www.smh.com.au
Apparently Serbian and Croatian diaspora in Australia have nothing better to do and no bigger worries, so it seems that their biggest problem was the existence of each other. In all that boredom they decided to sing ‘provocative’ songs to each other and, if plausible, start a fight.
Nothing new, you would say, they do it all the time, it’s a way of life. Well, this time it didn’t happen at some usual place like a football game, street, or grocery store, but at a game of tennis!
It would have been so sad if it wasn’t so funny.
A quote from Sydney Morning Herald describes it best: In 102 years this venerable event had never seen anything like it.
And that’s our new contribution to the world of sports.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This is really unbelievable. Is it Balkanisation of tennis, or where does primitivism end?!? Shame!
Crazy
German Spiegel named one of the photos “Kung-Fu in Flip-Flops”. http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,PB64-SUQ9MTg1NzEmbnI9Ng_3_3,00.html
Hehehe, that’s nothing new to me, except that this event was followed by the media. Generally, in Germany there are miriads of such events. Two days ago there was a mass fight between Russians and Albanians in a club.
Btw, in this incident in Australia, Greeks were participating too.
I hate it when people make out that stuff like this is somehow more prevalent or worse among “Balkanites”. Just look at the anti-Lebanese riots in Australia last year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Cronulla_riots). I know this might shock some people, but the problem seems to be in Australian society as a whole, not in Serbs, Croats, Lebanese or any other specific immigrant group.
Sort of begs belief doesnt it? Makes you wonder what these kids learned about whilst growing up.
Additionally, what with Australia’s ‘sunny’ outlook melting pot the Serb and Croat community are probably quite concerned (in fact lets face it the Australian community – as those kids are born and bred Australians) with that fact that they look the same, talk the same language, are treated as the same by other Australians. Perhaps its more of a hocus pocus freudian analysis but I could imagine that this is kind of frustrating when you’ve been brought up to hate one another. Thus the determination to prove to yourself and others that you are indeed, different from one another, in public if necessary.
But frankly who cares – these supposed ‘patriots’ will be marrying different nationalities, different races and their kids wont be able to point to the former Yugoslavia on a map, much less anything else. In the final analysis the patriot is supposed to be something positive, not beat his chest screaming his ethnic group like some kind of tribal warrior from the dark ages.
Still, lets bear in mind that Australia was the destination for many Cetniks and Ustase. These are the folks who brought these kids into the world.
Still I rather hope this will be overshadowed by Serbian success on the tennis court. Let us see!
I didn’t say that this incident was bigger or worse than those other nations may cause, the only thing that i find interesting here is that it happened at a tennis game! If it was football, i bet nobody would found it interesting enough to hit the headlines, frankly, myself included.
And, as i said, at some other place, it would have been sad, but on a tennis court, reserved for rich and spoiled, boring, elite audience – suddenly we got tennis hooligans – this event seems extremely funny to me! I just want to thank all those “Cetniks” and “Ustasas” (and Greeks) for giving me a good laugh
You see this online all the time. These are the lost generation, the children of refugees who fled the wars. They blight every forum that tries to discuss the Balkans.
On myspace and Youtube and other sites thousands of self-identified Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians slug it out in comments and forum posts.
Most have never even set foot in their “homelands”.
It is sad really. I genuinely pity these kids.
It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last one.
The stupidity rate is always high, in every part of the world.. (maybe the percentage in the balkans world is a little bit higher, or probably the media underlines more this things cos it’s usefull to strenght the typical stereotips about balkans…).
Try to follow weekly the italian football championship…
Anyway I appreciated the title of the post, very ironic!
pozdravi!
the only reason u mother fuckers say this is cuz u got nothin better to do then go mess with other people n their nation, u know serbs are not the only ones who fight but at least we are the only ones who fight with a reason.i think who ever wrote this should be a shamed and it doesn’t make you any better saying this and all of you who sent a message already are so fucking stupid and i hope you go to hell because Serbs got a great life and i cant tell how proud i am to be one.
having lived amongst croats and other ethnic groups in yugoslavia, i never once hated or behaved provocativelly against any of my ex-yugoslav brethren. how could i? these were the very people i played with, whose birthday parties i went to, whose houses i stayed at. its the people who’ve never lived amongst or dont know anything about the people of former yugoslavia that do all the hating. what does that tell you about this conflict?
My parents used to tell me that there was a time in Yugoslavia, when everyone was happy, cooperative, and prosperious. This was in Kosovo, under Tito. I dont know what the situation was like up north, but I’m pretty sure it was calm.
Anyways, I dont think tennis courts are an appropriate forum for ethnic hatred, but if I was there I’d definately be throwing hay-makers with the Hrvat side. (=
my mother also told me da same thing that their was a time when we all lived in peace without any wars and fighting but it was the leaders who fucked it up and also every1 who is saying shit bout srbs a stupid maybe u should meet a srb be4 u say all dat shit. SRBS R DE NICEST PEOPLE U WILL EVER MEET THEY ARE KIND HELPFUL LOYAL AND NEVER TALK SHIT ABOUT NATIONS THEY DONT NOE!!!!!