DISPLACED PERSONS

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, June 21, 1999

I watch the euphoria of victory without blinking; I hear that we are moral and political victors; I hear that we triumphed militarily; they couldn't touch us; we've even grown stronger in the meanwhile; it's excellent that they bombed us, our morale has never been higher; patriotism is dripping off the screen and flowing in spurts into my living room, and when the little Russian bear wakes up and the Chinese panda realizes what's going on, the world's going to be screwed - because it couldn't read the headlines in "Politika": "Kosovo heroes prove that freedom is priceless".

Masochistically, I watch the TV News to convince myself that we have in fact succeeded in completely protecting the sovereignty of Socialist Radical Yugoslavia [SRJ - Serbian acronym for Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]. The news is that the Russians are almost there, they're going to put to shame the Germans and the English and show them what they can do, even though it would have been better if the German and English bastards had never made it there in the first place. The TV anchor appeals to the Serbs in Kosovo to remain in their homes, even if they are about to be burned to the ground because - she says - KFOR has said that all residents of the southernmost Serbian province will be protected; why, just a while ago the Chinese sent a harsh note to the United Nations saying, stay there, for God's sake, don't come here, didn't our nice colleagues in the Socialist Party of Serbia promise you a pleasant and peaceful life in multiethnic Kosovo?

Just as there was no mention of the columns of Albanian refugees during the first days of the war, no sign of those horrible pictures of people in trailers and in refugee camps who were being chased away, of course, by the NATO bombs, NOT by our security forces who pleaded and entreated them to stay with knives and automatic weapons - so today there is no news about the Serbian refugees. Those who somehow manage to get themselves on TV aren't actually refugees at all, they're "internally displaced persons"; we hear that the state of Serbia is guaranteeing their security (in Serbia, not in Kosovo) and we'll just find them some tents, cans of food, water and electricity and put them up for a couple of days, since all of this is temporary, since Kosovo is Serbian and will remain Serbian forever and ever. Don't even try to tell me that our President would sign an agreement giving up our Holy Land when he's well known for his soft spot for refugees, when he publicly promised that Kosovo would remain an integral part of Serbia, that a Western soldier would never set foot on that soil, that we would defend our monasteries and our holy relics with our lives if need be ("Let us encourage the resolution to remain, not the frenzy to flee" say the headlines in "Politika).

I watch Studio B and see the same frightened faces which haunt me from all the previous wars: Croatians fleeing Vukovar, Muslims behind barbed wire in Srebrenica, columns of Serbs from Krajina, Albanians in Macedonian mud; all the stories are one and the same: they told us, they made us, they called us, they promised us, they confirmed decisively... and behind those words I already see the crippled, the dead, the murdered, the raped, the massacred, the dispossessed, the frightened, ideal candidates for emigration, the crazed, the angry, the despairing, the weeping, the helpless, those without a present and without a future, those leaning toward suicide, those disgruntled by their own existence. The grotesque victory of Serbia is their greatest defeat: it is with reason that the revenge-minded Albanians are only continuing the spiral of Croatian-Serbian, Muslim-Serbian and Slovenian-Serbian peace negotiations by means of weapons and firearms.

Accustomed by now to the blood, the tractors covered with plastic sheeting, the sentences which explain everything ("The army ordered us to move," a refugee from Kosovo), the Socialist Party of Serbia explanations that we have always sought peace, cooperation and friendship, that we have always been against war, that we have always been for Reconstruction, I turn off the television and the radio, I remove the fuse from the fusebox, I sit in the dark, like a good Serbian fool, by the light of a candle; a series of symptoms of optimism rolls over me in pre-defined waves: helplessness, despair, hopelessness, a tendency to weep, loss of concentration, forgetfulness, loss of pleasure in the simple things in life, sleep disorders, lethargy, irritability, sometimes in this and sometimes in a different order.

Last night, for example. I went to bed at one and dreamed of war scenes and conditions: destroyed cities, thousands of balloons released from enormous bags, the balloons float up in the sky, they explode and then they are bleeding... I wake up, it's only a quarter to two, and turn on the television: TV Beograd still had the news on, the Serbs are protected by a fantastic agreement, they should personally contact KFOR representatives and explain who they are, what they are and what they stand for since the Serbian Government can't be bothered to transmit all of their petty wishes and sexual whims; somewhere outside the dogs are howling, there seem to be hundreds of them, I still can't sleep, someone throws a firecracker to silence the half-wild animals, the sky ties itself up into a cloudy knot, the sky is pitch black above Belgrade, I know, I tell myself, it's only four in the morning and you think that a cigarette will help you to face Friday; I don't think anything, I answer myself, we talk a bit, I and I, I gaze from the window into the dark; Goddamn it, we won again, if only we would lose just once so we can see what THAT feels like!

Somewhere around five in the morning on "Palma" Television they show a rerun of an interview with Vojislav Seselj; the current vice-president of the Serbian government isn't giving up - what we have now in Kosovo is temporary, we will go back, and when we go back, there will be no more Albanians there. If only we can get the little bear and the panda to help. Mr. Seselj, did you and your ministers not resign? Yes, we did resign, but our dear president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, issued a decree whereby our resignations were not valid during a state of war. So we are staying in the Government until we are ordered to do otherwise. So you are still the vice-president? Yes, I am the vice president and, God willing, I'll be the President of Serbia as well, if only we can make it to the first elections we'll see who were the true patriotic forces which successfully defended our Holy Serbian Land.

My head is spinning but not enough to stop me from buying "Politika" and reading my beloved headlines: "UN forces must immediately and completely fulfill their responsibilities regarding safety and security of all Kosovo citizens, especially Serbs and Montenegrins", "Russians must get their own sector", "Yugoslavia defeats NATO", "Shameful war against the proud Serbian people", "Clinton to be tried", "Serbian people the truest witnesses of history", "Production to be restarted in destroyed factories", "We have enough cement to reconstruct the country", "There is no reason to leave Kosovo," "A history of a superhuman fight for freedom", "Immediate suspension for Ciro Blazevic"...

It's Friday, June 18, almost 2:00 p.m. Reconstruction is well under way (I'm very happy to hear the news about the cement), the state of war in well under way, travel restrictions abroad are well under way, how could everything not be under way after yet another glorious, fabulous, spectacular, enormous victory against the whole entire world?