The Free Speech Terrorists

For a good part of my lifetime, the most menacing term I have come to fear is neither fascism nor global warming. No, more than Hitlers or melting glaciers, I fear terrorists.

Yes, terrorists can blow you up in your car, on the subway, or at the airport. They lurk in public places, blending in, making friends, while in secret, plotting how to blow you up.  You never know which of your friends might turn out to be a terrorist.  In this modern day of global terrorist warfare, I can barely sit in a café without shaking in fear…of being suddenly vaporized.  
 
So you can imagine my shock and horror this week when I found out from a highly esteemed local newspaper, “Infopress”, wedged somewhere between the sexy bikini model photo-spreads and the mounds of government advertising that this little-read tabloid mysteriously attracts, that I, in fact, work for a terrorist organization.  That’s right!   

Throughout the past four years that I have worked as a co-producer and political satirist on the current affairs TV show, “Life in Kosovo”, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network has been functioning as a terrorist organization right under my nose, dedicated to the destruction of the entire Drenica (central Kosovo) region and Kosovo’s national values.  Furthermore, I’ve learned that my colleague and editor in chief, Jeta Xharra, is actually a special agent of the Serbian Secret Police.  

All of this breaking news has come out in a series of front-page headlines since the airing of our last week’s show, dedicated to the freedom of speech in Kosovo, in which we aired a field report chronicling how our news team was expelled from the Skenderaj Municipal Office for Public Information and later attacked by a man with a handgun, who grabbed the tape from the camera and ordered the team to leave town. 

Skenderaj’s mayor, Sami Lushtaku, had already made clear that he would be the only mayor to not participate in our municipal debates, as he was offended with us for transmitting a show which questioned the legality and morality of him remaining in office while serving a prison sentence for assaulting a judge.  

However, after he promised to not obstruct the rest of his staff and citizenry from cooperating with our team, we had not expected such a hostile response to our news work there.  In the context of a show dealing with the freedom of speech and pressures exerted on the media by government institutions, we thought it relevant to present the story of our obstructed investigation in Skenderaj. 

This show has set off a full scale offensive by Infopress and, to a lesser extent, a couple of other newspapers, also known for their closeness to the government.  Their answer to our examination of the extent to which journalism in Kosovo is free and uncensored: “Get those Serbian-employed spies and free speech terrorists off the air! Traitors!  Off with their heads!”

I used to harbor the notion that terrorist organizations were synonymous with destroying our free way of life.  Now, in Kosova, I see that, actually, stifling free speech with violence is the patriotic thing to do, and that investigative journalism, which performs a watchdog role over the government, is the real terrorism…to be feared and stamped out for the good of the nation.

Such an unsettling revelation is only exacerbated as it finally dawns upon me that I am also, by participation in this exercise of free speech and government critique, a terrorist myself!  Me, a terrorist?  Yes indeed! Like Mickey Rourke’s private detective in the film “Angelheart”, following a trail of gruesome murders, who is at the end confronted with the revelation that it is he himself, as Satan’s servant, who has killed them all.

You think that you are working to improve the quality of life of the citizens, and to promote democracy and responsible governance.  And then you wake up one day to find that telling truth to power is a suicide bomb, free speech is poison poured into the water supply, and enlightenment of society is anthrax powder sent in the mail.