Sunday 7 May:
In Serbia, education minister Branko Ružić resigned after his comments following the school shooting in Belgrade sparked controversy. He had claimed hat the shooting was a consequence of „the negative influence of video games“ and of „so-called Western values.“ The event marks the first time that a politician in the region has said something that they sincerely thought, and also the first time that a politician in the region has understood that they made a grievous mistake.
Monday 8 May:
The regime mouthpiece Politika has another one of those mystifying articles that reminds you why it exists at all. Let's give a snippet of the comment by Veljko Odalović, head of the commission for missing persons: „If on the side of Prishtina there is readiness to implement what they have signed, we will quickly enter into the continuation of the process and begin to work in the field, to investigate locations in which, according to information that gets mentioned by Prishtina as well, verifications will be carried out.“ Yes, that is an accurate translation. Investigations of what? Where? By whom? You will not find out from the article. And you do not need to know. The purpose of this article is not to inform the reader of anything, it is for signals to be sent, in code, from one regime to another, or from one part of the regime to another. The article is, of course, unsigned, probably because Dr Petar Veličković is on annual leave.
(NB: there are some actually existing human beings named Petar Veličković and Politika's shenanigans have nothing to do with most of them. Please do not bother those people.)
Tuesday 9 May:
On Sunday morning, before the coronation of Mr Charlie Battenberg, police arrested a group of anti-monarchy protestors. Whether you support them or not, the group is a recognised group that had spent months agreeing the conditions of their protest with police. Today we discover that they will not be charged with any offence, because in fact they did not commit any offence.
Basically there were arrested for no reason, in a pointless show of force by a government that has no purpose.
What do they have? Power and fear. There were moments when they could count on large parts of the public to share their fears. That's how we got hostile environment, Brexit, the ephemeral penal colonies to be built in a future Rwanda. People aren't going for it anymore. Young people are diverse and have been cheated, and cannot be persuaded to love the monarchy or hate trans people, as both of these dog whistles reach toward an image of identity that is no longer shared. Everyone else just sees the constant failures of health care and education and the inexorable redistribution of wealth upward. They aren't going to be sold a culture war again, and they have wised up to being told „look at that invented outrage.“
Proći će njihovo.
Wednesday 10 May
Croatia and Serbia have both made it, unexpectedly I think, into the Eurovision finals. The song from Serbia is probably fine, I don't know what it is, you could look it up. But I am really taken with Croatia's entry from a group I have loved for years, Let 3. „Mama ŠČ“ is ostensibly an anti-war/anti-Putin tune written with childish simplicity, but you get the strong feeling that they are drawing on their experience of nationalist brutality and not really talking only about Putin. Over the years Let 3 has surfed the fine line dividing punk and pop, adding generous doses of humour and obscenity, gathering a large audience that feels utterly represented by them and an even larger one that despises them completely. It’s a miracle that they got to Eurovision, where for this performance they supplemented their Gestapo/drag queen stage costumes with t-shirts featuring an image of blindfolded children, a reference to the forced resettlement of children from Ukraine that was anticipated in Article 2(e) of the Genocide Convention.
I have to agree with the Tnjitter commentator who declared “I will die for the five Croatian genderbending Putin-hating uncles.” And I am agreeing in the shadow of another heartbreaking death. Yesterday we found out that our former student Arman Soldin, who was working as a video producer for Agence France-Presse, was killed by a rocket attack in Ukraine. This is news nobody ever wants to hear, especially about a dedicated professional who was liked by everyone and who had a great future of accomplishment ahead of him at the age of 32.
And what does this have to do with Let 3? They operate in the cultural space that was devastated by the senselessness and emptiness of national violence, and they open up space for you to see the creators of this abyss at their proper size, to ridicule them, and to laugh at them. And I think that is completely appropriate. Your choice is to laugh or to scream.
Thursday 11 May
There are protests of all kinds after the shocking violence in Serbia. The largest of them involve parents of victims leading calls for an emergency session of parliament to pass laws related to public safety (the parliament has ignored them, and the presiding officer refused to meet with them). But here is one protest we did not expect: a group of students from the Prva Beogradska Gimnazija demanding more repressive measures to be taken against themselves, and a strengthening of discipline. It doesn’t look like a spontaneous initiative, but oof, suppose it is.
Friday 12 May
There is not much reason to bother commenting on Elon Musk’s announcement that he is appointing a new CEO for Twitter. He hasn’t said who it is and he has no credibility in any case. But it does prompt me to offer a brief online autobiography.
This site was preceded by incarnations of “East Ethnia” that survived for various periods of time on Blogger and WordPress from around 2004. Those faded away as my workload increased and other more interactive types of social media became dominant. So Facebook (from 2007) and Twitter (from 2013) took the front seat for me, and although I didn’t quit blogging in the sense of deciding to stop, I found I wasn’t updating. But Facebook was always dodgy – the data mining for the Brexit con, the hate speech and genocide promotion in Myanmar, it grossed me out and I decided not to put my energy into giving them free material. I left that one early last year, not many regrets. And it was no problem deciding to quit Twitter the moment Musk took it over. It was already a cesspit, but if there is one thing I cannot tolerate at all it is media that promote racism. There is no space for that kind of ugliness in my life.
I did miss communicating with people not in my physical vicinity, though, so did a minimal return to online life. This site is explicitly directed to entertaining my friends rather than to reaching a large audience, and I am keeping updates down to once a week. And for culinary content and dog photos it’s Spoutible. It hasn’t got the critical mass, but it hasn’t got the ignorance or bigotry either. Good enough for me, live simply, live happily, sweat the toxins out.
Saturday 13 May
The week ends on a note of mild optimism for tomorrow’s elections in Turkey. Erdoğan could still win, of course, but he is damaged and weaker than ever. Even a small shift to democracy would be a good sign for the entire region.
Don’t expect much from even the best outcome, though. The opposition has adopted a strategy that often works against an entrenched regime: unify a broad coalition around an inoffensive candidate who is minimally acceptable to everyone. This approach can often win elections, but it produces a government that has a toxic legacy to deal with and is incapable of doing anything.
If Erdoğan does go down it will be because his regime became what they all become after holding power for too long: moribund, out of touch, irrelevant, arrogant. This is what Turkey has in common with every other place I have ever lived.
Note: I have never tried this “week in review” format before, but it does seem well suited to the goal of posting once a week. Let me know if you like it and I will try it again sometime (not every week, I promise).