Was Behrani wrong about his age when he left, or the reasons for leaving Yugoslavia?

[Ashberto]

His wiki page says he left Mitrovica when he was five, after his parents had lost their jobs. Nothing about the conflict in Kosovo, which wasn't really going in 1996 anyway, and certainly wasn't in 1991. A big clue is the stuff about learning to read and write in Switzerland. At age nine? If his dad had managed a factory you'd expect him to be educated enough to read by age nine.

It all looks like an excuse from the Indie to engineer a sympathy/feel-good piece about refugees from conflict, when in fact he was an economic migrant. There's no way he fled a war.

wd Monty, you've published a crock of **** :hehe: :clap:

[Classic Jorge]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

researching the subject about which he is writing is grossly offensive to all 'writers' and 'journalists'.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

You've not actually bothered to go through my working. Typical, lazy, journalist. :hehe:

[Monty91]

A brief glance at the education system in Switzerland tells me that the minimum age for starting primary school in most cantons is about six.

Not sure where that leaves us.

[Monty91]

Your mum, imo

[Ashberto]

I actually left a war zone at age five. Not the sort of thing you trend to forget.

[Monty91]

That was the clever sub's addition....

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Luis Anaconda]

unemployed at the same time?

[Monty91]

and immigrant - both factually correct.

Once I hand the copy over, I have no control over what they publish.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Monty91]

[Berni]

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

If so, maybe his mother worked at the factory too when it closed down. :shrug: Do you have some other speculative theory?

Two sources say he left at age five. One sub-editor says he left at age nine. :sherlock:

[Monty91]

[Ashberto]

They've been making stuff up about Yugoslavia for over twenty years to suit their own twist.

Unfortunately for you it has your name on it. Still, you got paid and that's the main thing.

[Luis Anaconda]

A quick look at the source for him leaving at the age of 5 (which I don't dispute btw) refers to the parents losing their jobs due to the political and economic situation in his home town - not just the economic. Therefore, it is not unjustifiable to suggest there was a politic element to their migration

[Ashberto]

But yes, same sort of thing.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[Luis Anaconda]

2000 to 2009 mostly

[Monty91]

Is a sub on the sports desk really gonna have a political axe to grind?

The piece makes no broader political point and everything else written - barring the timeline and motives surrounding his family's migration - stands up to scrutiny, so I'm comfortable having my name on it, not least because it will lead to more decent work and more money,

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

Valon Behrami came to Switzerland in 1990 as a five-year old, with his father Ragip, his mother Halime and his sister Valentina, aged eight. Prior to the move, the political and economic situation in his home town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo had deteriorated to the point where both parents had lost their jobs, the mother as a secretary, the father as manager of the plastics company Koplast. To offer their children a better future, the Behramis left for Switzerland

http://web.archive.org/web/20071115005950/http://www.sdc.adm in.ch/en/Dossiers/Dossier_Fussball_WM_2006/Valon_Behrami (http://web.archive.org/web/20071115005950/http://www.sdc.admin.ch/en/Dossiers/Dossier_Fussball_WM_2006/Valon_Behrami)


Monty's reputation as a respected journalist or writer is in tatters again.

[Berni]

clearly-defined goodies and baddies. Plus, of course, it didn't help that everyone seemed to be fighting everyone else.

If you want people to understand a war, you have to be very clear who the goodies are, who the baddies are and what the sides are. Otherwise people will just lose interest.

[Luis Anaconda]

Though as Monty points out down below he actually put 9 in his copy

[Monty91]

[Ashberto]

when there was no war in Kosovo, thus proving my point?

Yes, it does use the word political, insofar as there was a civil war going on at the other end of Yugoslavia, which is clearly politically destabilising. Perhaps there are other hypothetical conjectures that could be made about the nature of the job losses, but I don't know if such speculation would make it wrong to suggest the on the available evidence, he went to Switzerland for economic reasons. The Swiss authorities did not seem in a great hurry to offer asylum.

Anyway, whether or not it is right to describe him as an economic migrant he was NOT nine years old, and he was NOT escaping a war in Kosovo. Which makes me right in my main point.

[Monty91]

Not that this was necessarily with open arms and was something of an unintended consequence of the 1980s when Switzerland hired in lots of cheap Yugoslav labour. For this reason, when it all kicked off in the 90s, Switzerland was an attractive choice.

[Luis Anaconda]

though your summation that it is all part of some mass conspiracy on the part of the British press to "lie about Yugoslavia" is placing an awful lot of emphasis on one tiny little article about a football match.

It is most likely that there is some confusion over the dates. In the article from the Swiss development agency, further down it talks about four-year battle to gain asylum and it finally being granted in 1998 :shrug: Seems something is up there.


You've taken the being unable to read and write thing as a massive clue to 1990 being the correct date, but surely it would hardly be worth mentioning if a five-year old was unable to read and write surely? That can't be that unusual

Basically the whole thing is a mishmash of misinformation for which I blame Monty and the Swiss

[Luis Anaconda]

[Ashberto]

You are correct that there's nothing unusual about a five year-old not yet reading and writing, but it would be odd for a nine-year old. It makes sense for Behrani to mention it because it is the start of his education, and therefore putting meaningful roots down in his adopted country that makes him feel Swiss. Whatever Swiss is.

I think Monty's comments here do suggest that the paper were more interested in their angle on the story than his, do they not?

However, as always I have the strongest admiration for your unflinching loyalty to your industry. :-) :thumbup:

[redgunamo]

[Luis Anaconda]

Anyone can write, A - it's just the footwork before the proper job begins

[Ashberto]

Monty has published something and it is AWIMB's job to rip it apart. Thems the rules.

[redgunamo]

[Bergkamp's Brain]