Notes from a Trip Part III

~The Denouement~

The view from the bar on the 9th floor is virtually a 360 degree panorama of Prishtine (I am now using the Albanian spelling of the name because good luck finding a Serb in this city). At night, with the snow falling and lights twinkling, it looks nice and peaceful. But the paradox of this situation does not escape me: sitting at the highest point in the city, looking down, are westernized Kosovo Albanians and international staff, drinking and living well. We, and I say 'we' because I am just as guilty as them, live better than 90% of the country, we are exempt from many of the rules (which begs a debate on the validity of 'rule of law' when it only applies to some), and we have executive powers here.

As I stuffed salty peanuts into my mouth and drank German beer, I wondered if I was a modern colonist? Sure, I wasn't running slaves, and the work being done by the International Community was technically empowering the local population; in colonial times, the locals would have been used to extract wealth, which would have been sent back to the Father / Mother land. Today the set up is different, but I cannot help think that all roads still lead to Rome.

The international community entered Kosovo on a humanitarian mission, protecting local populations of Albanian nationals from Serbian aggressions. They succeeded, and then set about rebuilding the region, but not as a province of Serbia, rather as an independent state, with its own institutions. Now Prishtine offers many of the comforts of western life: fancy bars, Karaoke and bad cover bands (all singing in English), nice apartment buildings, casinos, prostitution and a thriving drug trade. 

As I pondered this, I was being grilled by an ethnically Turkish Kosovar woman. It was twenty questions, but I only really remember telling her that I was listening to a lot of Cake and Clash songs at the moment. I told her to look them up on Youtube, and she told me I would find work in Kosovo, that she never learned German even though she had dated a German guy for a few years. She insisted she loved the language and would still like to learn it. These less-than-subtle comments were not lost on me, and I began to urge D and A, the German contingent, to take me to dinner. They obliged, but not before I at least took the contact info of my new, ethnically Turkish Kosovar friend. It is the polite thing to do, after all.

We ended up at a fancy place with only international customers; no serbs, and Albanians were only featured as staff. Despite the fancy-ness of the place, the Maitre d'Hotel still greeted me with welcome man! Well, I was wearing a baseball hat. We ate well, drank even better, then went to A's apartment and crashed.

I awoke to a German Breakfast setup, and two middle-aged women staring at me: Der ist aber schone wach. Wilst du Kaffee order Tee? Tea, if you have it. 

The day was spent walking around Prishtine, in the snow, and sitting in a café called New York Bagel, which did serve bagels, or something resembling bagels. As we sat around, we slowly amalgamated internationals, all German speaking and didn't interact with locals until we needed more coffee, or went to the popular (with internationals) music shop Ginger (where the proprietor is Kosovo Albanian). There is not much more to say about Prishtine. The evening was spent with more internationals in a Japanese restaurant and western style bars. I drank a bit too much, then we went back to A's place and I crashed out.

~The Bridge that Divides~

I stood on the Albanian side of Mitrovica and looked across the Ibar. I felt like a voyeur, staring at a car crash, staring at the misery of other peoples lives from a safe distance. But my conception of what the bridge looked like was wrong. I guess I had only seen a few pictures from the height of the tensions, when the there was a military presence. Now the bridge is open, with only a few shifty Kosovo police keeping order. Despite the bridge being open, no-one uses it. Serbs don't want to be seen crossing to the Albanian part of town, and vise versa. So now it is just an empty bridge, symbolic of division rather than unity. It could come to mean something else, but as long as the society here is allowed to slowly segregate itself, then it will remain empty and divisive. A tragic reminder of a more peaceful time, and the failure of the international community to forge something sustainable, based on mutual respect between the ethnicities. But maybe that is as it should be, yet I cannot accept that segregation is any kind of a solution. Separate, after all, is never equal.

The remainder of the trip was un-eventful and the Mini, sans catalytic converter, held its own, no problem. But I did make a mental note of how ironic it was that D was responsible for monitoring the recycling program in her building at work, yet she was driving round without her catalytic converter.

As we passed into Mitrovica North, the villages took on a Serbian feeling, both in architecture and construction. We passed no more burnt homes nor any more monuments to the KLA martyrs. There were also no more flags, at least no more Albanian or Kosovo ones. I couldn't help but think that one day, Mitrovica north would one day be part of Serbia again. As we passed into Serbia again and began the final stretch home, we were both tired. Conversation dropped off, we listened to the Clash and Moondog, and I began to think about leaving Serbia, leaving the Balkans, and how things were going to turn out. I left Kosovo and all the misery behind me, preoccupied, once again, with my own situation.

Finally, the snow had stopped falling.

Notes from a Trip Part II

The fact that cell phones with Serbian networks don't work in Kosovo is symptomatic of the folly of the whole situation. Serbia wants to maintain the claim that Kosovo is still theirs, yet they won't allow their networks to function there, essentially forcing the local Serbian population to take the Kosovo carriers (which are using Monaco numbers, don't ask me why), as they are subject to Kosovo energy supplies (except in Mitrovica north, where Serbia provides well for the Serbian communities).

But we were lucky to break down at a gas station attended by an man who loved Germany and Germans. He had lived there for two years as a Gastarbeiter during the war, and earned enough to buy a small farm for his family. Wuppertal ist super! He now worked at the gas station and cared for a cow and tilled a bit of land. His life was clearly tough, but he managed.

After taking a look into the engine and cleaning off the spark-plugs, he couldn't seem to find the issue. Instead of abandoning us though, he ran across the street and called over a mechanic to take a closer look. This young man spent a good hour checking everything and concluded that the catalysator was blocked. As he was making his assessment, he handed out cigarettes, as is the custom in Albanian communities. Then, cigarette in mouth, he continued to work on the engine. I wondered to myself, how safe that really was.

While the mechanic managed to get the engine to start, he said we should not drive to Pristina / Prishtine because it could really f' the engine up. What to do? The kindly gas station attendant offer us his cell phone and we called D's friend, who's car was also at the mechanic! But she said she would go get it and come rescue us. We would just have to sit tight for an hour or so. With the falling temperature and darkness, this was a less than fun prospect.

Once again the man at the gas station showed his kindness and took us to the back room of the station, and lit the wood fire for us. For the next hour we sat there with him, talking about his time in Germany, the agriculture of Kosovo, and of course, relations with the Serb community. Wir sind alle Menchen. Wir mussen zusamen leben. He said he never discriminated against Serbs when they came to his business, but he did think they were the troublemakers in Kosovo. But he just wanted to leave that all behind and face the reality that they lived side-by-side. It was hard to tell how much of what he said was what he thought we, as Germans or Internationals, wanted to hear, and how much was his opinion. But I chose to take him at face value because I have no reason not to.

As the attendant was showing us pictures of his kids, his boss showed up. The man was gruff, old and broken. He sat next to me in the back room, rolling a cigarette, and he seemed so sad, so tired of life. He reiterated the sentiments of our friend, that people needed to get along, but Serbs were the issue at the moment. But he did it with such tragedy in his voice, that I could not help but wonder what all his eyes had seen growing up as an Albanian in Kosovo. I never found out because D's friend showed up to rescue us.

These two men had shared their space with two total strangers, and given me a valuable insight into how people were living here, at least on the Albanian side. It was clear that there were so many issues in Kosovo, and not all of them were the result of tensions between Serbs and Albanians. It seems there is a growing disappointment with the central government and the lack of progress in ten years of International administration. People were living hard lives and had only seen the top dogs get richer, but nothing much had trickled down. Then there is the issue of bad water management, lack of agricultural development despite good soil conditions and plenty of arable land, and finally Leute in Kosovo haben zu viele Kinder. Das ist ein Problem, aber ich glaube das ich Kinder haben muss. Aber nur zwei. Andere Leute haben mehr.

By now it was really cold and dark out. The mini was covered in snow, but D decided she had to try and drive it to Pristina / Prishtine anyway. So I got in the car with her friend and we drove slowly behind her all the way to the city. We made it all the way without further problems, I quickly made good friends with A, D's friend, and soon enough we were on the 9th floor of the OSCE Building, drinking with the international community, looking out over the city.

Not for a moment did the snow stop falling. Welcome to Prishtine.

Notes from a Trip Part 1

At 22.00 I got a text message from D. "Do you have a sleeping bag?" No, I don't, but I'll bring a blanket, I replied. My thoughts turned to the trip. Where was I going? I had visions of sleeping in the car surrounded by thousands of wild eyed locals and internationals. Better get some sleep now, I thought.

We set out at 0630 from Belgrade in a 1996 Mini; the morning was cold and the sky light grey. I was surprised at how many people were on their way to work at that time. More, it seemed, than at 0800, a much more civilized time to be stirring. Neither of us had checked the weather, and ultimately there would have been no good reason for it, our plans were set. We were going to Kosovo come hell or high water.

The E75 heading south is a flat, boring road passing through equally dull and flat country-side. We passed the time talking about work, D's job application, and going through her CD collection. The mini held its own well, and though I had to jam my wallet into a small gap in the dashboard to keep the stereo from disconnecting, we drove in relative comfort. Our musical influences for the drive ranged from Cake's Fashion Nugget and a Beastie Boys mix, to Bertold Brecht's Die Dreigroshenopa, and I ate a lot of kikiriki. Just past Nis the sky grew dark and snow began to fall; it wouldn't stop until we were in Mitrovica two days later.

While the road became more interesting as we passed into the Presevo valley, the journey was largely uneventful. We turned off the highway at Bujenovac and made for the border. The road leading to Kosovo was in bad shape and to hope for a snow plow was folly. Fortunately the ground was warm enough that most of the snow melted into slush, and anyway, there wasn't much chance of building up speed on these roads. We climbed steadily in the short distance between Bujenovac and the border. But it was enough so that had the feeling that we were passing into Moriea from Rivendale. I looked around for hobbits, but only saw stone faced Serbian Police officers. Crossing the 'administrative line' was rather painless, thanks in part to the Dip plates on the trusty mini. From there it is a short jaunt through the demilitarized zone to the Kosovo border. Again we passed with no hold up. The Kosovo guard, upon seeing D's Italian passport, remarked buona sera. Neither of us informed him that it was only 11.00.

Once inside Kosovo I felt like I was going somewhere I wasn't supposed to. As if my parents had forbidden me to go, but I snuck out and went anyway. The difference is also instantly tangible, not just because of how the villages are organized, but because of the massive international presence. In the 45 minuets it took us to get to Gnjilane from the border, we passed Italian Carabinari trucks, UN SUVs, and EULEX jeeps. In addition to this, D pointed out what the ethnic composition of each village was we passed. But in most cases, you could tell by the flags. The Serbian 'enclaves', generally set slightly back from the main road, had large Serbian flags hanging down over the entrance, while the Kosovo-Albanian villages were littered with Albanian and American flags. At times these two flags were attached, like conjoined twins. I wanted D to pull over so I could give a short speech about flag code (the conjoined American and Albanian flag being a major violation...), but after seeing some of the burned out Serbian homes, I thought better of it. But the reality was that there was total segregation, and nowhere did the two groups meet.

Our first top was the OSCE field office in Gnjilane, where D. used to work. I was amazed to find that the "field office" was almost the same size as the entire mission in Serbia, at least from the staff presence. Over coffee, pizza we had conversations with the transport director and a program assistant from Democratization. These two men sat at the same table, and conversed with one-another as if it was normal. One was Albanian, the other a Serb. They were right, it is totally normal for two people to have a conversation. It is only when you introduce nationality / identity as a factor meant to influence their interactions that you have problem.

We left the field office around 1430, passing UNMIK, Ukrainian KFOR, and US Military installations on the way out of town. Each warned that I would be instantly kidnapped if I took any photos, so I looked straight ahead and smiled. We made it half way to Pristina / Prishtine before needing to fill up on gas. Once the car was fueled, D got back in and turned the key and ... nothing. We were in the middle of nowhere, without functioning cell phones (because Serbian networks don't work in Kosovo) and now without a functioning car.

All around us the snow kept falling.

24.03.1999 - 24.03.2009

Today is the anniversary of the NATO bombing in Serbia. Ten years ago today NATO began its campaign against Milosevic.

At 12 pm the air raid siren went off and the people are now gathering all over the city. They are gathering in front of the bombed out buildings. Later there will be an anti-NATO rally in the central square.

Amalgamation

St. Paddy's day in Belgrade at the Three Carrots, where the Guinness is really bad and over priced. A couple of guys were dissecting my nationality, and no answer was good enough, except that there was some Irish blood in me from my Gran. "Oh, that is to bad" they kept saying. On of them had been in the Balkans since things went south in the early 1990's. It's amazing how many internationals you meet, who are like this guy. Partly it is the work, I am sure, but there seems to also be something attractive about being in 'conflict' regions.

"It's the Wild West out here." He said this as if we were a million miles from 'civilization', not in the heart of Belgrade, a cosmopolitan city. When I think of Wild West, I think of Deadwood and Clint Eastwood, not Kneza Milosa or Boris Tadic. One might be forgiven for thinking that about Pristina and Kosovo, but Serbia? He listed things like the bad driving and danger of crossing the road as to why he thought this was the Wild West.

~~

Aleks and I were talking about how to do what interests you in life, and still make a living. You have to bring the system to your interests, he said. We used the example of TKV, a local artist, who is doing great street art, and basically making some money doing what interests her. It's not so much that she created a demand, rather, she focused on what she liked to do and then found a way to sell her skill.

It is no easy thing to do, particularly for a social scientist, who can't do much with his hands, except tap on a key board! But I was thinking about this conversation again last night as I listened to Moondog. Moondog made his own music, his own instruments and his own clothing. He was fiercely independent from mainstream music and society, but he lived as he wanted. He is an example that you can do whatever you want, or, as Aleks put it, an example that being crazy is really beautiful. 

The long walk home...

... as the fat lady sang.

Today I completed my work at the Mission and said farewell, or vidimo se, to all my colleagues. On Monday I go back in for a few hours to send a couple emails and go through the check out process, and then I will be officially done.

But today was really the "last day" at work. I think some people expected me to be sad, looking for emotion in my voice and face. Certainly I am going to miss the people at the office, many of them anyway. I will also miss the work, because even though I have some reservations about what is actually going on with "development" work (at least of the philosophical level), I did well, and I learned a great deal.

But sad is not the right word. I have grown a lot, learned a lot and experienced a lot; I have grown close to many of the people I have met through work and outside of work. In Belgrade I have been at my best and my worst, and I have been fortunate for all these experiences. In a sense, I am actually happy because I am aware of how much I have gained by being here.

There is undoubtably anxiety as I still don't have another job lined up yet, but I am not sad. I am thankful for all this.

For the love of God, tell me what to do!!

I'm in another transition phase. After eight months in Serbia, it is certain that I am leaving at the end of the month. The question of "what's next," which is what everyone is asking me, is still unclear. Since this is not exactly an ideal time to enter the job market, and because I missed all the deadlines for getting into a graduate program or law school, I'm sort of treading water. Well, that is not entirely true, because I have the Roma paper to write and the ANS Conference to attend at the end of April. So my next weeks are well defined: writing and travelling. I suppose that isn't so bad. But it is the large black hole of unemployment in the post ANS period which is bearing down on me.

But what is the point of writing this? Simply that I find it interesting that I do not see the "freedom" (whatever that means) I currently have as a blessing, but rather as a curse. I mean, I am really free to go anywhere and do anything, yet all I want is for someone to come along and tell me what to do, to give me a job and define things for me. I remember a quote from my good friend Brian who said something like 'we want our freedom only so we can give it away to someone else.' I have to agree with that on many levels: personal and political. For me, thus on the personal level, I hate to be to confined and tied down by material things and jobs, yet when I experience that sensation of being so free, I run for cover and the 'safety' of belonging to something, and thus being tied down again, etc...

You can see this play out on a political level too. People were so eager to be 'free' of Bush, that they went and gave a huge mandate to Obama, rather than trying to reclaim the problems for themselves. Ok, maybe you can argue that in a democratic system the vote is essentially the individuals power to dictate how they think the problems need be addressed. But you can also say, particularly in the American two party system, there is very limited choice, and voting is just shifting power from one side to the other: thus freeing yourself of one party only to rush into the other one. I think this analysis is particularly relevant during the financial crisis (as it would have been following 9/11 also), where Americans are particularly frightened and looking for help. Obama really has a huge amount of power, because the citizens have given him a mandate, and no politician will seriously challenge him at the moment.

But we can also look at places like Kosovo and Montenegro and make a similar assessment. Both of them were so eager to get away from Serbia, thus in a sense freeing themselves of Belgrade. But both expressed immediate intentions to join the EU, thus giving up their sovereignty and adopting EU laws, practices and standards. In order to enter the EU, they must give up a significant amount of power to Brussels. In Kosovo, the situation is even more complex given the power of the EULEX, NATO et al. The international community essentially ruled by decree from 1999 until the declaration of independence in February, 2007, and today they still have control over virtually all the infrastructure and institutions, building them in the western image.

What this tells me is that we don't really like to be totally alone, that there is something of a heard mentality still in us, despite the supposed 'hyper individualism' of Western culture and globalization. I am free to go anywhere, yet to really do that would be to break from the group to which I belong, and renounce, to some degree, the desire to join another one. Just like with Kosovo and Montenegro, it is a precarious position to be in and can be very uncomfortable (because it is not the norm, and visibly sets you apart). Thus it drives me, and the Kosovars and Montenegrians, right back into the arms of another group, which can come in the form of a job, a relationship, a graduate program, EU membership, an ideology, etc...

Football Diplomacy

Croatia's top football team, Dynamo Zagreb, announced it is organizing a "friendly" match in Pristina against a local Kosovo side, Trepca 89. According to balkaninsight.com, this match is part of Croatia's ongoing bilateral initiatives with Kosovo, with who they have "positive relations." This is, of course, the same Dynamo Zagreb that was involved in the famous 1990 clash with Red Star Belgrade, which was the prelude to the break up of Yugoslavia.

Belgrade hasn't shown much reaction yet, but it will obviously see this as a direct slight by their neighbors. It is not like Serbia and Croatia are exactly best friends, but this is a strong statement by Croatia. Football maybe only a sport in some eyes, but its global popularity and financial value make it much more than that. In this case, where Croatia is further legitimizing the independence of Kosovo by sending its best soccer team in, the game has political significance. Serbia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, nor is it going to any time soon, and thus seeing its neighbor to the north make such a clear statement of its own, which is in direct opposition to Serbia, is a studs up diplomatic tackle.

What is the motivation for Croatia in all this?, would be the key question. Politically it is clear that Croatia is working hard to get a spot in the EU, and since 22 of the 27 EU states have recognized Kosovo, it is fairly clear that Croatia is following the trend (the same argument can be made for Montenegro and FYROM by the way). Croatia is gaining some bonus points by engaging with Kosovo on the civic level, as well as on the political and the economic. But I think one needs to look deeper than that as this is also a move to shore up internal support for the Nationalistic government currently in power in Croatia.

Croatia has benefited in the past from taking aim, literally and figuratively, at Serbia. Likewise, Serbia has done the same to Croatia and benefited as a result. During the 1990's the Tujman and Milosevic regimes were rather complementary in achieving their designs for the territory of Yugoslavia. Their vicious brands of Nationalism, Leftist in Serbia, and Rightist in Croatia, enabled them to mobilize their people to break free from Yugoslavia and from each other, and to make their claims over Bosnian territory. So while they were in direct conflict with each other, they were actually helping each other at the same time.

While the context is different now, and there is less perceivable benefit for Serbia in this, beyond what Carl Schmitt would argue is giving Serbia a clear enemy against which to define itself, Croatia can marginalize its own Serbian minority from the political and cultural sphere, keep the nationalists happy by poking Serbia in the eye, and please Europeans by being a nice brother to little Kosovo. This also serves the American agenda that, for very unclear reasons, seeks to keep Serbia down. Having regional actors, especially such 'clean' ones as Croatia (an image not at all justified) engaging with Kosovo only blosters the inevitability of its de jur status as a Nation-State.

So football has a clear political agenda here. It serves Croatia in sprucing up its image abroad and in securing support back home; it serves Kosovo because it gives legitimacy to the institutions (such as the Kosovo Football Federation) and the government itself; and it serves the Pro-Kosovo international community in legitimizing its bid for statehood. 

Day in Moments

The morning was cold despite the weatherman's promise of warm weather. Well, solidarity with the UK I suppose.

But the day also had a strange start to it. He looked up at me as he raised himself from his seat. I wondered why he was getting up well before our stop. He was only half standing when he looked the other way towards Tito's grave and the trees beyond.

I was in those woods when the NATO bombing started he said, smiling.

Though the sun appeared briefly at the end of the day, it did little to warm things up. Nor, for that matter, did the Chairman (woman) in Office. She was glowing with power and money and her new position. I though she was beautiful, and more honest than I expected.

Personally I think their [Holland's] position is totally wrong she said, smiling.

The day ended as it began. Cold wind and a bus ride. But just before that I walked to the bus stop with him and we talked about the hidden power center of the institution we work for. I also said something about the foreign service. He snapped his head towards me.

The foreign service! You don't want to join the foreign service! he said, laughing.

Founding Myth

Tonight, I undertook my first (first ever) interview for my research project for ASN. The interview was with Lola, director of a local NGO doing various projects with the Roma community. She told me this founding story. What follows is the exact transcript of our conversation, with some mood setting and clarifications of my own.

~~

In the background, a young girl is playing with a blond, blue eyed, life size doll. She squeezes the dolls hand and a young German girls voice screeches "Wir sind die beste Freunde!" Everyone laughs. From time to time, over the next few hours, the doll would interrupt our dialogue, and we always acknowledged it with a smile and a chuckle.

"You can't imagine. Non-Roma students take interest in Roma culture... I was telling them a legend about why Roma were left India. This legend is about some Indian Princess. Uhm, they, uhm, Roma, I don't know the word in English for that? They have a pleme? When they are living together its calling?"

A community?

"Something like that yes. Roma community were there and some of Magicians told to the Indian that some army, big army, danger army, will come and will kill everyone, uh, every, uh King and  all King relative. But the magicians said that army can do nothing to Roma community. So King decided to bring his one daughter, only one daughter, to the leader of, uhm, of settlement [laughter].

So, that leader has son, and his son and Kings daughter were growing up together like brother and sister, but in moment they were in love. So one part of community, uh, and mother of boy told him the truth, that Gana is not his real sister. So they decided to marry, and one part of community stand against Chan and Gana [the wider community was never enlightened to the fact that they were not brother and sister. Thus they were expelled because, in the eyes of the community, they were living in sin], and other was with them, so they decided to separate. And the part of community that was against them, told them to go somewhere, to leave India. So they left India.

And we are thinking that all of us are part of community who are trying to find real land for us."

~~

Why did I chose this myth as a post? As Lola was telling me the story, I thought back to my Political Theory class, and how, in our discussion of Machiavelli, we focused a lot on his emphasis on keeping the founding myth central to the identity of a community. For Machiavelli, a community was kept strong through constant reversal back to the source of its creation. He understood the inevitability of corruption to any system, and argued that the only way to stay close to purity was through constantly reestablishing the myth as the center of your culture.

If the founding myth of Roma community is one of exiles in search of a land that doesn't actually exist, then their nomadic life style (which today, I will add, is more stereotype than truth) makes perfect sense. They defined themselves as a transient community in search of their new land, which has not been reached yet. To keep the identity of the community in tact, this myth, and life style, must be kept central.

On Joyce

I had a fascinating discussion with MD last night on James Joyce. “I discovered him at a time in my life when I was unsatisfied with my situation.” This line stuck with me, for obvious reasons. As things feel heavy, and Serbia seems trapped under a permanent cloud, foggy with the temperature always around -2, I am struggling to keep things in perspective.

“I understood him right away and he was illuminating for me. It lifted me out of my depression.” I resolved to give Joyce a shot. I haven’t read him since 1997, when we were assigned Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. I have little memory of the book, as I never could find a way into it. Thus my reading of it was superficial. But now, I am more experienced, and my motivations, needs and desires are a bit different.

So why not? Maybe it is time to try again?

According to MD, Joyce wrote because he had to, not because he wanted to publish. He wrote for himself and in order to make sense of the world around him. We should all have this freedom… The challenge now? To find a source for these book in Serbia!

Narcissism Day

As I was trying to understand the orthodox holidays coming up in Serbia, a friend and I came up with the idea that I should convert to orthodox so that I can take advantage of these days. The 6th of January is Christmas Eve, and the 7th is the New Year, then the Orthodox also get their Slava, or Patron Saint day (which is another non-work day). So, the thinking was, I could convert to Orthodox today, and then I would get most of this coming week off, plus a Slava at some point. Then next December I could convert to being a catholic and take their Christmas dates off, then in January... you see the pattern.

But then I thought, what days off does an Atheist get? Being one myself (unless you count Daoism as a religion), of course I get all the christian holidays, because everyone in the west gets those. But is that really appropriate? What if I want to work those days? I mean, I should not be forced to participate in a religious festival that I do not believe in. Of course, there is the argument that Christmas is much more commercial now, and has become a tradition somewhat disconnected from its religious origin. Well, I agree that it is much more commercial now, but I think that religion is still very much entwined into it. For example, I know many people who only attend Church on Christmas and Easter; there are all the religious icons on the Christmas tree; in secular Germany, most people still put up a model of the manger in which Christ was born.

So, what is an atheist to do? We conceived that the atheist should get two days (at Christmas and at Easter) for self-worship. Call them Narcissism Days, and fill them with many unhealthy, carnal activities. In this way, much like the Christian/Orthodox holidays, they would still reflect our Pagan heritage; they would achieve the same function of getting us to channel this desire for chaos and sin into a few days each year; they would add to the diversity of human experience... and the spread of disease!

Well, on a more serious note, it does beg the question of how a culture, or religious community respects the alternative or minority religions and faiths. Certainly, no-one minds a day off, so I don't mean to suggest that the office shouldn't close on religious days, but maybe, if it is closing for one, then it should close for all? The alternative is that you allow people to chose whether they want to work or not. This, to some degree, is the practice at my place of employment: most of the Serbs were working over the Western Christmas (24th and 25th), but will off on the 6th and 7th. But my employer is also in an interesting position of being a non-Serbian organization, with a mix of people working for it. But I wonder if orthodox people in Germany can work the 24th and 25th of December and then take the 6th and 7th off (without using personal days)?

I do believe that this is starting to become the practice in a few businesses (I have heard as much from American businesses who employ Muslims), which is a good thing. Anyway, something to ponder I suppose.

Bombing your way to peace

Being the New Year, I took time to clean house here. Cleaning out things seems to have a therapeutic nature, particularly at a time when other parts of your life begin to weigh heavy on the mind and soul. It is also worth noting that the apartment is at its cleanest since September. Well, on to other, more pressing matters.

"Refined notes..." is a reference to Chapter 2 of the Daodejing and speaks to the seeming contradictions in life, which in fact complement each other. The full poem is to the right of this post. Why chose this concept? It relates to the thesis I wrote for the USM Honors program in 2008 (which is also the raison d'etre of this blog), with the central paradox of an activity (soccer) which simultaneously unites and divides its participants. It relates to our lives, and the earthlings who are full of contradictions, like those working for large international organizations who support national self-determination; or those who leave their lovers and then feel regret and jealously when the lover moves on.

Serbia, my current home, is no exception to this paradox: a strong feeling of nationalism runs through this country, yet 70% of the population want Serbia be in the E.U. Serbia, where people have historically been looked down upon by Europeans, look down upon their minority cultures. These contradictions are not unique to Serbia however. All nations and states have these contradictions: In America, people drive SUV's to their environmental activism groups; Israel seeks peace by initiating war, for example.

As I see it, these contradictions are a complement in the sense that, without one, the other would not/could not exist. As we seek to understand the world, we need opposites to help define a thing. Of course, this begs a good number of questions: does this justify war? How can peace exist without war? How can we love without hate? Etc... The problem here is that it suggests we cannot move beyond such negative experiences as war, or violence. I won't pretend to have a cleaver answer to this conundrum. I will say that maybe we don't have to experience war, to desire and have peace; maybe it is enough that we know about it through history; that we have a concept of what it is. We can define peace (the absence of war, the non-violent coexistence of earthlings) because we know what war is. We can define love, because we know what hate is (this one is certainly a lot more tricky).

In any case, the entries of this blog will reflect the contradictions of the world as I experience them.

Change you can believe in!

Half day at work and little to be done.

It is the turning of another year, the moment where, in our minds, the old is passing into history and the new is being dreamed up and born. For many of us, the year will be born in a violent, angry drunken rage, yet these hours seem to me better suited for reflection on what has passed, what is, and what will be.

We can take so many different approaches to the year's ending/beginning. Is it just another day in the seemingly endless cycle of days and nights, seasons and ages? Is it really the moment of renewal, when the leaves of the West are turned over and everyone gets a new start? Is it a global conspiracy by clubs and beer companies to raise their profits? Is it a mechanism of control where we throw off our chains for a night, fly into a savage rage, only to wake up with such a hang over that we resolve to be more in control (and dutifully put the chains back on)?

It is, in my eyes, all of these things and none of them. It is what it needs to be for each of us, and it has been many things for me over the 28 years of my life. At times a raging party to shed excess energy and cover insecurity over my future in a warm blanket of excess; at times a quiet evening, just another in a series that will continue until I die; at times an evening for self-imposed isolation meant to provide answers for what-ever it was I was searching. It has been a lonely night, and lively night, and a night to feel loved or in love. It has been forgettable and memorable. Some times it has dragged on, other times it was all over to quickly.

Tonight I will be in Belgrade, Serbia. Most likely the night will be some combination of the above: I will reflect on the moments past and those still to come, I will find quiet moments before heading out to join the party. At that point I will likely drink a bit to much, leaving me feeling a bit destabilized in the morning and with a promise to be more dignified and sober over the years to come.

But no matter where or with which friends I spend the evening, I know that I will think about how to structure the New Year. After all, I am a product of the Western ideology which has taught me to observe the New Year as a time to make resolutions, to focus my desire for self-improvement onto tomorrow, and to spend the night with friends. So now I ask myself, in honor of this tradition, what is this New Year going to mean for me? What will I do that is better than last year? How will I take control of the chaos and forge it into something meaningful (as if chaos had no meaning)?

Well, it is a hard one to answer, but try I must. My 'answers' will not appear here however, they will be scribbled down somewhere, or stored in my memory banks with a note to review again December 31st, 2009. Ultimately I do not take the ritual seriously, and I don't believe this is my chance at making change for the year ahead; rather I think change comes whenever you want it too. You just have to make a choice and work on it.

With that said, all that is left to say is Cheers! Cheers to 2008 and all that was part of that period of time; cheers to the people I interacted with; cheers to all the experiences I had; cheers to all the tears and laughs; cheers to all the death and life; cheers to good food, great music and long drinks; cheers to good football where ever it occurs...

... and cheers to you. Welcome to the brand new world, bienvenue en 2009

Face to Face with my Thesis

I know the blog has taken on a life of its own, that it has strayed far from the original concept - a blog/log of my work on the topic of Football and Politics. While this may be true, I can say that the topic is never far from my thoughts, and from time to time, I see something or experience something, which brings home one or more of my fundamental arguments.

I had such an experience on Sunday. I was playing with my usual team. We had fun, we scored goals, we made good and bad passes, and we scuffed a lot of shots. But no-one got angry; well, apart from Marco, who got angry when "the ball hit me in the face for the second time, and the fat guy laughed." But apart from that we all had a great time, and as usual, I felt the tensions melt away.

One of the regulars on my team, a giant of a man, is, it turns out, a real live hooligan. He is that guy, who follows Svezda around the country (both the football and basketball team) and watches the game with the Delije. He also has a tattoo, which expresses his opinion of the police; and he is no fan. But this guy, for all that he is close to 7ft, is one of the happiest, nicest, gentle and well mannered people I have met. There is nothing about him and the way he presents himself, which would suggest violence and allegiance to a ultra-nationalist organization. More over, he really likes me, and likes speaking in English, which also doesn't fit the Serbian hooligan image.

Thus we see the contradiction, and one that is seen in many hooligan cultures. How can a nice, friendly man, like my team-mate, have such a fascination with, and participate in, such a violent community? As I said, he is not exceptional though. In the heyday of English hooliganism, there were many "respectable" citizens (doctors, lawyers, etc...) who were in the various firms around the country. I don't know where the answer to this lies, except to suggest that, in my team-mate, we witness the artificial nature, the constructed nature, of identity. It is this construction that allows two seemingly contradictory persona to co-exist in a single individual.

When I returned home, I switched on the TV and found myself watching Shalke Vs. Hoffenheim. The game was the final game of this first part of the season. I was, I must say, a bit shocked at how nasty the game was. There were endless fouls and fights, two red cards, and continuous yelling. All of this on the pitch, not in the stands, where you might expect it. As I was watching it, I though, how is it possible that a game, being broadcast live on TV, with professional players, in a stadium, with no less than 4 referees, be so dirty? There is so much regulation, and real consequences to the fouls and fighting. Yet, the game I had just played had no regulation at all, except for the honor system (self-regulation), and not once has there been a fight, and excessive foul, or verbal abuse.

Again, I don't have the answer, except to suggest it may be the fact that in the Bundesliga, they are playing for a prize, and their wages; while in the little bubble next to the basketball stadium, we are not. So, while my game restored my faith that the game can be a simple, fun game, as I watched the Shalke game, I was once more disappointed.

Fruska Gora

Traveling with a couple friends last weekend, we stopped off at an Orthodox Monastery in Fruska Gora, not far from Novi Sad. The place was beautifully maintained with nice mosaics in the outer walls of the place. The church itself resembled an Austrian Catholic design in the yellow color and shape of its steeple. Subsequent conversations with a few of the other guests revealed that it was indeed of Austrian design, built during the Austro-Hungarian control of Vojvodina.

Behind the Monastery was a small path leading into the hills. We climbed for about 45 minuets, passing through fruit orchards, clusters of various types of trees, herds of sheep, and moments of total silence. It was thoroughly relaxing and pleasant.

Returning from the hills, we entered the Monastery, which was, as expected, calm and well kept. I find the Orthodox churches interesting for their lack of space to sit. It strikes me every time I enter one, and recently I asked a friend about it. She said that people just stand during the sermons. Men on the right, women on the left, the sermons don't last too long (up to about 45 minuets) making it manageable. Also, there is not the attendance ritual in the Orthodox tradition that you find in Catholicism. By that I mean people don't go every Sunday at a certain time. They can go any day of the week. Furthermore, the sermons consist of the monks gathering in the church to read, though it's much more like singing, from their sacred texts. Attending church is simply going during these times, standing and listening, crossing yourself at the (many) appropriate time(s) and at the end, going to the front to kiss the pictures of the saints.

As we left the church, one of my friends stopped to buy a small token from an old nun. She was selling various, religious type goods (candles, crosses, pictures...). My friend is American, the Nun is Serbian, so they struggled to communicate. She asked if he spoke German. He didn't, but I did, and we conducted business in German. Then she asked where we were from. I told her we were American. She threw her hands up in disgust: "ohh!" she said. "Ich spreche Deutsche aber kein English. English nicht wollen. NATO bomben!" In her eyes, we were the responsible party for what happened in 1999. For that reason, she didn't like our language, though she still sold her goods to my friend. Apparently out language wasn't welcome, but our money was ok.

None of us wanted to get drawn into a debate on this issue, nor would it have been appropriate. We thanked her and left, followed by her unflinching stare, and a look on her face that suggested she was bursting to tell us something; she remained quiet. She even followed us to the door and asked if we had questions about the church. We declined the offer.

As we left the church my friend asked me what she had said. I told him. "I thought so" he said. "Excuse me" said a man behind us. "Can I tell you something about the church?" he was a Serbian man with very good English. As we were pressed for time, we declined, but we all walked together to where our cars were parked. He and his wife were clearly interested in us, how we found this place, and why we were in Serbia. The fact that we were American had no negative impact on his interest in us. We left with an invitation to his Bakery in Zemun, following him as he guided us back to the Highway.

We drove back to BG to pick someone up from the Airport, which is right next to the airplane museum. The only museum in the world to host a shot down American Stealth Bomber. Shot down by the Serbians during the 1999 NATO bombing.

A footballing experience

I played soccer on Thursday night with a group of lads from work, Serbs and Italians, and me. It was such a bad experience, and I won't be playing with them again. But it was also fascinating to be part of the experience. I was rotating every 10 minuets with Marco, so I was able to play and watch these middle aged guys get progressively more angry and aggressive as the hour bore on. I knew before the match ended that this would be my only appearance with this group.

You see, for me football is like a hobby. I take it seriously, I try to play well, I work hard, but it has to be relaxing and fun. If it is not, there is no point to it. I am 28, I will never be a pro, nor will I ever get much better than I am now (without serious training), so all I can hope for is to maintain my level, and have fun playing this beautiful game. This philosophy is not shared by the Thursday evening crew.

Granted, they play at a slightly higher level than me, but their attitude is so hyper aggressive, that no-one has any pleasure in playing. They spend most of the game yelling at each other every time a pass is miss hit, or every time a shot goes wide. I took a lot of abuse for my weak passing. If I was in training with Cvezda or Partizan, then I could understand the shouting. But guys, we are playing a 5-a-side match, we are all of us never going to be pro-players, so relax and enjoy it!

The yelling continued after the game. As all the men returned to the changing room they were arguing over the bad passes and missed opportunities. I never felt like it was going to get violent, but they were practically screaming at each other. What I found hilarious about all this was, that as these men were arguing vigorously, they were also getting naked in front of each other. They then all went into the shower, to wash down in front of each other, where the shouting continued. A great juxtaposition I must say.

What I take away from this, because if I take nothing away from this then the evening really was a waste, is that these men exposed the mechanism with-in team sports which can encourage domination, aggression and eventually violence. The desire for victory is so strong with these men that they are willing, even on such an insignificant occasion, to let themselves get angry at their friends for not finding the back of the net. It is the engagement in the activity of football that brings out this attitude and mental state.

Of course, I can only speculate why they get this way, but if I had to guess, I would say they feel a level of frustration in other parts of their lives. Football is the only moment they have to release physical energy, and as soon as the lid is off on this tension, it quickly boils over into aggression.

I have the exact opposite experience every Sunday with my team. We are relaxed before, during and after the game. We take shots from the most improbable angles, we miss hit passes all the time, yet no-one yells at us. In short, we have fun while we play because we have no pretensions about what we are on the pitch. We are a group of young guys who enjoy kicking a ball around. Period.

*******

I was meditating today and became aware of how all my thoughts were directed towards what I saw a missing from my life. Every thought started with 'I need' or 'I should' or 'I want'. I wasn't spending anytime thinking about what I have, what is now.

Once more for October!

Il nous rest deux jour en Oktobre, donc j'ecrit un dernier text, dedier a ce mois manifique. Really, It has been a fantastic month, fantastique comme on dit, and I am always sad to see October go. While the changing of the leaves hasn't been spectacular in Belgrade, it has been in the rest of Serbia. I think the fact that we have had warm weather and little rain this month, has really made the colors pop. Stara Planina was stunning. The most untouched nature I have ever seen. But more on that another time...

Well, I have about four or five journal entries to post when I have time (they are all hand written) and hopefully that will be soon. A very generous friend is lending me her laptop for November and December. I'll be connected again! I mean, she is also doing it because I am doing grant research for her, but still, it is most kind.

Just a quick note on the film Body of Lies. Very disappointing as it relies on some awful ideological crap to justify some really nasty deaths. Only Russle Crowe was worth watching, doing a sort of 'G W Bush runs the CIA' routine. But the plot was weak - a strange sort of coming of age film for a CIA agent who has to murder a bunch of Arabs before he sees the 'light'. The one good line comes at the beginning of the film when the Jordanian head of Intelligence tells the Americans, torture doesn't work. After that, if your just looking for brutal action and violence, this is your film, but you won't find anything resembling a decent, honest debate about the state of American - Mid East relations.

R. Scott tried, I got the feeling, but fell short. There are those moments when the CIA is portrait as a big incapable organization, and the Arab intelligence service as sleek and effective, using 'homegrown' methods. But it's all overshadowed by this rather thick covering of patriotic treacle, and I guess most people will miss these finer points.

So tonight I'll be off to see Bangkok Dangerous, a hard boiled Nic Cage thriller. At least I am not hoping this one will tackle serious geopolitical themes... ;-)

Reflections on Political Responsibility

Well, I could be writing about the stock-market I guess, but really, I just don't have much to say about it. It's not a shock to me; the financial market is a big, global casino and like at any good casino, poor Jane and Joe who are hoping for the a roll of the dice to change their lives, are getting fucked in a bad way. I'm sorry for them. That's it.

I would much rather write a short entry in response to, or in reflection on, an article written by Serbian political scientist Dasa Duhacek on the role of individual and collective responsibility in Serbian. She is making her analysis of the events of the 1991-1999 period through the lens of Hanna Arendt's thesis of responsibility. In essence Arendt, and subsequently Duhacek, argue that it is the responsibility of the individual for crimes committed in their name, by their political representatives, elected or not.

As Duhacek suggests, "No leader, no hierarchical structure can stand without the support of a plurality of individuals..." Thus it is suggested that anyone who participates in an unjust system, who does not actively oppose or declare their "disloyalty" is responsible for all acts carried out by the system. Arendt's most famous work on the subject is, of course, Eichmann in Jerusalem.

As I read Duhacek's text, and the parallels she draws to Serbian society, I found myself in agreement, nodding my head in a somber, scholarly fashion at the appropriate moments. But a question jumped out at me half way through: what about knowledge? I wondered what the role of knowledge was in relation to individual responsibility? I know that for myself, knowledge is precisely what makes me responsible for what is carried out by my government (as I have not done much to oppose it or declare myself disloyal...). Yet, can we say the same about individuals who, for one reason or another, have never been educated to construct such critical thoughts of the political system under which they live?

I thought of these question in the Serbian context. There is a significant gap in wealth between Belgrade and the rest of the country, and again between the region of Vojvodina and Central and South Serbia. As a result, educational centers such as top academies and Universities tend to be clustered in Belgrade and Vojvodina (with a few minor exceptions). Thus it is also logical to conclude that there is a difference in level, strength, and access of education also.

So, can we say that a person, to poor to move to Belgrade and attend university, where they would acquire the same critical analysis skills I posses, is also responsible? What about agricultural communities? There lives are focused on the production of food, there academic education is secondary to the agricultural one. What is their relationship to responsibility?

My question, finally, is simply, what responsibility does an individual have, who has no knowledge, and therefore no ability or tools with which to critically asses their lives as political, towards the actions of the state?

Luckily, I will have the occasion to ask Dasa Duhacek herself tomorrow. Stay tuned...

e-dialogue

The text below is a response to an email from a good friend in Maine. She was emailing me about my entry "Odds and Ends" in which I discussed my reaction to an interaction with a man in the street. My friend question whether the response was truly racist, or was it not more classist?

"To answer your question, re: "odds and ends", I tend to think of racism as being another term for discrimination, which can take place in many contexts (class, skin color, gender, etc.) so you are right to recognize a classist element to situation (what are you, a Marxist or something!! ;)). There is a huge financial gulf between myself and the Roma communities of the world and my prejudice towards this man is a general discrimination. I think I tended to focus on the ethnicity issue simply because it was the most obvious signifier for my response to this man.

I also know that as I was growing up in Paris, which has a significant Roma population, I was feed the stereotype of Roma as "Gypsies and thieves". Of course, this is just as much a classist mentality as a racist one.

What it ultimately boils down to is a fear of what is different from yourself, because in so many aspects of our childhood socialization process we are taught to discriminate against difference, against otherness (what ever form it takes). This was, in some way, the point I tried to make in my thesis, that by introducing team mentality and segregation through team colors, soccer (or any team sport) is encouraging a rigid, discriminatory ideology, and the physical (violent) element only enhances this type of hierarchy.

Certainly, the situation I found myself in vis-a-vis the Roma man could have happened anywhere, and it was not entirely his skin color that triggered my response. It was a combination of signifiers that made my mind assign him with the label of 'other'."