{"id":1094,"date":"2023-03-09T15:01:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T14:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2025-03-26T11:17:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:17:29","slug":"fushate-e-koordinuar-lincuese-serbe-kunder-jeton-nezirajt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/disinfo\/fushate-e-koordinuar-lincuese-serbe-kunder-jeton-nezirajt\/","title":{"rendered":"A coordinated Serbian campaign against Jeton Neziraj"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Serbian government and pro-government media in Serbia have undertaken a coordinated lynching campaign against Jeton Neziraj \u2013 a renowned playwright from Kosovo, - in the wake of the publication of the article\u00a0\u201cTheatre as machinery of political propaganda<\/a>\u201d, published in Sbunker in two parts as a critique on the controversial musical\u00a0LIFT: Sllobodan Shou<\/a>, staged in Gracanica, on the 6th\u00a0of March 2018. In this article Neziraj points out the ideological intentions of the Serbian Government in using the parallel theatre as a tool for its hegemonic interest, particularly in its relation to Kosovo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Furthermore, Neziraj argues that: \u201cThis theatre was established as an attempt to create continuity of the \u2018Serbian institutions\u2019 that existed in Kosovo before the war, in \u201ctheir then-province\u201d. Their goal, at least symbolically, is for these institutions (i.e., of this theatre displaced temporarily in Belgrade), to one day return and be reinstated in Kosovo\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a coordinated attempt to downplay the arguments laid out by Neziraj, certain pro-government and Russian media in Serbia spread disinformation by intentionally spinning and misinterpreting Neziraj\u2019s messages and arguments. For a number of days, \u201cNovosti<\/a>\u201d and \u201cSputnik\u201d<\/a>\u00a0published a series of propagandistic articles featuring protagonists from various fields that attacked Neziraj ad-hominem.<\/p>\n

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Soon enough, the Ministry of Culture of Serbia joined the campaign by accusing Neziraj for having the intent to \u201cdestroy the Serbian culture in Kosovo\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCalling such an institution [the Serbian theatre is a tool of Great Serbian hegemonic propaganda is terrible, as it is extremely dangerous for the safety of Serbs in Kosovo and M,\u201d the\u00a0Ministry<\/a>\u00a0said in an official statement.<\/p>\n

Apart from the Serbian Government and the media, accusations towards Neziraj were thrown also from various artists and theatre professionals from Kosovo and Serbia. The Association of Professional Theatres of Serbia accused Neziraj that through the article published in Sbunker is trying to\u00a0\u201cdestroy the Serbian theatre and attack the Serbian artists\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

Predrag Radonjiq<\/a> \u2013 the director of the so-called \u201cPeople\u2019s Theatre of Prishtina\u201d \u2013 said that Neziraj\u2019s ideas are \u201csimilar to those of the Albanian intellectual elite, whose aim is to make the life of Serbs impossible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, playwright and author of the play\u00a0LIFT: Sllobodan Shou<\/a>\u2013 stated in an interview in the daily\u00a0Danas<\/a>\u00a0that she \u201cwas surprised\u201d by this article and that she had now clearly understood \u201cthe political agenda of Jeton Neziraj\u201d and that \u201cthere is a mobilization around the goal of shutting down the People\u2019s Theatre in Gracanica\u201d. She added that the play about Milosevic\u2019s life\u00a0speaks for itself<\/a>\u00a0and that it is based \u201csolely on documentary data, and those published in media, and other publications\u2026\u201d. Ironically, playwright Bogavac reconfirms Neziraj\u2019s criticisms about the tendencies of the authors to relativize and downplay war crimes committed by Milosevic\u2019s regime in Kosovo and elsewhere in the 1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n

There were others who voiced their support for Neziraj, and most notably the writer and critic\u00a0Sasa Ilic<\/a>, who said in an article for Pescanik that \u201ctheatre in Serbia is dead\u201d. \u201cIn this case, what is at stake is a concerted attack on playwright Jeton Neziraj, who is otherwise one of the preferred guests of Belgrade\u2019s theatre in the times of peace. But when political darkness falls, things change fundamentally\u201d.<\/p>\n

The director of Humanitarian Law Center, Natasa Kandic has said that the Theatre in Gracanica is \u201ca political manipulation that has nothing to do with art\u201d, and urged artists to speak up in support of Neziraj and against the warmongering media like \u201cNovosti\u201d.<\/p>\n

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After the lynching campaign that lasted a week in a row, Neziraj responded. He said, for Sbunker that the whole orchestrated hysteria of reaction is driven by a false belief that the article\u2019s aim was to pave the way for shutting down the \u201cPeople\u2019s Theatre of Pristina\u201d, \u201ctemporarily displaced in Belgrade\u201d, as they say in Serbia.<\/p>\n

Neziraj believes these attacks against him are ad-hominem and demonizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost in all of these articles the main question was \u201cwhy write this exactly now\u201d, and even when this wasn\u2019t the question, it was implied, namely that my \u201carticle was part of a political conspiracy against the Serbs in Kosovo\u201d. In these articles I am portrayed as the \u201cenemy from Prishtina\u201d, a man with superpowers, who possesses that kind of decision making needed to shut down that theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Neziraj said that he was dumbfounded by the extraordinary speed in which he was transformed to \u201cPrishtina\u201d, or to \u201cAlbanians\u201d. \u201cSlowly but surely, I was stripped of all the personal and artistic attributes and was given representative national attributes, meaning governmental ones. And, in fact, oftentimes, by exaggerating my importance as a playwright, their aim was to exaggerate my importance and power for taking such important decisions\u201d, Neziraj said.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the meaning of this coordinated reaction of Theatre Association of Serbia, artists, informal groups and the Government of Serbia, Neziraj says that there was a national alarm raised in Serbia, like seldom before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe liberal intellectual\u201d or \u201cthe most liberal Albanian in Kosovo\u201d, as they called me univocally, suddenly became \u201cthe enemy of the Serbian theatre\u201d. While in the past, such articles served as preparation for the uprisings of march 2004, now I am supposed to be the one paving the way for \u201cthe eradication of the Serbian culture\u201d in Kosovo\u201d, says Neziraj.<\/p>\n

Neziraj claims that the hysteria in Serbia was driven by pieces taken out of context, from reinterpretations and spinnings of what I said in the article. And this speaks of the contaminated media landscape in Serbia, and also the contaminated cultural milieu, that whenever \u201cthe national cause\u201d is concerned, reacts, mourns, and attacks in gangs, almost like a wolfpack\u201d.<\/p>\n

Neziraj reiterated that the establishment of a theatre is always an emancipatory act, but the theatre in Gracanica was not established by the Government of Serbia on these artistic and social principles, as an artistic enterprise for social and cultural emancipation. On the contrary, it was established with political-hegemonic goals, because hegemonic approach was and still remains the official Serbian policy towards Kosovo. However, for many in Serbia, including artists and others, this is not properly understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take my critique out of the social and political context of our countries. Therefore, my ideas and what I say is to them are very strange and confusing. I am not against theatre\u2026 Never have been\u2026 Never can I be. I am against that sort of theatre that is used as a proxy ideological tool. I am against that sort of theatre that, instead of healing wounds, opens fresh ones, and causes more pain\u201d, says Neziraj.<\/p>\n

LIFT: Sllobodan Shou<\/a>\u00a0portrays the life of Slobodan Milosevic and his relationship with his family during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Plays like that one in Gracanica, according to Neziraj, do not serve the public, but are created instead to reproduce trauma, offend victims and the memory of innocent people who have suffered by Milosevic\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

*This article is published as part of the Western Balkans Regional Initiative against disinformation. \u201cWestern Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub: exposing malign influences through watchdog journalism.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qeveria e Serbis\u00eb dhe mediat e af\u00ebrta me pushtetin n\u00eb Beograd nd\u00ebrmor\u00ebn nj\u00eb fushat\u00eb t\u00eb koordinuar lin\u00e7imi ndaj dramaturgut kosovar Jeton Neziraj, pas publikimit n\u00eb Sbunker t\u00eb artikullit me titull \u201cTeatri si maqineri e propagand\u00ebs politike\u201d\u00a0, i cili \u00ebsht\u00eb i botuar n\u00eb dy pjes\u00eb si nj\u00eb kritik\u00eb p\u00ebr shfaqjen\u00a0LIFT: Sllobodan Shou, q\u00eb u shfaq n\u00eb […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[363,1242],"tags":[654,11,12],"ppma_author":[28],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disinfo","category-in-depth-story","tag-coordinated-lynching-campaign","tag-kosova","tag-serbia"],"authors":[{"term_id":28,"user_id":18,"is_guest":0,"slug":"disinfo","display_name":"Disinfo","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Sbunker_FAKE_NEWS_001-min1647858578.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Sbunker_FAKE_NEWS_001-min1647858578.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"Disinfo","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6588,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/6588"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}