A first letter from independent Kosova

Iliriana Kacaniku is a citizen of the newly independent state of Kosovo (Kosova in Albanian) who lives and works in Pristina. She sent this letter to many international friends on 19 February to share her joyful reaction about Kosovo’s independence. EJC project director Josh Laporte passed it along.

The following is her letter, illustrated with photos taken by a Flickr user called Arianit. The popular photo-sharing service has many photos taken during various celebrations.

Dear Friends,

As of yesterday, my KOSOVA is independent and I am a citizen of the newest state in the world. A new state is born, and for all of us a new life and future are born. This is the moment for which we have all long been dreaming, waiting, and fighting - even though this struggle came to be known only in 1999, when the NATO air strikes made it known to the world. We are very excited and the joy we all feel has no end.

I have spent the last three days mostly in the streets of Prishtina. I literally felt three waves of joy taking us over during this period.

The first wave began on Friday. The very preparations for celebration, taking place all around the city brought a new look to people’s faces, and the joy was already radiating from their faces. Red flags and balloons, emblazoned with the double-headed eagle, already waved from the balconies of the city center, lifting up further the festive spirit. The overflow of the numerous journalists from all over the world, all going in and out of the media center set up in the Grand Hotel, which is located at the very heart of Prishtina’s city center, ensured every one of us that the Declaration of Independence was coming; this time, for real.

On Saturday, the first wave of joy continued to gain strength with each moment. The flags, posters, and congratulation notes were already taking shape in Mother Teresa Square. Carrs passed buy, the buses transported people, and balconies of the surrounding buildings, displayed the people’s endless creativity as they made their joy and feelings known. “BAC, U KRY” (BAC, it’s over) poster was already hanging from the balcony of the Illyria hotel, while on another balcony across the street one could read a huge poster saying “INDEPENDENCE: LOADING ………… 100%”.

The official announcement of the government’s agenda for the D-Day was made during Saturday, even though the exact timing of declaration was not mentioned. Did it matter at this point? I don’t think so. It sufficed to every one of us that what we’ve been fighting for all these years is finally coming true. And it sufficed to know that it was finally taking place this Sunday, as since 10 December, 2007, everyone was wondering, guessing, speculating, about the date of declaration.

In the evening of Saturday night, the festive fever was at its highest. The city streets were fled with cars, this time not only from Prishtina, but from all over Kosova, displaying the most diverse flags, paying tribute to all the countries of the world that have supported us during all these years. The national Albanian and the flag of the United States continue to dominate these days.

The celebrations continued all night long all over the country. Bars and restaurants of Prishtina were celebrating along with their guests, and the Albanian traditional, folk, and hip hop music kept everyone fully awake and highly spirited throughout the night. The special edition of Peja Beer, named Independence, added a distinct flavor to the celebration.

The sunrise of Sunday morning opened the second wave of joy. When I got to the city center at noon, there were already thousands of Kosovars. More people had arrived from all Kosova sides, and their number was increasing each moment. The low temperature (somewhere around -5C) of this sunny winter Sunday could hardly stop anyone from joining the crowd and being a part and a witness of this important moment in Kosova’s life. Many businesses were already distributing food and drinks for free to the celebrating crowd, while at one end of the Mother Teresa Square, the setup of the stage for the later-on concert was being finalized.

While the crowd was patiently awaiting and celebrating on the streets, the Prime Minister, Mr. Hashim Thaci, invited the Parliament to an extra session and presented the declaration to the Kosovar Parliament, declaring Kosova an independent, sovereign, and democratic state. All the political party members were present beside the Serb representatives. When voted, all members voted for the declaration with a show of hand, and as a result, the Parliament declared Kosova an independent and sovereign state.

At that moment, I had already left the crowd on the streets and joined the one in one of my favorite Prishtina bars, the Strip Depo (the Comic Books Depot). It was already packed with celebrating youngsters; I hardly got in. People in there were carefully following the developments in the Parliament on the TV, placed in one of the bar’s corners. Of course, not everyone could see it at this point, but again it did not matter. The outburst of cheer and cry at one end of the bar made it clear to the rest of us what happened. And the emotions, pride, joy, and happiness I felt at this moment cannot be described. Tears were running from my eyes in the meantime. I cried, happy that our dream came true, but I also cried because I wished I could celebrate that moment in my home in North Mitrovica.

When I woke up this morning, I thought I woke up in the ‘morning after,’ and thought that now we are to continue our lives as each other regular day, but focusing on building our new state. In a way, this is true. But watching the news and listening to the first recognitions of independent Kosova being announced. I cannot stop and not feel the third wave of joy. And at times, I feel that this one is the most powerful. This slow process of bilateral recognition is as becoming as the important stamp on some important document, something that makes it valid, something without which you cannot use it. And it makes it certain to us that the bitter history that we’ve survived is truly over, and that a new age for KOSOVA is being born. After decades of Serbian rule, that long chapter has just closed, once and for all.

And that’s why celebrations had to continue today and tonight as well. The city continues living and celebrating as two previous days, and I have a feeling that we’ll continue like this for few more days too.

By the time I am writing this email 15 states have already recognized us, while 38 of them have declared that will recognize us soon. We’re aware that the full international recognition will take a while, but what matters is the fact that we’ve embarked on this process and there’s no way back.

I feel reborn, I feel new, and I feel that a new chapter is being opened for me and my Kosovar fellows.

And now I have to go because I have to build my KOSOVA’s European future.

Independent Kosovar love to all of you,
Iliriana

Posted on February 20, 2008 by .
Filed under personal.

Publications to read

The madness of carnival is its incapability to attract me. So I think it is time to highlight some papers that I think people here, especially in Maastricht should read and discuss. The first one with the title “Towards a Grand Strategy
for an Uncertain World” can be found here. The second one is a usual subject. The Humans Right Watch World Report 2008 can be found here.
I hope that my coffee is finish and this madness over.

Posted on February 5, 2008 by .
Filed under personal.

Not even a little bit, not even at all

There are two reasons I sit in Maastricht with my former employer, McClatchy Company, on the brain.

The former is more pleasant than the later, so we’ll start with the good news. My friend and former colleague Shanda Cook was kind enough to contact me via Facebook this week to let me know I won a writing award from the South Carolina Press Association. Clearly, good news.

The second reason is because of the first item in today’s Romanesko e-mail roundup of media news.

The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy Company newspaper, will lay off 25 of 14 jobs in its ad design group. It will instead, as the article details, hire employees of an Illinois company called Affinity Express… whose facilities are in the Philippines and India.

Also, the Raleigh News and Observer (another McClatchy paper) will also cut employees and begin doing business with Affinity Express.

First off, a disclaimer: As an American working for a Dutch company, I of course understand that I am not in a strong position to critique the idea of foreigners working for domestic operations.

On the other hand, I wonder how many of these employees were offered the chance to move to Philippines or India. If you gave me the chance to relocate to either one of those places, I would certainly consider it. But I highly doubt any of these American citizens were given that chance.

On another note, I must admit I grew up enchanted with the idea of newspapers. As soon as I abandoned the prospective career paths of Olympic swimmer and physical education teacher, I wanted to be a journalist. A lot of my life has been about pursuing (and sometimes achieving) that goal. But, part of the reason I came to work at the EJC was to broaden myself professionally. I know the profession is changing. Professionally, I recognise and accept this.

Emotionally, though, not really. From my negative gut reaction to today’s news out of Charlotte, maybe So maybe a psychologist would tell me I’m in the second stage of grief: Anger.

Sure, I understand that this is about a McClatchy decision to lay off advertising staff. Of course, as a (former?) news-side person, I am glad that these cuts are not on the newsroom side. And heck, maybe these cuts have to happen to save news-side jobs.

That said: Despite the recent change of course at The Miami Herald (again, McClatchy Co.) which decided against a proposed attempt to outsource part of it’s copy desk to a group called Mindworks, based in New Delhi, India, I see this as a slippery slope.

Are page designers next?

I can understand why the copy desk experiment failed - you wouldn’t want your journalists and editors to be geographically separated. But thinking back to my own experiences with McClatchy Company (at a paper with a circulation of about, I think, 20,000) most of the page designers are doing their thing in the latter half of the day. Typically without discussion with reporters or story editors, many of whom were never around in the evenings (I know this because I worked in sports, often till around 12 a.m., or later).

In the sports department, for example, a page designer would come in sometime around 4 p.m., confer briefly with our section editor, and then be on his own for the night.

So really, he could be sitting anywhere.

Maybe this was possible because my former section editor is one of the most organised leaders I’ve met. And maybe that’s the way things worked because the newspaper was small.

However, thinking back, I do really think newspapers could outsource some of their page design work.

And I think they could save money doing it.

But, I don’t like this idea. I am sure there are wonderful designers in the Phillipines and in India. Truly, I enjoy the design of foreign newspapers, finding them to be more colourful, exciting and innovative.

But I think there’s something to be gained for designers and reporters working together. There is a lot of cohesiveness that can be achieved in newsprint (and online) products when there is synergy, people working together. I used to meet one-on-one with the sports design guys to discuss layout concepts I could help them implement. And our section always fared quite well in contests and in local courts of public opinion.

Then, looking at this from another angle: What about human rights? This deal is going to save about 40 percent on labour. Which I would imagine is because wages will be lower in India and the Philippines – and benefits will be less, insurance expenses will be less. Maybe hours worked will be more, who knows.

But isn’t this starting to get at the heart of what has so many people feeling conflicted about the upcoming Olympic Games in China? Human rights abuses? Government systems with few labour laws? Governments who close down information tracks?

I can’t imagine myself, at my former job, walking to the other side of the building and telling the very nice ad folks, “Sorry, time to go home. And please don’t come back. I’m giving your job to someone in India. And no, you can’t move there to have the job. It’s just gone.”

I can’t imagine this any more than telling my friend, Shanda, that her job as a features designer was being outsourced.

These are reasons why I am fully in favour of politicians levying taxes against American businesses which fire their employees and outsource work like this.

Because what about all the money and time American taxpayers put into educating and training this white collar labour force we’re laying off?

In the end, I find this trend both scary and sad – sad because I don’t want it to continue, but scary because I think it will.

Posted on January 31, 2008 by .
Filed under personal.

Will electromagnetic waves become the tobacco smoke of the 21st century?

My ambition to create some sort of regularity and structure in my life lets me read the IHT every morning in the office. While having a cup of coffee, which was brought to me by Bianca this morning, and some slices of dark bread with jam, I came across an article by IHT: Cloud of worry gathers over wireless health risks - by Doreen Carvjal where she discusses the possible effects of electromagnetic waves, especially that of the Wifi spectrum, on the human body, especially the human brain. The electromagnetic spectrum was discovered around the same time when the tobacco industries came into existence around 150 years ago. While the former was around ever since light was on this planet, the cigarette - the most popular form in which tobacco is sold worldwide - is a very recent development. There are a lot of studies that support the fact that smoking has negative effects onto the body while other studies come to a more interesting conclusion, taken the Austrian example, that “Austrian consumers showed little response to changes in cigarette prices. Even income fluctuations did little to affect demand. The older the members of an Austrian household, the smaller will be the part of their income spent on tobacco products. Blue-collar workers spend most on tobacco. Tobacco consumption declines with the level of education achieved”. (ECON Papers)

Lets assume that communicating WIFI is as harmful as smoking a cigarette (remember here that passive smoking is considered to be even more harmful than smoking) and money will still control the world in hundred years from now. No government would freeze subsidies for IT-Infrastructure, WIFI networks and Mobile phones because of a 60 to 80 % possibility of brain chancer of an average adult. This is the possibility of getting breast chancer with connection to smoking. No private company would argue on the assumed results of a serious study that their online service has to stop because of the high risk for customers to get brain chancer.
And do not forget Europe’s social welfare system that is right now not sustainable because of the coasts from the negative effects caused by smoking, which is the main argument behind the Europe wide campaign against smoking.

In the case of electromagnetic waves, that bring knowledge and information in every corner of our advanced technological society at minimum costs and with a maximum of comfortability, we see the same developments like one hundred years ago. The state sees himself as the “enabler of a information society” to “foster growth and development” and subsidise the Development of IT-Infrastructure and sell, not only the Wifi spectrum, to businesses for billions. It also gets rid of its own telecommunication monopoles and let the “market” decide whats the best price for communication among the citizens. The result is seen best if you compare the EU Memberstates in terms of price per MB or just by a quick look on the Digital Opportunity Index 2007 by the International Telecommunication Union. There is not only a north-south gap, but also a west-east one. But what is more striking than the gap is the fact that we “have such insufficient knowledge of the health risks” that some argues (Sylvia Kotting-Uhl from the Green Party) to “force the government to ... favor cable-based technology” even sounds reasonable when in fact they are complete lunatic. Even with the knowledge we have now concerning smoking nobody would condemn cigarettes or tobacco leaves. We might condemn the private sector or the state, or what would be best ourselfs.

So, after I wrote this article I went on our balcony, smoke a cigarette and get back to my office where the nice Apple Airport feels a little bit like the last cigarette. But the taste differ.

Posted on September 25, 2007 by .
Filed under personal.

Always do what you’ve always done …

My mom liked to say to me: “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”

Wednesday marked my fourth week working for the EJC here in Maastricht, and I can say what I’m getting here is in no way what I’ve always gotten.

I’m really getting tuned into what’s happening in the world of “Web 2.0,” innovations in journalism, new media, etc cetera. And I’m really, really surprised how accessible and easy-to-use everything is in this Web 2.0 world.

Back in the United States, some of my friends – a majority of them work in journalism – don’t know what an RSS feed is. And I’m not talking about the aging editor tucked inside his glass office… I’m talking about talented, 20something, well-trained journalists who can crank out stellar ledes and nutgraphs like nobody’s business.

I was pretty satisfied with life there – I graduated from a good university and had a good entry-level reporting job with smart co-workers and a great editor at a McClatchy newspaper – but just wasn’t sure I wanted to resign myself to a blind climb up the daily journalism ladder.

Plus, witnessing firsthand the uncertainty now facing traditional newsrooms … I figured it was time to take a risk. Because I don’t know if, in the future, the ability to crank out compelling copy is going to be enough. Sure – it will always be necessary, but I don’t think it will be enough.

So far the rewards of my move are outweighing the risks.

I’ve learned how to use del.icio.us to update the EJC site. I’ve watched our talented tech guys use free sites like Flickr and Slideshare to create informative multi-media packages for our website. I figured out how to route calls from SkypeIn, where I have an American number, to my Dutch mobile phone. Bernd is currently teaching me how to use Yahoo Pipes to create personalized RSS feeds we’re going to try and integrate into the Media Landscapes page.

Since my journalism education has been pretty traditional up to now, I arrived here a bit skeptical about “Web 2.0.” But after sitting through our Innovation Journalism conference, I’m really excited and optimistic about the possibilities.

Plus, as the sole native English speaker here, I’m honing my vocabulary and grammar skills while editing the copy of my peers. It’s a good challenge for me to try and offer a satisfactory (and correct) answer when they ask questions about the language.

Along those lines, constantly hanging out with non-native speakers has forced me to try and eliminate colloquialisms from my speech – and writing – so as to communicate effectively. I think that’s a good thing.

Anyway, a month into this new experience, I’m glad I listened to my mother – which, now that I think about it, was an act that itself may have been the first step down the path of doing things I’d never done before!

K. Clore

Posted on August 9, 2007 by .
Filed under personal.

“Privacy is dead. Get over it.”

After seeing Steve Rambam’s lecture, I got to thinking my next dream - after becoming a journalist, of course ;)
It’s to get a second passport, new birth documents and a little house near a lake somewhere in Greenland.
The idea of one’s private life, everything that happens outside the public sphere, is not so different from the notion of nation states, with their distinctive borders. Boarders that divide ME from the OTHERS.
After listening to Rambum’s analysis about “what everybody already knows,” which everybody with a little bit of historical understanding of human society can draw from, I decided I should rather live on a big boat and forget about passports.

The promised article from the CS 07 will come later as expected. 

Posted on June 12, 2007 by .
Filed under personal.