Day 2.1

Just changed my time zone on my macbook and was amused to notice that I had to select "Serbia and Montenegro" still. I was talking to Milos (my fantastic initial lifeline here) yesterday about what could be done to change his country. He said that positive progress, i.e. departure from corruption, uber nationalism, etc would only be possible in perhaps 20 years because at the moment everything is still too fresh. The country has been changing constantly over the past century and there are no political traditions.

I found this to be a very interesting statement. People with whom I've spoken within the United States say that Serbia just needs to get over itself and act more like the Czech Republic or Poland and stop trying to be the big player within the Balkans. The reality of the situation, however, is much more complicated. As a comparativist I wholeheartedly believe in the benefit of utilizing a comparative perspective to approach these puzzles but I am at a loss to find a country at least within Europe which has undergone such a degree of constant change without being occupied by a foreign power (save for WWII) or colonialized.

I have heard much about the "culure of victimization" in Serbia and how harmful such a perspective is and how, once again, Serbs need to get over themselves. To be sure, such a mentality is not helpful but, and this is important, it is not illogical. Serbs have found themselves for the past century in the wrong place at the wrong time geopolitically. Many other countries boast similar situations of course but unfortunately, the current path forward for Serbia presented by the international community is one which demands first a degree of reconcilliation with past Serbian deeds and this is where the impasse has occured. It is illogical to believe that a Serb looking back at his/her own history cannot simply say "I am sorry for Milosevic and Kosovo, lets move forward" because such a statement grossly oversimplifies the causality of the situation. Rather it may be "The wars in the 1990s were horrible and I would like to do everything possible to keep them from happening again, lets move forward". I believe many Serbs would agree with this statement and if this could be enough for the time being then it would be okay but it is not enough. Serbs must have the "right" position towards the ICTY and Kosovo and this is where things become complicated. There is no love for NATO's bombing of Serbia here. Moreover, after overthrowing Milosevic, the lack of opening up towards Serbia on the part of the international community was a missed opportunity to normalize relations.

Milos estimated that 90% of Serbs (I'm assuming he meant currently residing in Serbia not diaspora) have not traveled outside of Serbia. This is of course a rough estimate based on his perception which I value even if the number is slightly higher because it is how he sees his countrymen and women. I also know that this is not an unlikely statistic based on my own research. He went on to say that for those who have not traveled, all that they know of the "West" is the bombed out buildlings, the visa restrictions, and sanctions.

Sanctions, visa restrictions, and even bombs have their place but as much time an effort are dedicated to the formulations of such policies also must be devoted to the normalization of relations following such policies.

Okay... so my brain is still working :) this is a good thing. Now back to figuring out life in Beograd.
To do today:
1. Buy mobile credit
2. find grocery store and buy food(!) and COFFEE(!) [my landlord had some coffee here which I made hence the ability to philosophize already otherwise the previous post would not have occured :-p]
3. ATM
4. pay landlord
5. begin to beg for interviews via email
6. MORE SLEEP!

cao (this btw is the Serbian form of "ciao" pronounced "chow" :-p)