Some impressions from Serbia
There has already been some fuss about my trip to Serbia because I put some pictures from it on my Facebook-profile and commented on them. For instance a photo of myself in front of the Serbian Parliament, which to me was a personal feat as there are still people in there from the Milošević regime who would very much have liked to see me dead in the 1990s.
As small an event as it may seem to others, to me it was a powerful moment to stand as a survivor in front of some of those who had sent grenades over my country and feel like I was saying “I’ve survived you” right in their faces. But to some the comment under my photo was offensive because it was perceived as being directed at the whole Parliament and maybe even at the entire population of Serbia.
Of course it’s not nice to have people like that in your country’s Parliament. We’ve got idiots in the Bosnian Parliament as well, and even in the Danish one there are those who would have preferred to see the “Bosnian problem” solved the way Milošević had intended it. But they’re the ones who are the problem, not someone who simply points them out.
It took me months to decide to go on this trip. I had never been to Serbia before, not even in the Yugoslav era. Quite frankly I was afraid of what might happen to me as a Bosnian (not to mention as one that came to an anti-racist anti-fascist conference!). As a war child from Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have a whole personal history with Serbia and the things done in its name, both by those who had the authority to do so and by those who didn’t. And even after the war had ended, the political situation in the country had seemed very scary to me. My family was also worried. But I thought it was necessary to go so I went. Not exactly knowing what I expected but hoping for the best.
The week before that I had met Mr. Scheske from the UNHCR in Strasbourg who was very optimistic about my going to Serbia and asked me to write to him about it afterwards. The problem is that it wasn’t so fantastic as he expected - not the way that he meant, at least. The conference was educational, I met great people, I bought cool boots, the weather was terrific and the cakes were a dream, but on my last day there it was still as scary as it had been on the first.
Although our hosts from the different Serbian NGOs did whatever they could to make us comfortable, there was nothing they could do about the radical graffiti and posters all over Belgrade. Or the daily nationalist rallies in support of Radovan Karadžić. Or simply the fact that I was always very aware that I was a Bosnian in Serbia. There were even some really stupid remarks made at the conference itself. And every time I saw a person over a certain age I kept thinking “Where were you in the 90s? What were you doing?”.
To those who have lived in Serbia for years, the situation today is probably a lot better than it was ten or even five years ago. Maybe they didn’t even notice the graffiti as much as I did because there had probably been more of it before. I on the other hand don’t have the past to compare with. I couldn’t say things were great now and “you should only have seen how it was before”. I know there were a lot more people at the radicals’ rallies before, and it’s only encouraging that their numbers are decreasing, but even 20 people are 20 too many in my opinion.
I would read things on the walls and recognize them from the war in my country. The same slogans that made a refugee out of me. The year 1389 was sprayed everywhere, in some streets you could see a crazy wanted poster for the Dutch minister of foreign affairs and on the main square stencils of Radovan Karadžić. There was no way I could feel comfortable around all of that, not even among friendly faces.
But it was definitely great to meet local activists such as for example Women in Black - Belgrade, who started their work back in 1991. Their office is a treasure chest of books on anti-militarism, human rights and the war in ex-Yugoslavia (they gave me a whole pile of them) and very touching photos from previous street actions in Belgrade and elsewhere. Banners saying “People of Sarajevo, you are not alone” and “Women in black against war”. On November 9th, they invited the participants of the UNITED-conference to commemorate the Night of Broken Glass with them in the main pedestrian street (Knez Mihajlova), and all of a sudden I found myself standing in the middle of Belgrade holding a peace flag, surrounded by people with anti-fascist signs. It was surreal. As were all the TV-cameras pointed at us.
During the street action I heard a man asking some of the demonstrators about the signs. “What do you mean you’re against fascism? There’s no fascism here, what are you talking about? That ended in the Second World War!” It’s hard to fight a problem that many are completely oblivious to. But standing with a group of Women in Black and UNITED-participants from all over Europe, someone as unlikely as a Bosnian refugee in the middle of Belgrade felt like there was hope for the cause yet.
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- Nov 14, 2008: Global Voices Online » Serbia: Reflections of a Bosnian Refugee
Dear Amila,
I think it’s great you took time to visit Serbia. After all, not all Serbs are bad people.
People can be conditioned to love or hate, and unfortunately, a sizable proportion of Serbian people were deliberately conditioned to feel “superior” and hate their neighbours. This was done through deliberate and systematic media propaganda instigated and organized by the Serbian government in the former Yugoslavia, and especially during and after the wars of 1990s.
Just take a look at the writings of the most respected Serbian ‘academic,’ Dobrica Cosic, and you don’t have to go further. Not to mention scientific discoveries of Biljana Plavsic, professor of Biology, who claimed that “Muslims are genetically deformed.” This supposedly respected biologist, with her enviable reputation as a university professor and expert, has been tireless in propagating these ’scientific discoveries’ of hers. This has led, she has further ‘explained’, to a degeneration of the Serb people, as a consequence of the ‘mixing of blood’, quote: “We are disturbed by the fact that the number of marriages between Serbs and Muslims has increased… because mixed marriages lead to an exchange of genes between ethnic groups, and thus to a degeneration of Serb nationhood.”
Having said that, I am glad you mentioned local Serbian activists (like Women in Black) in your post. Women in Black have long defended values of freedom and human rights in Serbia. They have resisted the sickness of radical ultra-nationalism and hatred with dignity and facts. They courageously stood against the Srebrenica genocide denial (and I hope they will continue to do so).
Great post Amila. Keep them coming
Welcome back
After reading this, I got the urge to go visit Serbia myself. Well, I do have an apartment 100 meters from the border, but that was my home before the war (and still is).
I’d like to visit Belgrade now. It would be incredible to stand infront of the paliarment, alive. I could just imagine how emotions of joy and fear would flow through me. It must have been overwhelming.
But I don’t think there’s much to be afraid of. A few years ago my grandmother took a bus with other old women to Belgrade. They were supposed to be witnesses in a trial against a warcriminal.
Could you imagine a bus full of old muslim women in the center of Belgrade? I wonder how they felt. I guess my grandmother was okay with it, so okay she didn’t tell us about it until almost a year later.
Great blog.
Sincerly
NH
Welcome back Amila!
A brilliant post! And of course hvala ti for the english…
Your new reader,
Zoi
Sorry that you didn’t bring back better memories from Serbia. But I guess I can understand why that is the case. Hopefully in the future it won’t be like that.
Greetings from Belgrade!
Hi Amila - thank you for the post. Always good to have perspective on different places.
As you noted, “to those who have lived in Serbia for years, the situation today is probably a lot better than it was ten or even five years ago.” I can tell you that yes, it is.
Despite the grafitti put up by a few idiots (and the 20 “protesters” in a city of nearly 2 million), I am curious - did you feel really uncomfortable while walking down the street, or in conversing with anyone? While I’m not a native, I’ve lived here a while, and have found that the fear many have coming to Belgrade is dispelled after spending a little time here.
Yes, there’s propaganda and some residual discrimination, to be sure. I would be curious as to what you experienced on a personal level (grafitti and 20 morons aside).
Thanks.
Thank you all for your comments! And do come back
@The Dude: I was only in Serbia for 9 days and only some of them were in Belgrade, so there was no time to relax. I actually did feel uncomfortable walking down the street, which I was very disappointed by. I had probably expected it to be easier, I don’t know. I always made sure I was with other people from the conference and preferred not to speak, because my language is a sure giveaway. And whenever someone said my name out loud in public, I froze for a moment. In the war in Bosnia my mom used to call me Milka when we were among strangers, because it was a lot safer to go by a Serb name.
But there were also familiar things. Of course, I understood everyone in the street, in the shops and so on. I acted as an interpreter for some of the others sometimes. I knew a lot of the food and very much enjoyed roasted chestnuts which they don’t have here in Denmark.. and of course the CAKES. Absolutely heavenly. I liked to see old cars like Yugo, “pegla”, Golf and so on. The weather was also terrific and it’s always great for a sun lover such as myself to get some extra light time. And did I forget to mention the cakes….
Hi Amila,
Thanks for sharing your experience in Belgrade. I’m a foreigner who’s visited and lived in Belgrade for some years now, and as The Dude said, the first few days I ever spent in Belgrade were mixed with comfort at times, but mainly uneasiness, I wasn’t sure what to expect and I had many many years of stereotypes ingrained into my mind. But after a number of days, I felt completely comfortable and said to myself there really is nothing to worry about. Belgrade is a comsmopiltan city of 2 million people (with some bad apples, of course), nothing bad is going to happen to me because I’m foreign.
Obviously, the situation is VERY different for you; I cannot begin to pretend my level of discomfort at first was in anyway similar to yours but I do understand why you were nervous. I think if you spent some more time in Belgrade, you’d eventually come to feel very welcome and not at risk regardless of your name and accent.
My Belgrade friend had the same worries as you when we went to Sarajevo but everyone he spoke to and met didn’t bat an eyelid at his strong Begrade accent.
Hello,
I have been writing a web-blog on the current events in Serbia. There, I post press reviews, interviews with specialists and documents from NGOs (my translation to French and text summaries). I added a translation of a part of this article, I hope it will not be a problem for you? I found your post really stimulating. Of course I didn’t change a word, I specified your name and link to your blog.
“Hav en god dag.”
Yours,
Dragan
I’m starting to think I should have switched my blog to English a long time ago
Thank you for the translation and pingback Dragan, I’ve already browsed your blogroll a little 
I told you so!!!! So happy to read more posts of yours in English
Now you are going international!
Amila, honestly, your writing is simply captivating! And thanks Dragan for your blog, too. I find it, also, very interesting.
In the days to come, I will share some of my impressions, as an expatriate in Croatia. As Dragan said, your blog is “stimulating”.
Thanks again Zoi! Do you have a blog or website? Maybe you’d like to be a guest blogger here on Amila Bosnae
I think there’s a way to set it up in the settings. It would be fun 
Interesting reading about your experience in bg. Of course it cannot be easy coming, I’d say you should come back soon, on a personal level you should look to try to conquer your fear, without forgetting what happened in the past for sure.
I’d like to ask you something else though - did you speak with / notice other Bosnians in Serbia? You must know that speaking Bosnian would not give you away, so to speak, as there are quite a few Bosnians about. You might have even picked up a hint of distaste from a Belgrader, not on a nationalistic (not in the way you might think at least) level, but on a local-patriot level, who is this Bosnian (whether Serb, Croat or Bosniak), ‘I’ve had enough of them’. Some Belgraders behave in a similar way towards Kosovo Serbs or even Montenegrins. In Croatia you might see something similar in attitude towards Hercegovians for example.
The grafitti remains a problem, as do certain extreme right wing groups - that are tolerated / encouraged by right wing politics from SRS and DSS mainly, but also due to the lack of a rule of law and politicians rather ridiculous fear of civil unrest (political cowardice).
Anyway, I’m sorry it wasn’t a better experience. Perhaps next time you should attempt an incognito visit and stay with a friend. Experience it from the inside, if you are ready for it.
Hi bganon. I’ve heard this before, but I didn’t hear any other Bosnians myself. I think it’s OK to a certain extent to just speak the language when no one knows me, but once they would ask me about my name, I would really get nervous.
I’m planing on going back next year, in April probably, but it’s activism related again. I don’t know if that makes it harder, but I just can’t see myself doing the tourist thing in Belgrade. I probably never would have gone in the first place had it not been with UNITED; with them I felt much safer than I would have alone or just with my Serbian friends. But we’ll see what happens next time. I’m looking forward to the food in any case, although I found it quite hard to be a vegetarian there hehe
So sad to hear that you didn’t enjoy your stay in Belgrade. I went there my self few years ago with ‘De danske studerendes fællesråd’ and despite my hesitations I really had a great time. Our host was Serbian Student Union (SUS) and they were a very nice surprise. Among other things I discovered that many Serbian students, for example those who studied history or law, really wanted to do something about the way that Serbia deals with the past – or rather doesn’t. I heard stories about them organizing events in order to discuss Srebrenica genocide and Serbia’s role in the war, while literally risking their lives.
I felt free to speak my Bosnian and many people said that it actually was charming☺
It was a project initiated by Danish student organizations aiming to implement Bologna process in all the countries of former Yugoslavia. So every country was represented and the seminars were held in a different country each year. And it was beautiful – the result was that people became best friends and some even got married☺
I had a kind of an epiphany while being there. There was off course a delegation from Bosnia as well: two ‘Serbian’ guys who said that they come from republika srpska (I’m deliberately not spelling this with capital letters, because I don’t recognize this ‘country’) and a Bosnian ‘Muslim’ who met a Serbian girl on a previous seminar and they were really in love, but their parents were against it.
However, in between the workshops and seminars some of the guys were watching some football, where a Serbian team was playing. The two of the ‘Bosnian Serbs’ said that they were hoping that their team is wining. The reaction of the Serbian guys sitting there was – you can’t win because your country is not in the game. Bosnia is not playing, Serbia is.
I can’t express how happy I was because of the reaction of the Serbian guys, but in a way I realized that much of our trouble in Bosnia has nothing to do with Serbia or Croatia – at least on an everyday level. It was much easer to find common grounds regarding the war with Serbian people then with Bosnian Serbs. Actually everybody else found common grounds but the two guys from Bosnia.
My point is that I actually believe that Serbia one day will in some way or another deal with it’s history. But sadly I’m not very optimistic about the consequences this will have on the situation in Bosnia.
Thanks for sharing that
I heard the same thing from one of my Serbian friends who had spent some time in BiH on several occasions and had gotten really annoyed with some people there who kept claiming her country as theirs. One person even went as far as telling her she wasn’t Serb (Srpkinja) but Serbian (Srbijanka) (I don’t even know if that makes sense in English, anyway it’s a distinction between ethnicity and citizenship, I guess), which really ticked my friend off. I remember when Croatia’s president Mesić told certain groups in BiH that Croatia wasn’t their country, that BiH was - they got so mad at him, it was crazy. It would be fine if they didn’t take this as far as violence, but they keep talking about it and about tearing BiH to pieces. I agree with you, those groups are a real problem for BiH 