> Emin Xhinovci may be an eccentric, but he typifies a place where speaking
> the wrong language can be fatal Kosovo: special report
[translated: since this is a human interest story, i'll talk about a freak *as though he's normal*. that always works!]
> Meeting Emin Xhinovci for the first time, one's laughter is mixed with
> horror at how Adolf Hitler's double could be walking around this ethnically
> divided and explosive town in northern Kosovo. It is as if the nightmarish
> film The Boys from Brazil has come true, where clones of Hitler are
> manufactured from cells preserved from the dead Führer.
[translated: by invoking a surreal movie, i'll avoid being forced to admit that if the guy lived in the US or the UK he'd make a living doing pretty much the same thing--a hitler lookalike.]
> Mr Xhinovci, 40, might be an eccentric but his face, which evokes friendly
> waves and giggling salutes from ethnic Albanians in the southern half of
> Mitrovice, symbolises the continuance of virulent ethnic intolerance. The
> kind of intolerance which led to the murder of a United Nations official
> who answered in Serbian when asked the time by a group of ethnic Albanian
> youths late on Monday.
[translated: people joking with a neighborhood crank isn't a story, so i'll just sweep aside the complexities of this curious situation (he kid, quit laughing, i'm a serious journalist!) by saying they 'symbolize' what everyone wants to hear about.]
> The doppelganger was until recently a guerrilla with the recently disbanded
> Kosovo Liberation Army, where he won a reputation as a fierce fighter who
> commanded real respect among the ethnic Albanian locals. "I am a soldier,"
> he says simply, echoing Hitler's pride in the Iron Cross the Austrian
> corporal was decorated with in the first world war.
[translated: ditto for 'echoing.' ooh, and i get to used 'doppel- ganger' too... bonus point!]
> Mr Xhinovci has opened a bar in Mitrovice known variously as the Bar Hit
> and Jet, or the Pizzeria Hitleri. He complains that French Nato troops
> removed a sign which carried a badly painted swastika. A disgusted French
> captain says only that his troops are absolutely forbidden to frequent the
> bar, its simple interior decorated with portraits of the owner in KLA
> uniform.
[translated: i can't figure out *what* is going on here...]
> Mr Xhinovci has taken great pains to enhance his physical likeness to
> Hitler. His black toothbrush moustache is neatly clipped. His hair is dyed
> jet black, cut and combed in perfect imitation of the lick of tar-like hair
> that fell across the Nazi dictator's forehead. Otherwise his purple suit,
> greasy white shirt and string vest are testament to his breathtaking
> ordinariness.
[translated: purple suit? string vest? he's just a boring old crank... i came all the way to this god-forsaken town for this crap?]
> "Zum voll!", he says, toasting in German - he lived near Düsseldorf from
> 1993 to 1997, where he said he had an import-export business before
> returning to fight for the "motherland". "Everyone who is against the
> people who carried out the bloodshed against my people is a friend of
> mine," he says.
[translated: he's a polyglotic petit bourgeois with absolutely boringly normal thoughts about the last year. i'd better spice this story up pronto--how about some history?]
> He refers to the brutal Nazi occupation of the former Yugoslavia, when
> German troops based in Mitrovice turned a blind eye to ethnic Albanian
> attacks on Serb homes. The occupation ran concurrently with a bitter and
> confusing civil war, in which ethnic Albanians fought both as communist
> partisans and as members of the Skanderberg Division of the Waffen SS,
> formed from ethnic Albanians when Hitler began losing the war.
[translated: and he said something mundane about YU history.]
> Memories are long in the Balkans and the fact that there is an admirer of
> Hitler in Mitrovice will not surprise the sullen Serbs, some of whom are
> suspected paramilitaries who carry walkie-talkies and hang out in the Dolce
> Vita bar, just across the Ibar river, where they watch the bridge to make
> sure no ethnic Albanians return to the northern, Serb, half of the city.
[translated: i'll make the beliefs of the deluded into a rhetorically contingent 'fact'! heh... fools em every time.]
> A non-smoker like Hitler, Mr Xhinovci says the dictator went too far in
> killing women and children, but that it would be "a good idea to eliminate
> all those who thirst for our blood" - his catch-all phrase for Serbs.
[translated: when the guy opens his mouth he sounds like every- one else in this shithole--so i'll find some way he's 'like' hitler... hm, hey--he doesn't smoke!]
> The extremists in Kosovo do not have to look like Mr Xhinovci to be
> effective in clearing the province of its ethnic minorities. There are near
> daily attacks on and murders of Serbs and Roma.
[translated: ok, back to the story. copy, paste, copy paste...]
> Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 1999 *****
one wonders why they even bother.
cheers, t