Hello September...

Sunday was perfect. A football match followed by a football match. First stop was the Red Star game at Svezda stadium. The match was very poorly attended, I estimate about 5,000 people, but it was like being one step away from my thesis. The people in the stadium, at least the ones in the section where we were (North Curve, Red Star section), were only a generation away from their predecessors who went to Zagreb in 1991, who followed Arkan to the front line, and who fought in Vukovar.

Watching the leader of the firm stand on his bench and pump up the crowd, and seeing the many young (by young, I mean 10-15) I felt I was literally witnessing the moment of where the ideology was being transfered and propagated. It was both devastating and fascinating at the same time. The singing went, as the game deteriorated for Red Star, from encouraging support from the fans no matter what, to calling for the coaches head to threatening the players by telling them they were going to break into the training ground and beat them up.

But the most telling moment came as the game ended. The firm, en mass moved towards the very front rows of the north curve. They did this to call the players to come to them over. It was not an aggressive move, yet before they even got all the way down, the riot police appeared out of no where and formed a barrier along the fence. It seemed to me an unnecessary move on their part, and is actually what provoked the most violent behavior of the evening when the Delijer began to actually launch the flares and  at the cops. This in turn provoked a small stamped of people out of the stadium, I guess out of fear of what may happen. But that was also where it ended, and slowly the crowed dispersed.

During the match I watched three young boys smoke a joint in plain sight. They were not even hiding it from the security forces right on the other side of the fence. It made me think of something DB said a few weeks ago as we discussed the situation over the Karadzic riot. It appears as if the cops are a little less committed to the rule of law, than the hooligans are to chaos. Maybe it's a stretch to make the connection here, but the kids stood in plain sight breaking the law, the security force, clearly recognizing what was going on, did nothing. He just watched.