By now we’re sure you’ve already seen video of the hooligan-inspired trouble which forced Tuesday’s Euro 2012 qualifier between Italy and Serbia to be called off after 7 minutes. The enduring image of that unseemly business was a masked fat Serbian bloke perched on top of a crowd barrier, burning flags, lobbing fireworks and generally carrying on like a fucking idiot. He’s since been identified as 30-year-old Ivan Bogdanov, yesterday caught by Italian police playing hide and seek in a coach luggage bay. 16 more were arrested as police conducted stop and searches on all supporter coaches heading back to Serbia after the match. 600 pieces of “fireworks and explosives” were found on the buses as well as tubby ringleader Bogdanov….
After living and working in parts of the former Yugoslavia during the war in the early- and mid-’90s, I left with the indelible impression that most Serbs didn’t give a damn about anything or anyone besides their murderous nationalist aspirations. If you’d seen what I saw during my time there, you might well have come away with the same impression. Drunken, ignorant, hooligan nationalism seemed to be the prevailing Serb attitude, particularly if all you paid attention to was Serbian media.
I realize, of course, that this is a horrible over-generalization. I know this because I met more than a few decent, caring, well-adjusted Serbs who weren’t addled by hate nor foaming at the mouth with nationalist fervor. These people legitimately mourned the loss of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia and understood what hatred was doing to them. They were appalled at what was being done in their name, but were generally powerless to say anything about it, much less stop it. Serbia in the early 90s was home to the most evil and repressive regime since Nazi Germany, and no, that’s not hyperbole. While I was in Belgrade, I met people who went to Bosnia on weekends to hunt Muslims. And the stories only got worse. I know that Evil exists…because I’ve seen it up close.
To their credit, the Serbian government has endeavored over the past 15 years or so to become more tolerant and more in line with the values of the European Community. That’s not to say that the ignorant nationalists and unreconstructed haters aren’t still out there, because they are- and there are a LOT of them. What happened in Tuesday in Genoa, Italy, only serves to demonstrates that there’s still a latent strain of Right-wing thuggery still extant in Serbia. I saw Evil like this when I was in Yugoslavia; I stared it in the face more often than I care to remember, and even today I have to remind myself that ignorant brain-dead thugs like Ivan Bogdanov are not the future of Serbia…though they’d like nothing better.
Those who think like Bogdanov have only one place, and it’s in a prison, far removed from good and decent Serbs who want to leave their ugly past behind and become part of a new Europe that respects instead of hates. Cockroaches like Bogdanov represent nothing positive. They seek only to tear down and destroy; they have no aspirations to build and create. They will never be able to lead, because all they know and understand is how to appeal to anger, resentment, and hatred. They revere death, because they know nothing of life.
If Serbs, and by extension, their government aspire to become a larger part of the human community, they need to be sure to keep shining a bright light on cockroaches like Bogdanov. They’ll only be taken seriously over the long term if they demonstrate by their actions that they no longer tolerate those who would kill and destroy for Mother Serbia. Samo sloga Srbina spasava, and the hatred and destruction that accompanies that philosophy must be proven to be part of a past that modern Serbia wants no part of.
Serbia’s past, like Germany’s, will never go away. It will take generations for Serbs to convince the world (especially those in the Balkans) that they can be a positive, contributing, and honorable member of the international community. How they deal with cretins like Ivan Bogdanov will go a long way towards demonstrating their intent and their seriousness.
It’s time for Serbia to make it clear that they want to play well with others.
