Reasons to Stay Together

Mas Publico

In 2011, Roberto Benigni, the Oscar winning Italian comedian, took the stage of the San Remo musical festival while riding a live horse.

Benigni then gave a majestic speech about the Unity of Italy, during the year of Italy’s 150th anniversary. At that time, Silvio Berlusconi was in power and many of his party members and other right wingers were loud supporters of secessionism.

The ideal of the Italian Northern League was, and is, to free northern Italy from the poverty and corruption of the nation’s South. This notion made more sense before the Northern League was itself was found corrupt, and when Northern Italy still had some money.

Benigni’s voice trembled with emotion while he sang the anthem “Fratelli d’Italia,” admonishing the audience of millions that a martyred young poet wrote that song, and gave his own life for the unity of Italy. How could the poet’s countrymen undo that deed and confound the nation’s martyrs on a whim?

That phrase made tears come to my own eyes. I remembered my dying mother who told me with passion: You cannot give away Kosovo just because you are a dissident against Milosevic. Kosovo is the heart of Serbia, you didn’t fight for it, like we did, and your grandparents too!

Political Idiot in Sao Paolo

first frame Diary of a Political Idiot (portuguese, english)

http://www.artemov.net/saopaulo/?p=55

streaming

Vivo ARTE.MOV

São Paulo

Encontro sobre mídia ativismo, com Jasmina Tesanovic, documentarista, ativista política, autora de Diary of a Political Idiot (Kossovo, 1999).
DIA 29/11
LOCAL: CINUSP
17h30

Serbia and United Europe

in English, in italiano
It was a historic day for Serbia, October 25, 2010, when the European Union accepted the candidacy of the Serbian pro-European government. Years will pass before Serbia becomes an official member of the EU, and yet, from today onward, life will radically change for us Serbian citizens.

Already, a year ago, when the Schengen visas were first abolished, the Serbian situation transformed. Serbs were treated better at the European borders, in European banks, even in daily encounters with minor officials such as ticket-checkers on metros. After two decades of sanctions, isolation and legalized crime, Serbia is at the doors of the Union, the fortress of western democracy. Europe is a political structure with human rights, a functional legal system, relative monetary stability, and an abhorrence of racism and war crimes. In short, an empire with civilized standards, which the new Serbia has tried, with great difficulties, to implement in recent years. One step forward, two backwards.

Zoran Djindjic successfully deposed Milosevic, the butcher of the Balkans, but Djindjic himself was assassinated in 2003. After this grievous loss, another Serbian nationalism emerged. It no longer clung to the dusty Communist rhetoric of Milosevic, but rushed for the doors of the newly-fundamentalist Serbian Orthodox church. Church officials had been deeply involved in the war crimes of the Bosnians Serbs during the ethnic cleansing. A transition from totalitarianism to fundamentalism was not a difficult step.

Srebrenica Anniversary: The Design of Crime

Today is the 15th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia, where more than 8000 Muslim male civilians were killed and their bodies buried in mass graves scattered all over the region. Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia at the time of the killing, died in the Hague in 2006, before any verdict was reached in his trial. The UN Dutch troops present in the enclave of Srebrenica at the time, in order to protect the civilians, did not face any charges for failing in their duty. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader responsible of  designing this crime  is currently on trial in The Hague, at the International War Crime Tribunal. General Ratko Mladic, whose troops carried out the massacre under his orders, is still at large.

In the year 2007, Serbia proper was found guilty of failing to prevent the genocide, but not for actually committing it. Many of the large number of people and troops involved in liquidating the Srebrenica prisoners never appeared before any court.  Others received very mild sentences for smaller misdeeds, such as the six members of the paramilitary troops “Scorpions.”

Bez naslova

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/21/jasmina-tesanovic-st.html#more

Evo sad je deset do cetiri, dosla sam iz posete ocu koji stanuje iza Skupstine na Vracar pored Svetog Save kod drugarice koja se neprekidno zali na strasan zvuk zvona: jak i los. Znaci trasa mitinga Kosovo je Srbija. I sta sam videla? Dosta mladih bukvalno srednjoskolaca sa flasama piva u ruci, neki cudan skup motorciklista bez obelezja ali sa nesnosnim turiranjem motora; dosta milicije vrlo opustene na suncu, i onaj uobicajni svet koji sam vidjala na Milosevicevim govorima ali i Kostunicinim Novim godinama sa Cecom i Veljom i Dodikom. Sad ce biti Kusta umesto Cece kazu. Vreme je suncano i toplo, onako da se covek raznezi u prolece ali mene je uhvatila neka jeza. Kosovo srpsko ili albansko na stranu, upitah se najednom dok se jos nista lose nije desilo: ko preuzima odgovornost ovog mitinga? Svi? Sto ce reci niko. Vec zamisljam sta sve moze da se desi i zato otvaram ovaj blog. Da pisete sve sto znate da se desava, dobro i lose. Hocu istinu samo istinu. Hocu prosto da znam neke stvari koje iskreno receno ne kapiram: sta taj narod ocekuje na trgu, u crkvi od politicara, popova. Am I missing something? Nemam vise snage da se plasim ali ne mogu da prestanem da se pitam i da pokusavam da sprecim bar ono sto golim okom mogu da vidim kao zlo.