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Opinion

Dream weavers, dream crushers

We live in a socio-political system that feeds the dreams of children and simultaneously works to destroy them. A system where only 9 per cent of the population aged 15-24 is able to find a job, whereas 60 per cent of young people spend their youth unemployed.

“They will build a park for us to walk from here to Prishtina,” says one of the kids in a documentary film called “Kingdom of Coal,” who are staying near an ash landfill not far from the Obiliq power plants. “They will build stadiums,” the other kid says. “Swimming pools too,” a third one utters. Dreams of children who spend their days in the area that poses the highest health risk in Europe.

These children’s dreams are fed by unfulfilled official promises. Pledges by bureaucrats who do not find it problematic to make children dream and keep their hopes up so high that if shattered it would be even more painful.

In November 2012, the Ministry of Economic Development organized an awareness campaign called “Life without the Kosova A Power Plant.” Around 500 children from schools in Fushe Kosova and Obiliq were invited to imagine life without the most polluting power plant in Europe and competed for awards with their paintings. “I hope that ‘Kosova A’ will be decommissioned so that we can see the sun and breathe fresh air,” said Diana, one of the pupils who took part in the campaign.

But, it was not long after this “dream inducing” campaign that the ministry itself abandoned those plans and declared that the Kosova A power plant will continue to operate for many more years. Now, considering we are only a few months away from 2017 when the power plant was to be shut down, the Ministry of Economic Development formulated a new energy strategy that foresees three possible scenarios for Kosovo A: the first scenario, keep Kosovo A alive until the New Kosovo power plant is built; the second, keep it alive but with limited operating capacity; the third, keep Kosovo A alive with added operating capacity. Based on this strategy, in the best case scenario, Kosovo A will be closed in 8 to 10 years, and in the worst case scenario it will never close.

Unfulfilled pledges in the energy sector are the best example of how a class of irresponsible political leaders have induced and shattered dreams in the past 16 years of self-governance. Remember current President Hashim Thaci’s visits to Prishtina’s day care institutions during his electoral campaign where he instrumentalized the children for his party’s campaign and promised to build new day care facilities, only to immediately abandon them after the elections? What about the continuous campaigns for the elimination of child labor?

We live in a socio-political system that feeds the dreams of children and simultaneously works to destroy them. A system where only 9 per cent of the population aged 15-24 is able to find a job, whereas 60 per cent of young people spend their youth unemployed. A system where hundreds of children have spent their childhood hoping that they will return to their homes, be it in the north of Mitrovica, or in other places in Kosovo.

According to Giovanni Sartori, a theoretician of democracy, “Deception in politics and deception in other domains are radically different. If you deceive or lie in business, you risk imprisonment. But, in politics one can also lie through one’s teeth. There is no law that bans political dishonesty. What keeps the race in order are ethical principles.” Politicians who, among others, instrumentalize children for political goals bear no ethical standards.

In another scene in the documentary “Kingdom of Coal,” a film produced by BIRN in 2011, a middle-aged man talks to the children about the history of the problem, pollution, and power plants, and says that, “this dust has been here for 40 years and I doubt that it will be removed for another 40 years.” This is an ordinary Kosovo citizen who, unlike the children, is used to unfulfilled promises.

Eight years ago, Kosovo topped the list of the most optimistic countries in the world. According to the latest survey by Gallup in 2015, only 42 per cent of Kosovo’s population was optimistic that 2016 would be better than the previous year, an 18 per cent decrease. The culprits for the rise in pessimism are precisely the big promises that are given no effort for fulfillment.

It has now become a tradition that on the verge of every election, party leaders sign the ethical code of conduct, but that does not stop them from making promises and being dishonest. Since courts and the law are powerless in dealing with this caste of politicians, the best punishment is the vote by the Kosovo citizen.

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