The struggle of Kosovo’s Ashkali community to name themselves in a country that rarely asks who they are
In “Šta smo mi, deda?”, Bajram Ilazi traces the quiet, complex search for Ashkali identity in Kosovo – a search that has been muffled by politics, silence and erasure. The essay opens with an intimate exchange between the author and his late grandfather, who answers the child’s innocent question, “What are we?”, with hesitation: “Ashkali, that’s what they say… but before the war we declared ourselves Albanians.” This small, trembling admission sets the tone for the piece, where identity is not a declaration but a negotiation, shaped by fear, loyalty and historical circumstance.
Ilazi shows how the Ashkali, one of Kosovo’s least understood ethnic groups, have long been caught between imposed labels and self-chosen names. His family’s responses – where some call themselves Albanians and others identify primarily by religious affiliation as Muslims – reflects the fluid, often defensive ways in which the community has positioned itself within the country’s shifting political terrain. In public discourse, Ashkali are rarely seen as a distinct people. They are typically grouped with Roma and “Egyptians” (two other self-identifying groups in Kosovo), their story dissolved into a homogenised minority narrative of poverty and discrimination.
While the Kosovo Constitution recognises Ashkali as a community with special rights and reserved parliamentary seats, Ilazi exposes how this recognition is largely symbolic. In practice, representation is determined not by population but by electoral results within a joint category grouping Roma, Egyptians and Ashkali together, effectively denying Ashkali the political visibility they are promised. Even cultural representation mirrors this bureaucratic flattening: school textbooks, strategic state documents and international reports routinely erase the community’s distinct history. Ashkali are reduced to a single star on the Kosovo flag, and in UN and NGO reports, they often appear only in footnotes, mislabelled as Roma.
The essay moves between personal reflection and political critique. Ilazi laments that, despite constitutional guarantees, no state institution, university or media outlet has initiated a serious public discussion about the Ashkali. The silence, he argues, stems from fear: of disrupting the fragile balance among Kosovo’s minority groups, or of exposing uncomfortable truths about how national identity has been built on hierarchies of belonging. The absence of scholarship has left the Ashkali reliant on oral histories, myths of origin and unverified narratives. The result is a discursive vacuum: a people recognised in law but invisible in knowledge.
Ilazi’s voice remains tender even as it indicts. He remembers his grandfather’s uncertainty not as ignorance but as survival, a kind of learned quietness in a system that discouraged difference. What haunts him now is the prospect of passing that same silence to his own children. When they one day ask, “Dad, what are we?”, he fears he will not have the books or studies to answer them, only inherited fragments of story.
Original article (“Šta smo mi, deda?”) by Bajram Ilazi was published in Albanian on 30 July 2025.
It is available here.
Kosovo 2.0 is an independent, bilingual media platform based in Pristina. Founded in 2010, it publishes in Albanian, Serbian and English, covering politics, culture, and society across the Balkans. Known for its long-form journalism and critical engagement with identity, justice and democracy, the magazine is widely regarded as one of the region’s most progressive and inclusive voices.
