Serb nationalism

The basic question that this essay seeks to answer is the following: why did Milošević’s nationalist model remain unchanged after [his fall on] 5 October 2000? 

Serbia’s past and future

I have a certain confidence in the people of Serbia. This is hard, thanks in the first instance to the fact that we are emerging from an immense evil, the responsibility for which lies with society but also with every individual, including ourselves, the two of us now talking to one another.

Four times there and back

In 1912, when Serbia and its allies headed off to the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, it went to war with two publicly stated war goals. The first goal was expansion to the south, to Kosovo and Macedonia, and the other equally important goal was to getting exit to the Adriatic Sea through northern Albania.

Behind the curtain

This is the realism I speak for, not to get carried away with emotions, not to get carried away with moralizing, to be aware of this huge battle which is currently taking place and in which we are participating.

The melodrama of politics

What graced Politika in better and more professional times – seriousness and analyticity – in the editorial version of Ljiljana Smajlovic attained the features of tabloid-like plunking, demonizing the regime’s opponents and irresponsible name calling.

A suspicious person

Ljubisa Ristic’s gesture of naming the stages after his former partners who were his ideological opponents in the late 90’s was actually a fetishization of his own past. In that sense, the Secerana (Sugarmill) was precursor of a different, much more ambitious fetish town, the one on Mokra Gora.

Pain-o-meter

People were frightened, and it was Kostunica who frightened them. I want to remind you of the speech he gave in the National Assembly, it was frightening.

The troubled birth of Kosovo

The decision of the US, and a number of other countries to break with international law, which regards the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states as sacrosanct, and to permit Albanian separatists in Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia was an extraordinary act.

The president without make-up

In order to form a government with the SPS there is no need to show respect to Slobodan Milosevic. There is even less need for asking that the death of a dictator be equated to the assassination of Serbia’s first democratic Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic.

Bankruptcy

Even laymen realized that Serbia’s cashbox is suffering from a serious case of anemia when governor Jelasic announced that the National Bank of Serbia will not grant a loan to the State of Serbia to improve the “blood picture” of its budget

The case of Hicham Yezza

Those of you based in the UK may have read about the arrest of a PG student and an employee of the University of Nottingham, because they were in possession of an al-Qa’ida manual. When it emerged that the manual is freely available at a US government website and that the student used it for research on his MA dissertation, while the employee printed the 1,500-pages-document for his student friend who could not afford to print such a large document, both men were released, after spending 6 days in custody.

Army drill

Book publisher Dejan Ilic discusses the negotiations on forming the Serbian government, the education system in Serbia and the riots in Belgrade on February 21st, 2008.