was successful, as it paved the way toward advancing the education of 330,000 people, but a large number of girls—especially in rural areas—left their studies due to security issues and the harsh economic situation: 16% of girls between 16 and 19 received no education at all, while a quarter of the girls within this age range only completed four years (UNICEF 2008, 12). Since most activists had an urban background, this situation was almost unknown to most of them until the very late 1980s. Sisters and activists Igballe and Safete Rogova created the first registered women’s organization in Kosovo, Motrat Qiriazi, in 1989, which progressively expanded to the whole of Kosovo. Like many other activists, they used national identity as a tool: they developed a link between the concepts of nation and gender, as they concluded that they could not reach rural women by leaving aside national identity. Otherwise, political leaders accused them of neglecting the nation in order to favor their goals (Mertus Reference Mertus and Ramet1999, 175). Women’s educational rights were therefore inserted within national educational rights. Although the activists’ only goal was working with women, they put the nation at the heart of their discourse, portraying women’s education as an affair for the whole Kosovo (Mertus Reference Mertus and Ramet1999, 176).
Health
Due to the lack of freedom of movement and the poor situation of the health system, thousands of women had no possibility of having any health checks carried out (especially in rural areas, although it also happened in urban areas), directly affecting their reproductive health, births and children’s health. In 1991, activists Sevdije Ahmeti and Vjosa Dobruna opened the Center for the Protection of Women and Children (CPWC), which offered medical and social support for women and their children. Bearing in mind the difficulties in attracting women, they gave those who went to the center a financial token.Footnote 37 They offered women a safe and secure space, one where they could speak openly about their problems during their health checks and exchange mutual experiences. Some years later, they also organized workshops for women.Footnote 38
Documenting Violence against Women
Women’s organizations that advocated for women’s rights based their work on documenting women’s rights abuses, analyzing this information, and creating a free space for carrying out this work. While the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF) documented, denounced, and archived human rights violations against the Albanian population starting in 1989, this process was mainly performed with a male bias: when referring to violations against men, the men’s names and surnames were used, but women were broadly referred to as daughters, sisters, or wives of men.Footnote 39 The CPWC started documenting violations of women’s rights and also researching violence against women. They were able to see that violence was a common and naturalized dynamic in Albanian culture. The research published in 1995 revealed that more than 30% of women had suffered violence within the family, and more than 50% of women had suffered violence from Serb forces when they went to their houses looking for their male relatives.Footnote 40 The CPWC received pressure from the LDK, which argued that Kosovo had other, more important issues to face—that violence against women was a secondary issue compared with the national cause—and attempted to silence the research.Footnote 41
Inter-ethnic Cooperation
Throughout the 1990s, women’s activism in other Kosovar communities or minority groups—principally Serbian, but also Roma, Gorani, and so forth—hardly existed. The main reason for this might have been the situation of the various communities themselves: Serb women, for instance, had access to services offered by the Yugoslav/Serb state (KWI 2002, 8), and hence, rights that Albanians did not. If women from other minorities did not tackle women’s rights, it was mainly due to lack of knowledge and resources.Footnote 42 This does not mean, however, that there was no cooperation between women of different ethnic backgrounds. In fact, inter-community cooperation throughout the 1990s was another principal feature of Kosovar women’s activism, not only with Albanian women outside Kosovo (Pachuku Reference Pachuku2011), but also with Serb women in Kosovo, Serbia, and other Yugoslav republics. These relationships broke down at an early stage due to the outbreak of the conflict. Nevertheless, it was a key feature of women’s participation in civil resistance in terms of building bridges with other women activists and women’s movements.
This relationship was mostly developed with the Belgrade-based organization Women in Black (WiB). Starting in 1994 several women activists travelled to Belgrade in order to participate in different gatherings, mostly feminist initiatives. One of the first Kosovar woman to build relationships with women in Serbia acknowledges the importance of the meetings organized by WiB International, which gathered WiB activists from abroad, to boost Kosovar women’s activism.Footnote 43 The first activists participating in these gatherings opened the doors to more activists year after year, and an increasing number of Kosovar women participated in these meetings.Footnote 44
At the beginning, this cooperation was symbolic: a handful of women from Kosovo travelled to the meetings organized in Belgrade and returned with knowledge, ideas, and renewed energy to continue their work in Kosovo, despite the risk involved in traveling through Serbia.Footnote 45 The number of women travelling to Belgrade increased. In a short time, this exchange blossomed: the CPWC started organizing workshops in their basement, often cooperating with WiB, and not only did local and WiB activists participate, but international feminist activists did as well.Footnote 46 As of 1994 and 1995, WiB started organizing protests and actions against the increasingly difficult political situation in Kosovo. These events mostly took place in Belgrade—Kosovar women also participated.Footnote 47 However, the LDK, as the main pillar of the resistance movement, severely criticized this relationship, as they did not approve of any links to Serbs.Footnote 48 Albanian women attempting to build bridges with Serb women were seen as traitors by the Albanian resistance, and the same held for Serb women helping Albanian women.Footnote 49 As Julie Mertus explains, Serb activists had to impose their gender identity over their Serb identity. However, Albanian women activists did not have the choice to openly impose their gender identity over their Albanian identity (Mertus Reference Mertus and Ramet1999, 172–173) due to pressure coming from the nonviolent resistance movement and the difficulties this would entail in their work and activism.
Internationalization of Women’s Socio-political Situation
Women’s organizations soon realized that the situation of women in Kosovo received little attention in the civil resistance movement’s main internationalization goals and that the national cause and independence were the only elements taken to the international sphere. Women working in NGOs started to travel abroad in order to offer information about women and to start building relationships and networks with other feminist activists and women’s organizations. Within this scenario, cooperation with Serb women activists and the World Conference on Women celebrated in Beijing in 1995 were key for the development of the women’s movement in Kosovo: both allowed women to learn from the global awareness of women’s rights and global feminist thinking that was developing at this time period.Footnote 50
The participation of Kosovar women at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 was a turning point for the women’s movement.Footnote 51 Several women from the LDK’s WF participated in the conference, along with women’s rights activists from independent organizations. Participants themselves highlight this division, as they participated at the conference separated by their belonging to the LDK or to civil society and because they presented different perspectives on the conflict. LDK women understood their participation in this forum as another space to publicize the national cause. They communicated the overall political situation in Kosovo, while the space where the NGO forum was held at the Conference was decorated with pictures of Ibrahim Rugova and Adem Demaçi.Footnote 52 They offered information on the violence of Serb military forces, but without any mention of the violence against women and their high rates of illiteracy (Mertus Reference Mertus and Ramet1999, 173).Footnote 53 In contrast to the LDK women, women activists in NGOs and women’s groups made the situation of women in Kosovo public and promoted cooperation with other organizations. They were able to work further on violence against women, conceptualizing sexual violence against women in the Kosovar context,Footnote 54 and they reported that levels of violence against women in the Albanian community were worrying.Footnote 55 However, it would be protests organized soon afterward in Kosovo that would gather the most international media attention.
Defending Active Resistance
After the Dayton agreement was signed in 1995 and it was learned that this made no reference to Kosovo, women became key actors in the development of the critical sector that was growing around the LDK, Ibrahim Rugova, and his claims for passive resistance and endurance. They did not limit their activism to criticism of the civil resistance project; they were also active in developing strategies for transforming the resistance process from passive to active, in order to accelerate the end of the conflict.Footnote 56 Although women working outside the LDK were the main supporters of active resistance or the “activation” of resistance, cooperation with women inside the LDK was a key feature of this process. As the conflict progressed, differences among women inside and outside the LDK decreased. This defense of active resistance featured two principal elements: the furthering of critical demonstrations and the internationalization of the situation. The selection of these two methods was, once again, motivated by need and their limited resources.Footnote 57 Even though women’s activism was divided into the main two blocks mentioned above, nonviolent political protest against the violence of Serb armed forces and in favor of the activation of civil resistance became a space that blurred the differences among women activists.
On April 26, 1996, women organized the first demonstration in years, in order to protest the death of a medical student at the UP, killed by a Serb civil sniper.Footnote 58 Women—working both outside and inside the LDK—organized several protest actions, symbolizing a move away from the silence and passivity that had characterized the previous years of resistance, in order to protest this death and the killing of Albanian citizens in general, showing women’s capacity to organize. They demanded that the United Nations act before the situation worsened (KGSC 2008, 104). This meant taking a position against the LDK and Ibrahim Rugova’s policy of passivity and their constant calls for silence and endurance, which had lasted for five years (Clark Reference Clark2000, 129), not only for the women who worked in independent organizations, but also for those working within the party.Footnote 59 The demonstration gathered 10,000 women, one of the largest protests organized in Kosovo during the civil resistance years and remembered as “massive” and “key” by organizers (Clark Reference Clark2000, 148).
As violence increased, women’s activism became progressively hidden. Bearing in mind the risk involved in appearing in front of Serb forces, they met secretly to strategically organize their activism.Footnote 60 The first action organized within this hidden activism was the massive protest against the violent attacks on Drenica on March 1, 1998. Thousands of women marched from Prishtina to Drenica—each with a loaf of bread—in order to bring humanitarian aid, medical support, and basic resources to cover the immediate needs of the population. Approximately 300,000 women participated (KGSC 2008, 110), confronting a violent Serb response, which rendered hundreds in need of medical assistance. The women were unable to enter Drenica since Serb armed forces stopped them, but they partially fulfilled their goals, as this protest received considerable international attention.
These massive protests in the post-Dayton era were accompanied by many others organized by women, with less international impact but more continuity: they organized a demonstration in the center of Prishtina in favor of the “right to divorce,” symbolizing the divorce between Kosovo and Serbia by removing wedding rings. Often, they would light candles in memory of their dead as a protest against the ongoing curfew. One of the most striking examples of these protests was the demonstration organized on March 8, 1998, where women held up blank sheets over their heads.Footnote 61 These nonviolent, peaceful, and symbolic demonstrations became the image of women-organized protests, both in Kosovo and internationally. They gave women activists credibility and a public profile: women reached the international public eye and defied stereotypes. The image of women was that of “patient and self-sacrificing mothers partaking in peaceful resistance,” but they also built an image of women who “could participate as active citizens” (Luci and Gusia Reference Luci, Gusia, Ramet, Simkus and Listhaug2014, 206) in the nonviolent civil resistance movement, showing their role as central actors.
Although women’s protests often overlapped with protests organized by other collectives, such as the student movement, they accomplished the goal of drawing international attention to the situation of Kosovo and the local population. However, the appearance of the KLA in 1996, the increase in its attacks, as well as in the violence between both sides of the conflict, isolated all attempts to activate the civil resistance movement and end the conflict without violence. The NATO intervention in Kosovo, starting in March 1999, which bombed Serb positions and provoked Serb withdrawal, opened up space for the implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (adopted in 1999), which identified Kosovo as an international protectorate managed by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). The conflict and NATO intervention resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths, nearly 860,000 people expelled to Albania, Montenegro or Macedonia, and 590,000 people displaced internally (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 2002, 304–308), where the population was less than two million people. The conflict would also have a clear gendered dynamic: the use of sexual violence against women as a weapon of war, a fact that would characterize a handful of women’s organizations’ work after the last war.Footnote 62 In contrast to the development of the armed conflict, the overall imagery of the nonviolent civil resistance movement is that of a weak strategy that failed, as compared to the armed struggle and the attention it gathered at the international level. However, it can also be characterized as a “limited success,” as it not only offered a means of survival for thousands of Albanians (Clark 2011, 290), but it also built the bases of the current local social and political institutions.
Conclusions: Gendering Nonviolent Civil Resistance in Kosovo
This article set out to gain a better understanding of women’s socio-political participation within the nonviolent civil resistance movement in Kosovo (1989–1997), which aimed to create parallel state structures separate from Serbia in order to claim independence, obtain international recognition, and offer citizens the means to survive under the high levels of violence exercised by the Serb military forces. Although the nonviolent civil resistance was successful in creating parallel state institutions and providing humanitarian aid, health, and education services to thousands of Kosovo Albanians, it did not manage to avoid war. Today, however, the narratives of the last war and NATO intervention have permeated most discourses at the socio-political level: research on Kosovo focuses on postwar reconstruction, peacebuilding, and development, often missing the earlier history and importance of the nonviolent civil resistance movement prior to the last war. At the same time, this movement has rarely been analyzed through gender lenses, contributing to the sidelining and lack of knowledge about women’s participation, activism, and varied contributions. Overall, when the experience of women’s activism is referenced, it is not identified as a socio-political agency with a “longer history and continuity,” as Luci and Gusia state (Reference Luci2014, 213), but it is identified as a product of postwar reconstruction and peacebuilding. However, as I have mapped throughout the article, women were active in the socio-political development of Kosovo decades earlier, more visibly starting in the early 1980s, though women activists were present even earlier, having developed their own agency, methodology, and strategies for incidence.
In the introduction to this article, I stated that two factors have characterized the development of the socio-political participation of women: the intersection of their participation in the political sphere and civil society, and the intersections and encounters of the concepts of gender and nationhood. As I showed throughout the article, during the nonviolent civil resistance movement, women participated in a way that was divided between civil society and the political arena. This separation, I argue, is linked to the assimilation of the IWA by the LDK. The creation of the IWA in the very late 1980s was an example of women’s developing agency, as the IWA attempted to create an independent organization for the defense of women’s rights. However, its absorption by the LDK not only brought an end to the initiative, but it also differentiated between women activists working at the political level or within the LDK and in civil society, characterizing the development of the women’s movement throughout the nonviolent civil resistance movement. Two main reasons could explain the IWA’s decision to join the LDK: the belief that the initiative would be stronger inside the party and the hierarchy of political goals at that time. Given the high levels of increasing violence that the population was experiencing, the need to join the nonviolent civil resistance movement and the national cause could have been identified as more important than the defense of women’s rights. This brings me to the second factor I identify as characterizing the development of women’s activism and agency within civil resistance: the links and encounters between gender and nationhood. The nonviolent civil resistance process offered a space for the socio-political participation of women in the public sphere, but the LDK, principal pillar of the resistance movement, focused the movement and the Albanian discourse on national expression. This had direct consequences on the development of women’s agency within the LDK. Women’s participation in civil resistance was massive and crucial when it came to the development of the parallel state, its functioning, and the internationalization of the conflict, but it was generally seen as subsidiary by the mainstream resistance forces. In contrast to the general objectives of resistance, women’s participation was identified with its private sphere and their claims were identified as secondary, and even, at times, as problematic, especially when specific gender-based claims were made. This led women activists to work away from the main pillar and goals of civil resistance and to develop their own strategies. As a result, women developed a dual participation in civil resistance. Both forms of activism faced severe patriarchal reactions of a conscious or unconscious sort. Those who participated in the LDK faced those reactions more unconsciously, whereas those who participated through independent organizations confronted patriarchal reactions through more conscious responses.
Activists working in independent organizations, often improvising based on the needs of local women, developed a feminist identity and methodology, learning to transform their activism in order to be able to reach their target: women. Among the principal areas of work identified in this text—education, health, documentation of women’s rights violations, internationalization of women’s situation, and inter-ethnic cooperation—inter-ethnic cooperation and the documentation of women’s rights violations were the factors that most strongly conflicted with the principle axis of resistance, the LDK. One the one hand, the party frowned upon any relationship with Serbia or Serbs, even though this cooperation built bridges between Albanian and Serb women activists that have lasted until today. On the other hand, the attempts by the party to silence the documenting of violence against women and the research exposing the extent to which it was inserted in the Albanian community demonstrate the way in which the principal axis of the civil resistance movement viewed violence. The movement understood nonviolence and nonviolent civil resistance as a strategic choice in order to declare independence and take a stand against increasing Serb violence, that is, as the option that would bring best results with least negative consequences. The silencing of this attempt to broaden the understanding of the spectrum of violence suggests that nonviolence was not understood as an integral and holistic opposition to violence; rather, nonviolence was understood as a mere strategic option that would avoid the outbreak of war and gain international attention.
Another link between the concepts of gender and nationhood can be identified in this dual activism: to an extent the LDK included women’s rights in the national discourse, while those women who were active through independent women’s organizations worked directly in the defense of women’s rights—although the national cause was not completely abandoned. This division can be understood as being linked to women’s perception in relation to the concepts of gender, nationhood, and national discourse. The women joining the LDK put national identity and cause over gender equality, whereas women working independently tried to prioritize gender equality, though they did so without completely abandoning the national cause, conscious of the consequences this could carry. Although women activists working within the LDK and within independent women’s organizations blurred previous differences in order to build a common strategy toward the activation of resistance, the increase in the conflict between the KLA and the Serb armed forces brought the nonviolent civil resistance project to an end. The outbreak of the 1997–1999 war and the subsequent NATO intervention created a completely new context in Kosovo, one characterized by the strong presence and participation of the international community.
Acknowledgments.
I am enormously grateful for all the support received from the Hegoa Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). I would also like to acknowledge and express all my gratitude to all the women who agreed to be interviewed by me, some of them even meeting with me several times. I am deeply indebted to the late Howard Clark and to Linda Gusia and Nita Luci for all their support, help, and trust, as well as to Igo Rogova, Nicole Farnsworth, and the late Sevdije Ahmeti for always answering my questions with patience. Lastly, I am also very grateful for Juan Telleria Zueco’s (UPV/EHU) critical reading of previous versions of this text, Sheida Besozzi’s (UPV/EHU) encouragement, and especially both anonymous reviewers’ comments and suggestions, which have visibly improved this text. All possible errors are my responsibility alone.
Financial Support.
This work was supported by University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), which funded the author’s doctoral research between 2011 and 2015 (Resolution no. 252/2011), and the Basque University System Research Group on Human Security, Local Human Development and International Cooperation (IT8116-13 when fieldwork for this article was carried out, now IT1037-16), located at the HEGOA Institute for International Cooperation and Development Studies (UPV/EHU).
Disclosure.
Author has nothing to disclose.
