Nobody knows what will happen on 10th of December – maybe the parliament of Kosovo will declare independence from Serbia (this time it won’t be a joke), maybe they won’t. But no matter the outcome, it seems to me that the tension in the rest of Serbia is slowly rising. This is what we had in the past several days.
Politicians are, as always, making suspicious statements, and generally behaving like lunatics. Aleksandar Simic, legal expert and advisor to the prime minister, said that Serbia will use all the legal resources it has to save Kosovo, and that one of those legal resources is – going to war . One of the church representatives, bishop Artemije, suggested military mobilization as one of the means to scare the opponent. Ok, but if we have to go to war I expect all the lawyers and priests we have in front rows.
Dragan Jovanovic, member of NS, one of the ruling parties, otherwise a minor character on our political scene, got his star shining brightly this week. First he led a group of people who managed to stop the promotion of a radio show Pescanik (I wrote about the show earlier) in a town of Arandjelovac, because, in his words, they are “anti-Serbian”. Then he said that B92 could have the same fate as RTS if they continue their anti-Serbian reporting (to remind you RTS was burned to the ground during October the 5th revolution). Last but not least, he stated that citizens of the town he is chairman in needn’t worry about Roma apartments being built in their neighbourhood because they will be safely separated by – barbwire. Charming.
Our freshest Ministry, the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija, is really busy these days convincing Serbs that Kosovo is Serbian. After the Kosovo is Serbia campaign we saw at the beggining of the month, with Serbian celebrities (ok, they are not our biggest celebrities, but they would surely make good candidates for Celeb Big Brother) saying “Kosovo is Serbia”, we now have the whole city covered with billboards saying – “Kosovo is Serbia”. The difference between the two campaigns is that, instead of living domestic celebrities, Ministry decided to use foreign, long time ago deceased ones. So now we have Abe Lincoln telling us how he we mustn’t give up when it comes to Kosovo, Churchill says that we must defend Kosovo and never give up, Washington says that now is the time to show are we men or are we slaves, and so on and so on1. All that, of course, is written in cyrillic letters, because we don’t want anyone else reading it.
And now, the sports: I am not quite sure if this has anything to do with the Kosovo tension, because football hooligans are always behaving pretty much the same – like animals. First, on Red Star-Hajduk Kula match, one police officer in civilian clothes barely avoided being burned alive with a torch. Some days later, at Red Star-Bolton match, police got the orders to keep Bolton fans out of the stadium. They took the order seriously and never allowed a Bolton fan to set foot out from the hotel they were staying in. Any Bolton fans out there, let us know how you liked your stay in Belgrade.
The question remains, though – what will happen on December 10th? Should we get used to the new map, as seen above, or is it too early? What do you think?
1 I translated these statements somewhat distorted – but hey, the billboard-makers did the exact same thing with the original statements, as discovered by Velickovic here. But at least by now, you must be convinced that Kosovo is Serbia, right?
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a good question, but I have a question for you:
Why the cynical tone in the rest of your post? You sound like your in support of Kosovo being part of Serbia, so are these comments just to impress your English speaking audience so that you come across as ‘objective’?
The comments about the politicians and church leaders might be fair enough, as it almost always appropriate to criticise a politician (in this country any way).
Surely if the cause is a good one, any sort of campaign that supports it (being lawful) is good? Even if is just putting up some posters about it. I think the cause is a good one, do you? Maybe the poster should say Kosovo is Albanian? Would that satisfy you?
“written in cyrillic letters, because we don’t want anyone else reading it”. What the hell is this supposed to mean really? Should they be written in latin script so that people who don’t speak Serbian would have a better chance of understanding something they wouldn’t look at any way and is still written in Serbian? Should they be written in English just in case the media from the rest of the world all of a sudden decide that they would show the Kosovo conflict in a pro-Serbian form and some how the people watching their news stories would catch these posters and run to the street in support? Or for the billions of English speaking tourists coming throught the country?
“police got the orders to keep Bolton fans out of the stadium”.
Did you watch the match? I did. I wonder who all those people were celebrating the goal when Bolton scored…
You’re right though, there weren’t enough Bolton fans. They should have let the fans out of their hotel rooms to run ‘the gauntlet’ in the streets to get to the match. That would have made a great headline the next day, with 100 Bolton fans in critical condition.
You said it yourself, hooligans are hooligans and they cause trouble no matter what. So if you’re talking about Kosovo why bring it up at all? Maybe you’ll take any chance you can to criticise?
Guess what everyone! The country is not in the best state at the moment and isn’t the safest it has been.
OH MY GOD! ARE YOU SERIOUS? And here I was planning to take my grandma to the next ‘veciti derbi’.
And one more thing.
As for your ‘joke’ about Kosovo being independent – I’ve got a joke for you too:
Your mother is a sl^t.
Hahahahaha I was just kidding. Funny joke right?
Here’s a little hint regarding objectivity, Sale: supporting the cause does not automatically mean supporting the means, or even supporting others who are supporting the cause for all the wrong, shallow or selfish reasons … provided one’s even interested in being objective. Which somehow, in Serbia, became a sure sign of treason. No wonder we are where we are, with that kind of dumb logic.
I’m aware of that. I’m saying that while the means can’t always be perfect, if the desired end result is as important as it is, can’t they be overlooked? Sure people are supporting the cause for the wrong reasons, but it is still a JUST CAUSE. They could have done a lot worse than putting posters up around the place (it’s not hurting anyone is it?). If someone were to ask me to choose between Kosovo remaining part of Serbia being achieved partly because of some people’s shallow and selfish reasons, or going independent – I know which way I would go.
I am annoyed because it has become almost fashionable for people to come on blogs like this and just criticise, to the point where there’s apparently something wrong with putting up posters in almost futile support of preventing potentially one of the greatest injustices the world has known.
Maybe you can suggest some sort of alternative, instead of just criticising (if you care at all).
But that’s not important, because Bolton fans were not allowed into a soccer game due to violent Serbian hooligans.
Please.
Sale: “Surely if the cause is a good one, any sort of campaign that supports it (being lawful) is good?”
Well, no.
The whole problem with this campaign is that it’s – as you have, by the way, also noticed – completely futile. It’s a joke, a complete waste of taxpayer’s money. Can it stop Kosovo from gaining independence? No. So what’s the whole point of it? What sort of emotion/action does it intend to provoke? To me, it looks like a silent call to arms, and I have a BIG fuckin’ problem with that. The least someone can do is make fun of it.
Sale: I am annoyed because it has become almost fashionable for people to come on blogs like this and just criticise, to the point where there’s apparently something wrong with putting up posters in almost futile support of preventing potentially one of the greatest injustices the world has known.
Yeah, well, I’m annoyed because it has become almost fashionable for people to come on blogs like this and just exercise their hysteria, to the point where there’s apparently something wrong with pointing out and making fun of notorious examples of stupidity and hypocrisy in our society.
Some people obviously think that the best way to make the world a better place is to just turn your head away from the Ugly Truth and throw stones on those who refuse to “see” the emperor’s new clothes.
Sale: Maybe you can suggest some sort of alternative, instead of just criticising (if you care at all).
I have an idea: let’s all put on some bunny suits and hop around, shouting: “Kosovo je Srbija!”. It’s legal, the cause is just, so why the hell not. And don’t anyone dare make fun of us for acting like a bunch of crackpots!
Sale,
As for “the joke” is concerned, read that post a bit more careful and you’ll see that it wasn’t intended as a joke, but as a test to see if anybody will believe it.
Current campaign is not good, and I’ll tell you why I believe it isn’t. From the very marketing point of view it’s great – the message is there and it’s simple (Kosovo is Serbia), the use if foreign leaders is an imaginative and unexpected touch, the design is very nice. But – something is missing in the whole story. The product. That is, in this case – the means, as you say, or the point in the whole thing.
We all know that “Kosovo is Serbia”, but we also know that there is something not quite right with it, otherwise, why would they make a campaign in the first place, right?
So what’s wrong with the whole picture? For me, it’s the point that they talk about the territory, and not the people living there. And who cares about the territory without the people? Nobody (except for the geologists, maybe).
In that way, the slogans of the first campaign (“When someone is crying I’m not gonna turn my head away”) were much more to the point, because they mentioned the people. But the government knows that when it comes to people, we also have to include other inhabitants of Kosovo, namely, Kosovo Albanians. In that sense, “When someone is being beaten, I will not close my eyes” sounds a bit 10 years too late, a bit cynical and a bit rasist – because 10 years ago, there were not only Serbians being beaten in Kosovo. Citizens of Serbia know this. And the governement knows that the people know, too. That’s why it’s much easier to mention the teritorry, the monasteries, the land, all the stuff noone cares about, everything but the people, and not really think about the consenquences that this campaing will produce, because basically, it looks good, sounds good, it’s edgy, it’s modern and traditional at the same time.
But it’s empty and without the point. And now it’s being demolished , to put it mildly, on the internet, exactly because of that.
The governments that came after Milosevic had some theoretical chances to keep Kosovo in Serbia, if only they behaved in a normal, diplomatic manner to the authorities in Kosovo, and if only they created, or at least tried to create an atmosphere of reconciliation between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs, right from the first moment when they came to power. But it was too much of a task for them, apparently, so now they also will have to bear the burden of losing Kosovo, albeit not in such measure as the pre-2000. regime. Now that’s bad marketing for you.
Sale,
“if the desired end result is as important as it is, can’t they be overlooked?”
Well, obviously they can- as you’ve just shown, but they really shouldn’t be. That is, again, only if one wants to be objective. Which we already established is the most horrible treachery, so no wonder so many are staying away from it.
“Sure people are supporting the cause for the wrong reasons, but it is still a JUST CAUSE. They could have done a lot worse…”
You must be kidding me with this line of reasoning? Sure, they could have done a lot worse. But this sort of justification – “ok, we’ll put up with it because they could have done a lot worse” – is why we’ve been living the way we have for the past 20 years. Sorry, but that’s just not good enough anymore. There’s always “worse”. When does “bad” become bad enough? I don’t know, for me it happened some 15 years ago. Some, obviously, will use up their whole lifetime excusing the inexcusable. I guess they must be counting on life after death, so they don’t feel sorry for wasting their time. The more we accept and excuse, the more desensitized we become, and the more we will be willing to put up with in the future. Anyway, if people think that certain wrongs are right under the circumstances, then I really can’t trust them to be able/willing to react to some more serious offences. I can’t trust them to react if we go to war, for example. I’m willing to bet this wrong would also be right to them, under the circumstances. As it happened to be so many times in the past.
Regarding the criticism: Real patriotism must contain a measure ( in our rotten case- a HUGE measure) of criticism. Without it, it’s just blind, biased ethnocentrism.
Let me ask you this: do you really think those posters can save Kosovo??? That’s naive. Nobody gives a shit what we, the people, think, pardon my French; if they did I’d expect to have a referendum. Whatever we happen to think, they’ll keep doing what they’re doing best: driving our country into the ground. This is not a case of enlightenment , it’s not a history lesson, it has nothing to do with people living in fear in Kosovo; it’s an election campaign. They’re trying to ensure dumb people will continue with dumb voting, because some famous man’s words conveniently “correspond” to those of Kostunica & Co. The only purpose behind these posters is to garner support for upcoming elections, and possibly, for upcoming war (cold or not) with the rest of the world. We’re being inundated with “powerful messages” whose only purpose is to keep us hypnotised, so we can be manipulated to death, so we can take another 10 years of isolation forever thinking: it could have been worse. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t sit well with me when something is being done under the pretense of defending national interests and poor Serbs in Kosovo, when all it really is – is ensuring somebody’s political future, at any, and I mean ANY, cost.
“Maybe you can suggest some sort of alternative, instead of just criticising”
Short of inventing a time-machine (Maybe Garda Cara Lazara can help with that?) and doing everything right the second time around – no, I don’t have a solution. There is no quick fix for this because we didn’t end up in this situation overnight. It took years and decades of wrong choices, ill priorities, immature diplomacy and reckless behaviour (which many people always supported, because “it could have been worse”) to get here. What I think can be done now is make sure in the future we don’t fall for mediocre values, mediocre politicians, mediocre means to questionable causes, mediocre lives…
I understand your sentiments and I think in general your heart is in the right place. But please understand that there are some fundamental fallacies in your reasoning which, on a larger scale, are exactly what’s propelling the sad ineffectiveness of our citizenry. This is in our hands, and we can change it – unlike the Kosovo situation.
When I first saw the poster campaign I thought using Churchill is fair enough. It fits the campaign. He’s practically the physical embodiment of stubborn patriotism/nationalism. He thought even India was British and wouldn’t have given them independence.
But thinking about it a little more. Churchill was on the negotiating team with Sinn Fein in 1921 that led to the formation of the Irish Republic the following year. I’m sure that isn’t the kind of symbolism that was intended.
On the current situation though. It looks as if Kosovo will be formally independent by May 2008. I think this is reckless, I hope it works out, but I think its a needlessly dangerous way of going about it. I’ve heard of several proposals that seem less dangerous to me. Neutrality, EU sovereignty, setting a date for a referenda in 10 years time— they all have their problems, and in many ways they are the same thing with a different name. Because whatever you call Kosovan institutions, and whatever state they are formally a part of, Kosovo is going to run its own affairs with the assistance of a large EU presence.
The thing is, Ian, all we need is the name. Call it Indepentendt, but call it Serbian, at the same time, we’ll be satisfied.
I think i just found a solution.
State nation has just 300 hundred years. Modern state nation has around 200 (after French revolution). There is a problem when we think like the state nation is the “natural” form of organization of society. More important are the language, the culture, and the people.
Kosovo has been Illyrian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Serbian, Yugoslavian, and maybe more.
In my point of view Serbia needs more “future” and apparently this time it means “Goodbye Kosovo”. It is a fair cause, I agree, but in an unfair world. Who doubts?
Kosovo was lost in the 90´s, when the US decided to test the “humanitarian imperialism”. Unfortunately there is not “time-machine”. Maybe Monika Lewinski was the real responsible for the lost of Kosovo. Her blowjobs on Bill made him crazy.
Let’s see what happen in the next 200 years. Maybe there is no more state nation, just cities, cultures and global flows. Sometimes “less means more”.
Today Kosovo is a headache; it is a perfect dilemma, where nobody wins at all. However, the domino effect will be interesting to see, how the boomerang returns to the “humanitarians”. Maybe California will be Mexican again, Miami part of the big Cuba, maybe East London will be Pakistani because they are majority. Who knows the consequences of this in the long term?
Maybe Knez Lazar had to choose the blue pill instead of the pink one. History could be so different. In that case today you could find in “Istanbulic” the best Rakja and the best Saint Nicholas Bread. But this is past, now you can choose the blue one. It is up to you. Your generation is the Knez Lazar of this times.
Full disclosure: I’m a south American who likes Serbia. I hope nobody feel offended for my comment. I could understand the feelings of Sale and many others, but at the same time I welcome the courage of Belgrade 2.0 guys to focus on the future, and share it with foreigners.
Kosovo je chileanc
East London certainly won’t be Pakistani. Tower Hamlets may well have a majority population of Bangladeshi origin/descent but since the 1971 genocide these have been two different countries.
I don´t remember that national television (RTS) was burned to the the ground seven years ago. The building was seriously damaged and there was fire in there, but it wasn`t burned to the ground.
Pues, mira, no estoy tan seguro que el edificio de la televisión nacional se derrumbó en llamas hace siete años. Sí que estuvo en llamas y sufrió daños importantes pero no me acerdo que se derrumbó por completo.