Unseasonably nice weather lured many citizens of Belgrade to attend – funerals. And, as we all know, funeral are always opportunities for saying something about ourselves more than about those we are burring. Let’s see what we said about ourselves.

Jovanka Broz, who was secretly buried alive more than three decades ago, has now been buried with great ceremony in her eternal, but state-owned House of Flowers (Kuca cveca), where living conditions are better than in the house where she languished for years, but the security is not, since her medals were stolen immediately after she was moved in. The medals that were loaned to her for this occasion (funeral) by her former fellow combatants, since when she was taken away from her house (the house she believed she would live in her whole life) in the eighties, she was left without anything, including her medals for bravery which she earned in the World War II. The war that we also wholeheartedly pissed on.

At the celebration of the anniversary of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), its leader, and our deputy prime minister – Aleksandar Vucic, announced for no reason (or perhaps for some reason?) that he may not be great at organizing funerals, but he is the man for organizing anniversaries. And immediately after that, he also apologized for the poor organization of the anniversary, since many of those who were invited were left behind the door of the Kombank Arena. After publicly declaring himself to be an incapable organizer – today, as media report, he requested the permission of “the international community” to allow Serbia to intervene in Kosovo for 45 minutes and handle the problems with local elections. “The international community” did not respond. Maybe they figured it was a new “reality show”, like The 48 hours Wedding.

Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) was always in the habit of abusing its position by broadcasting obituaries of even its long ago retired employees in the News, thus committing double discrimination: firstly, because it does not broadcast obituaries of employees of other public companies, and secondly – because it does not broadcast obituaries of all its workers – they do inform us regularly about the death of every member of the technical staff, but have never announced the death of, for example, a janitor. Maybe someone will explain to them that the Radio Television of Serbia is not a factory newspaper or an internal bulletin board. And that obituaries are not broadcasted in the News, but are published in Politika, and which, if we are to judge by the fact that they are directly addressing the dead, must be read by all those dearly departed.

It goes without saying that exceptions should exist. One of the exceptions is surely the death of its director. However, even in this case, everything turned into an inappropriate several day-long wake, during which his life and career had to be celebrated even by those whom he publicly humiliated and insulted. “His curse sometimes meant the same thing as an embrace in some cultures”, a sentence uttered by one of his fellow workers, may be the best instruction for all of us – live in such a way that the people who will speak at your wake don’t find themselves in an embarrassing situation.

Srdja Popovic, the lawyer who failed to subpoena Aleksandar Tijanic as a witness in the trial informally called the political background of the assassination of prime minister Zoran Djinjic, was also buried. Maybe now he will have the opportunity to question Tijanic before a higher court.

Translated by Bojana Obradovic

Peščanik.net, 12.11.2013.


The following two tabs change content below.
Nadežda Milenković, kreativna direktorka, školovala se da radi sa delinkventima, a završila kao „samohrana majka srpskog advertajzinga“. Smislila neke od najboljih slogana: „Ili jesi ili nisi“ (Lav pivo) , „Izgleda šašavo, ali mene leđa više ne bole“ (Kosmodisk), „Ako vam je dobro, onda ništa“ (Peščanik)... Radila u reklamnim agencijama: Mark-plan, Sači, Mekken, Komunis. Sve manje radi komercijalne kampanje i okreće se goodvertisingu. Na Fakultetu za medije i komunikacije vodila master kurs: Idejologija. Autorka bestseler knjige „Kako da najlakše upropastite rođeno dete“, dugogodišnje rubrike „Pun kufer marketinga“ u nedeljniku Vreme i kolumne ponedeljkom na portalu Peščanik. Poslednja knjiga: „Ponedeljak može da počne“, 2020.

Latest posts by Nadežda Milenković (see all)