So lately I’ve slowed down a bit, trying to ground myself in the realities of Kosovo’s past and present. One of the most significant insights I have gained over the past month or so concerns the cultural differences in perceptions of time.
I’ve been working with a cool Kosovar Albanian guy, Gezim, to implement a joint project between CRS and Caritas Kosovo involving a youth training center. Gezim is a program manager with Caritas, which has a policy that employed staff must be evenly balanced between Serbs and Albanians. Gezim, who’s pretty tolerant and open-minded (though he would never admit to it) likes to get me riled up on occasion by declaring his opposition to positive discrimination and “multiethnic” policies, for various reasons.
One day, in the midst of a heated discussion, Gezim told me that he would never be able to trust a Serbian male colleague, with whom he has worked for many years. When I expressed my doubts regarding his mistrust of the colleague, Gezim paused, then his expression hardened. He replied, saying something to this effect: “Before the war I lived in an apartment building with both Serbs and Albanians. We were not close friends, but we got along fine with each other. In 1998, a Serb in our building killed 14 of my Albanian neighbors. Now you tell me. After such events, how do you internationals expect us to trust Serbs again, no matter who they may be?”
I didn’t really know how to respond, and I still don’t. On the one hand, I have lived an extremely sheltered life and have no idea how I would feel if I was in Gezim’s shoes. Who am I to judge such feelings that arise from traumatic violence and death? Yet at the time, it seemed to me that similar attitudes, particularly those more radical, have been a major contributing factor to the cycles of violence that have shaped the history of Kosovo. I still don’t quite understand how individuals of different backgrounds can live next to each other for hundreds of years and not find some way of reconciling their differences. Yet reconciliation depends on whether or not the different groups possess the will to accept each other as neighbors and leave past grievances behind. In the Balkans, where past events and relationships so strongly influence people’s understandings of the present, such a process is much easier said than done.
In the United States and Western Europe, we possess what Lederach (2005) describes as a linear sense of time. We feel that somehow, by just making the right decisions in the present, we will be able to control the future. We surround ourselves day to day with what we believe will help us to reach our future goals; meanwhile, we are told to “never look back.”Although we often find ourselves assessing “lessons learned,” we tend to “let go” of the past, leaving it for display in museums, photo albums and history books, which gather dust over time. While making plans for the future, our decisions rarely are based upon relationships and events that extend back before our parents’ generation. Particularly in the United States, what happened to our ancestors in say, 600 AD, has little contemporary resonance.
In contrast, as Lederach points out, for other cultures around the world, the past breathes and survives within ongoing events, the surrounding environment, and individuals alive in the present time. The future, on the other hand, is completely unknown and mostly out of one’s control.
Jebuwot Sumberiywo was a participant in a series of lectures given by Lederach in Nairobi, Kenya. Lederach describes how Jebuwot renegotiated her views of time, based upon both her adult experiences in Western European countries and her experiences as a child, raised by her African grandparents. While growing up in Kenya, her grandparents taught her, “it’s the past that lies before me and the future that lies behind me” (p. 135). Jebuwot, who developed a European understanding of time while attending English-language schools in Kenya, never quite understood what they meant.However, one day in Lederach’s classroom, she revealed a new insight into the meaning of her grandparents’ teachings on time. “This morning I understand that what we know, what we have seen, is the past. So it lies before us. What we cannot see, what we cannot know is the future.” She then stood up and began to walk backward. “So the past we see before us. But we walk backward into the future. Maybe my grandparents’ way of saying it is more accurate” (pp. 135-6).
Jebuwot’s demonstration illustrates an understanding of time similar to that which is held by so many populations around the world, those that do not assume the mindsets of U.S./European mainstream culture. “Backward” in this sense does not at all connotate underdevelopment, weaknesses or inefficiencies. Rather, the term describes a view of the world that prioritizes family connections, shared histories, and wisdom from experience. Such a mentality clearly recognizes that despite proven theories, scientific discoveries, and increasing technological capacities, we are limited as human beings and cannot control the future.
Particularly for people and institutions from the United States, I believe that the incongruity of our perceptions of time with those of other cultures prevails as one our biggest challenges when attempting to assist communities around the world. The work of governments and international development organizations is shaped by the pressures imposed by donors to demonstrate progress and plans for achieving immediate results. How can we expect the individuals with whom we are working to accept and conform to such plans, to imagine a future that is completely different from what is familiar in the past and present? How can I convince an Albanian that it is in their best interests to trust and become reconciled with their Serbian neighbor (and be sure of the argument that I am making)? In so many areas around the world, particularly in Latin America and the Middle East, it seems that a primary reason why our efforts have backfired lies in our halfhearted consideration of cultural and historical factors and our limited understanding of how such factors influence the relationships and structures within a community.
Furthermore, I believe that our perceptions of time, our blind concentration on the future and sense of urgency to achieve immediate results, will increasingly backfire on us at home in the United States. We need to learn and to assume the discipline of stillness. Before reacting and making influential decisions, we need to gain a broader understanding of how our past mistakes and successes continue to influence our present realities. Unfortunately, however, mainly due to the way our political processes are structured in the U.S., the fostering of such disciplines at an influential level would be somewhat of a formidable task.
