Day 22.1

So this day is as busy as I was hoping it would be. Was at the conference this morning, had an interview this afternoon, and now I'm dashing out the door to go to my final interview of the trip.

I will try to post more tonight :)

Cao

Day 21

I am now staying at Milos' apartment which is about 5 minutes drive from where I was on Strahinjica Bana since my landlord had already scheduled someone else to rent the apartment for the next week. He is nice enough to let me use his computer so I can keep blogging :)

This morning I decided to wander around the city. I began near Kalemegdon, went down to the statute commemorating the non-alignment movement, walked by the Sava for awhile near the bridges, cut up to Kneza Milosa and passed numerous embassies including the American embassy and Croatian both of which have no windows-- I can't imagine how depressing it must be inside. From a psychological perspective I would think that this would have a very negative impact on the types of reports generated back to the US from Serbia especially from those who are just briefly visiting. I mean what does it say about a country when your embassy has no windows-- it makes you feel like you're still in war time when really thats not the case anymore at all. I really hope that the Obama administration decides to change that. It is a sign of distrust.

That is really jarring and upsetting.

Along Kneza Milosa were several military buildlings which were bombed in 1999. The buildings are still there. I was able to take pictures of them on the side of the street on which they are located but when I crossed the street to take pictures a policeman stopped me and told me it was not allowed. I wish I spoke Serbian fluently because I would have liked to hear his reasoning. It was quite bizzarre honestly. The buildings are there in broad daylight and a few minutes earlier a tour bus had passed and I could see the flashbulbs. Moreover, I wish that I could have told him that I was taking pictures to show to my friends and family in the USA. That I was trying to show the harm that the bombing had done and raise awareness. I guess it's actually a good thing I wasn't able to communicate all this to him :-p Knowing my temper it could have gone badly. At least I got two pictures before he stopped me-- one is below.

I also took more pictures further down the way at a larger military complex which is similarly just sitting there gutted. I don't understand why the rubble is still there... I have several theories-- one of course is that the government wants to remind the world that Serbia was bombed by NATO... this is a perspective that lends itself to the victimization thing and I really have a hard time buying it. Another is there there is no money-- that a private investor would have to buy the property and pay to build something in its place. Once again I am skeptical that there's no money even to bulldoze the buildings and let the space be an empty lot. I think that the truth lies in the middle. To me they represent that nature of the NATO bombing in present day Serbia-- people have gotten on with their lives but the wound is still there, the memories still vivid and painful. Even though seems impossible, I really think that an international conference or at least a legal team needs to address the NATO bombing of Belgrade. It is an unprecedented event-- a bombing as a humanitarian mission-- and at the very least needs to be subject to analysis. It is an underlying part of Serbia's relationship to the NATO member countries and their relationship to Serbia. It needs to be addressed head-on in some way. Massive bombing campaigns are overcome/ reach catharsis either through occupation (Germany, Japan, Austria) or victory (England, Netherlands). The NATO bombing campaign in Serbia by its unique nature has not been able to avail itself of either of these methods. Consequently, like those bombed out shells, the issue remains ever in the background.

This trip has been wonderful for my research. For starters it makes me feel much more confident to move towards publication of my research having been here and conducted interviews, etc-- I feel a tad more qualified to talk about Serbia. It's also given me an idea of the issues which are truely important. I think that this is something that all political scientists must do-- don't settle on your research question/ layout until after visiting the country. During my trip here I have seen that corruption is a major issue here-- something which I HAVE to include in my research. Moreover, talking with people I realize that Serbia really has progressed a lot since 2000-- duh right? but somehow walking the streets and imagining what the 1990s were like on the same streets really brings that notion home. This is important for me in that I can't say that democratization or even conditionality hasn't worked in Serbia. Rather it is that it hasn't been as efficient or it has stalled or... something around there. While I knew this already I am seeing that within the newsmedia there really is an image of Serbia portrayed as if nothing had changed since Milosevic-- especially in articles such as Roger Cohen's (I link this only to give you an idea of how rediculous the coverage of Serbia in the US is) around the declaration of independence of Kosovo. Consequently, even I, and know that I know a lot more about Serbia than your average American, find my perspective slightly skewed. It's wonderful to have interviewed lots of different people with VERY different perspectives. I think I really have an idea of where basic Serb opinion lies... Hopefully one day soon I will be able to come back here with a big enough grant to finance my own survey.

Okay my fingers are getting tired :-p Tomorrow is going to be crazy (or at least I hope it will be-- otherwise it'll mean my two most awesome interview opportunities crashed) so I don't know if I'll have a chance to post anything. My flight takes off at 12:30 on Tuesday and, following a 4 hour layover in Paris, I land at JFK in NYC at 6pmEST.

cao for now!

Day 20... wow

 On Friday I went with Milos to the Nikola Tesla Museaum. On the way back, quite near to his apartment, are the locations to these two pictures of "collateral damage". 

The story: On April 23, 1999, NATO bombed the RTS (Radio and Television Serbia) building. Allegedly a warning had been given to those inside but the management insisted everyone report for work. Milos walked by the building 15 minutes before the bombing and saw them all hard at work through the windows. Sixteen people died and survivors were trapped in the rubble for days. (see picture below curtsey of BBC). To add insult to injury (putting it lightly) there has been considerable debate as to whether the RTS building was after all a legitimate target. The families of the victims took their case to the European Court of Human Rights but the case

 was never actually heard because the ECHR declared it to be inadmissible. 

Carl Clausewitz famously stated, "War is a continuation of politics by other means"... We see this in the bombed out shell of the RTS building still standing after 10 years-- a testimony to the fact that the 1999 bombing is remains and untreated open wound. 

Yesterday Ayatollah Khamenei declared war on the protesters of last week's election. Even as I write this I believe there are 100s of Iranians who woke up today and are perhaps now gathering at the rally with their friends who will lie dead in the street before the day is through... 

politics by other means... 

This is the memorial to those killed in the NATO bombing of RTS. The large letters read "Why?"....

and I do not know the answer. 

 

Day 16

On Sunday night Milos and his friend Nikola took me to an outdoor cafe nearby. We had a great time talking of everything from Serbian history to politics and I was even treated to a short discussion on game theory by Nikola who is a physicist (and it was indeed a treat-- I am fascinated by game theory). In the midst of our conversation, however, our conversation turned to the experience of the NATO bombing. They told me that the first week was the worse but after that things took on a quality such that the bombing could have kept going it didn't matter. Nikola told me of a book, The Berlin Diary, (please correct me Milos or Nikola if this is the wrong book), which discusses the bombing of Berlin. He said that the way the author describes people's reaction to the experience, the way you settle into being bombed as a new type of normalacy is identical to his feelings during the NATO bombing. He mentioned that several things he had read about Gaza suggested that there was also a commonality with their experience as well.

I was thinking of this all day yesterday and it reminded me of one of my dearest wishes when I was young-- to visit a city such as Belfast (this was of course in the 1990s during the Troubles) and experience what it was like to live in such a way. Visiting a market several hours before a carbomb goes off. Continuing to venture out into public, knowing that the line between life and death is simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted to visit Belfast (and later Jerusalem during the early 2000s) and ask those living there, "What are you thinking? What is important to you? Do you still have fun and if so what does fun look like given this situation? How do you get away mentally from this reality-- drugs/alcohol/fantasy/religion? Are you angry? Can you even feel sadness anymore? etc." Of course I did not plan to ask these questions directly rather I wanted to hear people's stories and see what came out. Such an existence has always struck me as the realest life can get, where, as Nikola mentioned, all that matters is the here and now.

I got my wish a little on Sunday night hearing Milos an Nikola talk frankly about the bombing. So then I asked myself-- why is this important? Why do you care so much about this type of scenario and how people deal with it?

I believe a partial answer comes from my experiences of the past 16 days. During my scheduled interviews I have heard two very different perspectives of the NATO bombing. On the one side I have heard that it is something that will shadow relations internationally forever. On the other I have heard that people are over it to the extent that it is no longer a political issue-- citing the overall lack of protest at the ten year anniversary of the bombings this year.
Then I speak with Milos and Nikola, and earlier I have spoken with Vesna, and I hear that the bombing has impacted their lives, that they are still upset with it-- sardonically joking about the cold phrase "collateral damage" which refered to their lives.
If we look at politics as an elite-driven process meaning that the public such as Milos, Nikola, and Vesna, have a say only by electing officials then no, the NATO bombing is no longer politically relevant. Yet if we broaden politics to include the formation of political culture and civil society organizations then collective trauma and experience are surely part of the political fabric and therefore remain germain to any analysis of Serbian politics following Milosevic. If you have been following my blog I am sure that you know that by now I favor the later view over the former.

Everyone has been asking me why I have come to Serbia, and better yet why am I interested in Serbia to begin with. In this lies the answer-- The protest of Serb people concerning issues such as Kosovo and the NATO bombing has prompted numerous outbursts of frustration from various political and international actors and been dismissed as coming from a radical nationalist place and proof of the so-called "culture of victimization". When utilized for political ends these twin issues can perhaps be analyzed according to such a superficial understanding. Yet the reason they can be utilized in such a way lies in the psyche of the Serbia populace (as democracy, Serbian politics should represent the wishes and goals of the populace, if the populace didn't care then Kosovo and NATO bombing would no longer be an issue to bank upon). It is therefore essential to open up an anlaysis of politics within Serbia to the wider issue of political culture formation which, as I said previously, occurs through collective experience.
To understand collective experience one must travel to the country of interest and have coffee with people, see the attitude within the city, observe where people congregate, and millions of other points of observation most of which are unconscious. At some point I hope to come here (although this time with Alec :)and travel to other points within Serbia and stay for a few days similarly observing and trying to understand.

I am reading "Travels with Herodotus" by Ryszard Kapuscinski right now. He quotes Herodotus's mission statement:

Here are presented the results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Hilicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the races of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fae of the important and remarkable acheivements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.

I am struck that Herodotus went about the final task-- understanding the cause of hostilities-- by visiting these places and talking to people and observing their habits and culture. Moreover that he takes as given that there was a cause-- rather than saying it is something ordained by a higher power or something that was fatefully inevitable. He takes over 700 pages (Oxford translation) to discuss this causality. Detail was important to his task. He did not choose to simply boil it down to desire for power or economic gain, although he notes that these exist of course but he finds it important to note down each event and the circumstances surrounding them. The context is essential for him.

When it comes to Serbia I believe the same argument holds true. Current popular analyses of Serbia fail to take the entire picture into account. They are written against something-- against the Serbian nationalist perspective, against the NATO bombing, against the independence of Kosovo, against the lack of recognition of Kosovo by Serbia, etc. A non-policy analysis needs to occur really looking at the dynamics within Serbia given these novel events of the NATO bombing and the sessession of Kosovo.

That's why I'm here... pointless to some perhaps but I at least want to give it a try.

I guess that's enough blabbering for one afternoon.

Here's a slideshow of my photos:

Click on the photo to enlarge and to turn on and off captions click the dialogue bubble on the left.
Enjoy

Day 15

I've come to my final week in Serbia. I can't believe it's already 2/3rds of the way over. I'm still waiting for a few interviews to come through but I have what I'm hoping will be a great one on Wednesday with Vladan Živulović the president of The Atlantic Council of Serbia. I'll also be going to a conference on EU-Serbian integration on June 22nd which should make for a lot of very interesting contacts to take home with me.

Thus far I've had seven formal interviews. Three of them are professors of political science, one a former chief editor at Politika, another a member of the DSS intelligentsia, another a visiting political scientist, and finally a Serbian official at the USAID Competitiveness Project. Everyone has a different perspective but interestingly enough I've found the following issues to be foremost in these people's minds:

ICJ ruling on Kosovo
Everyone is in agreement that the ICJ will refrain from taking one side or another. One of my interviewees went so far as to say that really the opinion has no significance what so ever. The others however, look at the ruling as significant in that it makes political space for movement on the part of the Serbian government. One of my interviewees said that the ICJ ruling will contain hints of opinion either towards the American et al. side or the Serbian et al. side which will determine the subsequent policies. Another of my interviewees said that the ICJ ruling will allow the Serbian government to begin to step back from the Kosovo issue by telling the voters look we did all we can. All agree that deciding to recognize Kosovo would have catastrophic effects upon Serbian politics. The main question seems to be how to proceed forwards in international politics with this given.

EU Visas
Everyone I've spoken with seems to agree that this has to happen this year. That the EU has strung Serbia on far enough. There was a huge amount of expectation following the last election. Several of my interviewees have stressed the importance of the last election. Following the declaration of independence by Kosovo Tadic (DS) and Kostuncia (DSS) split over how to handle the issue. Kostunica wanted it to be a stumbling block to the EU while Tadic advocated a more moderate approach.

NATO membership
There strong division on this issue. One interviewee said that it may very well prove to be a source of further conditionality by the international community especially if the US and Russia continue in the Cold War-esque standoff begun during Bush administration over the proposed missile shield defense system. My other interviewees have been dismissive of this concern. One said that Serbia will be able to choose whether or not it wants to join and the international community will not do anything about it. Another advocated approaching the issue from another direction. The commonly sited statitics over Serbia and NATO is the fact that around 75% of Serbs are against NATO while nealry the same percentage is for the EU. My interviewee said that given NATO's bombing of the region it is significant that 25% of those surveyed are in favor of joining NATO. Moreover he pointed to other surveys which have found that support for Serbia's current Partnership for Peace(PfP) which is a political alliance with NATO without full military commitments is at 60%. This means, therefore, that Serbs do want to be aligned with NATO at least politically.

Impact of EU conditionality
This is perhaps the most surprising result of my interviews and the point which makes me so greatful I've come here to conduct this research. I am learning the importance of distinguishing between rhetoric and practice and between what the US media reports and the actual behind the scenes actions/relations of the politicians. I have heard, from several of my interviewees (which is signifiant considering how much they disagree) that "threats" made by foreign leaders leading up to an election have not had a detrimental effect upon the ability of the political parties within Serbia to obtain votes. Moreover, some have told me that really the EU doesn't have the power that it would like to think it has. However, I have now heard the phrase several times "using gasoline to stop a fire" in reference to the issues of the ICTY and Kosovo and continued delayed EU promises.
There's more to say but I'm running out of brains :-p I'll go into it more later. --Suzie

Day 14

Here are some pictures from walking around town over the past few days:




















Had coffee and excellent conversation tonight. It's 1:54am Monday... (began this post way earlier) so I'll elaborate more later today after sleep :)

Nightiee night! (laku noc)

Day 13.2

I'd like to take a time out from discussing my life here in Serbia and talk about whats going on in Iran right now.


The Iranian system is more democratic than many realize. There has been legitimate turnover in the past. Prior to Ahmadinejad, for example, a man named Khatami was president and campaigned on a platform of liberalization and reform. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, has a solid basis in laborers and rural folk. Many young Iranians are fed up with Ahmadinejad's rhetoric and the way in which he has forced Iran back into international isolation. Moreover, he has been unable to deliver on his economic promises. Voter turnout was at 80% and campaigning in the last week was tense. My point is that this is indeed a backlash to what is believed to be a stolen election.

Even if Mr. Moussavi (opposition candidate) did not win the election, it seems unlikely that he lost with the 30 percent margin that the election officials have reported. Moreover, as the video states, the regime is not negotiating with the opposition. This is very dangerous especially in a country facing such economic unrest and with social tensions always lurking right beneath the surface, not to mention the memories of the student revolt under Khomeni.

So far it appears that the news media is doing a fair job reporting this crisis. The main thing to realize is that Iran has a strong semblance of democracy at least where elections are concerned and even though their human rights record is appalling. Consequently, in many ways the outcome of this protest right now will have long term effects upon the regime type within Iran. It seems clear that if Ahmadinejad wishes to retain full control with no cooperation with Mr. Moussavi, he will have to impose something akin to martial law. Once such a step is taken it then can become very tantalizing for those in power to retain it as the status quo.

Conversely, if Ahmadinejad extends a hand of friendship to Mr. Moussavi, it will give the opposition leader a say to some extent in the government. Basically if Iran emerges from this leadership council without imposition of martial law, their structure may very well be vindicated as democratic according to minimalist definitions concerning elections.

I apologize for getting a bit poli sci but I think its important to realize that Iran is not the authoritarian regime that Saudi Arabia. The people are able to elect a president and this is very significant and so very often overlooked by the media.