Marija Serifovic – racist or ironic?
Maybe two weeks ago, there was a huge debate about what our Eurosong winner Marija Serifovic said about Finland and Finns in the local (and some global) press. She was acused of having said something in relation to Finns that could have been considered racist – making a comment about how she “despises those yellowish and pale, transparent-skin people”. The whole affair was quickly forgotten after she denied the rumours and after her Manager gave a lame excuse that she was actually talking about Marti Ahtisaari and not the Finns in general.
Anyway, thanks to new spying technologies (ie mobile phones with cameras), we now get to see what she really said at the now infamous press conference (video found at Press website):
Translation:
Female host: We have here with us Marija Serifovic, the talk of the town these days, Sasha Mirkovic, her manager and her friends, yadayadayada (not so important for translation)...
Male voice (journalist): Ristic Milos, magazine “Ana”, I’ve been reporting for “Politika” from Helsinki. Many of my Finnish friends were cheering together with me for Marija and for her victory, they voted for her, and it would be nice if Marija can share with us her impressions of Finns and Finland, and if she wants to send them some message, because I’m heading there again in less than a month so i can bring her message with me for them.
Marija: I don’t think i have anything smart to say about the country of Finland, so I have to ask you not to bring my message over to them. I’m joking… erm, the country didn’t particularly suit me, and I don’t like those yellowish, “see-through” people… I despise them… but let’s not talk about that again… All in all, i respect that they were totally organized, and that was the only thing I liked so far. Actually i think it will stay that way because I don’t think I will go back there ever again.
—
I find it important to mention few other things as well: the story did run in Press, but it went down fairly unnoticed in Serbian media, which I find rather strange, considering the circulation of the newspaper. On the other hand, this tabloid is famous for making the stories bigger than they actualy are – which actually goes to show that when they do print a true story, it seems that not so many people believe them. Good thing they have the video now to back it up.
There is also an article on Marija’s website where she says the story is blown out of proportions on purpose and that she was “being ironic” and that she was misquoted by the tabloid. If this is true about her being ironic I must say that she is a Master Of Irony – I was completely fooled into believing that she actually meant “she will not go back there ever again” and that “she despises those yellow and transparent people” and that “the only thing she liked was how organized they were”.
What do you think?
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so, Marija had an Imus moment?
Yeah, but I sure hope they won’t cancel Marija’s show (ie Eurovision) like they did with Imus’. Infact I am kinda hoping someone will come up with the rest of the video where she jumps off her seat and says: “Ha! Gotcha!” but somehow i doubt that will happen.
A proper apology coming from Marija would do I think.
Neither racist, nor ironic. Simply stupid
Yes, stupid is probably the correct verdict, or naive and impulsive, perhaps.
Marija is entitled to her opinion, although it was no doubt based on a very limited, but for some reason negative, experience in that country. As far as I’m concerned it’s her right to dislike anybody she wants. That doesn’t mean that if she did go there again she wouldn’t have a contrary experience that would change her point of view.
If her fame lasts, she’ll get used to being in front of cameras and will think twice and say things more diplomatically since we now have this phenomenon of everything anyone says before a camera going all over the world in an instant, and quite often being taken out of context. Marija might have been in a lousy mood and nursing a resent resentment about something Finnish (who can blame her about Ahtisaari!) and she spoke without thinking. If that’s a crime, we’re all guilty. Personally, I prefer her thoughtless honesty to those who lie whenever they open their mouths just to be PC.
To allow her a little slack, I wonder whether she was referring to Finns generally or specifically to the Finnish organisers. Not very media savvy, anyhow.
Hmm not that I’m ever into hiding things from others but I’m not sure whether I would have done a post of this in the English language section of the blog.
Not because she is roma etc or even because I want her to be a good role model or positive for the image of Serbia. No, I think that it looks as if we are just waiting for somebody to fall on their face because of something they say or do – no matter who it is.
On the other hand if she were to lecture the rest of us about tolerance, fighting racism or similar it would be a different story. When somebody does that IMO they must live upto those standards and its up to the rest of us to keep an eye on the moralisers.
A sort of case in point although a political one. Tomislav Nikolic recently said that if Bulevar AVNOJ was to become Bulevar Zoran Djindjic he would move house. It has. Now the man is complaining because the media are calling him up asking when he is leaving. Tough!
It may be that he just said something in the heat of the moment and if so all he has to do is to be honest and to state it out loud. But he wont and instead he’s bitterly complaining that they wont leave him alone.
he he I like that story about Nikolic!
On the subject of racism, it seems there were some racial incidents at the England v Serbia game the other night. It’s getting some coverage in the sports press over here today. FIFA are launching an investigation . I hope the reprecussions aren’t serious but I’d have thought that kind of thing was more serious than some thoughtless comments from Marija.
Ian that match has caused all kinds of comment here.
I didnt watch the whole match but it seems as if the Serbian (B92) commentator didnt mention the monkey chants in the first half – nor would most commentators. However, a verbal warning in English at half time over the loudspeaker is something that would draw the attenetion of those in the TV studio – as it should have done here.
Instead we had a match played in a bad spirit and so when England raced forward to score – despite the fact that the guy was played onside by an injured Serbian defender lying on the ground, people in Serbia were dumbfounded that the English, known for fair play, went ahead and claimed the goal.
The commentators job in this context might be to explain the bad feeling between the two teams which led to the lack of fair play by the English. Instead the commentator kept on going on and on about how unsporting the English and the referee was. Neither did it occur to him that the goal didnt change much as England were leading 1-0 at the time. The commentator obviously doesnt know the difference between being a supporter and commentating.
I hate whining for the sake of whining.
“...it looks as if we are just waiting for somebody to fall on their face because of something they say or do…”
It certainly does. That’s been my complaint re this site all along.
As for Nikolic, a number of big “stars” in Hollywood stated that if Bush were elected as President again they would leave the country. A lot of us, even though we don’t care for Bush either, are waiting for them to leave. But, no, they remain in their luxurious mansions and continue whining.
When Margaret Thatcher was elected in Britain, I said we would have to leave Britain, and eventually we did. Now where do we go from here? Had we stayed in Britain we’d have felt very pressed to vote with our feet when Blair showed his true face. You can’t win for losing. Everywhere there is the same shit.
I find it important that we present ourselves as good hosts at the following Eurovision, and Marija is clearly very important part of that event, and as such has big responsibility for our image. I was hoping that she would explain her words in a TV show at TV Fox tonight, and she actually tried to explain herself, saying that she could “never imagine herself in a relationship with a blond, transparent, person” – if you can consider that to be a good excuse for what she said earlier.
I don’t know, I’m sick of writing about Eurovision and now even more so, because I am dissapointed in Marija’s arrogance… I guess Cvijus was right, she’s no racist, she’s just stupid. Pity anyway.
Oh, and I would love to write a post about the game, but unfortunately I haven’t seen it. From what I have heard afterwards, it seems as an interesting subject.
Hopefully some of the bgd2.0 crew will do that though.
“it looks as if we are just waiting for somebody to fall on their face because of something they say or do – no matter who it is.”
There’s a difference between malicious scrutiny and “keeping them honest”. Or are we supposed to sit back, let public personalities represent us in the worst possible light, and have the rest of the world believe that collectively, we condone this sort of prejudice? I, for one, am not willing to let her speak like this, in my name. Because, like it or not, she is no longer representing herself or her village or her family. She is representing all of us,our nation, and she must be held accountable for the way she does it.
Sasha I dont see how something she said off-camera can be construed as representing Serbia in a bad light. You think that the world is interested in Marija Serifovic because of her views on Finns?
‘Or are we supposed to sit back, let public personalities represent us in the worst possible light, and have the rest of the world believe…’
I dont think the rest of the world know anything about this. You know Marija is not there to assage your (or anybodies) built up frustration about the way Serbia has been presented to the world in the last 15/20 years. She’s human like the rest of us and has done a sterling job in keeping something of a (admittedly small) feelgood Serbia going in the last few months.
On the specific point I just dont care whether Marija likes or dislikes transparent coloured people or not.
Viktor some ‘experts’ claim that a member of a repressed group in society cannot be racist. Now if we are concerned about racism / inequality in society should we be talking about the views of an individual member of a minority or the position of Roma in Serbia and society as a whole.
To start at the end- individual views of minority are just as important as institutional ethnocentrism, because it all starts with – individual views. So we can and should talk about both. The importance of one does not diminish the importance of the other.
Now, the fact that she said it (seemingly) off-camera is by no means a mitigating factor. She said it in the presence of the media. On a much smaller scale, I represent Serbia every day when I step out the door. We all do. It’s high time we understood the concept of individual responsibility. The world certainly does not care about Marija’s own beliefs, but it definitely notices whether or not a country has the capacity and will to deal with similar transgressions in appropriate ways. Whether it condones this sort of speech or not. When a country does not do this, we have a case of state-supported ethnocentrism, discrimination, racism etc. Which says a whole lot about that state.
Let me say a few things about racism: it can take many forms, one of which is racial prejudice. Racial prejudice is a gross generalization about a certain group of people, based on perceived characteristics of individual members of that group. In the strictest of terms, a white person can not be racist towards another member of white race, however the boundaries have long been erased between ethnic nationalism and old school racism, and the discourse is largely the same. Ethnic nationalism led to the most despicable wars and ethnic cleansing in many parts of Europe.It is an evolved, adapted version of racism. What used to be “supreme race” today is “supreme ethnicity”. German Nacism was a blend of racism and ethnic nationalism. I can’t make it any clearer.
“She’s human like the rest of us and has done a sterling job in keeping something of a (admittedly small) feelgood Serbia going in the last few months.”
Sure, she has, and nobody is opposing this. But now the word of her shameful remarks got out, and she screwed up. Shit happens. What would be human, also, is to apologize for the bad resonance of the words spoken in the moment that lacked clarity. As I said, Marija is not representing only herself anymore. If I said something like this in public it would still be embarrassing, but it is much more so in a case of public persona. My beef is not so much for her saying it, but that those in position of authority and power have not reacted with official apology and explanation that this is not our collective belief. There’s no social pressure substantial enough for her to realize she MUST address this without making lame excuses.A dignified person would retract her comments and a dignified country would do damage control even if there’s no obvious damage yet. I sincerely hope you do not believe that once something is out on Youtube, the world will not know about it? There already is a reaction out there, among Finns and others. All that’s needed for this to become a PR nightmare is a journalist to pick it up. By the virtue of being our national representative alone, she owes it to the country she is representing and to its people, to project the best possible image to the rest of the world. As I said many times before, with all the privileges of celebrity and public status, there comes a certain responsibility as well. I think it’s time that we, the people, educated our celebrities and politicians as to what those responsibilities are.
She said it at a press conference, you can hardly say that it was off-camera. Plus the guy clearly asked if she had any message to the people of Finland. I actually think that it became a part of her job to be politically correct, if she wants to be a good role model for young people. If we turn a blind eye to it, than we don’t have the right to criticize Matt Derbyshire for his racist remark about Serbia after the game – it’s the same thing really. Speaking of the game, Bganon, you want to write something being that you’ve seen the game and all? Or do I have to go digging around the net about what’s happened
Talk about “ethnic racism”. None of it is supposedly acceptable anywhere now….except if it is racism toward Serbs. THAT’s OK. That’s FINE. Nobody will question THAT...not anywhere…at all…
Blackbird. That wasn’t the topic of this conversation. I don’t know why and how you inferred that it’s OK. Who said that? Once, we can talk about that, too.
Sasha
The importance of one does not diminish the importance of the other.
I think it does. I think the time spent talking about Marija’s comments about transparent people is time that should be spent talking about more important issues such as how in this day and age so many thousands of roma (and others) and living in shanty towns in Serbia and beyond.
That issue is much more important in my opinion and will far outlast the popularity of Marija.
I take on board your comments about ethnocentricism – if you are referring to the fact that minorities are just as able to behave ‘badly’ as a majority population. And normally I’m quite into the principle of things but in the case of the roma, well I’m just not threatened by the Roma and cant envisage ever, ever being threatened by them. So whereas I might be disgusted by (and condemn) a minority of Croats supporting HDZ in Tudjmans time in Vojvodina or Hungarians supporting the nationalist Kasa, again in Vojvodina, I just cant be too hard on a member of the weakest minority group in Serbia.
Your argument where you talk about Finns who have already picked the story up. You know I havent heard one single word about this story in the newspapers, on tv or from anybody. I’ll bet that nobody in my office or any of my other friends know about it either. I found out here. Let me ask you a question, if she did make a public apology do you think more or less people would find out / be offended? How long would it be before the media decided to drop giving her a break and instead started to compete with each other on a character assasination job on her? And how long do you think it would be before those tabloid journalists started churning out generalisations about the Roma etc?
With respect, I dont want to write about this subject again but I’d be happy to discuss the broader topic some time
Viktor maybe I could do a write up tomorrow. More interesting than the game itself is the reaction in the media and at B92 blog.
What did Matt Derbyshire say?
I’ve only read the Guardian and BBC reports. I understand an England player was sent off (and banned) for swearing at the referee and there was some kind of verbal exchanges in the tunnel at the end. One of the Serbian players (unnamed) is supposed to have racially abused one of the England players. Pierce just said it was a ‘provocation’.
Here in London it just got covered in the sports pages and seemed to be seen as just another in a series of minor racial incidents at games in eastern europe over the years. As it was the under 21 team it wasn’t a big deal. There was more fuss about a game in Macedonia a few years ago because it involved the senior team.
I always find it interesting to see how the same event is perceived in different places and what tells you about attitudes and so on.
I haven’t been able to find out what “racist” slur was made by the Serbs, although one British article referred to the “N” word. So was the player in question black? (I don’t follow a lot of sports.) Was that the racial slur?
On another note, why doesn’t Viktor cover the Thompson concert in Croatia complete with nazi/ustashi dress and Hitler style salutes all over the place? And is that being reported anywhere else, except in Croatia where I have seen a response slightly in favor of the concert and what appears to be something less than half appalled by it. Thank God for those who WERE appalled…
Ian, try here – pay attention what he says in the beginning: “I think everyone knows around the nation what sort of country they are” – It makes me wonder really what he meant by that…
Of course, this doesn’t justify our idiot-fans, and there was some racial comments coming from some of our players, or so I’ve heard. Idiots all over the place really.
Blackbird, I could never cover the Thompson concert as well as Illyrian gazzete did but you can find my comment on that event there.
Bganon,no worries, I won’t expect you to respond, but I will add a few things for the sake of… whatever. I can’t agree that keeping stuff hush-hush is somehow in our national interest. What I am talking about is potential for bad press and how to deal with it before it happens, in case it happens. I am also talking about a broader issue of putting an end to reckless promotion of all the wrong values that plague our society. I do agree about the Roma issue, but as I said, it has anything to do with what we were talking about. We could go on forever about all the more important topics of national interest. There’s always something more important. I don’t think that other important topics should be banned from discussion because of that. And,I’ll finish with this, being discriminated against can explain, but can not excuse, discriminating against others.
Cheers.
Viktor, I checked it out. Your comment is very good.
Most comments here are very different, though:
http://www.lupiga.com/vijesti/index.php?id=4719
Thanks for the sound file Viktor. I see your point. He isn’t the most articulate of people and his meaning isn’t 100% clear but I think the general drift is pretty obvious.
First she talks in Serbian, a direct translation does not help as you can’t understand the tone of her voice. I would say that she is not racist; she just stupidly believed that she could speak using vulgar phrases as being among friends.
(She should be more careful every next time. The fact that she was back there in Finland few days ago says everything about her intention not to go back there ever again.)
It is interesting that he is asking her what to pass as a message to the people and she replies that rude a speech.
As she said “I don’t think I have anything smart to say…” So to use her tone: we agree with that statement, so shut up, fatty
), and sing…
As she said somewhere, and if you want me to be a Sherlock Holms through the end, she was possibly ironic because she was talking not to the audience, to us, but only to her Finish friend which is in the audience. It sounds very much that way, or at least that was what most probably had initiated her mood.
Anyhow she is to learn different cultures yet as she is from a small place in Serbia and she did not see much of the world.
Let us give her a credit for ignorance.