Izeir Mustafa’s studio is 35 kilometres north of Priština. We park in one of the grounds of a large industrial zone. As his assistant leads us through the grey, run-down grounds between the industrial halls, the sun begins to set.

When we get inside, the hall where Izeir Mustafa works is already semi-dark. But in the middle of it, radiant as the sun, Bill Clinton meets us; In full-length, smiling, shiny, the spotlight’s beam cast upon him.


He is one of Kosovo’s new heroes. And one of the largest, quite literally – as a sculpture, he towers above us at 3.5 metres. Until now artists in the protectorate, with its new myths and symbols, have not had the chance to create much in the sphere of monumental art.

Mustafa first moulds Clinton in clay and then in bronze. On the day that Kosovo declares its independence, the statue will be installed on Bill Clinton Boulevard, in the centre of Priština, from where he’ll be able to greet thousands of Kosovo Albanians every day, hand raised in the air with encouragement.

“Time should create Kosovo’s new symbols, they should not be imposed by anyone,” Izeir Mustafa says. While we talk, he’s climbed up on a ladder and, with a kind of tenderness, moistens Bill Clinton’s face with a small pump. His assistant has already started wrapping the American president in nylon and towels, in order to keep him soft and mouldable for the following day.

In the back, against the wall in the semi-darkness, several of Kosovo’s smaller (only in size), new heroes stand. If one concentrates, he starts to feel history passing – in the semi-darkness of the studio, the mythology of a new republic is forged.



The colours of the two-headed eagle, considered by Albanians as their oldest symbol, are red and black. According to Izeir Mustafa, they represent blood and suffering. “We can forgive but not forget!” he claims, then quickly adds: “The new generation has to choose freedom and not think about the horrible things my generation went through.”

“The new generation,” meaning Kosovo Albanians under the age of 35, today make up 65 per cent of the protectorate’s population. These are the people that need to find the way to reconciliation with the Serbs. The problem is that they were the ones who grew up witnessing only the negative side of multiethnic relations.

“When I was a child, one of the most important experiences for my family was the trip to the Christian monastery in Dečani,” says Luan Mulliqi, director of the small Kosovo gallery for fine arts. “Nowadays the Serbian cultural heritage is inaccessible for us. A whole generation grew up without knowing what Christian churches look like.”

From Mulliqi’s window, there’s a view of the only accessible, but monstrous example: a concrete cathedral, inherited from Milošević’s last years, topped by an obtrusive golden cross. This is a church that started to be built in a city where, at the time, not a single Christian was living. No wonder the Kosovo Albanians regard it as mockery.

Today, they would gladly tear it down if it wasn’t for fear of damaging their relations with the international community. Accepting the alternative – turning it into a museum, would require at least a decade of freedom.

“They wait and they wait and they don’t make a decision – we’re good at that. Until one day somebody throws a bomb in the church and we’re faced with a new problem,” Luan Mulliqi says.

With their dramatic past and uncertain present, the Kosovo Albanians must apparently seek out their symbols somewhere in the space between the US president and the language of suffering and hate. The problem is that this space seems despairingly empty.

A tour of Priština makes this quickly apparent. On one side, there are the pro-American messages, consisting of advertisements, a gigantic poster of Bill Clinton, street signs and tattered posters leftover from George Bush’s visit six months ago.



On the other, there are the memories of the armed conflict with the ethnic Serbs: from the broken windows of the public buildings in city’s very centre, to the memorial plaques of deceased fighters on the buildings’ façades, the wall of the disappeared and the hill with the national heroes’ graveyard. Another concrete monument – this time an Albanian one, surrounds the memorial for the victims of the recent ethnic conflict.

Next to it – another memory of death: the grave of the now deceased charismatic leader of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova. Over it flies the national flag he himself suggested: blue background, in its middle a red circle that bears the inscription Dardania and the image of the two-headed eagle.



The latter, however, is one of the symbols that the small protectorate’s government has decided not to use in the flag. The defined key criteria for the new flag include mostly elements it should not contain: the colours red, black, blue and white are out, as is a kind of abbreviated version of the Red Book, including images of birds.

This is because Albanians will never see the end of it if they start with the birds. “The black two-headed eagle of the Albanians, the white eagle of the Serbs, the turkey of the Roma – if we follow this line, we’ll have to put a whole zoo on our flag,” Ylli Hoxha, member of the parliamentary commission for new symbols and speaker of the opposition party ORA.

But what else could possibly be there? What symbolizes the Kosovo Albanians’ history without confronting the Serbs or making the world fear the idea of unification with Albania? One of the proposals that were thrown around was Mother Theresa but she, like Skenderbeg, is also connected to Albania. Another symbol under consideration is the small, clay, prehistoric statue of the goddess of fertility that is one of the most important artefacts in Priština’s historical museum. However, it has already been taken in the city’s coat of arms.

Beside these, as another historical memory, remains the fifteenth-century Fatih Mosque, one of the most beautiful Muslim buildings in Kosovo. Its religious connotation, however, makes it unacceptable to represent the future Kosovo nation, which also includes Christians.

And still, it seems that the vacuum imposed by history, the government’s anti- ornithological policy and the series of external restrictions, is productive. According to the latest data, there were 1,700 entries in the national competition for the nomination of national symbols and a flag. From them, 700 covered the criteria and made their way to the second round: the Parliament’s decision.

In order to avoid superfluous discussions in an inappropriate time, Kosovo’s authorities have decided neither to publish the entries nor to choose among them before the expected declaration of independence.

As Ylli Hoxha says, that would be a waste of the national energy “for a romantic, but secondary in the contemporary world goal… The large significance of the coat of arms and the hymn are passé. Unfortunately, Kosovars of that opinion aren’t many.”

It is Saturday and Ylli Hoxha, who looks to be in his early 30s, is informally dressed in a sporty outfit. We’re sitting in one of Priština’s many modern cafés. With its chill-out atmosphere, it could be a club in any European capital.

In the whole city, which today looks like a gigantic construction site, despite the ugly modern architecture, there is a pleasant and lively optimism. It is strange to realize that only the spirit, the modern interior here and there and several lights like Bill Clinton’s clay face serve to keep the 2,2 million Kosovars away from the darkness, from which Ylli Hoxha’s generation is trying to exit.