by Senad PECANIN
"From Sarajevo, eh? Well, I knew exactly what was going to happen, and I told everybody. Those fools of ours were shelling buildings in full view of CNN! They surrounded the city, and instead of using snipers in the daytime and sending in special forces after dark, they shelled buildings! And CNN filmed it all! Well, it had to end as it did!? Although I was under no illusions about Belgrade's role in the war, I kept quiet, not knowing how to continue our conversation in any sensible way. The silence dragged on, and I suppose the absence of the expected reaction from me finally awakened a suspicion that I was not the type of person from Sarajevo that he had expected to meet in his car. I felt more ill at ease with every second that passed, and then the taxi driver broke the silence by asking an unbelievable question: "Say, and how's Mirza?"
After hearing this, I felt that if I were a talented writer I could write a long essay on the nature of Serb nationalism and the fascism it had engendered, the fascism in which today's Belgrade is bogged down - "in up to the balls", as young Belgraders say. What is most shocking here is not that nationalism is all-pervasive, that its roots are deep in the system, and that it is as widespread as the influence of Pink TV. What is most shocking is that people in Belgrade are wholly, genuinely unaware of it. The unbelievable casualness with which they express their opinions on atrocities during the recent wars, and on entire nations, is enough to make a normal person's hair stand on end. I might have tried to explain a thing or two to the taxi driver, had I not earlier been shocked by the degree of hatred and contempt with which an old friend of mine, whom I hadn't seen for years, pronounced the word "Shiptars" [derogative term for Albanians]. Had I tried to explain a few things to the taxi driver regarding his opinion on wartime Sarajevo, I am sure I know what would have happened, however cautious and courteous I tried to be. He would have found my "incomprehension" of his views as inexplicably strange as I found appalling what he had said. Just as my friend could see nothing problematic about his views on "Shiptars", the taxi driver would have seen nothing contentious about his statement that "they" should have been killed by snipers, rather than shelled in front of CNN cameras. On the contrary! "Didn't I ask about Mirza?" I sense that his puzzlement - authenticated by his interest in Mirza - is there only to prove the "normality" of a person who would like to kill all "Turks", but still harbors liking and respect for Mirza.
Horrors of impure blood: Belgrade hasn't visibly changed since my visit last year, except that retail prices are far more like those in Sarajevo, even though average monthly income is three times lower. The main political issue is the open hostility between the prime minister of Serbia Zoran Djindjic ("who'd like to turn parliament into a casino") and the president of FR Yugoslavia (FRY) Vojislav Kostunica ("who'd like to turn parliament into a church"). It seems that their final battle will take place at the September election of a successor as president of Serbia to Milan Milutinovic, who is packing his bags for The Hague. It is almost certain that Kostunica will stand, although he has not yet made a formal announcement. Djindjic's candidate is Miroljub Labus, currently the FRY deputy premier.
Although poll results until recently showed Kostunica still to be easily the most popular politician in Serbia (as he has been ever since the glorious October 5 2000), the latest indicate that Labus has almost drawn level with him. A friend of mine who personally knows both Djindjic and Kostunica, and who knows the political situation in Serbia very well, tried to convince me that absolutely no one stands any chance against Kostunica. "The vast majority of relevant media in Serbia are under Djindjic's control, and they are more or less deliberately creating an illusion." My friend pointed towards two possible outcomes of the elections: one is that Kostunica is blatantly robbed when the votes are counted, and so loses; the other is that he does become president of Serbia, but this is at once followed by a change of the constitution, which was tailored by Milosevic and is still in force. Illegally, Djindjic has stripped all the deputies of Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia of their mandates and replaced them by his own, thus securing the necessary majority for changing the constitution. This will reduce the considerable political powers of the Serbian president to something like those of the Queen of England.
On the national-ideological plane, the most significant project under way in Serbia today is a wholesale reinterpretation of the historical role of the Ravna Gora Chetnik movement, its re-establishment and resuscitation. The essence of this project is to portray the Chetniks as the only World War II anti-fascist movement in the former Yugoslavia. The Partisan movement is meanwhile de-legitimized as communist - and communism is a form of fascism, right?
On July 7, anniversary of the uprising against WWII Nazi occupation in Serbia, the news bulletin on state television started with the information that July 7 this year was an important Orthodox saint's day, and that it was also the day considered by some people as the beginning in 1941 of a fratricidal war, while others saw it as the day of an uprising against occupation. The same television station has for weeks been showing, at peak times and with repeats, a program called "Ravna Gora reading-book", a series glorifying the Chetnik movement. With the exception of Sonja Biserko's Helsinska povelja and Nebojsa Popov's Republika, it is almost impossible to find media in Belgrade today that do not contribute in some measure to this major national project of the day, whose bards are drawn from the highest ranks of the Serbian Orthodox Church and from a group of renowned writers and academicians.
Thanks to my manifest ignorance, I was shocked by the extent to which a "pure" Serb national origin is a necessary requirement for a political career. Goran Svilanovic, the FRY minister of foreign affairs, was publicly accused of being "the son of an Albanian woman". In his prompt public reaction to this damaging accusation, the leader of a party that calls itself the Civic Alliance of Serbia did not point out the racism of the "charge", but hastened to assure everyone that he was a pure-blooded Serb, on both his father's and his mother's side.
Gradimir Nalic, one of Kostunica's most influential advisors, behaved in a similar way when Djindjic's followers disclosed the fact that his father was a Muslim. Nalic could not deny his ill fate - which he could hardly have influenced - but he informed the media that he had always been raised "in the Orthodox spirit". When I saw graffiti in Belgrade saying: "Kostunica's mother is a Jew", I knew that it came from the same source. It must be said, however, that during the pre-election campaign Djindjic too was the target of an equally lethal accusation, when his adversaries claimed that his uncle was a Muslim from Bosanski Samac. The sovereign ruler of the media reacted in a "Western" manner: he bought a whole page in the daily newspapers and published a picture of his uncle and aunt, giving their full Serb names, and adding not just that the "accusation" was untrue, but also that their son had built his life as a warrior into the foundations of the Republic of Srpska.
An unquestionably pure Serbian-Orthodox background is a necessary indication of suitability for political and other public functions - but it is less and less a sufficient one. A Chetnik background, for decades kept hidden but now trumpeted forth or even fabricated, is "in" these days in Belgrade. Miroljub Labus realized this and launched his presidential campaign in Mionica, at a commemoration devoted to Vojvoda Misic, the tradition initiated by the Milosevic regime. The weekly Vreme described Labus's visit to his mother's birthplace, the village of Robaja near Mionica, in the following way: "The home of the Pavlovic family is in Robaje, where Tito met up with the Partisans for the first time, in 1941. There are two cars parked in front of the house. There are vine trees in the well-maintained yard round the house, and Labus sits in the shade with his family. There are no security guards, no red berets or blue berets, just as if the federal deputy premier were not there. Labus gets up, greets the newly arrived journalists, apologizes to his host because of the crowd. Every one is served compulsory slivovitz. A lady, a daughter-in-law no doubt, produces snaps and the photocopied portrait of an officer. No, she's not doing it to impress Velja [Velimir Ilic, mayor of Cacak, who is standing for President and is proud of his Chetnik roots], but in order to show just who Miroljub is. She shows a picture of Labus's grandfather on his mother's side, Vojislav Pavlovic, a colonel in the royal army and one of the founders of the Veterinary Faculty. Labus explains that his grandfather could not have had a higher rank because he was a vet, a cattle doctor. The lady has some more facts: grandfather was best man to [Chetnik leader] Draza Mihailovic's vet, so they were all in a way related to Draza. To Labus's left his uncle, who wears the sajkaca [traditional Serbian cap], leaves an empty space between himself and his nephew. The daughter-in-law explains that they are the sons of two sisters..."
Those not lucky enough to be related to Draza's vet try to compensate in a variety of ways. One of the brilliant young basketball players who play for the FRY national team, and who comes from Novi Sad - I can't remember his name, but I know that he plays for Denver now - had the image of Draza tattooed on his shoulder and proudly showed it off for the cameras. Obrad Badi Savic, one of the Belgrade opposition leaders during the Milosevic period, shocked his friends when, in an interview for Radio Free Europe, he reminded listeners that he had been raised in a royalist family, and that his father had been in prison for years because he used to belong to the Chetnik movement.
Although it may sound absurd, the fall of Milosevic actually removed the last barrier to the Chetnik movement's triumphant entry into political and public life in Belgrade and Serbia. With the Socialist Party of Serbia split over who should be the party's presidential candidate, Milosevic himself may announce from The Hague that the party will not have a presidential candidate of its own, but will support Vojislav Seselj, leader of the Serb Radical Party, which Marija Milosevic, Slobodan's daughter, has recently joined.
Vuk Draskovic, leader of the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO), who made a vital contribution towards removing Milosevic, is also seeking to remake himself politically. Draskovic and his wife Dana were the only national leaders openly and bravely to condemn Chetnik atrocities during the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, but today the SPO is returning to the Ravna Gora tradition. The personal position of the Draskovic couple in political circles has not changed much with the change of regime in Serbia: although the identity of those who organized and carried out the dreadful assassination attempt on Vuk on the Ibar highway - which Vuk miraculously survived, but in which four other important people from his party including his wife's brother died - are known, to this day no judicial procedure has been initiated. Meanwhile, even though Serbian State Security admits that there are still bugging devices at SPO headquarters and in the Draskovic family home, they are still refusing to remove them.
Extensive surveys commissioned by the FRY ministry for ethnic and national communities, headed by Rasim Ljajic, show a high level of xenophobia in Serbia. 580f the population express "moderate reservations" towards ethnic minorities, 28 0.000000e+000xpress "definite reservations", while 3.3% have "extreme reservations". These figures are all the more devastating in that younger people (between 20 and 29 years of age) express greater intolerance towards ethnic minorities than do older people (between 50 and 59). The surveys also show a high level of antipathy to foreigners, especially Jews and Arabs. In the current situation in Serbia, Minister Ljajic has won a very high rating both domestically and internationally: it is largely owing to his commitment that in the last Serbian census Bosniaks had the right to call themselves as such, while EU representatives are full of praise for his ministry's efforts and in particular for a very advanced law on national minorities.
Dino Merlin and Ceca The sizeable diplomatic corps and the international representatives in Belgrade have no reservations towards the political and public promoters of the Chetnik resurgence, who receive generous funding from them and attend the glamorous receptions and celebrations on which the media report. The West quite simply does not seem to find anything wrong with the idea of basing the new Serbian democracy upon the Chetnik tradition. People whom the West recognized as the bravest fighters against Milosevic are today seen as destabilizing Belgrade's Potemkin-like idyll of democracy. Just as after the recent constitutional changes in B-H Wolfgang Petritsch praised "the wise, statesman-like contribution" of [SDS hardliner] Dragan Kalinic, so too do Western diplomats fund - and host parties in their villas for - politicians, journalists and artists who are either active promoters, or at least cogs in the wheel, of this strategic and currently most significant national-political project in Serbia.
On July 11, I carefully scanned the Belgrade newspapers. Not one of them printed a word about the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. But that does not mean that they do not write about war crimes. During that period I was able to read a big interview with Ephraim Zurof about the crimes of Pavelic's Ustashe during World War Two. The most precious time of my stay in Belgrade was the time I spent with some of the people mentioned by Lula Mikijelj (see below): people like Petar Lukovic, Sonja Biserko and Olga Popovic-Obradovic. I cannot find words to express my admiration for their courage, honesty and persistence. Their eminently humane attempts to bring home to the public the suppressed truth about the recent wars are treated with contempt by international representatives, and with open ridicule and mockery by even such Serbian media as B92.
If I were a Westerner, unaware of the deeds of the Chetnik movement in the recent and not so recent history of this part of the world, perhaps I would not have noticed all that I have been describing, and without which it would be possible to write reams of stuff presenting Belgrade as a cultural centre of the whole area between Vienna and Istanbul. For example, the bookshops and the volume of publishing - the translated works, both modern and classical, both theoretical and literary - would amaze and thrill even visitors who do not come from unfortunate Sarajevo. It is not difficult to share foreigners' fascination with old and even shabby pubs, apricot brandy, hot peppers, lamb and urnebes salad. The same goes for the posh restaurants, often on rafts, whose opulent kitsch takes your breath away. Or the class of the waiter in one restaurant, who gave me back the mobile I'd left there and remembered ages later - and even refused to take the tip I offered him.
Foreigners may love "burek pie with cheese, meat or spinach" in the "Sarajevo" pie-shop in central Belgrade, where huge posters of Ratko Mladic hang on the walls. T-shirts with images of Che Guevara and Radovan Karadzic are dirt cheap and available on every street-corner. There are three exceptional young ministers in Djindjic's government, the economists Djelic, Pitic and Vlahovic, all educated at leading world universities, who are unrivalled in any country in transition east of the River Kupa. It is impossible to miss the prostitution either, in which Belgrade is slowly but surely catching up with Thailand and Cuba when it comes to the volume, quality and cheapness of what is on offer. And yet, and yet, one comes back to the taxi drivers. On the last day of my stay in Belgrade I took a ride in a Zastava 101 - so old and rickety that when I sat down I nearly fell on my back - and inside Dino Merlin was playing at full blast. When I asked whether it was a cassette or the radio, the driver said it was the former. I told him I was from Sarajevo, and that I found it interesting to see that Merlin was popular in Belgrade too. He retorted promptly that Ceca [Arkan's turbo-folk-singer widow] was popular in both Sarajevo and Zagreb. The conversation continued as follows:
"My mother's from Bosnia, but that doesn't matter. Listen, I'll tell you one thing. I don't know who or what you are, but I know that no one has such a rough deal as the Muslims do."
I asked him to explain, thinking I must have stumbled upon some sympathizer of the "Belgrade Circle" of independent intellectuals. This is what he answered:
"Just think, that guy of theirs climbs that tower sixteen times a day, and howls out from up there, while the ones down below bow down. That's some rough deal!"
I smiled politely, scratched my chin and told him it wasn't quite like that. When I paid him, he was still insisting: "Oh yes it is, I should know! Sixteen times."
Who is who: In Belgrade year 1991 already showed who would side with whom, who would side with good and who would side with evil. The Belgrade circle was created, gathering Rade Konstatinovic, Filip David, Ivan Colovic and late Miladin Zivotic, for whom I say that he died because of Sarajevo. I must also mention Latinka Perovic, Hatidza Dizdarevic, Sonja Biserko, Mirjana Miocinovic, Obrad Savic, Novak Pribicevic, Zarko Korac, I do not want to skip anyone significant, of course Petar Lukovic, Borka Pavicevic, Nikola Barovic, Aljosa Mimica... Also, Miodrag Stanisavljevic, Ljubinka Trgovcevic, Dubravka Stojenovic, Natasa Kandic, Lazar Stojanovic, Nebojsa Popov, Dragan Banjac, Ljubo Babic, Sead Hadzovic, Jasna Bogojevic, Branka Panic, Dimitrije Bajalica, Rade Vukosav, Srdjan Karanovic... I forgot to mention Ivan Djuric. Unfortunately, many have passed away, for example Vladan Vasiljevic and Jelena Santic... All of them are people who have contributed that people hear about a different Belgrade. That was a nasty time, when media had a totally different function. All of them became tools of warmongering propaganda. We had for a while Studio B, and, of course, Radio B92, but it was very difficult to reach citizens who have succumbed to nationalist propaganda. In the period staring with 1991, and especially in 1992, 1993, and 1994, it was easier to advocate against war anywhere else on the planet than in Belgrade, and to know what was going on in Sarajevo, Prijedor, camps, Foca, massacres in Bijeljina; first of all because it was difficult to get the information, although those who really wanted were able to get the news; but, it was very difficult to get involved and to understand.
"Water under bridge": Milosevic was only a player selected by the institutions to implement a program they had prepared and developed. As far as I am concerned, the real culprit, the person who should be blamed for everything that has happened here during the last ten years is the ideologist Dobrica Cosic, because all of that started with the Memorandum; actually it all started much, much earlier, but let us focus on the Memorandum. It has been described by all greater Serb nationalists as a pro-Yugoslav document, supported by all "sages", the Serb Academy of Science, Writers Association, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and media. And that was a well planned ruse, which many citizens failed to understand, given that many of them were emotionally connected to Yugoslavia and failed to grasp that it was a centralized state, if not Greater Serbia, and we all know what that implied. Of course, Milosevic accepted that game and got to work, with the support of many institutions (Yugoslav People's Army...), the then opposition political parties, media. I don't think he was an extreme nationalist, because he at times played that role, by the also liked other roles, depending on the needs at a particular time. At times he even behaved like a peacemaker and was, true, accepted by the international community as a factor of stability. Many failed to understand this, the road to a global catastrophe. But, 13 years later it is obvious that that program has succeeded to a large extent, because today, although we know about some crimes, there is no desire, even in ordinary conversations, to analyze that; now, it all boils down to "Milosevic is gone, it's all water under the bridge!" I think that Serbia cannot move forward until it clears up at least its recent past, until it conducts a deep analysis of everything that has happened in the region; here the prevailing belief is that the war was the bombardment of Serbia by NATO, which lasted all three months, while they have forgotten the bombardment of Vukovar, Dubrovnik, and Sarajevo; people know about the massacre in Srebrenica, but they prefer not to talk about it; even B92, if it broadcasts a movie about crimes committed against Albanians in Kosovo or in Srebrenica, makes sure to broadcast afterwards a movie that attempts to neutralize what we had just seen. Or, they initiate a program about hate speech in the media and assume a very critical stance, broadcast excerpts in which we can see what Mitrovic, or Grubac, or Popov, or Milijana Baletic, did in the nineties, only to bring Milijana Baletic and MIroslav Lazanski to the show and interview them. Many, when we talk like this, agree with me, not knowing my real name. My nickname Lula as a "disguise", it dates from my childhood, has been handy; but the moment they find out that my real name is Mensura, that moment they connect me with Alija Izetbegovic and refuse to believe anything I say.
About October 5: It feels very good to be able to say that Slobodan Milosevic is not my president anymore, but I don't feel much better when I say that Vojislav Kostunica is my president now. I believed that Kostunica was unable to make a true difference: it is good that Milosevic is gone, but, with few exceptions, nothing has changed. The program remains the same, its essential characteristics are the same, only the players are different. We, Bosnians and Hercegovinians who live in Belgrade are mostly interested in the attitude with respect to Bosnia-Hercegovina. Formally, it has been accepted that B-H is an internationally recognized country and everyone will confirm that, but the Republic of Srpska is still treated as a separate country. The Sarajevo War Theater recently appeared in Belgrade at a private festival, with the show Ay, Carmela!, which was received very well; Selma Alispahic was fantastic next to Dragan Jovicic... But, all the media wrote about them as "theaters from B-H and Srpska"! When I approached the organizers and asked him why, he said "please, I don't want to get involved in politics!"; he failed to grasp that he had already made a political statement.
Srebrenica: Seven years after the massacre in Srebrenica, here there is some understanding of what happened - the only remaining controversy is whether 6,000 or 10,000 were killed. "Women in black", together with the organization "Women to women" from B-H organized a busload of women from all over Serbia who were going to express solidarity with mothers and wives of the victims of the Srebrenica tragedy. We were told that our arrival had been announced, that SFOR would escort us, so we set off. I found it suspicious that we were going through Valjevo; it did not have to mean anything, but I'm convinced that even then someone followed the bus. Of course, we crossed the Yugoslav border without any trouble. When we crossed the bridge and came to the Bosnian border crossing, we were met by two policemen who were very polite. However, they told us that they had not been told about our arrival; that they could let us cross the border, but that we would not reach Bratunac, as we would be very soon stopped by the local police. We continued in our bus; the driver agreed to continue; however, after only about one hundred meters, we were stopped by a police cordon; they wore dark uniforms and we later found out that they were from the Srpska Special Police and local police, some 30-40 of them. One of them approached us and asked where we were going; he said we did not have a permit; we responded that we did not need a permit to move through B-H. He had a convenient excuse for raising the degree of security, due to the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, but he was very rude and simply said: "Since we haven't been told about your arrival, you can't go through!' We tried to talk to him, his name was Zdravko Pajic, but it was no use. Several members of IPTF also happened to be there, and they tried to intervene, make some phone calls; I contacted the B-H embassy in Belgrade, some people I know in Sarajevo; they tried to phone the Srpska Police, and in the end I was told that the Police Minister of Srpska, Jovicic, ordered himself that we be stopped. After that they deported us, returned us to the border; they did not even let us have a cup of coffee in a café on the border. I think that the whole incident was planned by certain structures in Srpska and here; if some 45 women entered, together with the photo reporter of Srpska Rec Ivan Zlatic, who was recently beaten up in Cacak for daring to organize an exhibition of photographs by Ron Haviv, Blood and Honey, and Danas journalist Vesna Ninkovic, if women from Belgrade appeared in Srebrenica on the seventh anniversary of that horrible crime, which is generally considered to be the worst crime after WWII, then Belgrade would perhaps start thinking a bit more about that.
The Hague and Serbs: B92 broadcasts the trial of Slobodan Milosevic non-stop and during the breaks in Milosevic's trial even shows other trials from other courtrooms, which is very good. However, during intermissions they bring various commentators to the studio and one gets the impression that a pro-Milosevic and anti-Hague attitude is being created. Very frequently one can hear that Milosevic is beating the Hague, as if it were a football match. The worst role in connection with the Hague and condemnation of war crimes in general, in my opinion, is played by Ljiljana Smajlovic, unfortunately from Sarajevo. She is here considered for the biggest local expert on the work of the Hague Tribunal and, to my big surprise, she can be seen quite often on B92. She portrays a totally distorted picture of the Hague Tribunal and everything that takes place there; she always talks against the prosecution... I cannot forgive her an article she published in Vreme, about her first visit to Sarajevo after the war; at the time Vreme did not reprint a brilliant article written by Gojko Beric, published in Sarajevo Svijet, commenting on her visit to Sarajevo. Ljiljana Smajlovic has placed herself in the role of an analyst and critic of the Hague Tribunal, as if I am now expected to support that option [sic].