jargon buster
'Shiptar'
Serbs and Macedonians have a highly insulting term for Albanians: 'shiptars'. It appears as graffiti on back streets in Belgrade and howls in 72-point print from the front page of tabloids. General tolerance of the term shows that bad blood still boils between Serbs and Albanians.
The word is a bastardised homonym, based on the Albanians' name for themselves, 'Shqiptaret', but the omission of the 'q' is a deliberate mispronunciation.
Serb official media, particularly the Tanjug news agency and Radio Belgrade, used the term liberally under the Milosevic regime. In 1999, an official document discovered in a government office in Mitrovica in Kosovo contained a list of 'shiptars' due for liquidation. These days, 'shiptar' is a favourite slogan of graffiti artists, along with anti-Semitic abuse and slurs on other racial minorities.
Some recent uses of the word are noteworthy:
- Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije Radosavijevic of Raska and Prizren was quoted in a tabloid newspaper, Glas javnosti, on October 24, but he is a hardliner anti-Kosovar nationalist.
- 'Shiptar' also crept into the tabloid's own headlines, on October 18.
- The more respectable Politika magazine used it on September 11, but it issued from the mouth of the secretary-general of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, Aleksandar Vucic.
The word is emblematic of deep-seated ethnic hatred in the region. In former Yugoslavia, the linguistic divide was underlined by racial differences -- young men drafted into the former Yugoslav People's Army could mostly understand each other, but the Albanians did not mix much because they were non-Slav.
Slobodan Milosevic arguably exploited nationalism to hold onto power as socialist ideology had lost its influence, delivering his notorious speech in Pristina on the anniversary of the 'Field of Blackbirds' battle against the Ottomans in 1989.
It all stems from the Serbs' casual disrespect for the Albanians. Serb contempt for their neighbours explains their routine mistreatment of Albanians in Kosovo in the years up to 1999. The Albanians fought back, not just because of the atrocities, but also out of pride, to prove on the battlefield that they were worthy of respect.
Read more from The World Next Week
