Regarding public silence, I will refer to the famous Jewish intellectual Primo Levi, who after the Allied troops were released from the Nazi camp, said: "Those who kill are not criminals, but those who remain silent about crimes".
During a visit to Ljubljana, years ago, one of the referential intellectuals (Latin Intellectus-mind) of the XNUMXth century, the linguist and philosopher as well as the American liberal-socialist anarchist Naom Chomsky, declared: "You should not be too bold in West to be a critical voice". One of the subtextual decodings of this thought can be: You in the Third World - this is how this underdeveloped world of ours is usually typified in many American literature - try to imitate Western intellectuals, where freedom of expression and financial-material security are complete. But, this imitation of yours, in the end, turns out to be nothing but funny. Why?
Being a critical voice in the West, continues "is not courage, but a minimum of honesty". It is the gift that is appreciated and financed to be the society enriched with new values of freedom. Despite this, in a world in which there is a lack of security, law enforcement and in many ways inequality is promoted between citizens, even if they belong to an ethnicity and a formal social as well as political structure, it is not at all easy to be a critical voice . Even this is not easy even if the intellectual has a maximum of honesty. In the same way, in a country that is still being judged 18 years after the war is ending, emotion is much more powerful than reason, and it is even more difficult to be a critical voice even if you have quite a bit of honesty. You can be brave and honest enough to take the epithet of a Satan or an enemy dog, because you speak ill of the "glorious and holy values of power" and it would be much better not to "belong to them", because you do not membership deserves the ode of "historical glory".
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Mentari or mentarja (as the neo-Soviets called the intellectual between the two world wars), this is a personality with special qualities that clearly represents the message, assessment, attitude, philosophy and opinion of the public or on behalf of the public (Edward Said) . And that in the West, and this one in a transition society and crisis, or even with an even more pronounced crisis such as Kosovo, as much as it can have the same public claims, which is very natural and even necessary, cannot have the same social and public status. The social commitment of intellectuals in the West is completely voluntary, from case to case and from the very humane inclination of everyone. Their silence has the same meaning as the silence of an intellectual in a crisis society. An intellectual in America or Great Britain is not at all important if he will be a critical voice towards the government, radical ideological events and phenomena. But the silence of an intellectual in a crisis society is both conceived and interpreted, as well as the consequences for the society itself, significantly more dramatic. Consider dissidence in former communist societies and the tendency to lure and support intellectuals from Western politics to openly oppose the authoritarian system. The benefits of the intellectuals who came out on the side of dissidence were not small, opening the doors of not only public-political, but also artistic affirmation. Those who remained silent got nothing. The silence somehow drew back the sanction.
Is silence just as punishable as wrong speaking? Silence in the most developed societies is not so weighty, while in societies in crisis it is the act of judgment and even punishment, at least ethically. As an illustrative example in this context of silence, I will remember the famous Jewish intellectual Primo Levi, who after he was released from the Nazi camp by the allied troops, who said: "Those who kill are not criminals, but those who remain silent about crimes". Figuratively speaking, it is not only the murderers, the masqueraders-soldiers who are criminals (the very word soldiers draws the meaning – unfortunate and murderous when the order is given) because they do not want to have so much idea about what they do, but the cultural elites are to blame, who are silent and they do not tell those who kill that they are doing wrong, they are even committing a great sin with those who give orders, to whom they submit and do not oppose them. Precisely in this dimension, the function of the intellectual in the West and that of the one in crisis countries is different and cannot be asked for the same "accounts".
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It is estimated that in the last five thousand years there were over 14.500 wars in the world and in these various wars over three billion six hundred million people lost their lives. Seneca had in mind, perhaps precisely, this immutability of the aggressiveness and genetic inhumanity of man when he wrote: "Every day man is threatened by danger from man himself." If we were to agree that it can, not always the weak initiate it, but only the strong can start and continue the war, then the intellectuals of the world of the strong, or the thinkers of the imperial courts since antiquity, have always had more "responsibility" to be a critical voice. Their critical voice does not have the same influential weight compared to the critical voice of an intellectual of a country and people poor in strength and numbers. The responsibility of the intellectuals of the Western societies for the First World War (1914-1918) in which about 15 million people lost their lives and about 22 million others were injured and for the Second World War (1939-1945) which was even more tragic that more than 50 million people suffered, of course it is very big.
The dilemma is still posed today whether there was enough critical voice in the 90s of the last century to stop the wars in the former Yugoslavia. If such a thing were achieved, even in the total number of the last five thousand years, there would be five wars less and also about 300 less people killed and disappeared. The critical voice of Croats, Bosniaks, Albanians has not done any work in that mess dictated by the strong. The voice of intellectuals (academics, writers, professors, doctors) have first built the Serbian political-national platform, then the military one for the attack. So, the influential Serbian intellectual voice in this case was much stronger and more negative than the other voices of all the peoples who called for freedom, tolerance and peaceful separation, because that voice was united with force. Unfortunately, this trend still continues today. We have to wait until April to see if anything has evolved in this voice in Belgrade. The signs are frightening.
In this course, if there was space and a more powerful critical voice of the Albanians in Kosovo in these years of winning enthusiasm, rationality and wisdom of action, the situation would not be what it is, when the trend (we only remember the usurpation of properties, ignorance, undeserved positions...) is much more powerful than order. The trend of evil, therefore, easily defeated the order of good, and intellectuals also have their responsibility, why don't they say with a critical voice what needs to be said even when the "political elite" does not like it and may react angrily.
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Since the century XIII, the thinker gained the right of citizenship (Guya Bedouellea) and it is not at all easy to keep this right today as if he had not had it for centuries. But the difference between acting in the public sphere from "primary work with think 'and create'" is more than obvious. Experiences and results vary. In societies with irresponsible organization, writes Wright Mills, the possibilities of the independent intellectual's action become very narrow. This is the situation, the intellectual does not serve groups and institutions to manipulate people, but he himself will be manipulated. When force dominates mind, then says Mills, the authority of truth is replaced by the truth of authority.
If you are completely free, then you can have a critical voice, you can have the courage and attractive reason. The point is precisely in critical communication: the courage, the reason and now also the clarity of saying in order to know who and why says what he says.
(Written by Ibrahim Berisha, professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of Pristina)