Basha in the footsteps of his grandparents: The dream we had was the liberation of Kosovo

In the next Podcast with Ermal and Marsid, Lulzim Basha was at the house of the Jashars in Prekaz, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Kosovo. There, Basha told the story of his grandparents, originally from Drenica and Peja in Kosovo, and the massacres they experienced by the Serbs a long time ago, the reason that forced them to leave for Albania.

"Here we are in Prekaz and a little further is Likovci, it is the village of my grandfather who left very young, almost a child in conditions very similar to 98. It left at the end of the Drenica uprising of the 20s of the last century. He and his family experienced massacres of their relatives. I was very young when he passed away, but I grew up with family stories. With the confessions of the grandmother who is from Peja. She also left Peja when she was 12 years old, and her family was also forced by the pressure and violence of the Serbian regime at that time. So, both of my mother's parents were born and grew up here, grandfather in Drenica, grandmother in Peja" - said Basha.

He spoke about the heroism of the people of Drenica in the wars against the Ottomans, but especially against the Serbs. Basha shows the suffering of the grandparents from the Serbian oppression that did not spare the children, the 2-year-old babies, or the elderly. This for him and his cousins ??translated into a dream for the liberation of Kosovo.

"Drenica stands out for the uprisings it has always organized against the Ottomans, but especially against Serbia. Even these Serbs are aware of this. That is, Milosevic was quoted at one point by Wesley Clark as saying "we will do as we always do in Drenica". Well, from my family's personal point of view, we knew very well what that meant. We knew from my grandfather's stories, also through my grandmother, because he passed away when I was little, since here, every time Drenica stood up for freedom, oppression, terror did not spare neither the children, nor the 2-year-old babies, nor the elderly . This was something I had confessed, almost experienced with the eyes of a child's imagination. So when the massacre of Prekazi happened, it was something almost prophetic that was returning once again, but this time to completely close the chapter of Kosovo's freedom. To put it more clearly. That entrance you asked me about a little while ago at Hani i Elez, was not the entrance I imagined. I had imagined my entry into Kosovo since I was a child. I didn't know what Kosovo looked like, we had very few photos, very few images of Kosovo. But in my mind's eye I saw myself as a young man, together with my first cousins, entering Kosovo in military uniform. So, the dream we had was the liberation of Kosovo" - said Basha.