Having been born in London, I fully acknowledge the privilege afforded to my family and me. I did not experience the Kosovo war first-hand, but I cannot say it left me completely unscathed.

Kosovo had its autonomy revoked in 1989, and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s system instigated policies, rescinding people’s social, economic, political, and cultural freedoms. The Kosovo Albanian people and authorities resisted; however, the situation intensified, resulting in the beginning of the Kosovo war in February 1998.

It was against this contextual backdrop that my parents decided to flee. It felt surreal for my parents seeing their homes and cities, but most importantly their people, being ravaged by this war. International news depictions were one of the only ways the diaspora could connect to the homeland they had left behind.

My parents sheltered me from these images in my early childhood, but I saw the way that people in British society responded to me as a victim whenever I mentioned my Kosovo Albanian heritage. They had evidently seen these catastrophic depictions of the Kosovo war and its mass graves on the news.

I turned to the internet to discover Kosovo as an eight-year-old child, some years after the war had ended because I needed to know more. A simple ‘Kosovo war’ Google search guided me into a world of immense trauma.

This article articulates the way these images impacted on my identity, and my reflections on the behaviours that I believe that my community, and the former Yugoslav region as a whole, should be mindful of when engaging with mass graves and trauma.

It all started with one image

Ceremony in March 2019 to mark the 20th anniversary of the massacre of 113 men in the village of Krusha e Vogel, Kosovo. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

The image struck me so sharply. It depicted an elderly Albanian man who had been killed in the Recak massacre, which saw the systematic murder of 45 Kosovo Albanians by the Serbian security forces.

It was poignant for me that this Albanian man was still wearing the plis, even in death. Serving as a symbol of resistance, the plis was a piece of Albanian culture that was so indicative of my heritage.

I drew comparisons with the images in my family’s photograph albums of the patriarchs who wore this white felt skullcap. This small yet significant feature allowed me to connect with these individuals – as if they were members of my own family.

This would be just the beginning of what became my ‘obsessive compulsion’ to know more about the Kosovo war and its mass graves. I consumed every article, image, video, and human rights report I could find about Kosovo’s mass graves. Psychologically, the link between Kosovo, mass graves and extreme trauma had established itself well within me.

The people who had been killed in these mass graves had names like mine, ate the same foods, danced to the same music and celebrated the same events. But there was a key difference. They had died in the most horrific circumstances, while we in the diaspora had to watch these deaths depicted from afar.

I therefore felt it necessary to interweave these experiences of mass graves and these images with my identity. One could argue that I was undergoing a form of survivor’s guilt, making sense of a war I was physically detached from, but related to on a cultural level.

This was exacerbated by the politicalised position my identity had internationally. People, politicians and entire countries had an opinion on an identity they did not have. This became more difficult after Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. Ultra-nationalistic slogans, such as ‘Kosovo is Serbia’, aimed to undermine the country’s very existence, its fight for self-determination and the war crimes that had been committed there.

Living in the West also felt uneasy. Western media almost entirely shifted its focus to other conflict regions. It felt so suffocating trying to present what had happened in Kosovo to a world that felt as if it no longer cared, because the former Yugoslav region was no longer ‘relevant’.

But the fact was that more than 1,600 people were and are still missing from the Kosovo war, and were in mass graves, was important to me.

I therefore presented this topic to those around me. I felt that shock factor of these devastating images could get people to care about what had happened. I would quite literally have these images on my phone, accompanied with stories of mass graves readily available to show whenever someone asked me about Kosovo, the war, or my identity. But I began to notice how problematic my behaviour had become.

Questioning my own logic

A man reads names of missing persons from the 1998-99 war on a memorial in Pristina, April 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ.

I recognised the unhealthy connection I had made with Kosovo, war, and trauma within myself, damaging my cultural self-worth. My logic was questioned by my parents: “Is Kosova only war and mass graves?” they asked me. While trauma was deeply ingrained within my communal identity, trauma was not all that we were.

International law scholar Melanie Klinkner has written that a highly sensitive approach is needed when dealing with the issue of mass graves: “In the context of mass graves, safety, dignity, privacy and the well-being of the victims and their families should be a key concern for all actors without distinction,” she said.

However, this approach was not taken by the community around me – or the social media spaces I engaged with. These spaces were plastered with images and videos of mass graves. The people doing this did not recognise the full extent of the potential damage they were doing, not only in reducing Kosovo to its traumas, but also in dehumanising those individuals who had been killed and buried in these mass graves – seeing them as a number, and not as the individuals they were.

These people who had been killed had ambitions, emotions, experiences, and lives. Reducing the substance of a human life to an image of a mass grave now seems somewhat unrepresentative to me.

This is not said to undermine the impact of the ways in which these individuals died. We must be focused on seeking justice, making sure those who perpetrated these crimes are punished. However, I believe there needs to be cultural introspection about the ways we use and present the experiences of those who lost their lives in this way.

This is important as the twists and turns of Balkan politics convey that these experiences can be weaponised for personal, nationalistic or political gain. Therefore it is in this context that we must implement special care when engaging with these matters.

The rise of ‘trauma porn’

A Kosovo Albanian man looks at the names of missing people, Albanians and Serbs, on a wall in Pristina, April 2011. Photo: EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ.

I have noticed the rise of a problematic issue now known as ‘trauma porn’. The term initially developed in response to the way American media and social media conveyed death and violence within their context. Writer Sonia Kovacevic argued that “not only is trauma porn ineffective in encouraging people to act… it is also immensely dehumanising…stripping them of their dignity”.

While the American and ex-Yugoslav contexts are completely different, trauma porn also presents itself through Balkan media and social media platforms.

Navigating Balkan social media spaces can be an overwhelming task, as they can be filled with vitriol of all kinds. But I have noticed a rising trend in the way images, videos and narratives of those who lost their lives and were buried in mass graves, during the Kosovo war and the wider Yugoslav wars, are being weaponised in a problematic way.

While I agree with the need to have one’s experience recognised, I want to criticise the current way in which some of those from the Balkan region and its diaspora presents experiences of mass graves and trauma.

They can at times repackage experiences, focused on sensationalising the discourse and not properly informing others about the contextual components of what happened.

One can go on platforms like Instagram and TikTok and find countless images and videos stitched together arbitrarily from different events throughout the Kosovo war, accompanied by mournful music. A 20-second video, potentially made in under an hour, cannot possibly depict the sheer extent of the events that occurred with all their nuances.

The question of consent introduces itself here. Because they are no longer alive, these individuals who have been killed in such horrific circumstances have not given consent for unconnected people on social media platforms to use their narratives in whatever way they see fit.

There must be an explicit duty of care. Respecting a person’s memory and the agency they once had is vital. I do not believe that depicting the narratives of people killed in this way, removed from ethical approaches regarding mass graves and massacres, is correct. Let’s also not forget to recognise the potential damage that can be caused to communities because of this.

The implications of engaging with this material in my childhood had a lot of impact in forming my identity as a Kosovo Albanian. I found out about the horrors of the Kosovo war through imagery to which I believe children should not be exposed, particularly when they do not have the capacity to comprehend it or are not being educated about the context, history and humanity within these experiences.

I believe this is amplified since social media gave millions access to explicit and intimate images and experiences that many do not have the capacity to fully understand. I believe this reduces the experiences of those killed and buried in mass graves and does not fully acknowledge the severity of what happened.

I want to clarify that I am by no means policing people’s personal expression, particularly those who were related to the victims. Everyone has their own process in coming to terms with trauma.

But out of the respect I have for those who lost their lives in this way, I no longer want to use these images and narratives in an arbitrary way that some use to stoke up more hate within our region’s socio-political climate, using these experiences to inflame social media wars instead of focusing on the victims and their families and working towards seeking transitional justice.

Learning from others

Photographs on display at the ‘Seeing Auschwitz’ exhibition. Photo: EPA-EFE/Juan Herrero.

I recently visited the ‘Seeing Auschwitz’ exhibition in London, which centred on the humanity of those who were lost in the Holocaust. Seeing the way this exhibition was curated, got me thinking about the Kosovo war. How can people who are at times completely disconnected from these experiences, and from the victims in the entire former Yugoslav region, use them to serve their own agenda?

Why are those who lost their lives and are depicted in these images reduced to the ways in which they died and are not presented for the lives they lived? Why are the deaths of these people being weaponised in a way that I believe does not represent the humanity needed in this conversation?

This exhibition was so moving because these very concepts of humanity, relatability and dignity were central themes. While the horrors of these events were depicted – as they should be, we must learn from these events – they were depicted within their full context, and I learnt important details about those who were killed, about their stories, their backgrounds, and their humanity. These people were given back their agency, and I left the exhibition equipped with knowledge to educate others, not just a deep sense of sadness.

This is something I feel must be entrenched in ways we talk about and present narratives from Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. While we all have a duty to give representation to these experiences, approaching them with as much care and nuance as possible is necessary.

These images of mass graves have painted themselves in my mind, they serve as a reminder of the trauma present within my country of origin. But I no longer wish to use them for their shock value. While it is important that these images exist, to document these experiences and the crimes committed in them, these images should not be presented in a sensationalised manner, as this inherently dehumanises the victims.

I believe there has to be a more responsible approach when dealing with matters of mass graves. So that there is always a focus on dignity, respect and care. I hope that my community and the entire former Yugoslav region recognises that these issues run deep within our communities, and negligently using these images and weaponising them could have a severe effect on our own cultural self-perception – while simultaneously not paying proper homage to those who passed.

Let’s try to do better and cultivate a space that honours people’s memories, seeks to implement accountability and creates the desire for transitional justice.

Arber Gashi is an activist and ethnographer who has a BA in History from Goldsmiths, University of London and a MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture from Birkbeck, University of London.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.

For detailed information about mass grave sites in Kosovo and other former Yugoslav states, see BIRN’s database, Bitter Land.