The Measure of Tolerance

The Nasa Borba daily's award for tolerance has been presented for the third time since it was established. After Aleksandar Tisma (1996) and the Belgrade's students (1997), the award was presented this year to representatives of the Independent Union of the Albanian University of Pristina, who went to the streets in the second half of last year to protest and seek their rights, and twice were beaten by the police.

The decision to give this year's award to the Albanians was met by a biased, and unfortunately predictable reaction. According to the proposer, Miroslav Hristodulo from the Belgrade's Students Movement, the Albanian students deserved this prize due to their "nonviolence in opinion, speech and action, and by demonstrated culture in the protest". The regime has, by means of its media, through three fierce commentaries which were presented two days later, immediately let it's opinion on this be known: it was about "enforcing the interconnection of separatism and terrorism" (Tanjug) and "conducting the orders of foreign parties ("Brcinka"). So once again we were divided into patriots and traitors, nationalists and internationalists, the servants of the regime and the lackeys of the world tycoons. There's nothing new about this dispute: protagonists, arguments, confused public who has become fed up with both sides long ago. The Albanian students have politely thanked Nasa Borba for the award, but they didn't come to the official ceremony, finding an excuse in the bad weather - their assumption was probably that the whole story has nothing crucial to do with them and their goals.

They were right. Vujaklija's glossary defines tolerance as "permissive attitude toward opinions and attitudes that differ from one's own, especially toward religion". How did the students show their tolerance? By restraining themselves from reacting with force to force? This is a permissive attitude, although not toward opinion, but toward nightsticks - however, is anyone who doesn't defend oneself from police beatings tolerant? Have the laureates expressed a special interest in the rights of the non-Albanian students in Kosovo? No they haven't, and the very name of their organization testifies to this, which mentions exclusively the Albanian University in Pristina. They claim that they have no political goals, but they apply war terminology and mention "occupiers" and "liberation" and don't feel the need to differentiate themselves from those who are ready to kill the opponents of the independent Kosovo.

Let's clarify something right away: this is by no means to question the right of Albanians to have education in their mother tongue, not even their right to fight for independence from Serbia. Judging from the experience of this journalist, gathered through interviews with their leaders, the Albanian students have many virtues - among other things, they are brave, well-mannered, clever and persistent in their requests - but a permissive attitude toward those who do not approve of their methods and goals isn't included on the list. And if the idea was to send a signal to Kosovo Alabanians, that there are people in Belgrade who are disturbed by the harrassment of Albanians in Kosovo, such a signal should have been sent much earlier and more directly, not disguised through this award, so that it might have an effect.

If we are to be honest, the previous winners of the award - the leaders of the Belgrade students - didn't demonstrate an especially permissive attitude toward their political opponents either, and they share common traits - both bad and good - with their Albanian colleagues. For the first winner of the award, Aleksandar Tisma, it can be said that in his works he has promoted tolerance among other things, but I believe that he himself would have disputed the thesis that tolerance alone, and not narration alone, was his primary goal in life.

Thus the problem lies with those who gave the award and not within those who got them. Already, for the third time in a row, the award was given to people for whom tolerance, mildly put, is not a top priority, and this is the motive of this text, and not the fact that the Albanians got it this year. The last two winners, however, have one thing in common: they had both gained the sympathies of the Western governments before they got the award. Belgrade and Albanian students were given this award after they visited Washington and there certainly is a pattern in all this, enabling the regime media to point out that they were right when they accused Nasa Borba for a servile attitude toward the West. Having this criteria for giving awards, the jury has done a disservice both to itself and the winners, because it did what the regime expected it to do.

The disservice was also done to the idea of tolerance itself, which has not been highly praised among rulers anywhere, be it in the West or in the East. Real tolerance does not mean only to restrain oneself from violence and evil, because in that case, the police should be awarded each time they don't beat demonstrators, or the thief when he restrains himself from the theft. Being genuinely tolerant means exposing oneself to danger in order to protect someone who does not belong to the same political, ethnic or religious group. Such examples were numerous during this last war, but they will never be extolled.