The day people sailed down the river on truck inner tubes
As someone told me, this picture doesn't symbolise Prizren very well. But the day I took that picture, another flag was the subject of bigger controversies. It was Bunar Fest, a really funny annual Prizreni celebration during which people raft down the city's river on inflated truck inner tubes. There were many people on the streets. No one seemed to know precisely when the race would start, so I just started roaming around the city observing people and hoping to notice by the crowd's motions when something was about to happen. After having fruitlessly followed a several large groups of people thinking that they knew where they were going, I heard noise and saw people rushing in one direction. I thought 'Hey! The boats must be coming!'. But I quickly understood that something else was happening. Groups of political activists had started walking up the river bank, removing every Kosovar flag they found and leaving only the albanian ones. The police rapidely arrived, and I got pretty confused about what their intentions were. One moment, they seemed to be assisting the activists by helping them not to fall as they were reaching to remove the flags. The next moment they harassed protestors.
I watched the whole scene incredulously, not really used to this kind of events. People who were standing next to me explained that there was nothing exceptional about what was going on, and that these kind of anti-kosovar-flag actions took place regularly. I was surprised that they were against the flag, as I thought that having one's own flag could only be perceived as a great sign of political autonomy. However, the explanation I received made sense. Kosovar albanians feel a strong affinity with the albanian flag, since it represents their cultural and historical heritage. But the republic of Kosovo was founded as a multiethnic state, and the flag had to be ethnically neutral. So there's a blue background and 7 stars each representing one people. Does this sound similar to the European flag? That's what those protestors and many more find disturbing.
