Response to Anne Bernstein's Letter

By John Rolland

We would like to acknowledge Anne Bernstein's concerns. We share many of her thoughts. And, we couldn't agree more that the only enduring resolution to ethnic tensions is solutions that accept a multicultural society. As family systems-oriented professionals, we believe the project has been mindful of this goal. A primary focus of our work with our Kosovar colleagues has been to be as engaged with them as much as possible and help them define professional goals that work towards building structures that will guide them into the future. Although the project's work has focused to date on working with Albanian Kosovars, all participants in the project agree that when it is safe and possible, we are eager to reach out and work with Serbian Kosovar families. Our role has been to teach a family systems approach to interviewing, assessing, and treating families in the context of genocide and loss. Our role has been to try to understand how to be helpful in the context of the post oppression, post war, post trauma situation, where there is displacement, sudden urbanization, sudden Western contact, and no infrastructure or self governance. We do not advocate a position on what should happen, but hope to be of assistance as local people grapple with the anguishing challenge of recovery from trauma without perpetuating hate and violence (see forum article for fuller description of the project).

In preparation for this project, most members undertook extensive study of southeastern European and Balkan history and its current politics, learning a range of perspectives from which to understand its current problems. Our AFTA teams have been strengthened by team members who have had years of experience conducting clinical work with refugees, ethnographic research, conflict resolution, and international human rights advocacy in many countries, so that issues of language, cultural identity, and politics have been familiar terrain. Our initial organizational meeting was largely spent establishing guidelines for keeping a sharp focus on our mission and avoiding co-optation of our efforts by news media, other organizations involved in relief efforts, or political groups in Kosova with their own agendas. In the context of this preparation, we also have opened ourselves to the human stories we have heard and which deeply affected all of us. Rather than a negative, we believe that to understand their suffering and facilitate functional multicultural societies hearing stories is essential. This is a key to engagement and joining. And, this is where we have been able to start. We are keenly aware that there are deeply moving stories that Serbian Kosovars would tell us and look forward, with time, to an opportunity to hear their stories.

At the same time as we agree with much of what Anne says, we feel it is important to point out that there are other well-respected views of the history of the region. One book, in particular, we would recommend to AFTA members is Noel Malcolm's widely acclaimed Kosovo: A Short History (1999, Harper Perennial). The status of this region is undetermined. And, currently the UN does not have a position for or against independence of Kosovo. As an example, independent elections occurred last fall, which were overseen by the UN.

 Kosova is the name embraced by 95% of the population and by all those with whom we have had access to work in the current project. We address them in their own language for the same reason that we would address an ethnic group in the US by their chosen name, rather than one they consider to be oppressive. As part of joining it has been important to engage with our colleagues in their use of language. To the extent that the decision had political implications, we had to consider, and did, what the likely reach of effect was going to be. We decided, wrongly or rightly, that our naming practices were not going to support nationalist political agendas of the people with whom we spoke, and therefore we were willing to assume the risk. In fact, we do not want to contribute to the oscillatory cycling of victim/perpetrator in the region; we do not want to support nationalist agendas; and we are not convinced that the word Kosova signifies nationalism to all Albanians.

We would like to thank Anne for engaging in this dialogue and invite other AFTA members' thoughts and responses especially ideas about how to pursue this effort of international support for development of family-oriented mental health skills in areas such as these that have been affected by genocide, other forms of trauma, and loss.

References

Malcolm, N. (1999). Kosovo: A Short History. New York: Harper Perennial.