Behind barbed wire” “” “

UN ATTACK ON EUROPEAN CULTURE. “The Orthodox monasteries of Kosovo, more than elsewhere, have represented through the centuries a point of contact between the cultures of the East and West and the only secure point of reference amid the collapse of the civil institutions; indeed they were even respected by the Ottoman Empire that granted them particular privileges: their destruction is an attack on European culture as a whole”: that’s how Cardinal TOMAS SPIDLIK commented on the video ‘Enclave Kosovo’, presented in Rome in recent days on the initiative of the ‘Salvaimonasteri’ (Save the Monasteries) Committee, set up following the destruction, in March 2004, of 35 Orthodox churches and monasteries (dating to the 13th century) in the Serb enclaves of Kosovo and Metohija. “Since the beginning of the war – say the members of the Committee – 250,000 persons have been displaced, and 150 Orthodox monasteries and thousands of homes destroyed. In this extremely difficult situation, only in part kept under control by the presence of 18,000 men of the international peacekeeping forces, a form of ethnic cleaning opposite to that which caused the war in 1999 is taking place, and we are witnessing the systematic destruction of an priceless artistic and spiritual heritage”. THE CAUSES OF THE VIOLENCE. “The causes that permitted, in March this year, so sudden an outbreak of violence – explains PASQUALE SALZANO, head of the Italian diplomatic mission in Pristina, in the video – are of structural type. In the population, of which 60% are young people, there’s a high level of unemployment, some 70%. The people survive by dedicating themselves to small-scale trading activities, while black-market activities of every kind are rife. Sustainable conditions of life need to be created, and the concept itself of enclave overcome, by ensuring mobility in security”. “Five years since the end of the war – says Father SAVA, of the Orthodox monastery of Visoki Decani -, fundamental human rights are still being denied in Kosovo: the rights to life, to mobility, to education, to access to healthcare. A society opposed to that which modern Europe is trying to build is being created”. LIVING THE FAITH IN A COUNTRY WITHOUT PEACE. “Evangelizing today – adds Father KSENOFONT, he too from the monastery of Visoki-Decani – means for us understanding how to profess the faith behind barbed wire, together with believers deprived of everything due to their language and the faith they profess, surrounded by the armed escort of the international forces that guard over their security, and celebrating ever more frequently the funerals of young men killed in ambushes”. “Europe – declares Father Sava – cannot permit a society being created that destroys the values of peaceful co-existence; if she does not intervene to defend this heritage of spirituality, the extremists will find the courage and the problems will spread also elsewhere”. “All together – says the film director EMIR KUSTURICA – we must defend our cultural heritage; I hope that just as the immune system helps the organism to combat disease, so culture itself may help us to reject the violence that destroys our fundamental values”.