Text messages racism
Latest buzz in Serbian blogosphere is the beef between movie director Janko Baljak and TV host Timofejev over a TV show that caused a lot of controversy lately. For those unfortunate ones that don’t speak Serbian and can’t figure out what happened from those links above here’s the summary.
Timofejev is a TV talk show that airs once a week and always tries to cover some current topic with relevant guests. This week’s show had Roma people in focus, primarily because of the gruesome murder of one Roma boy that happened recently, and also because two Roma parties got their representatives in the parliament recently.
The show itself had nothing controversial, both the host and the guests had very interesting and insightful comments and the discussion was very interesting to listen to.
But it was difficult to concentrate on the discussion because of the text messages that rolled on the bottom of the screen, representing comments of viewer, some of them clearly racist and insulting to the Roma community. And this is what Baljak wrote in his blog, that he was shocked by the fact B92 didn’t censor such messages.
The feud came up when Timofejev got angry at Baljak when he didn’t contact him first before saying what he meant at blog, and said that the person in charge of censoring the messages actually did her job the best she could – she let only 20 percent of the messages on air, while she herself was shocked by the stuff she read in most of the remaining messages. So shocked in fact that a couple of ‘questionable’ messages managed to slip through.
Now the argument that took place between the director and the host, who are friends, by the way, is not interesting for me. The beef that came up between B92 and Press who published the messages in a distorted way to make the B92 look racist is also not interesting to me. Veran Matic’s reply to the Press where he defends his TV like that is the biggest problem in this case is also not so interesting.
What is interesting on the other hand – it seems that everything would be fine if the censor did her job right. No one would even know that 80 percent of the viewers that night were racist or had racist prejudice. Now I have also told my share of racist jokes in my early youth – i like to refer to this as my pre-thinking period. From one point you realize that everything you say or do matters in one way or the other, and that generalizations are dangerous. But how many people out there have had this moment? I can never seem to stress this enough – generalizations are dangerous.
Not all Roma are dirty thieves, not all Serbs are genocidal savages, not all Americans are fat idiots, not all Albanians are drug-dealing baby machines.
But it seems that most of all, not everyone on the planet is smart enough to realize this.
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Is there a tape of all the comments that rolled in or do we just have the censor’s word that she blocked most of them? The only Serbs I know happen to be fond of gypsies, and that includes my immediate family who have interracted with them and lived around them for generations. That doesn’t mean that I believe this applies to every Serb, but, come on (!), to say it’s 80% who are bigotted against them is way out in outer space.
By the way, that’s one accusation that can be laid at the feet of Kusturica.
Janko Baljak is apparently opsessed by the VIP blogB92 syndrome of criticising everything, even with lame arguments and being negative about anything, and mostly being very insultive without even investigating in detail what actually happened. Therefore, on this issue I’m supporting Timofejev, especially his statement that as friends, what Baljak had to say, he should have told him first in his face and not going public on the Blog with a typical Blog B92 populist attitude.
Now, I love jokes with racist connotations, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a racist. As one Slovenian already said “we will reconcile only when we will be able to say racist jokes about each other and laugh together, instead of killing each other”. It worked for me with a couple of Albanians.
CORRECTION to my previous posting above:
“By the way, that’s one accusation that CANNOT be laid at the feet of Kusturica.”
That’s what I get for rushing.
Yeah I’m politically incorrect too but a bit of a hypocrite.
In my infinate wisdom I allow myself free license to insult anybody because I know I dont mean it – how can I mean it when I dont believe in differences between people? However, if the same joke or insult is told or listened to by a bunch of primative racist types I cant stand it.
Its a really tough call – the issue is to make sure people become educated enough so they dont have those types of opinions in the first place. Banning people from expressing these types of views does not cure the problem, it just hides it.
However, it makes me cringe to see toilet humour comedy shown on Pink to the Grand audience. Targets were Sandzak muslums, montenegrins, and albanians. Couldnt bear to watch all of it but what makes me additionally wonder about this type of humour (based on all the worst stereotypes) is the absence of humour about Serbs themselves. Thats the clue that this is more like a form of brainwashing through comedy rather than harmless fun.
Oh and for the record I think the mindless mass would have probably found it equally amusing seeing fun being poked at themselves.
I see that Janko Baljak has left B92 blog because of the issue.
The thing that I love about my family in Serbia is precisely the way that they make fun of themselves and ALL SERBS. You’re right BgAnon that the difference lies in whether you can see the humor in your own people’s nuances and general behavior.
I have only watched Pink a few times and never found it very watchable. I couldn’t understand its appeal to anybody. But I just assumed that there was other programing that I hadn’t seen yet that gave it a following. If what I saw is typical, then it shouldn’t be on the air as far as I’m concerned. Whose money is behind Pink?
By the way, Victor, in this quote from your piece:
“Not all Roma are dirty thieves, not all Serbs are genocidal savages, not all Americans are fat idiots, not all Albanians are drug-dealing baby machines.”
I find it interesting what you have chosen to list for each “nationality” as their worst possible feature. Yes, very interesting that it is for Serbs you reserved the “genocidal savages.” The others are rather mild in comparison, don’t you think? I mean just compare “fat idiots” to “genocidal savages” for example. Not exactly the same ballpark of slander, is it?
So…absolutely true: not all Serbs are genocidal savages. But that implies very strongly that some of them are. Which Serbs are those? I would really like to know so I can be sure to avoid them on the street.
Sorry, Blackbird, if i knew where they are, I’d be trying to get that 5 million dollar reward, if it’s still on. There is probably incredibly small number of them (only one was enough) but somehow we all became victims of that stereotype because of them and propaganda (call it news coverage if you will) that followed. Don’t think I’m happy about it.
I would be very interested in the exact proof you have since you are so sure. Is any of it not provided by Soros funding?
I’m fascinated by how you, yourself, propagate the slander against all Serbs. I see you all too ready at every opportunity to denigrate your own nationality and very seldom, in fact I haven’t seen it yet, that you defend it. So you’re one of those who has accepted what he has been told by those who would have destroyed you as soon as look at you. Was Milosevic among those that you count as genocidal murderers or are you reserving that special honor for just a couple of others? The funny thing about the Milosevic trial is that it went on for 4 years without proving a damned thing against him. In fact, just the opposite occurred — he discredited the court and the “witnesses” they dragged in. With all the power at their disposal and money to burn, they couldn’t convict him. He had, therefore, to die. I actually hope they will find those two you seem to be thinking about and try them because at least we might get some actual facts then instead of this self-hating Serbian drivel that comes to the fore every so often when referencing them.
Of course, it all depends on how much one believes in the ICTY — Naser Oric probably believes DEEPLY since, not being a Serb, he was let off despite creating mayhem with the most brutal kinds of killings and bragging about it. He got to go home from the Hague to a hero’s welcome. AgIm Ceku got to proclaim himself Prime Minister of a non-existent country instead of doing time for cleansing out hundreds of thousands from the Krajina.
Yes, yes…it is very eybrow raising how you put things. It’s not like you could have said “world dominating GI brutes”, something perhaps a bit more in balance with “genocidal murders”, instead of “fat idiots” (so benign) for the Americans. No, no. The references to the lower orders of humanity must be restricted to your own people.