This is not arts...

VOJIN (father): Whose flag is this?

ANDRIJA (son): Do-mi-ni…

VOJIN: Dominican Republic?!

MILENA (mother): Where is that?

ANDRIJA: In South America.

VOJIN: Where there are blacks?

MILENA: Blacks are well known junkies.

VOJIN: You’re fighting our police for the blacks?

ANDRIJA: Dad, I didn’t fight…
VOJIN: The blacks are paying you to destroy our country?

ANDRIJA: Dad, no one is paying me, who’s put that rubbish in your head…?

MILENA: They can hypnotise, hey Vojin? The blacks are doing it for sure. They have those eyes, like that…

ANDRIJA: What 'hypnosis' mum, what are you talking about?!

VOJIN: So you’re selling yourself off for South America? You’ll stand under their banner! Before Kosovo, the cradle of Serbia, Tzar Lazar and Dusan the Powerful!!!

Vojin breaks the handle of the flag over his knee.

VOJIN: I shit on their history. Let President Clinton lead his own politics, and leave us in peace!!


This is a small extract from a play I directed in 2006 - Family Stories: Belgrade by the Serbian writer Biljana Srbljanovic and translated by my friend Bojana Novakovic. (I believe this translation is also being produced by Griffin Stablemates later this year).

This scene has been weighing on my mind since the declaration of Kosovo's independence.

A lot of my friends and colleagues, knowing my love of the Balkan area often mentioned it to me as some type of exclamation of excitement with the usual 'Hey! How about Kosovo!"

But I'm not so sure I share their enthusiasm.

To give you some background, let me say from the outset that I have no ethnic relation in the Balkans. For some reason, because I lived in Slovenia and have travelled to the area many times it has been assumed that I am from the region. Unfortunately I am not a 'Balkan Boy'.

Neither am I an expert on the Balkans. I will leave that to the academics and the foreign affairs journalists. All I want to do is provide my perspective from someone on the outside, who was inside.

Listening to the ABC the morning after the declaration of independence, interviews were held with Kosovans who migrated to Australia. They were elated and relieved to finally have the Serbian administration no longer controlling the region.

Kosovo, which you can see from the script above, is to the Serbian people 'the cradle of Serbia'. It is to them their Bethlehem.

On the same day in Melbourne, a protest was held against the independence and there have also been attacks on the Kosovan border and at various embassies in the region. The ABC, however, didn't bother speaking to a local Serbian in Melbourne about what they thought. It was billed as a 'good news story' with a simple outcome.

The scene in the play weighs on my mind because the views expressed by Vojin are deliberately portrayed as those held by the 'older generation'. It gives an insight into the paradoxes that lie within this ancient land. Vojin's viewpoints are stubborn nationalist sentiments that hark back to a time when the Serbian empire was on the doorstep of Europe trying to fight back against the Ottoman Empire.

Serbia lost the battle against the Ottomans of course and it is now the most important nationalist day in the Serbian calendar. Somewhat similar to our celebration of the defeat at Gallipoli.

But the entire peninsula is made up of a variety of ethnic groups. It isn't just Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. Within these borders are regions, towns and villages with their own customs and dialects.

Kosovo, which attracted the brutality of Slobodan Milosovic and the Serb army because of historical nostalgia, was one of the worst of regions attacked along with the Serbian regions of Bosnia, the Croatian regions of Serbia, the Serbian areas of Croatia and the Bosnian regions of Croatia.

Kosovo also happens to have the same population as Slovenia which is approximately 2 million. Its resources are pitiful and its GDP is one-tenth of Slovenia provoking many analysts to question the practicalities of independence.

In my mind, I know that this breakaway is what the Kosovan people need. Since General Tito's death and the consequent destruction of Yugoslavia (the southern Slavs) they have been in a state of flux and then found themselves at the mercy of Milosovic - which is something they desperately want to avoid ever again.

But there is something not quite right. Will the seperation be upheld by the European Union? What will they do if the Serbian majority of Bosnia wants to establish their own independence? Where will the borders be? Where do the Serbs in Kosovo go? What do the Kosovans not living in Kosovo do? How will their economy develop if Serbia refuses to trade with them?

But the big question is, will separation really lead to a stronger Balkan peninsula? Or will it create even more difficulties?

For further reading on Kosovo's Independence CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.


Images: Top - image from Sydney production, Bottom - General Tito.