When I first came to the UK to study in 2007, I planned to return to Serbia when it became more like the UK – meaning richer, more stable and less corrupt. Now that I am leaving the UK to move back permanently, the two countries have indeed converged, although in a way somewhat opposite to the one I imagined. Serbian economy has more or … Continue reading The UK: 8.5 years since
As we stand now, at the brink of Grexit, it may be good to think about how the situation escalated so quickly and so disastrously, before we look at the many existential challenges facing the EU, and Europe as a continent in the not too distant future. Although there are many elements to the tragedy, with many of them beyond my knowledge and capability to analyse, … Continue reading Europe on the brink
Last few weeks were probably the most interesting in the recent European political history, as there actually emerged a force that wants to take its country and promises seriously. The greatest value of Syriza are not the rather inflammatory (and somewhat true) invocations of neo-colonial treatment of Southern countries by the Euro-North (read Germany), nor the realisations that the Euro-North has rather profited from the … Continue reading If you don’t want to be treated like a colony maybe you should stop acting like one
I distinctly remeber, two years or so ago, that I was complaining about Peščanik (a recently disrupted indipendent editorial portal) to a friend of mine. I found their commentary on the state of Serbia out of touch with reality, esentially a, crying wolf. They saw Serbia under DS (the main democratic, liberal Party) as if it were still under Milošević – a land of contolled … Continue reading Cry Wolf
I always disliked going back to Belgrade in winter: grayness of the weather usually only exacerbated the decrepit look of the facades around the city. Furthermore, the lack of summer terraces, would not only condemn us to trawling the streets to find anywhere decent to sit, but, a place, once found, would be enveloped in smoke and all conversation would have been drowned in the … Continue reading Belgrade 2014: A winter portrait
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” As far as the social sciences and the dark arts of international relations go, this quote of Thucydides’, written some 24 centuries ago, is the closest thing to a law of motion. Thus the recent developments in Kosovo, from the … Continue reading Kosovo and Serbia: The strong, the weak and all that
Today the world, or at least the part that cares more about the Balkans and/or human rights than about Cheryl Cole’s downfall, was stunned by the capture of Ratko Mladic (alias: Milorad Komadic) near Zrenjanin in northern Serbia, first reported by the Croatian press. The news made many happy, relieved or vindicated, as a man responsible for brutal killing of over 8000 men and boys in Srebrenica … Continue reading Mladic: So long
Whatever one may think about the SNS (Srpska Napredna Stranka [Serbian Progressive Party], a more moderate and politically viable spin-off from Seselj’s toxic SRS), it is truly the only opposition party in Serbia which is large enough to be able to create some momentum for reform and/or represent an alternative policy opinion in Serbia, and as such one would expect it to play a valuable role in … Continue reading Hungry for change, fed up with elections
Major news today for everybody hailing from the beautiful regions of ex-Yugoslavia (or interested in them or law) was that two out of three Croatian ex-generals were convicted for war crimes during the Operation Storm (aka “Oluja) in the Hague and give 24 (Gotovina) and 18 (Markac) years to think about it. Equally interestingly, there was also a post-humous indictment of Franjo Tudjman and other … Continue reading After the Storm
