Pa i u Ameriku

I am not certain whether or not it is the case that the new ambassador of Serbia in Washington will be Sonja Liht. The only person I have seen reporting it so far is Pera Luković, who does not like the idea (I disagree, but that is no reason not to give a link, I suppose). In any case, it is better than the idea I got when I saw the headline "Vratiti Kovačevića u SAD." It turns out that the person in question was not the very admirable but superannuated former ambassador but some criminal.

U Evropu, 200 na sat

I have no doubt that Ivan Gavrilović (where is he now?) and the Fanki Dži dancers will join East Ethnia in welcoming the statement by Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik that it is time to "switch to turbo mode in Serbia’s European reform course." Obožavam tu brzinu. Thanks to AR.

The Slavoj Žižek prize for highest concentration of invented terminology

Unionists? Sovereignists? The national-democratic elite? Rentiers of the surroundings? Probably Professor Antonić is trying to alter perceptions about whom he is speaking for, but I will offer a delicious prize to anyone who can tell me what he is talking about.

A side note to NSPM: your readers, and especially the sovereignists among them, would like you to find a web host that does not bloom with a thousand pop-up adverts.

“No rights,” says she “without their duties, No claims on equals without cause.”

The Socialist International will be an oddly named beast indeed if it accepts genocidal parties of the far right as members.

Spodobe na okupu

A ponovo i na vlasti.

Service

Since the London transportation network is filled with people who are angry about the inadequate service they receive, its directors have found a solution: posters requesting that people that people not be angry about the inadequate service they receive.

Meanwhile, my local council in Haringey publishes a monthly magazine called Haringey People. In it one can see photos of the councillors wearing large shiny medals around their necks. The magazine must certainly provide hours of pleasure to that audience -- it must be out there -- that enjoys looking at photos of corpulent middle aged men in garish jewelry. It also appears to exhaust the council's reserves of competence.

A new, unstable, short-lived government

So it looks like they have done it after all. In a move many hail as some kind of victory, DS and SPS have agreed to alienate both their supporters and form a government together. Word is that the prime minister will be the current finance minster Mirko Cvetković, a compromise figure in every respect. As a "nonparty" person, he is more or less acceptable to everyone. As a nonentity, everyone believes they can control him. He may surprise people on that second count.

The new government is set to have 28 ministries, affirming the place of Serbia near the top of the world demographically in ministers per capita.

The good news about the government is that neither Vojislav Koštunica nor Velimir Ilić will be part of it. The bad news is that SPS will be, and once again a party with minor support will excercise inordinate power. What is uncertain is whether SPS will use the opportunity to demonstrate that it has the capacity the become a political party, and also whether DS will use the opportunity to demonstrate that it has the capacity the become a political party.

PS: Backstory? -- Here are journalists speculating in Politika that Tadić was compelled to choose Cvetković by party leaders and that his preference would have been .... Vuk Jeremić????? But how little does one have to respect (even) Tadić to imagine anyone, even him, seeing Vuk Jeremić in any position where something might depend on him?

War criminals: What are they good for?

Mr Župljanin has had a tough decade of it, if anyone is to judge by his lament. He says "we have never had any support in Serbia from the democratic authorities," if you can imagine that. And as for the democratic authorities? They couldn't liquidate him, they couldn't arrest him, they couldn't get past their amusement at Mr Lovre's personal ads, they just couldn't do much. Where would we be without Mr Župljanin, without his "enormous suffering and superhuman efforts," and without his self-pity? In a much less bemused world, that's where.

Bozza: "Response to a silly and hostile suggestion"

If you do not like living in London while it has a buffoon as its mayor, you may wish to look for a new home in the Caribbean. If you say the preceding, you may be encouraged to return to a former home in Australia, or at least to vacate a present place of employment. And if you like living in the United States either while it has a buffoon as its president or in anticipation of its having a nonbuffoon, you could be expected to pass something that looks like this test.

ZimbabPROFOR

With reference to the previously posted item, Morgan Tsvangirai is clearly not a reader of this blog, or he would know that he is looking for protection from the wrong source.

While you were away

Well, while I was away, actually. While I was moving to what I hope will become a reasonably permanent new home amongst the sushi bars of Muswell Hill, Owen (who will be known to readers of this site as a regular commenter) was keeping the world informed of the progress of the lawsuit by Hasan Nuhanović and members of the Mustafić family before a district court in the Netherlands.

The plaintiffs are suing the Dutch state for the failure of its military forces, which were present in the area as members of UNPROFOR, to protect their relatives during the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Rizo Mustafić, Ibro Nuhanović, Nasiha Nuhanović and Muhamed Nuhanović sought protection at the UN military base in Potočari, but were soon afterward delivered to the Bosnian Serb forces by the members of the Dutch military who were bound to protect them. The lawsuit seeks to establish that the military forces are guilty of gross negligence of their duty to protect civilians, and that this was a result of state policy which placed emphasis on the safety of soldiers at the expense of the obligation to protect civilians.

If you care for 198 pages of pleading, you can dowload the writ of summons (translated into English) at the plaintiff's firm's web site. It is a PDF, and since they are lawyers they have a little shrinkwrap agreement for you to click before you can get to it. Or you can listen to an interview with the lead lawyer by CBC, followed by Ramush Thakur's comments on the responsibility to protect.

Paul Vallely sets out several of the issues in the case for The Independent. Plaintiff Nuhanović and his lawyer set out their case to Reuters in an interview. Attorney Liesbeth Zegveld (bio) gives the theory of the case with admirable succinctness to the BBC. Some unexpected uncertainty came about just as hearings were about to begin when the judge who had been overseeing the case since 2005 was removed from the case without explanation.

A decision is expected in September.

Errata: See the comments for an important correction.

Holidays in the sun

If you decide to take your sun and fun in lovely Priština, then Sophie Middlemiss suggests, helpfully, in the Guardian that "the most authentic sleeping experience you'll have is at the family home of a former university professor." The suggestion box is still open for people who prefer an inauthentic sleeping experience.

Of kings and, well

Among the remembrances of Šaban Bajramović, add this obituary by John Lusk in the Independent. But better still: a long remembrance by Ljubomir Živkov, with additions by Zoran Živković and Dragan Kremer, in Vreme. And at Global Voices, Elia Varela Serra has posted a memorial video.

With one great person having left Niš, a more dubious one says he has forgiven the people he robbed, is an intellectual looking forward, and is ready to return. But we are not aware that anybody wants him back.

Your intelligence agencies at work

They are apparently leaving top secret folders on the seats of trains. While this is being done by daffy senior officials, the government is desperately trying to give itself the authority to hold people for 42 days until they can figure out whether they have done anything illegal or not. You feel ever so safe, don't you?

1 down, 3 to go

With the arrest of Stojan Župljanin announced today, that leaves three more people indicted for war crimes on the list to be arrested: Ratko Mladić, Radovan Karadžić, and Goran Hadžić. That will take care of one of the principal conditions for ratification of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the EU and Serbia. If the country succeeded in improving its wine and becoming a global tennis superpower, surely it can make that extra step. Samo napred!

Farewell, Šaban Bajramović

Šaban Bajramović: He deserted the army for love and formed his first band on Goli Otok. His music was gorgeous. In his life both his failures and successes were tremendous. The last few years saw him successfully reinventing his sound with the assistance of Cubismo, and more recently facing both health and material problems. He may have seemed indestructible to many. But today we have to say goodbye to the king of Roma music.

Link: This recent album review by Erika Borsos captures his quality nicely. And Toma Todorović has a fine remembrance in Politika.

Random observations from a visit to Belgrade

There will certainly be talk of nasty things (read:politics)from Belgrade in this blog. But just having returned today from a visit, some talk of less nasty things.

• A top graffito of the trip: The long-closed store by where the Cinema Odeon used to be, which for years has had the sign "Objekat u renoviranju" in the window. This time passing by, I noticed that somebody had crossed out "renoviranju" and written "raspadanju."
• Most tempting graffito: Somebody must have been well paid to paint "Sloboda za Caneta" on many prominent walls, because really, who cares? It took a tiny bit of effort and a good deal of laziness not to add "i Antona."
• A question for my culinarily savvy Belgrade friends: Is the restaurant in the Ruski dom any good? Will they serve me the stuff my grandmother used to make?
• Still the best thing about Belgrade (and every other city in the Balkans): Sitting in the outdoor cafes, which are everywhere.
• Smallest surprise: JAT (now called "Jat airways" or if you prefer "ejrvejz")? Still atrocious.
• Blogocentric moment: A fine evening spent drinking beer with Viktor (Belgrade 2.0) and Dejan (Anegdote), followed by pljeskavice in a wind tunnel.
• Most zaslužan građanin: Radovanović, the person behind the wines. Also, whoever is behind Greenet. Sidney Greenstreet, one supposes.
• Person and party inspiring the best and stupidest jokes: Krkobabić and PUPS.
• Biggest disappointment: Leaving at such a moment that it required missing the concert by Nick Cave.
• Greatest discovery: You'll hear about it. We have to get some grant applications together.
• Imperial moment: Across from where we live there used to be a perfectly okay bakery and a samoposluga about which the most you could say was that it was conveniently located. First the bakery was taken over by a fancy (and not at all bad) pizzeria called "Piazza Artigiani del gusto." Now they have taken over the samoposluga too. Is the name meant to imply that they will expand all the way to the pijaca?
• Nicest surprise: Seeing my high school friend, in town with her husband to do research.
• Greatest reassurance: Bukovače (always excellent) at kafana Proleće.

....or are you just happy to see me?

Photo: A gentleman named Perković performed at a big concert yesterday, during the course of which he did not try desperately to compensate for anything.

Znalac. Intelektualac. Sam je sebi stranac. Kao vanzemaljac.

Two intellectuals in the news today. Slobodan Antonić confronts the mysterious fact that intellectuals have a hard time liking the folks who hate them. And Kosta Čavoški remembers wistfully when his pals were powerful enough to keep his furniture untouched.

Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides

A few people may have been surprised about the gesture yesterday on the part of SRS, DSS and SPS to declare that they have reached an agreement to form a city government for Belgrade. Obviously the symbolic importance of controlling the local government in a city where these parties have never won an election (not this time either) would be hard to overstate.

When symbols are in question, respond with symbols. DS strategist Dragoljub Mićunović rushed to remind people that mayors can be removed by the city assembly, which people in his party have known since 1997. And the head of the assembly hurried to choose a late date for constituting the new assembly: 14 July. The date should be meaningful to the SRS candidate for mayor Aleksandar Vučić (try his delicious squid recipe!), who as information secretary in the Milošević regime controlled the media outlet known to everyone at the time as "TV Bastille."

Udobnost fotelja

It is a fairly hot day in Belgrade, but this will not bother the heads of the DB parties, who will sit in the pleasant shade overlooking the fragrant animals of the Belgrade Zoo and sign an agreement to hand over the city government to SRS. If I had to guess, I would say that it will be a short-lived agreement and will fall apart as soon as the negotiations among the same parties to form a republican government fall apart. The whole business looks as though it was conceived by SPS to increase their blackmail capacity.

But it is entirely possible that SPS is overreaching. Their coalition partners are openly balking at joining forces with parties that want to quash the stabilisation agreement with the EU. And Milutin "pre roka" Mrkonjić has remembered what was no nice about having executive power in an illegal government: the opportunity to interfere with judicial power. So he wants amnesty for the criminals of the old regime as a condition for negotiating at all. A few more conditions like that, and it might be reasonable to expect no government to be formed and new elections to be called in the fall instead.

If new elections were to be called, there is a possibility that somebody might get a majority. There is less patience than ever for parties with a few seats behaving as though they are the majority. Another possibility is that SPS will finally have its long-awaited split, along the lines of the fractures that have become more than apparent in the last two weeks. DSS too.

Eurovision

I did not succeed in becoming interested in any of the songs, sorry. But a bunch of tourists came, they all seemed to enjoy themselves, and nobody was attacked by skinheads. So that has to count as a success.

Update: It seems some people were attacked after all.

What becomes of the brokenhearted?

Adieu, Vojislav Koštunica and Terry Wogan.

If Sv. Voja Neobavešteni actually does shuffle off, it will be a fight for control of DSS between people who want to preserve it as a centre-right party (like Aleksandar Popović, probably) and people who would always have been Radicals if only Radicals dressed better, like Slobodan Samardžić.

Whereas Terry Wogan would have to be replaced by Barry Gibb.

Krkowhat?

It was a fine film, and I have seen this clip used for many things, including the Dallas Cowboys and Senator Clinton. But thanks to Nedim for sending along the latest subtitling.

A tree fell on it

For better or worse (more likely than not better), Dragan Marković Palma has just squashed the hopes of Vojislav Koštunica and Vojislav Šešelj to form a government together. You never know where help is going to come from, do you?

Winston Napier

A moment of silence please for my friend and former colleague Winston Napier, whose wit and insight rivalled anybody's.

Here are remembrances from Aldon Lynn Nielsen and David Pugh.

Grist for the rumour mill

While there is wild speculation about the efforts to form an ultraright government with DSS and SRS in coalition, or as some media have it, a government for the security services and (presumably only some of) the tycoons, there is other speculation that the whole show is an effort by SPS to enhance the price it can demand for entering a coalition. This comes in the face of two bizarre events: Vojislav Šešelj sharing his deep thoughts from his cell in the Hague, and at the same time SPS chair Ivica Dačić repeating an image from a bygone era by heading off to Moscow to be told what he thinks (by whom?).

Still the guesses remain that SPS is buying time and has put conditions to SRS and DSS that they are not likely to accept, like control of both the Interior ministry and the intelligence agencies. SPS also has a deal-killer for both coalitions, complete rehabilitation of Slobodan Milošević, Mirjana Marković and their sundry criminal relatives. And there are claims that SPS is talking concretely with the DS-led coalition "For a European Serbia." What sorts of concrete things? Rumour is that DS is offering SPS the ministries for infrastructure, social services, and for Kosovo. Alongside these offers, it seems Vuk Drašković would like to be ambassador to the United States, and a few names are being mentioned as a possible prime minister: Gordana Matković, Bojan Pajtić and Mirko Cvetković (that last name surfaced early on, just after the elections, as a nonparty figure who might be acceptable to both DS and SPS). Another name that has been floated is that of Ivan Vujačić, who would need some work if Drašković were to head to Washington to replace him.

It is not clear who is feeding this information to the media or whether any of it is accurate. Assuming that the basic bit of speculation holds, and SPS is carrying on negotiations with DSS and SRS that are destined to fail, the question remains whether for DS, the price of forming a coalition with SPS might not be higher than the price of spending some time in opposition.

Translating: To the second page of the street

There is of course no substitute for a careful translation by an attentive and well informed human. The Google translation tool does not pretend to be such a substitute, and anyone who has used it knows that it is not one: the results are often comical. Nonetheless it is useful for getting a rough sense of something you might not be able to understand otherwise. And now you can get a rough sense in ten more languages -- Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish. So enjoy.

In which Eric learns a new bit of UK-ish academic jargon

"Lecture kebab" signifies a course for which you have general oversight, but in which most of the actual lecturing is done by a series of visitors.

Fun with DSS and SRS

Lose an election, get a mayor.

Update: Looks like that was either a false alarm or a report that came before its time.

A formula that adds up to 126

According to Blic, it is DS + the Hungarian Coalition + SPS. Blic is close to DS and may have inside information, and they promise more detail in tomorrow's edition (NB: Blic does not always make good on promises of this type). The article claims the deal will be announced when the final results are announced, which should be Thursday night at the latest.

Do I have an opinion on this possibility? I do indeed have several. They vary between two extremes -- the first of which is that it would be a shame to see criminals back in power again (moderating factor: they never left), and the second is that if SPS were ever to become a real political party with a programme that bears some resemblance to its name, this would be good for everyone.

Update: Tihomir Loza has some reflections on the subject too.

Un hombre sincero de donde crece la palma

More fun with electoral math: all eyes are on SPS seeking to set a juicy high price for itself. But probably three or four parliamentary seats will go to Koštunjavi's coalition partner Dragan Marković Palma. Any mother would love the fellow, who is well versed in the classical music canon and once used the podium of the parliament (when he was a deputy for Arkan's party) to ask the police to carry out a coup. But now as the mayor of an increasingly prosperous small city, he wants to attract investment, and that means Europe, and that means no room for Radicals. DS has already shown repeatedly how willing it is to swallow its pride and sacrifice its supporters' beliefs. Would they rather do it with the devil who never held a monopoly of power than the one that did?

Why were the polls wrong?

This is not the first time in Serbia, and is not likely to be the last, in which the election results differ fairly widely from the results of preelection surveys. What are some of the reasons this might be happening?

1. There are too few survey agencies. Not that I am wishing for more survey agencies (however convenient they might be in providing short-term employment for graduate students). But as a rule, one survey does not necessarily tell you much. It becomes possible to figure things out when you are able to make comparisons over time, or when you can compare surveys done by different agencies on the basis of their samples or methods of analysis. Patterns mean more than individual results mean.
   
2. The experience is not long enough. More elections means that pollsters have more familiarity with sources of error, in particular the patterns in the tendencies of people to misreport their own preferences or likelihood of voting. Although elections have been fairly frequent in the past few years, the experience of free elections only dates to December 2000. Patterns are not yet well established.
3. The political environment is volatile. In established democracies, most votes can be accounted for by regular patterns. Regions and populations have fairly consistent tendencies, and the factor that accounts for most voting behaviour is family tradition. This does not happen in environments where parties appear and disappear with some regularity and where the population changes.
4. Something is at stake. People do lie, and they lie more often about things that matter. Surveys on the brand of toothpaste people prefer will always get more accurate results than surveys on people's sexual or religious practices. In many established democracies where major parties converge toward the centre, political preference is more like toothpaste. In polarised societies it is more like religion and sex.
5. Things really do change. Survey agencies had a guess about how much the stabilisation agreement with the EU, signed two weeks before the election, might help DS. But the deal between Zastava and Fiat, and the visa concessions made by European governments, came in the final week. There wasn't time to account for them.
6. The media and communications landscape is not unified. Not everbody has a telephone. Younger people are likely to bypass the phone companies entirely and rely on mobiles. This has the effect of skewing samples. Also, not everybody has access to the same information media. Independent sources of information reach the urban entres more regularly than they reach the smaller towns and villages.

Having said all that, the surveys have not been so terribly far off, and in hindsight it may be possible to say that Strategic and Medium did catch a growth of support for DS in the final week. And anyone who has been following the primary contests in the US Democratic party knows that the pollsters have a fairly uneven record in those elections, too, so some lack of predictive power is not necessarily a unique characteristic of newer democracies. And after all, the fact that the world is not entirely predictable is probably on balance a good thing.

I suppose it beats "Keep on truckin'"

Your insightful BBC blogger ponders, "I wonder if a portrait of Tomislav Nikolic will ever stare down on my slumbering form when I visit Belgrade." Hey man, it's your business, put up any poster you want.

If at first you sort of succeed

The first projections from CeSID look fairly surprising: although the DS-led coalition and SRS appeared to be running about even in the preelection surveys, CeSID projects an advantage of over 10% for DS -- 103 seats to 76 for SRS. However, it will get more complicated. It takes 126 seats to form a government. DS can probably count on the 7 seats that minority parties are expected to get. LDP will have another 13, but DS wants to avoid dealing with them. So the coalition of DS + LDP + minorities gets at most 123 seats, three short of where they need to be.

That leaves two potential coalition partners who are at best undesirable: DSS with 30 seats and SPS with 21. SRS could form a weak government with their fellow recipients of DB largesse in SPS and DSS with 127 seats. Or DS could try to pick off one of them, at the cost of their capacity to govern.

Look for a lot of things that will be euphemistically called incentives that will be used to encourage individual deputies from SPS and DSS to switch their loyalties.

And in the meantime, be pleased that it will at least not be easy for SRS to return to power.

Results tonight, turnout high

As you no doubt know, voters in Serbia are electing a new parliament today. As in the presidential elections in January and February, CeSiD is reporting that turnout is very high and will perhaps be higher than ever. Follow their site for updates and for returns after the polling places close. Things to watch for:

1. Most of the preelection surveys show the DS-led coalition and SRS running about even. One of them will be the largest group in the new parliament but neither one will have a majority. This means that smaller parties will decide who forms the next government.
2. The biggest of the small parties is DSS (in coalition with NS). Surveys show them running somewhere between 12 and 14 percent, but I am tempted to think that this is overestimated, considering that in the last parliamentary election they got around 16 percent and in the meantime they have alienated many of their supporters. This may very well be wishful thinking on my part, however, and I could be carried away by the thought that the cold dead hand of Vojislav Koštunica might have no influence at all on upcoming events.
3. LDP may well be gaining in influence, although they undoubtedly have a fairly restricted base and hence an upper limit. A strong showing on their part would limit the capacity of Mr Tadić to form another coalition with parties who are fundamentally opposed to the wishes of most DS supporters.
4. The strange creature that uses the word "Socialist" in its name will probably get some meaningful number of seats in the parliament. Neither of the larger parties has the guts (and probably not the room to maneuvre either) to avoid a coalition with them. They are thieves, so will go with whoever offers them the most lucrative patronage.
5. Turnout in Vojvodina and Sandžak will determine whether the minority parties remain marginal or decide who forms the next government. Although it could be argued that their strongest interest is in supporting DS, they may have a stronger interest in being represented at all, and so could easily decide to give a margin of victory to SRS rather than sitting on the sidelines for an indeterminate period.

By law a government does not have to be formed quickly, so we could once again see a situation in which even when we know the results, we still do not know who won. But pleasant and unpleasant surprises are both always possible.

Update: Estimating again around 5PM, the turnout looks as though it might not be so high after all. Low turnout is a reason to be worried about the result.

Update2: If history is a guide, when turnout is low then fascinating things happen during the final hour of voting.

A blast from the past

In 1999, Zoran Đinđić and Slavoj Žižek had a chat. Đinđić is occasionally pretty interesting and Žižek is, well, symptomatic.

Irony

Today is the day of victory over fascism (and coincidentally, also the day of Europe). Will Sunday be the day of victory of fascism over us? Some guy gives his prediction for the New Statesman.

Update: Oh my goodness, there is an audio version too. With catastrophic pronunciation.

Društvo za unapređivanje napretka

Every day it seems there is a wondrous new scientific finding.

Kad je interesa nije sramote

The Radicals may say that they will not cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. Inconsequential as that may seem given the present government's behaviour, it seems that the sentiment is not reciprocal: the Hague is happy to cooperate with them, lavishly. TV fans will doubtless remember Božidar Delić, the dashing general who chatted so frequently with Slobodan Milošević during the latter's trial. Now Blic is reporting that Delić had a lucrative gig hiring out his private archive to the Tribunal for the Haradinaj case, in which he was set to testify but withdrew for reasons the Tribunal spokesperson will not discuss. Killer quote:

The Milošević trial gave the best insight into the way the retired general works. According to sources at the Tribunal, he brought with him six hundred documents that he intended to present as evidence. That might not have been a problem during the trial, if the prosecution had not earlier requested from Belgrade the majority of just those documents. However, our government replied that they simply did not have those documents.

The article goes on to claim that former chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte, against the protests of the lead prosecutor in the case Geoffrey Nice, proposed dropping the entire set of charges related to Kosovo in order to assure a chance of peeking at Mr Delić's etchings. And there is a small effort to calculate how much Mr Delić was paid for his services.

In the likely event of an electoral disaster on Sunday, Božidar Delić is the probable candidate of SRS to take the position of Minister of Defence. From that position, he should have a better capacity to sell military documents to the people to whom he loudly claims to be opposed.

Update: Where was Ms del Ponte's friend on 25 March 1999?

In memoriam

Let's take a little break from the words of such thinkers as Tomislav Nikolić, Goran Davidović, Gordana Pop-Lazić, Vojislav Koštunica, Velimir Ilić and the rest of them. There are also, and have been in the lands of East Ethnia, fine thinkers who were also fine people and who have made fine interventions. Vreme features an obituary about one of them, Milan Kangrga, written by another one of them, Lino Veljak.

One hand washes the other

There should be no stopping Koštunica now that he has the endorsement of Goran Davidović.

Dragulji from the history of voting fraud

The year was 1968, the competition was Eurovision, and we do not necessarily have to believe the Guardian's assurance that this or any other song by Cliff Richard was "actually one of the better entries." But its second place finish may not be valid evidence one way or another. Because apparently what happened was that old Francisco Franco sent the representative of Televisión Española around Europe to funnel money to other television and publishing outlets, buying up series, arranging for concerts and promotions, the works. This infusion of cash translated into a phalange of votes for the Spanish entrant, a very serious (oh, let's quote the Guardian again: "trumpet-tootling, bodice-ripping") song by Massiel called "La la la." Of course there is a video. And another. Rock out to the vote-buying, boys n gals.

The future is so bright

Not all of the intellectuals are afraid of the return to power of the extreme right. The mediocre ones among them never lost their desire for position and publicity, and held a conference to outline their goals. The lucky attendees got to hear Kosta Čavoški fantasise about new wars people could be killed in. Easily outdone by years of living in soft and luxurious enemy territory, Srđan Trifković merely drooled over the prospect of being able to fire people from their jobs because of their ethnicity and imagined, should a traveller ever chance into the country, that it might be fun to abuse them.

A note to the nationalist right

You see, the problem with killing and threatening to kill everyone prominent who disagrees with you is that it does not remove all of the obstacles to your remaining in power. You also have to kill everyone who supports them, and regardless of how often you have tried that remains a majority of the people who voted in the last election. That would not be enough either: you would also have to kill everyone who despises you, and that would be most of the people in the world. And even if you should make progress there, you would still have to go after everyone who turns against you or knows anything about you.

Uranak

It is a while since East Ethnia has been with you! Your humble correspondent spent a while travelling, had surprising good luck in selling one much-loved Boston apartment, had even more surprising good luck in obtaining visas for Mrs Ethnia and the Ethniette (even Lajoš the wonder dog is more or less sorted), managed to hit one pleasant conference and give one nice little lecture, and spent much time in the comforting hands of airline corporations. Now it is back in London for exam season, gaping at political disasters (more about these elsewhere in future posts), and another exciting round of flat-hunting.

The Balkans have been up to much of the same, but we will tell you about that in more detail, won't we?

And if any of the dear readers here are members of the monstrosity known as Facebook, you may want to join the group of our friendly little Centre to find out about our upcoming events. Next week we will have a conference on new research organised by our friends at Goldsmiths, and soon we will have details up for the launch of the new book by Celia Hawkesworth on 22 May.

In the meantime, if any of you have leads on a nice but not too costly 2-3 bedroom rental on Muswell Hill, do let me know. And if any of you have clever ideas on how to run iTunes through my little mini stereo (it has a USB port!) you will earn my gratitude.

Back at cha.

Bogohuljenje

Rastko Nemanjić knew the difference between political power and faith, having traded one for the other. So that he would also have been able to recognise that when people try to trade in the latter for the former, the initial promise is probably instrumentalised and false.

A higher power once showed it was aware of this, when lightning struck the large concrete object that bears the name of Sveti Sava and no other relationship to him on the day of Sveti Sava in 1995. One might also expect the dean of the faculty of law to be aware of this, but one would be wrong.

Great moments in musical history

Thanks to the mysterious Ms. W.

Odlazak u noć

Although Politika ran a headline on Friday announcing "the government is stable until Monday," in fact it gave up the ghost on Saturday. Today the government will request the president to schedule parliamentary elections for 11 May. And not a moment too soon: as an old graffito said about Communism, it was "not dead, it just smelled that way." To review the initiatives of prime minister Koštunica since the beginning of the year, he:

• failed in an attempt to undermine his coalition's candidate in the first round of presidential elections
• failed in an attempt to sabotage the second round of presidential elections through a silent boycott
• used the Kosovo conflict as cover to sell off large parts of the domestic energy industry to foreign companies for a fraction of their value in a non-competitive process
• engaged a media and parliamentary campaign to shift the country from near-candidate status for the EU to enemy of the EU
• revived the mobilisation techniques of the late 1980s to provoke large-scale violence which included looting, arson and at least one unnecessary death
  
• failed in an effort to preserve his rule indefinitely by forcing a state of emergency
• failed in an effort to coordinate a silent coup with his allies in the Serbian Radical Party

It was probably the failure of this last effort that provoked Mr Koštunica's abrupt resignation. In contrast with every other party in Serbian politics, SRS believes that it can win an election and does not need to make deals with Koštunica. Koštunica knows that his party has poor chances in any election, but knows that he is incapable of governing as well.

Is the resignation of the government a crisis? No, it has needed to go for a while already, and if Mr Koštunica had any sense he would have resigned immediately after the presidential election. The new elections, however, do mean some uncertainty. There are a couple of possible positive outcomes, which would include:

• the orientation of the majority of citizens as expressed in the presidential elections could be confirmed
• Koštunica could be marginalised from political life and a government formed without his party, which at this point will be lucky to make it into the parliament at all

These are, of course, not the only possible outcomes. It is also possible that:

• a populist wave brings SRS to power
• Koštunica could finally go the direction he has been hinting for years, from his grey-black coalition with SRS, and complete the restoration of the Milošević regime

This is probably the outcome on which Koštunica is gambling. In doing so, he is assuming that SRS needs his support, and this is probably a bad assumption.

In the long term, Koštunica and his allies have no political future. Serbia is not a political scene in which several options are competing but a polarised society, as it has been for two decades. There are only two political options. The effort of politicians like Koštunica to stake out a "middle ground" between the two is hopeless from the start. One of these options is going to have to win. I am not willing to predict just yet which one it is likely to be.

Dok traje obnova

Photo from Danas: Simon Simonović brings a new window to the Slovenian embassy yesterday, a gift from the students of Belgrade.

Anticlimax of the day

This the sort of story that makes you raise one eyebrow briefly and then start thinking about something else.

"the exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from use-value"

But can we really explain why the country is most likely worth more than a handful of chicharrones, while Velimir Ilić is worth considerably less?

Things that happen before and after a seminar on festivals

Dragan Klaić paid a visit home to Belgrade. He found there was a lot to see.

Samo Skvidži Slobodana spašava

There are all kinds of reasons (sanity among them) to ignore everything that happens at the inquest into the death of Princess Diana, which would have been a long-running media spectacle of conspiracy theories had the media themselves not lost interest. There is even more reason to dismiss what somebody who lacks the energy to go deeply into the alphabet to find a way of disguising his or her identity has to say. All the same, an unidentified "member of the British spy agency M16" who goes by the most nonintriguing name of "A" claimed that "there existed a plan" to murder an unnamed "radical individual" should this unnamed individual come to power in Serbia. As "A" explains the thinking of his alphabetic crew:

At that time there was concern that Milošević could be removed from power and that his place could be taken by a nationalist extremist, which would lead to even greater ethnic cleansing and a larger number of deaths, explained A.

Like you, I am not terribly impressed that there is a vague claim that a plan may have existed which was never approved or put into effect. But the foolish political calculation rings true, as a reminder that many political "thinkers" in Europe and elsewhere believed that their best hope lay with keeping Milošević in power as long as possible.

Assuming that there really was an "A" who was really a member of an intelligence agency and that something like this idea and its rationale were really discussed, it does, as does every other revelation about what gets discussed in intelligence agencies, puncture the mystical belief that spies are any smarter than your average mediocre political thinker or know anything worth knowing that anyone would be happy for them to tell.

Also, Đinđić shot himself

Where would we be without Press, relying only on Kurir for those pearls of investigative journalism?

Kao guske u ćuzi

We know a couple of things about the girls whose little looting adventure made them internet celebrities for one brief, greasy moment. We know that they hail from lovely Batajnica (but they already told the fellow with the camera that). We know that their names are Maja Trbojević and Jovana Petrović, and that they were arrested on Sunday. And we know that they are about to be charged with theft, a crime which carries a sentence of between one and eight years. This will give them the dubious distinction of being the only people to be charged with anything after a long night of vandalism, looting, physical attacks on police officers, arson and manslaughter. Congratulations to prosecutors on a job not done.

Police succeeded, after somebody else did their investigation for them, in finding evidence of their crime in their apartment three days later. And where were the forces of public order on the night when many more crimes than the pathetically small ones committed by these two girls were committed? Somewhere doing something other than their job, apparently.

And who is reponsible for the absence of the police? Formally they are under the command of the Interior ministry, the head of which, Dragan Jočić, has been in the hospital since 25 January after his Very Ministerial Automobile smacked into a doggie, severely injuring both His Ministricity and his driver (no word on the fate of the doggie, za razliku od njega ni kriv ni dužan). The deputy minister should be filling in but apparently is not. It seems rather that contrary to the law, on the night of 21 February the police were commanded directly by Aleksandar Nikitović -- not a public official at all, but rather chief of staff for prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, who was not authorised by the government to take over the role of the Interior minister in stead of the deputy minister.

Once you have finished holding your breaths waiting for charges to be filed related to the usurpation of power as a part of a conspiracy to undermine public order, please exhale deeply and go out for a nice drink.

Update: Before you head off to enjoy that drink, enjoy this commentary by Vedrana Rudan.

Update2: Here is another gaggle of heroes, no doubt defending the ancient monasteries and their lovely frescoes.

The lesser of two evils?

It seems that there is a tradition of unusual names in Meghalaya, and that they do not necessarily reflect any sort of ideological predispositions on the part of the families in which they are used. All the same, it might be difficult to choose between Adolf Lu Hitler-Marak and Frankenstein Momin.

Partition plus, I suppose. Or maybe minus.

There has been considerable discussion of partition as a possible resolution for the conflict over Kosovo, as well as speculation that this is the resolution that the present Serbian government (secretly) prefers. For my part, I do not care to express an opinion for or against -- let the politicians squabble over what real estate they want to claim until they exhaust themselves, I am interested in whether people will be permitted (ever) to live normally on any part of the planet to which any institution cares to give a name. But I will direct your attention to the most elaborately developed and argued advocacy of partition I have seen yet, offered (a bit to my surprise, I will admit) by Dejan Jović.

More nonsense about the template!

I am recreating the link list (look right) from the ground up. Please let me know if I have neglected a favourite blog, especially if it is yours!

Narodna kletva

Dabogda te hvalile Novosti posle besmislene smrti.

Nisi valjda luda da se stidiš

Today the world was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to hear Vojislav Koštunica say:

"The United States must annul its decision on the recognition of the fraudulent state on the territory of Serbia and allow the Security Council to affirm the force of Resolution 1244 which guarantees the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia. That is the proper way to once again establish the force of the foundations of international law and the Charter of the United Nations in the Balkans."

Koštunica is, of course, in a position to make demands of more powerful countries as a result of his wisdom and moderation which have gained him the respect of the world, as well as his broad popularity which led to the outstanding result of his candidate in the presidential elections and the impressive degree of support his party enjoys in parliamentary elections, and which is indicated by the spontaneous outpourings of affection that greet him everywhere he goes. The only thing that can prevent the rest of the world from hearing any demand he might make loudly and clearly is their delighted sighs of anticipation.

Degeneracija u jednoj pokretnoj slici

For the sake of completeness, here is the most hate-filled of all of Thursday's speeches, by the film director Emir Kusturica. Thanks to Andras for the video:



Much like another figure associated with literary history and pointless wars, he seems to have a thing about rodents.

Why nobody writes to the general

Anyone who has ever had a child of theirs serving in the Canadian military might well shudder to see this: the speaker in this clip was a general in that army. He wants to appear to be a friend of people he is calling savages underneath his breath, who probably do not recognise his implicit claim that it is unreasonable to expect such people to control themselves. At one time this person was responsible for the lives and safety of a small group of young people and a very large group of civilians. Worse still, he was responsible for assuring compliance with international humanitarian law.



With friends like these there is really no need for enemies.

Sve crnja hronika

Blic reports that according "an unnamed source close to the investigation," police believe that they may have identified the person who died in the violence that followed the calls to violence by high-ranking officials on Thursday night. They have run a name, but considering that the person has a family, I will not until the conclusion is certain. The speculation is attached to an article suggesting that the absence of police to control the violence was deliberate.

Update: It now seems more or less certain that the victim was Zoran Vujović, a 21-year old student resident in Novi Sad.

Dno...

...dna.

Narodni ples

I have new footage of the speech by Mr Koštunica yesterday.

Today in the world of malicious idiots

Next month it will have been five years since Zoran Đinđić was murdered. Some people may or may not be aware of this, as indicated by the fact that they are still murdering him.

"Ko smo mi Srbi? Kakvo nam je zapravo ime?" -- V. Koštunica

All that the medical examiners know about the person who was burned to death in the attack on the US embassy yesterday is that it was a male between 17 and 22 years old. It is also known that there was no reason for anybody to be killed, but that is not a finding of the medical examiners.

Adventures in shopping

Totalna rasprodaja, bre.



Thanks to Milena for the video.

Menwhile in the media

Unsurprisingly, the reborn Hadži-Politika has found comfort in returning to its role as official hagiographer. Their Friday edition features headlines on "Serbia's answer" and people who "Came to follow the call of their heart." Glas gadosti has an entry for this year's award for the most vulgar leading story. Novosti is acting like Politika used to act, hiding the news at the end of the story.

Discussion at the Serbian cabinet

The daily paper Blic has carried a transcript of an exchange among Serbian government ministers on the behaviour of hooligans after the declaration of independence of Kosovo. They do not give a date, so I am not certain whether this is from after Sunday night rather than after last night (the number of injured police would suggest last night, however). My translation.

Velimir Ilić (minister for infastructure): They have caused us much greater damage than broken windows. Those people at B92 and other media had better be careful how they talk about those young people.

Snežana Marković (minister for youth and sport): You are the last person who should tell people how to behave. Everyone knows what you have been advocating.

Ilić: Madam, you have been in sports for two months, and I have been for twenty years. Be careful, the sportspeople will come to you.

Dragan Šutanovac (minister of defence): What sportspeople, what are you talking about? I will stand in front of those wimps if somebody has to. Now, why was the police instructed to allow the hooligans to go wild on the one hand, and on the other hand to protect public order? That just endangers the police.

Ilić: You cannot call them hooligans just because they broke some windows and injured a few police officers.

Šutanovac: To be precise - 53 of them.

Vojislav Koštunica (prime minister): Those people, hooligans as you call them, were just reacting to the violation of international law.

Šutanovac: Oh please, if they had not been organised they would not have known what to do. What defence of international law are you talking about?

My fear was that perhaps a decision had been made to allow a public outrage that would provide a pretext for declaring a state of emergency. But clearly the government is not united, which I suppose could have been guessed beforehand.

Presented without comment

Vojislav Koštunica speaking at the state-organised DSS-SRS promotion yesterday



Thanks to Andras for the video.

Update: There is somebody who feels affirmed by Koštunica, gle čudo.

Another night of vandalism and violence

The countermeeting at Ušće was once again a tremendous success. Maybe I got the time and place wrong there. On the other hand, maybe I did not.

Update: Now that the flags in front of the US, Canadian, Croatian and Turkish embassies have been burned, please send any books you would like burned to Nekažnjeni huligani, c/o Vojislav Koštunica.

Update2: Police appear to have protected the embassies of Bulgaria, Italy and the UK, as well as the studios of Radio B92 (B92 has added one of those scrolling text update strips, and on the radio Tatomir Toroman is doing some very fine reporting). On Kneza Miloša where three embassies were attacked, they waited until the attacks were carried out and then sprayed everyone with tear gas. Which goes just great with open flame, in case you were wondering.

Update3: Apparently on Slavija several enemy hamburgers and fried potatoes were attacked.

Update4: The spokesperson of the urgent medical center notes that most of the injured people coming their way are also heavily intoxicated with alcohol. Could an event like this following the large DSS-SRS promotional meeting be coincidental? Anybody recall the DSS-SRS discussions of a state of emergency?

Update5: I will be out for the evening, but I can bet that my friends will be on the job with reports and possibly video.

Vole i oni vas

Check it out -- a day off work, closed schools, free buses, and a state-sponsored meeting to be addressed by superstar democrats like Grobar and Koštunjavi. Remind you of anything?

Alien fantasies

So the proposal is that if I want to become a citizen of the country where I am living, I should be required to prove my worth to it. And would the UK care to prove its worth to me?

Quote of the decade

"There is not a bit of difference between the statements by Koštunica and Tadić yesterday and the policy of SPS in the nineties"

--Ivica Dačić, president of SPS

Čega se pametan stidi time se budala ponosi

How to persuade the people in Kosovo that they really want a future with Serbia: break windows at one embassy, set fires at another, and sing folksongs that touch the heart like "Ubi, zakolji, da Šiptar ne postoji" (translation: "kill, slaughter, so the [insulting name for] Albanian will not exist). Ama baš ste neodoljivi.

Update: Viktor and Bganon suspect that the mildness of the police may not simply be a consequence of their čokolino-based diet.

Cordial if perhaps tepid welcome to new borned country

Not many people will have been surprised by Kosovo's declaration of independence today. Whatever futile and symbolic measures may be taken to appear as though it is being prevented, there has not been a chance since 1999 that there would be any other outcome (a few drunken ultrarightists on the street or press statements by tiny Bosnian groups will not change anything either). Some people will undoubtedly be celebrating the event, but it will take serious and committed work to assure that the new situation means something more than jobs for a new crowd of politicians. I am neither thrilled nor outraged, but rather think that what matters most is how the problems that have been left from the past and the new ones that are going to be generated are going to be addressed. Kosovo and Serbia are both now states, and each one has the opportunity now to show that it has the capacity to behave like a responsible one.

What the Kosovo government has to do is demonstrate its commitment to inclusion and the rule of law, assure freedom of movement and full legal protection for everybody living in the state, and build friendly and functional relationships with all of the states in the region. An independent state has obligations that are greater than the obligations of Unmikistan, which could always be transferred elsewhere.

The Serbian government has to begin to take seriously the desires of the Serb residents of Kosovo, not just to posture in their name. That means engaging with the new state as equals to build a regime of cooperation and protection. The need to make gestures of rejection is a need related to publicity, and it should be indulged for a while. But behind the scenes, somebody had better be generating ways to protect the interests of citizens.

For the last eighteen years, one state or parastate more or less in the Balkans has been par for the course. One that means something good for the people who live in and around it, that would be something.

Note: I know that at least some of you who read this will want to disagree with me vehemently in the comments (you are welcome to agree too, of course). Price of commenting -- give me advice on how to fix the comments visibility problem!

Your comments

I think I have succeeded in fixing the comments problem that a user pointed out. Please let me know if I have not fixed it.

While it would be pretentious to claim that this blog has a "comments policy," I can say this much: discussion is welcome, more often than not comments will get replies, and I delete comments very rarely, only if they are really useless or if the comments section is being used to insult or abuse people (which I do not equate with criticism or disagreement). Whether it is due to luck or some of other factor, this has only happened a couple of times. And while you certainly can comment anonymously, I have greater respect for people who do not.

Piće za mladiće

Way back in distant 1994, the ethnologist Ivan Čolović observed that whenever relations between Serbia and the "Republika Srpska" started to turn sour, the tabloids would increase the number of police chronicle stories about awful things happening to a "mladić" (young man). The implication being that some awful thing would happen to a Mladić (drunken murderer). So are we to draw any conclusions on the basis of this?

Museum of rokenrol

Rambo Amadeus has a modest proposal: a museum of rock n roll, because "today's children have no idea" what it was, and this is a problem that could be addressed by the wealth of available and underemployed "living exhibits."

In memory of Desimir Tošić

In an earlier post I reported the passing of Desimir Tošić and promised more. I asked my friend Dejan Đokić, who teaches history at Goldsmiths College, to prepare a text for the blog. Below is Dejan's text (and for those of you in and around London, SSEES invites you to the launch of his book on 19 February):


Desimir Tošić (1920-2008)

Desimir Tošić died on 7 February, in John Ratcliffe Hospital in Oxford, aged 88. He was a unique and somewhat unconventional figure in modern Serbian history. Tošić was a politician who placed ideas and ideals above personal and material gain. He was a contemporary of Yugoslavia’s turbulent life and its death(s), but wrote about Yugoslav history and politics with an honesty, balance, critical stance and deep knowledge rarely found among professional historians. Although formally a politician, he was more of an enlightened educator whose ideas often clashed with party line, despite his unquestioned overall loyalty to the Democratic Party (DS), of which he was a member since the late 1930s. He was a Christian believer who was among the loudest critics of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its role in politics. As an émigré he was equally critical of both the then communist regime and of backward-looking emigration; following his return to Serbia in 1990 his friends included many former communists. One of them was Draža Marković, a leading communist politician in pre-Milošević Serbia, with whom Tošić went to high school in the 1930s. Another former leading communist, and later the first important East European dissident, Milovan Djilas, was a figure Tošić admired and wrote about.

Born in 1920 in Bela Palanka, southern Serbia, in what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Tošić moved to Belgrade in the 1930s to complete his secondary education. The capital was politically highly polarized at the time, but Tošić joined the centrist Democratic Party. The Second World War and the German invasion interrupted his studies at Belgrade University’s Law Faculty. During the war, Tošić supported General Mihailović’s resistance movement, like many of his fellow Democrats, but already at the time and even more so in his postwar writings, he was critical of both Mihailović and Tito; he was also highly critical of the role of the monarchy in the interwar period, highlighting counterproductive policies of King Aleksandar and his ‘successor’ Prince Pavle. As a Mihailović supporter, Tošić was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sent to work in Germany. He survived the war only to find himself as a refugee in France. There he met his future wife Coral, with whom he eventually settled in her native Britain in 1958.

As an émigré, Tošić was opposed to Tito’s communist regime, but he was not a staunch, vindictive anti-communist. Unlike most Yugoslav émigrés, he never advocated a return to some ancien régime in Yugoslavia, and he correctly argued that the communists had genuine support in the country. In the 1970s, he wrote that when changes eventually took place, they should be carried out, initially at least, together with reformed communists. This is indeed what happened across most of East-Central Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but not in Serbia, where Slobodan Milošević took control of the Party.

In emigration, first from Paris and then from London, Tošić gathered like-minded younger Serb refugees around a group that called itself Oslobodjenje – ‘Liberation’, meaning liberation from all forms of dictatorship. He edited the Naša Reč (‘Our Word’) monthly between 1948 and 1990, with contributions from, among others, dissidents Milovan Djilas and Mihajlo Mihajlov, and academics such as historian Stevan Pavlowitch and economist Ljubo Sirc. Milovan Djilas’s son Aleksa, himself a political refugee, was a regular contributor in the 1980s. The group also published books, including the first Serbo-Croat edition of Milovan Djilas’s Conversations with Stalin (1986). Tošić was the animator and driving force of the organization, which spread itself across Western Europe, North America and Australia. Its activities were self-funded, as western institutions were careful not to antagonize Tito’s régime.

Tošić was a believer in a democratic and federal Yugoslavia, as well as in a united Europe. Together with Vane Ivanović, he was an early member of Jean Monnet’s European Movement. Tošić, Ivanović and Božidar Vlajić (one of the prewar leaders of the Democratic Party) were among the founders of the Democratic Alternative in 1963 – a group of pro-Yugoslav Bosniak, Croat, Serb and Slovene émigrés that called for the democratization of Yugoslavia. Other members of the DA included Ilija Jukić, Branko Pešelj (both of the Croatian Peasant Party), Franjo Sekolec, Miha Krek, Nace Čretnik (Slovenes). Three surviving members are Adil Zulfikarpašić, Nenad Petrović and Bogoljub Kočović.

In 1990, at the end of communist rule, Tošić returned to Yugoslavia to help re-establish the Democratic Party, of which he was to become one of the best-known members as well as its vice-president for a while. Leader of the DS youth section in the late 1930s, Tošić provided a rare direct link with the original Democratic Party of Ljuba Davidović and Milan Grol. This might explain why he was tolerated by the new party leadership in spite of his strong and outspoken criticism of Serbian nationalism and of the influential Orthodox Church, and in spite of not being part of the late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjić’s inner circle. Elected to the federal Yugoslav parliament in 1992, Tošić joined Dragoljub Mićunović’s Democratic Centre – a breakaway group, which eventually returned to the party fold in 2004.

Throughout the 1990s Tošić remained in Serbia, refusing to move back to Britain, where his wife lived permanently. He emerged as one of the bravest and most distinguished voices against war and nationalism. Although already advanced in years, he regularly published books and articles, gave interviews and took parts in debates across the country. His numerous writings offered fresh, non-nationalist perspectives on Serb-Croat relations, on the Second World War and on Yugoslav communism. Tošić opposed Serb policies in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, but he also spoke out against the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia.

Desimir Tošić was a man of enormous energy which he devoted, until the final weeks of his life, to preaching democracy. He was surrounded by younger people – political activists, students and scholars who sought his advice and whose work-in-progress he read vigorously. He was modest, never claimed to know much – even though his knowledge was enormous – and always treated others with respect and as equals. He was particularly supportive of younger scholars, including three British-based academics: Jasna Dragović-Soso, Dejan Jović and the author of this obituary. As a historian of interwar Yugoslavia, I found in Tošić what Alexander von Humboldt must have found in parrots of the extinct Amazonian May-por-é tribe: the last surviving voice of a society long disappeared. I am both proud and sad that his last ever article, published only a week ago, was his review of my book on interwar Yugoslavia.

Tošić’s energy, critical thinking, deep knowledge, wisdom, moral integrity, sharp words and disarming, warm smile will be sorely missed – by his family and his many friends, but especially by Serbian society, still emerging from the traumas and upheavals of the past several decades.

He is survived by his wife Coral (née Rust) and two daughters, Ana and Nada.

Dejan Djokić, London 9 February 2008

Never have so many done so little for so few

Here's a cute little teaser from today's Blic on an item they promise to report tomorrow (my bad rush translation):

The Democratic Party (DS) and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) have agreed in principle that early parliamentary elections should be held in September, but have not included DSS (the Democratic Party of Serbia) in their agreements. Behind this stands the intention of dividing up the support of that part of the electorate that favours the party of Vojislav Koštunica, says a high-ranking source in the governing coalition.

Koštunica has prepared an answer: he has offered the Radicals that in case of a declaration of independence [by Kosovo, pretpostavljam --EG] to declare a state of emergency, if possible with the support of SRS. The Radicals have not yet stated a position on this, but our sources tell us that Nikolić has already refused an offer by Koštunica to support a minority government of DSS and NS.

The matter of the survival of the government or the calling of early elections will be clearer after discussions between Tadić and Nikolić, which are expected to take place during the weekend. The premier, aware that elections would not be in his interest at the moment, has no intention of resigning, and seeing as Nikolić has rejected the possibility of the Radicals supporting a minority government, this [I assume the state of emergency -- EG] is his last offer.

More in the edition of Saturday, 9 February 2008.

Also possibly of interest, Mark Tran writes in The Guardian today (in a news article, not an opinion piece!): "Koštunica has abandoned his pro-western Democratic party coalition allies in favour of an impromptu alliance with the extreme nationalist opposition, the Serbian Radical party."

Update: The next day's edition does not add much, just two quotations from anonymous sources.

Desimir Tošić, 1920-2008

He did a lot of things over the course of a long life, all of them worthy of respect. More to come.

Update: I hope to be able to have a text for East Ethnia from a friend who knew Tošić well. In the meantime, here is an interview from Danas from 2003.

Glupi telefoni

Now that Tadić has won an election (more or less) on his own, Koštunica no longer holds a dominant position in the government he heads. So he has decided to obstruct its functioning by refusing to allow it to meet to vote on an issue he knows he will lose. This is more or less as I observed in the short piece I wrote just after the election:

This significant development echoes another, little noticed one that happened in the week before the election. It was in itself a minor event, but something happened in the governing coalition for the first time since it was formed after an arduous four-month process in May 2007: the ministers from the DS and the G17+ outvoted, en bloc, the ministers from the DSS and the NS. Few people will be materially affected by the decision, but as an announcement of the intention by the DS to function as an autonomous political actor, its importance is unmistakable. The DS now has a president with a majority mandate, and it controls a majority of the seats in the cabinet.

An obvious consequence is that the government could easily fall. This was probably the more likely of the two scenarios I set out (the other was that Koštunica would brave marginality to keep the job he thinks is his by right).

But I did not have a sense when I offered the prediction that it would happen within a week. DSS-NS and its allies in SRS and SPS want a discussion in parliament on Serbia's kobajagi agreement with the EU without the government meeting beforehand to give its recommendation, as the law requires. So Koštunica has been ignoring demands by the majority of government ministers, the presiding officer of the parliament, and the president of the republic to schedule a meeting of the cabinet.

Some sort of compromise appears to have been reached, if you can call it that. The cabinet will meet by telephone. I do not know what sort of procedural rules apply to such a meeting, but there have been stranger meetings.

Koštunica put himself in the position of holding a vote in the cabinet, which he would lose, or causing new elections, which he would also lose. The second of these is what will most likely happen, sooner rather than later.

Correction: The ministers will chat over the telephone about the sale of the mining operation in Bor, but not about the agreement with the EU. Selling off the country's natural resources is important, its future is not.

Accelerating the forces of academic productivity

Another round of elections in Serbia, another article.

All tomorrow's promises

Thanks to friend of East Ethnia EK for this ..... great moments in political marketing from the star of Davitelj protiv davitelja.





Better moments, if I can put it that way. About this I would not be able to tell you much.

Državni ljubimci

Thanks to friend of East Ethnia AR for this: Over at Global Voices, Elia Varela Serra profiles a couple of new blogs in Bosnia-Hercegovina. One of them is by the president of the federal presidency Željko Komšić, who addresses his public in a pleasant conversational style. UK ambassador to BH Matthew Rycroft is a little more formal, but when he is not diplomatifying he is also a bass player.

Bol do ludila

East Ethnia takes a moment out of its busy day to inform its readers that just like you, it also has no idea what Marija Šerifović is thinking.

Killing me softly

Probably nobody will be so surprised that this song, "Tihi ubica" by Jelena Karleuša, is a pretty uninteresting reworking of pop motifs that are well known to everyone. Nor is anybody likely to be terribly surprised that a TF (yes, since the genre no longer contains "turbo" or "folk," we should drop all referents from its name like they did with KFC) video is modelled after a Martian's dream of what a lingerie catalog must look like. Some of you may recognise the building in which the spot was filmed -- I will confess that I did not until I read a news item about it -- as a place of some renown. It is in fact the oldest educational institution in Serbia, the secondary school in Sremski Karlovci. In all probability this is the first time the institution has been used as a backdrop for cheesecake with čvarci since the school opened its doors in 1792. The alumni are angry, and the director says he has no idea how permission was granted.

My opinion? I think the doggie in the video is very impressive.

Glasali ste....

There is undoubtedly a bunch of stuff to said about yesterday's election in Serbia. Some of what I had to say I said here.

Numbers, qv: strength in

Polls are still open Serbia's presidential election, and projected results will not come before they close later tonight, but already CeSiD is reporting an extraordinarily high turnout. Previous experience would suggest that this is a good sign.