Kosovo fieldwork: Albanian nationalist cafe

Kosova/Kosovo fieldwork notes extracts

At 7pm on the 12th of July 2005, back home after an encouragingly productive day, I noted that:

I got a lovely chicken and sauerkraut doner earlier, from an Albanian nationalist cafe - kitted out with Qur'an and Haradinaj family poster ([a] full colour number with photos of all the men in (para)military dress (some KLA uniforms, some black military and I don't know whether official KLA or not, though actually I assume so, so military)) with the strapline 'the historic Haradinaj family' or 'Haradinaj family, protectors of a (our) history' or something.

[Updated on the 15th of January 2007]

I should note that whether it was a nationalist cafe might be disputed; the artefacts and the atmosphere make me think it was; others might see these as normal objects that don't express any identification. In light of discussions I've had in Turkey, I would point out that they may also be a way for anti-nationalists to avoid being identified or intimidated as such. I read the cafe as I recalled a Turkish friend reading a Kurdish kebabery in England, which he identified and characterised (correctly) by its Ocalan calendar.

Participants have been afforded anonymity. Formatting has been changed to make it easy to read in a blog.

Technorati tags: Albanian; cafe; Haradinaj; KLA; nationalist; Qur'an.