What Kosovo can teach the world about freedom | Vjosa Osmani Sadriu

0:03Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.

0:10Angus Hervey: I honestly believe that the truth is the real oxygen for democracy. So when you're undermining truth, you're undermining democracy itself, which obviously is not perfect. It can be messy. It can be painfully slow sometimes. But the opposite of it is destruction.

0:30Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: That is the former president of Kosovo, Vyosa Osmani Sadriyu. She spent her life fighting for both truth and democracy. As a child of war, she once huddled in the mountains with a battery-powered radio, hoping the world's leaders would come save her people. She grew up to become one of those leaders, and she never forgot what brought her there.

0:50Angus Hervey: There are millions of children around the world who are now listening to today's leaders, hoping that someone would not turn a blind eye on their suffering. And it's about continuously, continuously fighting and never giving up.

1:06Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: In this conversation with journalist Angus Hervey, she reflects on what it truly takes to defend democracy in a world where truth itself is under threat. The conversation is coming up right after a short break.

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3:45Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: And now, our TED Talk of the day. President Liz Mani, thank you so much for joining us.

3:51Angus Hervey: Thank you so much for having me. It's a great honor.

3:55Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: You've just left office under circumstances you didn't choose, and you're not alone. Democracy right now looks like it's losing ground everywhere against populism, against cynicism, against sheer exhaustion. What lessons has this experience taught you about what it actually takes to build and sustain democracy?

4:14Angus Hervey: I'd like to say that the lessons that I've learned don't only belong to my mandate as president. I continue to learn. As we speak, I learned a lot today by listening to the previous speakers and I learned a lot throughout my life growing up as a child of war, as you mentioned at the introduction. We grew up together with all the children of Kosovo under a system of oppression which started as an apartheid-like regime and ended as a genocidal war. Growing up in that system where everything is taken away from you, from your childhood to the right to go to school, to your parents' right to go to work, At that time, just going out and playing as children meant that it was an act of quiet resistance.

5:03Angus Hervey: But at the same time, as a nation that today is thriving in many senses, but especially in terms of democracy, despite crisis that we're facing right now, we've learned that oftentimes the line that stands between a child of war and a leader of peace is an opportunity. the opportunity to live, to survive, first and foremost, and then the opportunity to thrive. And this opportunity was given to us by people who believe in humanity, people who never gave up on human values, even against all odds, whether it was political and military leaders who came to our rescue and did not turn a blind eye on our suffering and came to save our lives, democracies around the world who joined to save those values of freedom and human rights, or, you know, leaders in churches and mosques who opened their hearts and minds and joined communities together so that we can have some humanitarian support.

6:08Angus Hervey: And practically, it's this that shaped me to the leader that I was for the past five years, a leader for peace, because I knew that while I was leading my country, no matter how small my country is, we could have a powerful voice in the world. That voice that is going to speak up against oppression, against autocracies, against genocidal regimes, and make sure that we become the voice of that child who today is standing on the line, on the line to survive, but also on the line for food to survive. Because we were there a few decades ago, and today we are given the opportunity to give that contribution for peace.

6:55Angus Hervey: These past five years have not just been years of leading my country, defending democracy, but at the same time speaking for those who don't have a voice right now. Because once we did not have a voice, and there were people around the world, whether political leaders or leaders in their communities or just ordinary people who joined to help us, who became our voice when we did not have one. So that's the lesson that I've learned, that no matter how small you are as a country, it is not just the political or military or economic might that defines your strength. I think, after all, it's the strength of your story.

7:38Angus Hervey: You just need to have the courage to tell it.

7:42Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: Kosovo.

7:46Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: is a tiny country, you just said this, fewer than two million people, but under your presidency, it secured visa-free travel to Europe and applied for EU membership. So you've been in the rooms where those big decisions get made. You have an insider's perspective that none of us know or have access to. What do you see when you watch the world's geopolitical tensions playing out right now?

8:11Angus Hervey: I see a lot of devastation, obviously, we're all seeing how there are too many conflicts, too many wars, too much suffering happening right now. But at the same time, when I sit around those rooms and join world leaders where these decisions are made, we try to make an impact. We try to make an impact by sharing our story because, as I said, politics on one side, or geopolitics, if we're trying to talk bigger, it's not just about military and economic might. It's about doing things right. And we've heard and we're hearing nowadays so many stories about suffering, about pain, about things going wrong, about things being destroyed.

8:56Angus Hervey: But at the same time, it is important that we share success stories. And Kosovo is one such success story. It shows what democracies can achieve when they stand together for values, when they stand together in defense of freedom and against autocracies and against some of the crazy genocidal minds that we had to live under. And at the same time, it shows that even when you live under oppression, there's nothing, nothing that can stand on the way of a people that wants to be free. It takes years.

9:36Angus Hervey: It takes years. It takes decades. in the case of our nation, it took centuries. We had to live occupied and under oppression for century after century, but we never gave up on our identity. We never gave up on our quest for freedom. And ultimately, we became free. And just sharing that story of success is so important in these rooms in order to also change mindsets among countries that are so much bigger than ours, and to also convince them to act, to make sure that they save lives, to make sure that they put values in front of everything else. Because sometimes standing on the right side of history, it's the most difficult decision.

10:21Angus Hervey: It's not convenient for the moment. But long term, it is what humanity needs right now. So it's very important for us to be in those rooms, to raise our voices, to speak up, but also to be heard and to have an impact in how these decisions are made today. That may not impact necessarily my country very much, but they do impact humanity at the much larger level, and we need to make sure that we are part of those decisions.

10:49Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: Okay, I want to pick up on something you said there, which is about being in those rooms and when you have a decision that conflicts, what do you do when your own personal moral values rub up against a strategic geopolitical decision that you need to make? How do you figure out which way to go? You fight.

11:08Angus Hervey: That's what you do. You have to fight. You have to fight your way through and try to use a very dynamic diplomacy to convince other leaders to find a way that can protect both, that can protect moral values on one side, but at the same time make sure that enough countries think that that is also strategically in their interest so that these decisions can be made in a way that can better the societies and better human values and protect human values. It's not easy and we don't always win. We don't always win. There are times when not necessarily moral values are the ones who win. It's other interests that come beforehand.

11:51Angus Hervey: But that doesn't mean that we have to stop. And when this happens, I'm always reminded of the resilience of my nation, the resilience that our people showed. because resilience oftentimes is not just about surviving. It's also about thriving after you're given the chance to survive. And this is the story of Kosovo. It's a story of survivors who thrive. It's about not giving up. It's about continuing to fight because you know how much is at stake and you know how many people around the world have their hopes on those decisions that are made in those rooms. And, you know, when I would visit the United Nations or when I would visit the European Parliament and other institutions, I shared with leaders how, as a child, we were sheltering in mountains.

12:37Angus Hervey: We were sheltering from the shelling and the bombing and the people who were trying to come and kill us. And we had that little radio with batteries. And we were listening to these meetings and these speeches, hoping, hoping that someone would come and save our lives. and it's so important when I sit in that chair, when I sit in those big meeting rooms with leaders that I never forget that, that there is a child, that there are millions of children around the world who are now listening to today's leaders hoping that someone would not turn a blind eye on their suffering and it's about continuously fighting and never giving up.

13:24Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: Okay, we're at TED. So it wouldn't be terrible if we didn't ask a question about AI. We hear a lot these days about what AI might do to society. But for you, these questions aren't theoretical. I mean, they are a very real fight over truth. What's been your own personal experience of this?

13:45Angus Hervey: It hasn't been a good one, I have to say this. And especially if we're looking at the past couple of days after I finished my mandate, which I just finished. Actually, this is my first international activity after finishing my mandate as the sixth president of Kosovo. But it was important for me to not miss this one. It hasn't been a good one because in politics, obviously, you have to be prepared for everything. But we're living at a time when they can clone your voice, clone videos of you, make pictures of you that never actually took place, of meetings that never took place, of conversations that never took place.

14:26Angus Hervey: And this changes the entire narrative. Because, look, I honestly believe that the truth is the real oxygen for democracy. So when you're undermining truth, you're undermining democracy itself, which obviously is not perfect, it can be messy, it can be painfully slow sometimes. But the opposite of it is destruction, it's pain, it's suffering. and we've lived the opposite of democracy, which is why we're so resilient in protecting it. And it requires a day-after-day protection and fight to keep it alive. So I think the way how AI is abused nowadays is extremely dangerous for democracies worldwide, which is why it requires education so that we have people who are digitally prepared to differentiate between what is made through AI and what is actually true for the people who are involved in decision-making in our daily lives.

15:32Angus Hervey: And secondly, it requires a system that don't necessarily over-regulate so that they can block the use of AI for the betterment of society and humanity, whether it's in medicine or in saving lives or doing much of the stuff that we've heard from the previous speakers today. But at the same time, it allows people to defend truth. Because if we don't find instruments that will defend truth, ultimately, everything that we can use AI for, which is good, will be diminished in terms of their impact if we do not defend truth. And especially in democracies, this is crucial, because if propaganda is going to overcome truth, we're going to have populism, we're going to have extremism, we're not going to have the human values which kept us together during the most difficult times prevail, but we're going to have lies that can prevail.

16:30Angus Hervey: And that is very easy in the digital age unless we invest in systems that can educate people to differentiate between what was actually made artificially and what the true story of the people that are going to represent you is. Yeah.

16:52You're a Muslim, but you recently went back to a church

16:56Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: where your family was sheltered during the war, and the pastor who hid you was there, you've also just received the Bonifacio VIII Prize at the Vatican, which was an award previously given to Pope John Paul II. What does that tell us about what's still possible? I think it tells us that we should not let hate prevail.

17:19Angus Hervey: As I said, we've lived under oppression and we went through a genocidal war. In Kosovo, the biggest massacre that was committed by the Milosevic regime was a massacre against Catholics. But then if you look at every other village, every other town, they killed Muslims. So they killed everyone, no matter their religion, because it wasn't about religious differences. It was about human differences in the sense that you either believe in human values or not. You either believe in the right of someone else to live, whether they pick one religion or not. And in Kosovo, we've seen how these human values prevailed.

17:58Angus Hervey: We've seen cases where mosques sheltered Catholics and we've seen cases where churches sheltered Muslims. and yes, my family and I were Muslim, but we were sheltered in a church when the Milosevic regime was trying to kill us. And just a few days ago, I participated in the funeral of a pastor, Dom Kelment Spaci, who sheltered hundreds and hundreds of civilians of different religions. And when the Serbian police went to his church and asked him to give up on those people, he said, no, if you're going to kill someone, you have to kill me first. And he stood between those police officers of that genocidal regime and civilians of different religions on the other side, showing that an act of courage, an act of humanity is bigger than any oppressor, is bigger than any regime.

18:53Angus Hervey: And for us as a nation, this has been a value that we've defended for centuries. Even during the Second World War, our nation gave an example of what we call BESA. It's a code of promise. When you promise to protect someone, you do it with your life. And our nation is the only place on earth where the number of Jews after the Second World War was higher after the war than before the war because we protected them with our lives. It's a case where we've shown not just tolerance, but respect for the values of each other. No matter which religion you belong to, it's humanity that should prevail. It's respect for each other.

19:42Angus Hervey: And today in Kosovo, you have families where one brother is a Catholic, the other one is a Muslim. This has never differentiated us because we've put these values of respect and humanity before everything else, and we're very, very proud of that. And we hope to have these kind of values also in other countries, as I think it can save lives the same way that it has saved lives in Kosovo. It hasn't divided us, and I think it is important that we give that example to other people in the world as well. President Osmani, thank you for joining us.

20:25Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: We know that this is a tumultuous time and that the future is unclear and uncertain, but we're so grateful that you appeared here on the TED stage

20:33Angus Hervey: and shared with us.

20:35Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: Thank you so much. The future, it's important that we have a future.

20:42Angus Hervey: So many people around the world don't know whether they do. There's always that child that is still standing on the line and waiting for that opportunity. and let's not forget that that child of war today, whether in Ukraine or in Gaza or somewhere in Africa, can be the leader of peace tomorrow if we together give them that opportunity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

21:16Vjosa Osmani Sadriu: That was Vyosa, Osmani Sadriou, and Angus Hervey at TED 2026. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonsika Sungmarnivong. This episode was mixed by Lucy Little. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hu I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed thanks for listening

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