On January 31, Atifete Jahjaga, the former President of Kosovo and current Montgomery Fellow, shared details of her remarkable journey before an engaged audience in Moore Auditorium. Jahjaga described in detail the trajectory of her life, from experiencing turmoil during her youth in Kosovo to becoming the nation’s first woman president and first non-partisan president. I will add that Jahjaga was also the first female head of state in the modern Balkans and, at age 35, the youngest female world leader to be elected to her nation’s highest office. Jahjaga served as Deputy General Director of the Kosovo Police from 2009 until her election into the presidency in 2011.
The January 31 event, organized by Steve Swayne, Director of the Montgomery Fellows Program, and moderated by Victoria Holt, Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center, offered profound insights into Jahjaga’s life and her impact as a leader. In particular, the event presented an utterly compelling example of how to respond when the suffering of the world calls for our attention.
Upbringing Amidst Conflict
Born and raised in Kosovo, President Jahjaga’s formative years were marked by the backdrop of civil resistance to the draconian ban placed on access to healthcare and education for Albanian Kosovars—a measure taken by Slobodan Milosevic in his campaign of ethnic massacre. Jahjaga’s education unfolded in a clandestine manner. The education system ran under the radar of Serbian forces and was staffed by volunteer faculty in homes given for free by other Albanians. Jahjaga recounted being able to write only with a pencil because, in the unheated “classrooms,” the ink in pens would freeze before touching the paper.
As 90% of Kosovo’s population lived under surveillance, Jahjaga risked her life to attend lessons, walking for hours every day, while hiding her notebooks under her clothes. To be sure, the simple act of seeking education was doubtless an act of defiance that could have brought fatal consequences. Having been the victim of police brutality on several occasions, she said that she vividly remembers the feeling of a boot pressing down on her neck as she clutched her schoolbooks.
Due to these harrowing experiences, Jahjaga never imagined that she could one day hold the highest office of her country. Her tenure as president was driven by a profound commitment to ensure that no one would ever endure the atrocities that she and many others faced. Her leadership, moreover, was clearly shaped by a deep personal understanding of the cost of conflict and the value of peace and justice.
Rising Through the Ranks
Upon the establishment of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in 1999, Jahjaga became one of the ideators of the new institutional system. Understanding the historical significance of building a country’s institutions from scratch, Jahjaga jumped into the role of creating the by-laws for several institutions of the new Republic.
In her final assignment in this role, Jahjaga worked on by-laws for the new Police organization. While immersed in this assignment, she was inspired to join the Police force herself. Remembering clearly the terror that Serbian police uniforms inspired in her, she sought to change people’s perceptions so that a new police—a force for justice and protection—could take shape instead. Additionally, knowing that the biggest victims of the ethnic cleansing were women and children, Jahjaga thought that the most effective way to reverse the public’s perception of the police would be to have women join it.
Upon making the decision to join the police force, Jahjaga quit a job with a compensation of thousands of Deutschmarks as a policy maker for UNMIK to assume a position as a police patrol officer for 130 Deutschmarks a month. This sacrifice was rewarded when, within ten years, she rose to the rank of general, at 30 years old. In 2011, she became a Five Star General, in charge of the entire Kosovo police force—the largest in South Eastern Europe at the time.
Unexpected Political Turn
During this period, Kosovo found itself in a period of severe political instability. There were two rounds of parliamentary elections in two years, with the previous two presidents being removed on constitutional grounds. The country was at risk of a third general election in a short time period. This would have dealt a large blow to Kosovo, as the country had declared independence only a few years prior. To be sure, signs of instability would have weakened Kosovo’s image in the region.
In order to avoid further polarization, the three main political parties decided to nominate a compromise candidate as a unifying figure. Several names were suggested, and Jahjaga was on the list due to her publicly demonstrated high integrity and proven commitment to civil service. When the parties decided to offer their joint nomination to Jahjaga, she suddenly had to make a monumental decision. Only thirteen years after the liberation, just three years after the declaration of independence, and at a time of great political unrest, she truly did not believe that she was ready for such a responsibility, especially due to her lack of political experience and young age.
Jahjaga told us that her father played a considerable role in her ultimate decision to accept the nomination. Throughout her life, she said, she has always turned to her father for advice. Jahjaga explained that she has always considered her father to be her staunchest advocate. Her brother, a year older and pursuing a more lucrative path in medicine, did not receive the same level of support as Jahjaga did from her parents, she believes. When questioning her father about this disparity, he told her that his disproportionate support for her was not due to greater love or favoritism towards her over her brother but rather a measure of the society. Jahjaga recounted her father’s words: “It is not because I love you more than him. Until you are ten steps ahead of your brother, this society will not move forward. I see something in you that others need to see, and I need to invest in you for this society to change.” Undoubtedly, when she finally accepted the parties’ joint nomination for the presidency, the moment came when society at long last recognized her considerable abilities.
But before that, when Jahjaga sought her father’s counsel regarding her unexpected political nomination, she explained to her audience that she voiced hesitations, believing she was still too young and politically inexperienced and would be more prepared a decade in the future. Her father, however, challenged her perspective sharply. He pointed out that to say such a thing was to solely on herself, neglecting the needs of her country and its people. Indeed, his rebuke was stern. Born into a society fraught with challenges, he reminded her that personal considerations should take a backseat to national duty. He told her: “For twenty minutes you have been saying ‘me, me, me’ but nothing about our country or our people. Who do you think you are? This is about your country. We have been born into this terrible society, and you think you still have the luxury of talking about you?” These words guided Jahjaga’s mission: “It is not about me, it is about my country.” It was then that she made the decision to accept the nomination.
In accepting, Jahjaga put forth three conditions: first, she would never, at any point in her life, become a member of a political party; second, she would not allow interference from any party with the Office of the President; and third, she would choose her own cabinet and advisors. These conditions were accepted, although they would be challenged when Jahjaga took on her most important mission as President: opening a discussion about war crimes and sexual violence.
Tackling War Crimes and Sexual Violence
In the initial days of her presidency, President Jahjaga had a pivotal encounter that profoundly shaped her mission. She met with thirty-five women survivors in Drenas, a meeting that unveiled the harrowing impact of war on women. She entered a dark room and was asked to not speak but simply to bear witness to what the women would show her. These women revealed their scars: cut breasts, removed fingers and toes, cigarette burn marks, cuts on their faces and ears. Having lived in Kosovo during the war period, Jahjaga realized that she could have been one of these victims too.
Ashamed by the response of her people to these victims, Jahjaga was determined to effect change. Her society, she said, had pointed the finger towards the survivors instead of the perpetrators—covering these women in a veil of shame rather than of pride. The ensued forced divorces and forced marriages just so families could cover up the abuse, for some sort of honor. The survivors’ plea for justice—to see their aggressors held accountable—became a central focus of Jahjaga’s presidency, reflecting a commitment to not only addressing the immediate needs of the survivors but also to challenging the societal norms that perpetuated their silence and suffering.
Male Victims
Jahjaga relayed a number of affecting stories to her audience, including about meeting many male victims, but one interaction seems to have had an especially strong impact on her. Jahjaga encountered a young man who was very resistant to approach her and refused to speak. His mother, also present, told her that the man had not spoken since the war. However, as Jahjaga began to speak to him about her mission to bring perpetrators to justice and unveil these crimes, this man spoke for the first time and recounted his story. He said that the reason he never spoke was because he was worried that the first thing to come out of his mouth would be the story of what happened to him. This insight was one of the influences that inspired Jahjaga to sponsor studies with Princess Ann on the effects of trauma, which showed that war crimes affect societies for several generations, beyond the original victims.
International Involvement
When asked by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to address her class at Wellesley, Jahjaga told us her gratitude for Albright’s involvement in Kosovo made her happy to grant anything for which Albright could have asked. She expressed, moreover, a deep-seated indebtedness to the international community, particularly highlighting how pivotal Albright’s role was during a critical period.
Jahjaga emphasized that without such influential support, her own survival, along with that of many others, might not have been possible given the severe genocide and ethnic cleansing occurring in Kosovo as well as in neighboring Bosnia and Croatia, alarmingly close to European Union borders.
Jahjaga told us that Albright’s stance—“If we do not act now, history will not forgive us”—leaves us with a constant reminder of the eyes of history resting on our current decisions in the many crisis zones around the world.
Jahjaga’s was a profound and often affecting address, the sort that one rarely encounters within so cloistered an environment as Dartmouth. It is indeed a testament to the College that President Jahjaga has been welcomed as a Montgomery Fellow, afforded the opportunity to speak at length as she was, and, what’s more, encouraged to teach as a visiting professor. She currently teaches a heavily subscribed course about war and nationalism in southeastern Europe.
Be the first to comment on "Kosovo’s First Female President Delivers Montgomery Fellows Speech"