Up Too Late: An Endless Search for Mr.Right & Other Important Things in Life

In the last few weeks, thanks to the wonders of IPTV technology, I've been avidly following the coverage of the parliamentary elections in Kosova. I was disappointed to find out that a year after president Rugova's death, Kosova's political parties have fragmented into a bunch of small parties...

Ibrahim Rugova, the man who used diplomacy as a tool of peaceful resistance and was recognized by the world as a pacifist who wished for a peaceful resolution to the Serb-Albanian divide, is shunned today by those who are tired of promises, those who want immediate action on the region's looming independence, eight years after the war that saw my family and me, among more than a million Kosovars displaced, over twenty thousand mostly Albanian men and women killed.

His party, LDK (Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës) , the Democratic League of Kosova, continues to use Rugova as an image to promote its values. However, there is something morbid, something sad, almost ironic, in the promotion of a dead man to a people who want resolutions fulfilled, long lists of "to do" promises held.

While alive, Rugova enjoyed a popularity comparable to few in Kosovar history. After Rugova's death, UN officials, diplomats and Kosovar politicians saw his passing away as an opportunity to move on, to move towards the much-wanted independence in a more pro-active, immediate manner. Kosovars saw this as a chance to wake up from the "dream" of independence resulting from diplomatic talks.

A year later, little has changed. Kosovars have become hopeless and desperate, to the extent that they've given the international community a deadline to settle Kosova's political status. The unheard Kosovars, Serbs, continue to reject any notions of independence, and, though I would hate for Kosova to remain part of Serbia, I can understand why they choose to boycott elections
(lack of security, allegiance to Serbia, Kosovar Albanians' anger blame on the community for the 2300 missing persons since 1998).

While watching the news on KTV (alternative and independent TV media station, comparable to B92 in Serbia) yesterday, I heard an interview with a Serbian man from northern Mitrovica, who said he boycotted the elections because he feared that if he did vote, his vote would add to the multiethnic vote count in an independent Kosova, a notion he despises, as, he said, he only believed in Kosova within Serbian territory.

The group Vetevendosja (Self-determination, alb., I wrote them about a couple of months ago here), called for a boycott on Kosovar elections, as well. The group says Kosovar parliamentary elections are simply a forum for rival groups to compete for more empty promises and useless, result-less negotiations with UNMIK (UN Mission in Kosova). Their dream came true. Kosovar Albanians, who, until 2004, saw elections as the only way of showing their discontent with the Serbian regime, are growing more and more disappointed in the electoral process, halfing the turnout at the elections this year (less than 45%), as opposed to the war years (more than 90%).

At this point, I don't know what will happen with Kosova. The preliminary results (graph above, from the Demokracia në Veprim coalition), show Kosovars want to try something new. They want to deviate from diplomacy and want unilateral independence. How productive this will be is left for the world to see. US and France are big supporters of Kosovar independence, but what of China and Russia, which both oppose Kosovar independence?

My Quebecois heartbreaker, in a heated chat we had about the future of Kosova (and Quebec, incidentally!), told me he thinks that Canada, too, plans to oppose Kosovar independence, for fears it might incite a separation of Quebec from the country.

The winning party, PDK (Partia demokratike e Kosovës), the Democratic Party of Kosova has set the deadline for independence for December 10th, a day when they will declare Kosova independent unilaterally, if the West does not do anything to support it.

Coincidentally, December 10th is International Human Rights Day.

Image credit: City of Gjakovë - Flickr-ibslim , Poster - Vetevendosje

Labels: Canada, ibrahim rugova, Kosova, Kosovo, politics, problems, Serbia

Some of the discussions this afternoon with the lady that ended up at emergency last night include these excerpts: ...

"My son was taken away by the police at the age of 17 because they were afraid he'd join the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]" ...

"I was afraid to speak to my nephew because he had joined the Serbian police forces...fearing other people seeing us together, I asked him not to talk to me in public....he was shot six months after he started working...Six months before his death, he was sent 50 kgs of flour, 10 kgs of sugar, 20 kgs of beans, potatoes and other vegetables...they told him that he would die when the last of these foods was consumed, unless he resisted the Serbian occupation."....

"I haven't seen my sister in twelve years...She has turned blind ever since...She will never see me, even if I see her."

"Don't tell anyone, but the reason my remaining son in Bosnia was booted out of the refugee camp he was staying in is because he fought with a knife the man that ran away with my 19-year-old granddaughter"

"I think my heart problems started when we landed in Saranda [she means Toronto]"

"Because one of my sons was beaten so badly by the Serbian police, the neighbours killed a sheep and wrapped him in the bloody sheep skin, so as to stop the swelling all over his body...It worked."

Thanks to Gina and Angelica [a colleague at work], I am enriching my non-existent Portuguese vocab.

Labels: albanian, hospital stories, integration, Kosova, Kosovo, Serbia, St.John's, work

The winner of this year's Eurovision is Serbia, in its first year as an independent country (Last year, due to arguments re: who would represent Serbia & Montenegro in the contest, the country didn't participate). I didn't expect the 23-year old Marija Serifovic's Molitva [Prayer] to win, as it was just another sad ballad.

[To download all versions, including the dance remix of the song, go to the Serbian Eurovision site here and click on "all versions of Molitva" on the left.]

And the dancing? Aside from the Dolce&Gabbana suits [which looked amazing on the girls], there wasn't much dancing, and I think the conservative nature of the performance may have helped Serifovic in getting where she wanted to get.

The song, a sad cry for a lover who has left, was well-complemented by the supporting singers, which also did a bit of moving around, something which BBC's Mark Savage called "a slow-motion lesbian porn film".

Marija's deep and moving voice seems to have resonated across Europe and if anything, her on-stage performance helped her act.

Serifovic looks like a super-butch lesbian, and she is one, according to Kurir, a Serbian entertainment magazine, which published this article in 2004 about Marija's coming out to her father. The article is about an ad that supposedly showed up on gay-serbia.com. Serifovic refuses to acknowledge that it was she who posted the ad, as apparently she "cares not for computers and technology". "Besides", the article states "Marija told her father that she is attracted to the same sex and her father supported her, which is not surprising, as the two have always been close and have always had a good relationship". The article states Marija's mother's reaction to her coming out is not known. Verica Serifovic, Marija's mother, is a well-known turbo folk singer in Serbia.

Marija's voice is so touching. I somehow feel closer to her, now that I know she's gay, too. :)

The runner-up to the winner was Ukraine's drag queen Verka Serdyuchka, (who looks handsome when not in drag), the very one I thought was terrible in my review of this year's Eurovision. Third place went to Russia's Serebro, which was good, but never as good as Turkey's Kenan Dogulu, which got the fourth position on the contest. [Rapidshare mp3 link here) .

To find out the rest about other Eurovision winners, visit here.

For those of you who watched Eurovision, you may have noticed a funny trend during the semi-finals and finals...Red was the colour of this year's contest.

P.S: Here's a remix of Molitva

Labels: Eurovision, lesbian, music, Russia, Serbia, Turkey

Hmmm...I have much to write about, but I choose this precious post to be on three docs I saw in the last two days, courtesy of FIFA (Festival International des Films sur l'Art) in Montreal.

1 - L'art du nu 2: Made by a Quebec filmmaker, Bernar Hebert, this documentary explores the relationship that exists between the painter and his model. Interviews in the documentary are great, ranging from interviews with Maillol to Cezanne's model to insightful stories by contemporary models. The models are mostly female, with the exception of a few men used in the doc. to portray they 70s, the birth of the modern feminist era as we know it, when women began to portray men in the same objectifying method men had been portraying women for centuries. I didn't find the documentary so involving... It was rather dry.

There was, however, a positive side to this, which has to do with the post-screening wine party held to launch the "L'art du nu" calendar. The party was a regular artsy fundraiser with one exception: Nude models posing everywhere while the painters painted them, paying detailed attention to every curve, every turn. This was rather interesting, so I stayed and looked at a nude male model for about, oh, I don't know, 15 minutes. HE DIDN'T MOVE! It was as if he were frozen in time. It was amazing! I mean, they must have some special training for it...As for wine, no, I didn't have it, to the surprise of the waiters who kept going around, offering as much as they could. I am determined not to ever try it... I'm stubborn like that sometimes :)

2 - Sinatra: Dark Star : I absolutely loved this documentary. I learned so much about Frank Sinatra, things I'd never known and would probably never have found out had it not been for this video. For example, did you know that the FBI tried half a dozen times to charge Sinatra for mafia links? Upon his death, the FBI file on Frank Sinatra was 2403 pages. See? Romantic men aren't just romantic. They are also troublemakers :)

3 - Making the Balkans Erotic: Before I tell you how I felt about this documentary, I have to make one thing clear. I have an issue with the title of this video. It is called "Making the Balkans Erotic", yet it only touches on one community out of at least a dozen Balkanic communities that are all so different from one another that it is impossible to include them in the traditions of one of the cultures (Serbian).

Marina Abramovic, a well-known Serbian conceptual artist, prepared an exhibition in NYC in late 2005 on old rituals existent in the Serbian (though she calls it Balkanic) culture, things like women showing genitals to the demons who may endanger the crops, bring drought, etc. or men having sex with the Earth . The documentary Making the Balkans Erotic is a sort of a "The Making of:...", in this case, so-called the Balkan Erotic Epic exhbition, only the making of part is actually a mockery of the work itself, which is a complete paradox.

I mean, she prepared Balkan Erotic Epic as a serious work of art that looks into the culture of eroticism existent in the pagan times of Serbian culture, yet in Making the Balkans Erotic , none of that seriousness and conflict between the honourable tradition and the erotic body zones is existent. Rather, Abramovic makes fun of her own work of art, in a way, mocking the men and women who take part in her piece. What is most remarkable to notice (and this is visible in every documentary involving paid crew members from Southeast Europe), is the poor men and women who, pressured by poverty, are forced to take part in mockeries such as this one.

Miranda B. mentioned it last night and though I had thought of it before, I decided to rationalize by saying that these men and women could have chosen not to expose their bodies. Yet, when you're poor, unemployed and in desperate need of money, do you have a choice? At the beginning of the documentary, the men ask to be paid in advance, as they have heard of porn filmmakers who get their video and disappear the next day.

These are the faces that you see in Making the Balkans Erotic: Men and women who will do anything they are told, as long as they get the money for it. As Abramovic says, you don't actually see eroticism in her work, despite being exposed to men with erections you rarely see in public. Somehow, though, I don't think she empathized with her crew. Instead, in the documentary, she says repeatedly that she thinks the footage looks better when the crew is more tired and when everyone looks exhausted. There is a terrible thing that comes to mind when I think of her words, and it's called slave labour.

What you see, after the layer of humour that you can associate with the image of Serbian men in national costumes jerking off to a porn movie playing on a portable dvd player is the face of those who aren't comfortable in the skin they are in. The humour is biting and the viewing is exploitative ...

I youtube'd Marina Abramovic and found a parody of a part of her collection. Here's the excerpt from Abramovic's exhibition (external link/ You need Real Player to access the video)

The parody, seen below, is actually pretty funny...



P.S: I've been getting hundreds of new visitors. A comment wouldn't hurt when you visit.

Labels: art, Balkans, documentary, film festival, Frank Sinatra, Montreal, Serbia