Making Sarajevo proud standing on one foot

Text, video-editing and infographics by Melina Borčak, images by Elodie Armand

A few years ago, Mirzet didn’t even know this sport existed. A few weeks ago, at the Paralympics, he was named best hitter in the world and won a gold medal. Find out how a six-year-old victim of war became a champion.

„Hey, journalist! Film him paying for our drinks“ was the first thing we heard when we walked into the cafe where members of a sitting volleyball club were waiting before their training. They always joke around, even while playing. But, there was a time when they didn‘t have much to laugh about.

The neighbourhood of Buća Potok is on one of Sarajevo’s many hills – the famous hills home to the infamous Army of the Serb Republic forces who besieged the city for almost four years. During this time, in 1993, six-year-old Mirzet was playing with his friends. It was one of the quieter days in a city under siege.

Mirzet’s shoelaces untied and, as he was tying them, a grenade crashed next to the kids. His friends were on the other side of the street, unharmed. He wasn’t. He lost his left foot and spent two months in a hospital. „My friends were very considerate, they never excluded me. My teachers were very forthcoming and I was as fair as I could be too“, says Mirzet about his time growing up as disabled child in a warzone.

Ten years later, he was invited to an award ceremony for disabled athletes where he met members of a sitting volleyball club. „They persuaded me to come to a training and the rest is history“, says Mirzet jokingly.

He joined the same club, Fantomi, named after the phantom-pain amputees experience in the missing parts of their bodies. The members are mostly victims of war – civilians, veterans or post-war landmine survivors. He is also a part of the Bosnian national team, which won gold at this year’s Paralympics in London, where Mirzet was named the world‘s best hitter.

But, opposing teams are not the only thing Mirzet and his teammates have to overcome. Mirzet talked about financial problems, inconsiderate bosses, a government that values athletes very little and disabled athletes even less. Mirzet says, that although his coworkers are very helpful, the employers are not: „We really have problems – most of us work in private companies and the employers have no understanding for us. Some people almost lost their jobs because they went to a competition or preparations.“

Still, Mirzet manages to have time for his family, his job, sports and working on his Master degree at the Faculty for Sports and Physical Education in Sarajevo.

When asked what he would change in society’s attitude towards disabled athletes, he says: „I would change the attitude towards athletes in general. Funding for sports is minimal. Results from any sport should be valued – we can’t give someone money if there are no results. That means whoever accomplishes something with his team should be rewarded for it.“

Mirzet has a point: although the Bosnian national sitting volleyball team is the country‘s most successful sportsteam, they are not valued as much as their less successful non-disabled collegues. In fact, Bosnian law prescribes that disabled athletes get 50% less financial rewards for winning intermational titles than non-disabled ones. „Really, the amount is not important for us, but that is a violation of human rights in which people with disabilities are not equal to healthy people. It can be 100 bosnian marks (50 euros), let it be the same for valids and invalids.“

Despite conquering many obstacles, he is still fighting to be appreciated as much as he deserves. Turning loss into success and proving to the world that he is a true winner – not just in sports.

Alma – The Believer
HARE KRISHNA IN SARAJEVO – PERFECTLY NORMAL
story by Gorana Sekulic, photos and video by Elodie Armand and Maximillian Ulrich

Religion along with nationality is a prerequisite in Bosnia Herzegovina. You are either Orthodox and a Serb, Roman Catholic and a Croat or Muslim and a Bosniak. But what if you belong to the category labeled as “the rest”? There are not more than 300 of Hare Krishna in whole of Bosnia Herzegovina. Alma Bartula is one of them.

As she welcomes you at the door of a smallish cream-colored house in hills of Sarajevo, you immediately notice something is different about her. In front of you stands a woman dressed in sari. Intense blue color, red ornaments, delicate rich embroidery, you can tell this sari is Indian. But what about the women wearing it? Then she speaks in fluent Bosnian and you are puzzled once again.

If we follow that logic the pope is also Croat

“The three dominant religions here in Bosnia, Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, were not enough for me. To my question Who am I, their answer was too narrow and single-minded.” Alma Bartula starts her story. She joined Hare Krishna movement shortly after the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, when she was 19. Back then she couldn’t grasp all the horror around her. She was also shocked that after years of unity as Yugoslavs they were now categorized as Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks. “How am I going to take sides when I have friends from all over, I even didn’t know what my friends were in terms of their nationality, they were just a good friend, a great friend, an honest friend, that was my definition of friend and all of the sudden I have to think if somebody is a Serb or a Croat or a Muslim, I cannot think like that.”

As she explains Hare Krishna offered her comfort and an explanation: “We are spiritual beings, our bodily identity is unimportant.” Questions of nationality also amuse her. “If I have to sign some paper, I put Bosnian, because I was born in Bosnia Herzegovina. For me it is ridiculous to say that someone is a Croat because he is a Roman Catholic, if we follow that logic the pope is also Croat and Vladimir Putin is a Serb.”

Does she face discrimination?

She interrupts the story just to offer delicious vegetarian cake. Hare Krishna has strict rules: believer should not smoke, nor drink or take drugs and are only allowed to eat vegetarian food. Vegetarian in Bosnia, you think to yourself, must be difficult.” If I could do it in the nineties in the middle of the war, sure as anything everybody can do it now in 2012, when even normal restaurants serve vegetarian meals.” Alma is convinced.

Is this the only challenge she faces, being such unusual minority in Bosnia Herzegovina? The wife and mother of two doesn’t see it this way. “You don’t have to be a Hare Krishna to be challenged, you can listen to classical music to be challenged, because nowadays everybody listens to hip hop.” Married life and teenage kids are her top priority. “Even if you are a minority, when you have a strong family at home who loves you, who gives you attention,  time and good advice, then you will go through anything in life. That is why family is so important.”

We have been lucky so far

 When she converted to Hare Krishna, she had this support from her family. Father accepted it; and mother and the brother became Hare Krishna as well. Raising her children as Hare Krishna has not been a problem so far. “We have been lucky so far, there were no major negative comments, because we were always so open about it and they were what they were from day one in school. So, everybody knows that my children are Hare Krishna and vegetarians and they have particular hairstyle that Hare Krishna men wear and we have explained the meaning of it. My children are accepted and regarded as not different from the rest.”

Between her past and her present stands a firm bond. Alma remains that curious girl from the 90s who embraced long hours at the library reading instead of going out and parting endlessly. It seems her present self matured and grew into a person who is accepting and tolerant. And it is this part of her that shines through her in each gesture, word and act. Alma’s way of coping with things is Hare Krishna way.

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Can one be a good journalist without using his own eyes ? Željko Bajić took the challenge. In 1986, he became the first blind radio reporter in Former-Yugoslavia.

Željko Bajić is moving along the corridors in the premises of BH-radio, in Sarajevo. He is calm, he has certain confidence in himself. No sun-glasses, no walking stick. Sometimes he accepts an arm. Simplicity is radiating from his person, he doesn’t put on a show. But, this man, of average size and dark hair, took the reins of his own destiny into his hands.

The 53 years old started his carrier as a reporter for B-H radio in 1986. It was only the support of his family and his wife and own determination that lead him to his dream job. He fought for his rights and enrolled into faculty of journalism, though few people predicted his failure for him. Encouragement from a friend enabled him to forward. ” He was professor in a middle school here in Sarajevo. He had contact with people in radio in the city and he suggested the director to give me a chance in a program. And for me this chance would be useful ”, Željko Bajić remembers. Having gained reassurement in this experience, he knocked on doors of others medias and they let him in.

Far away of his country, close of his microphone

In 1989, he contacted BBC and proposed a programme to people with disabilities. They didn’t want his idea, but they wanted him, Željko Bajić, to prepare topics about politic, culture and economy. Then the war happened and he found himself as a refuge in Moscow. Far from his country, he doesn’t loose his passion.
He calls Voice of America in Serbia and submits topics about Russia. This collaboration leads to Macedonia where he meets a journalist who proposes him to work for Radio France International. The recognition after several years of work.

Experienced and recognised, he decides in 2003 to go back to where it all began. He returns to work in Sarajevo for the radio that gave him the first chance. “ I prepare two radio shows : one dedicated to european integration, and another dedicated to persons with disabilities. Since very recently, I’m an editor of a talk show, it’s called ‘Week” .

Since this time others blind people have followed his example. “Here in Bosnia, we have three or four persons. In Banja Luka, you have one girl who works in Radio Balkans. You have one journalist who prepares regular everyday programs for radio Tomislavgrad, And one young man works half-time in radio Jablanica ”, the journalist enumerates.

Progress of technics before human values

Željko Bajić is sceptical when he thinks about the professional future of persons with disabilities. “Our society is now very complicated compared with times from 20 years ago. In my time existed more human values. Now, everything is only about the price of work that persons with disabilities cost “, he analyzes. The journalist considers that the enthusiasm has disappeared from both sides. Blind persons are disappointed because the access to job is difficult. And the employers don’t want to invest in the specific material for them.
The antagonism of the technological progress who should facilitate life of persons with disabilities but excludes them in taking their place.

„Semi“ – the brave
Living openly gay in Kosovo’s homophobic society
by Nadine Kreuzahler, Emilie Sok, Dardan Zhegrova

Semi is walking on the streets of Prishtina: eyes wide open, hands waving, loughing out loud – a low-key lifestyle is not Semi’s cup of tea. The 24 year-old former tv presenter does not hide being gay at all. He faces problems every day, but still wants his voice to be heard. This is not without risk in Kosovo where homosexuality is still a big taboo.

The involuntary underground: Being gay in Kosovo

It is a warm October afternoon in Prishtina. Ismail “Semi“ Cakolli, 24 years old, enjoys a coffee in the sun. He is sitting on the terrace of his favourite bar in the centre of his hometown. The bar is crowded. Semi pulls out a pocket mirror – and starts putting on some lipstick.
“Here I feel safe. But I know a lot of stories of friends who had problems in public spaces and coffee shops just because they are gay“, he says. “One of my personal dreams is to open a gay bar and to tag mark friendly places here in Prishtina“.

Homophobia 

Semi is an exception. There are not many gay men who display their sexual orientation like him. They are afraid.
Though Europe’s youngest state has one of the broadest anti-discrimination laws, homosexuality is still a big taboo in Kosovar society. According to the 2010 poll by the Gallup Balkan Monitor and US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 90 % of the interviewees believe that homosexual acts are morally wrong. More than half of gays, lesbians, bi-, transsexual and queer people (LGBTQ) fear for their safety. Between 2006 and 2010 four homophobic murders were reported.
And it is not exclusive to rural areas. Last year some people from the local nightlife scene tried to open a gay bar in Prishtina. They chose the area next to the stadium and right behind the independance monument in the centre of Prishtina. The three metres high yellow steel letters are promising Kosovo to be “New Born“ – but evidently not in matters of tolerance towards lesbians, gays, bi-, transsexuals and queers. The first gay bar of Kosovo existed only for one single night. Angry citizens threatened the owners with damaging the place and even with throwing bombs.

Personal experiences

“The society is not ready for this“, says Ismail „Semi“ Cakolli. He used to work for Radio Television Kosovo (RTK), the national broadcasting service of Kosovo, as a presenter and reporter of a weekly TV youth programme. In 2008, he decided to come out. One year later Semi quit his job. “Some personal problems with the producer-in-chief and some pressure coming from people calling me names,“ he reasons. Despite these experiences, Semi does not want to hide. Three months ago he founded a Facebook page for LGBTQ issues, called “LGBT movement”.

The need to be careful

He is not the only one dealing with LGBTQ rights. There are some NGOs engaged in this in Kosovo. Libertas is the latest one. It is hidden behind a neutral steel door in a lively side street in the center of Prishtina. After entering, a tiny hand written sign saying “Libertas” shows the adept visitor the way up to the office. “We never publish our adress“, says a “Libertas” spokesman who wants to stay anonymous. “Some people know where they can find us, and people who don’t know, have to meet someone who knows. We have to secure ourselves from people wanting to harm us.”

Fighting for awareness

Strong traditional and religious values provoke prejudice and judgement in the Kosovar society where 90 % of the population is Muslim. “But prejudice come also from catholics all over the world“, the “Libertas” spokesman points out.
“Most gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgenders do not display their sexual orientation in public. They lead low-key lifestyles“.
Semi shows up regularly at the Libertas office to help out, hang around, and take part in group discussions the NGO offers. „We just want to live our lives as we want to live it. It is this what we are fighting for“.

Visiting a minority inside a minority: Roma transsexuals

In the municipality of Fushë Kosovo lives a handful of transsexual Roma people. When former TV journalist and gay rights activist Ismail „Semi“ Cakolli visited them for the first time, it was for a party. Afterwards, he kept in touch with them. He was touched by their poor living conditions and decided to help them. He regularly looks after them, brings food, clothes or medicine. At the moment, the 24 year-old is planning to make a documentary about the transsexual Roma people in Fushë Kosova.

Have a look at who they are and how they live.

 

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Flekitza, Serbian ♥ Vegim,  Albanian

„Love does not ask what you are“ – Does Kosovo?

by Nadine Kreuzahler, Emilie Sok, Dardan Zhegrova

„We can face everything that will happen to us. Vegim and I, we are very strong“, says Mirjana Radovanovic, also called Flekitza. She is Serbian, he is Albanian. Since they got together in 2004, Vegim Hashimi (30 year old Albanian radio and TV producer) and Flekitza (31 year old Serbian journalist) have been through difficult times. They had to move to Prishtina with no job, no money, without any contact with their families, just with the help of their friends. And start from scratch.

Do you have contact with your family now?

F: I didn´t see my family for two years. I tried to call them, I was crying on the phone, but my mother was really angry. Until now she still doesn´t want to see Vegim. Vegim´s father was also very angry with me. For three years, he didn´t want to speak to Vegim or hear anything about him. But Vegim´s mother tried to speak to us, she came to visit us and brought us some food. She was not so much against our relationship.

V: Now my father has no problem with Flekitza anymore. He lives with us in our flat in Prishtina because he is old and sick.

How can a relation between Albanians and Serbs work out?

F: In Prishtina, we don´t have problems. But for other Serbians it´s really hard because Belgrade forces them being this way. They isolate themselves. They don´t come to Prishtina. They are afraid they will be killed but they don´t even know why. They are sure that Albanians don´t like them. It is a prejudice coming from Serbian media.

V: I used to say: „A smile can break a demon“. I´m sure that with love and good will, things can change. Love doesn´t ask what you are or where you come from. It is not about politics because politics destroy the world. There are a lot of mixed couples here. But a lot of them just go abroad because they can´t handle the pressure. Flekitza and me decided to stand this pressure. Look! We are smiling all the time. Now  the pressure has disappeared.

F: I strongly believe in positive attitude. If you think positive, nothing can happen to you.


What are you doing to change things?

F: In 2007, we organized a music festival in Mitrovica with a friend, in the southern part of the city near the main bridge. We made sure that Serbians could have acces. It was a two-day festival where we mixed Albanians and Serbians. Artists could play together. Vegim and me are in love with music and I am sure that electronic music can connect people. A lot of people came to the party. One DJ from Belgrade came also and was surprised to cross the bridge so easily. This festival was our success. We didn´t face any threats. With music, with culture things can be changed. The year after, we tried to organize the same event but barricades of sand were put everywhere. The police forbid us to hold the festival. This year we tried again but we couldn´t find sponsors. They were afraid, Mitrovica is really thin-skinned. But we will continue! We are planning an event for coming 17th of february for independance day.

V: I took part in this festival too. Somehow I have been there and I have tried to overcome prejudice about Albanian people. I tried explaining them that we are all normal people. There has been a war but now it is over. Going to the Serbian part of Mitrovica, it was like going to a place where everything can happen. I spoke with Serbian people there but I was speaking in Serbian and I hid my identity, I told them that I was a Serb from London. I would never dare to speak with them in Albanian, it´s too dangerous. For  them, it is a provocation.

When you look at the future, are you optimistic or pessimistic about Kosovo?

F: We have everything here. I love Kosovo. I was born here, I spent my childhood here. It is a really beautiful country. We don´t have money but we have beautiful places: mountains and lakes. I don´t like politics, nationality and religion. I believe in love and positive energy. I believe in that and I don´t believe in Albanians and Serbs and in their fights.

Where do you see your future?

F: For now, we live here. I don´t know what will happen, but what I do know it is that I need more space to  be creative. Here, everybody wears the same uniform. In Kosovo you are restricted.

V: I will stay here because I am convinced you can build yourself a future everywhere so, why don´t you build your future here?

Driton Berisa – the musician
“Getting Roma’s voice to be heard louder”
by Nadine Kreuzahler, Emilie Sok, Dardan Zhegrova

Fancy trousers, a black shirt, smooth sun glasses and a friendly smile: Driton Berisa walks down the muddy pathways of Plemetina, a small village 20 minutes by bus from Prishtina. On his way to the youth center of Balkan Sunflowers NGO (BSF) he is bumping into friends hugging him, making jokes. Here, in the stone house tagged with graffiti, it all got started for him: working with children, making music and soundtracks for movies by local artists. In his music he wants to express the feelings of the Roma community in Kosovo dealing with different problems, but still going on.

Plemetina is placed between two powerplants: Kosovo A and B. The air is heavily polluted. The nearby Sitnica river is toxicated. Trash is dumped everywhere. Most people are unemployed. Driton Berisa could leave Plemetina for a better life, but he wants to stay.

How would you describe Plemetina to strangers?
Plemetina is inhabited with silent, sometimes weird but very natural people. People in Plemetina do not need much to be happy. They are simple people that easily find happiness. Unfortunately they have problems with basic survival like poverty, normal jobs, housing and similar stuff.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Obiliq, a small town that is about 3 to 4 km away from Plemetina village. In 2000, I moved with my family to Plemetina as we were forced to so. We had a lot of problems with Albanians because of our nationality, being Roma.

How has it been for you in Plemetina at the beginning?
I remember being not happy to change my home, making new friends, starting at a new school. I still rathered being in Obiliq, even though I felt safer in Plemetina for me and my familiy‘s lifes.

How have you started playing the guitar and compose music?
When I was a small boy I liked the guitar, but I thought that I was too stupid to ever learn it to play. However, when I got my first chance to try out my cousin’s guitar that had only three strings I learned in 2 hours to play 2 songs by making solo. I realized that I can do it. Later I found a guitar to buy for two Euro, bought strings for it for seven Euro. That was my first guitar! I enjoyed learning music and did better every day. Then I realized my need to express myself, and I found out that form e it is the best way to do it through guitar.

Where and when do you compose your music, do you have any favourite places?
I don’t have a favourite place. I only need to be alone, really alone while i’m composing so that I can talk only to the guitar. My inspiration so far has been love and life.

What are you doing right now?
I work part time as assistant coordinator where I am monitoring five education mediators out of 15. My job is to read their weekly reports, visit them, support them in keeping the minorities of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians children in school by maintaining good relationship with school-parents-education center.

Where is “home” for you?
My home is just my home in peace. I am lucky enjoy the peaceful normal days in my family where everyone is healthy. This is where I charge myself with energy. I have three sisters. Two of them are married and one is living with me and my family. I have parents, I have a wife and two beautiful children. My daughter is three years old and my son is one.

What is the best thing in Plemetina?
The warmness of the friendship you can get here. Truly, that is special

What is the worst thing?
The poverty and that people are not very open minded.

Are there moments, when you just think: I want to leave Plemetina to live somewhere else?
At least two times a week I think: if I had a normal job where I could just live in a clean place happily. I hate being here seeing the stupid power plant throwing dust on everything surrounding me. I hate thinking that the rate of the cancer in this municipality is higher then in others. I hate to think that maybe it was one of the factors to influence my mother getting cancer.

Talking of your future – where do you see yourself in five to ten years?
Having a good job, living in a better house, and definitely working on getting Roma’s voice to be heard louder.

Denis – the filmmaker

Inside Roma reality in Kosovo

by Nadine Kreuzahler, Emilie Sok, Dardan Zhegrova

Plemetina is twenty minutes by bus from Prishtina, but these twenty minutes take you to a parallel reality. Here lives Denis Mustafa (16), still in high school, living together with his parents and his sister. In this small town which is known for its polluted air as a result of the power plant Kosovo A and B, Denis the young filmmaker wants to stay.

Plemetina – the place that used to be a camp for displaced people during the war, is now a place where people live, even though the green areas are turned into trash areas, 80% of the inhabitants are living off social welfare, and the pollution in the air is 74 times higher than European standards allow.

Born and raised here Denis fell in love with the people and the landscape. As a child he was really active. Exploring and making people “nervous“ was his favourite part of the day.

His interest in movies started when he was young, his uncle was directing a film called „One Sun, One Nation“- a film project for and by Roma people, and for him it was like entering a beautiful until then unknown world.
“I was 11 years old when I saw my uncle working with the camera, I observed that, I went with him in fields and at that time I was fascinated by it“ says Denis.

The life in Plemetina is not that easy, sometimes it is even boring- as Denis says, but he still wants to live there. He really wants to experience and to document the life of Roma.
“Roma people are the same as everyone else“, is what he wants to tell through his movies.

Entering that wonderworld of film making, made him curious and willing to experiment with the camera. After a while he had the opportunity to make a film – as a participant in the workshop of the peace organization GAIA “Art in Action“. His short film called “Toxic Fun“ in which he tells the life of a Roma family from Plemetina won the first prize in the Rolling Film Festival in Kosovo and in the Depok Festival in Budapest in 2011.

“This success motivated me to continue and to love the film even more“ says Denis.

In the village, everyone was saying hello to Denis, they were all proud of this optimistic and funny guy. We walked to this green area near the Sitnica lake, where he also filmed some parts of the film “Toxic Fun“. It is one of the areas where people go fishing, having picnic and it is one of his favourite places to go.

“Sometimes I come here by myself, I just want to sit and hear the birds, it inspires me.“

Not only with his movies, but also with NGO-work in Balkan Sunflower(BSF) and GAIA, Denis wants to overcome all the stereotypes for Roma people.

Balkan Sunflowers is an international grassroots organisation founded in 1999 to help the Kosovar refugees. Doing what money can’t do, they wanted to help with person-to-person contact, so Denis as an independent human rights activist wanted to be part of this organization.
Now he is one of the tutors in Plemetina’s BSF, working in a program which aims to help the children‘s education as well as the integration of their parents. Also he wokes for the (Roma) Rolling Film Festival in Prishtina, where he does a reportage on the enrollment oft he festival.

Even though Plemetina is not a well known place to live, there are a lot of talented and ambitious people like Denis who want to break stereotypes and change life for the better.

Aleksandar – The Vandal Boy
By Milka Domanović and Lisa Crinon

The Belgrade block 72, that is all what Aleksandar has. It’s his country, his religion, his moral. Within few huge grey buildings this street smart photographer built his survival code, because streets are often borders.

The concrete landscape of the Belgrade blocks in the new part of the city one can either love or leave. But rarely anyone who was born there leaves it. Blocks are not the most beautiful child of Serbia’s capital, but the unruly one, that is different, that never changes. Aleksandar Kenjalo, called Sale, 26, grew up in the block 72, the so called New Block, although it has not been new for a while. He cannot imagine growing up or living in another part of the city, not even another block. The streets between the blocks are borders. They divide business, life style. Sale finished high school under the pressure of his family and became a photographer, but has never worked as one. He prefered to be street smart and find himself a job. “Most of the young people from the block are not interested in working legally and earning an average salary of 300 euros per month. They often find ‘their ways’ of making more money”, says Sale. He never considered leaving the country, going abroad and trying his luck out of the block, out of Serbia. “Blocks are life. I don’t know nothing but those blocks. Whenever I need something, I turn to the blocks, whenever I miss something, only friends from the blocks can bring it back to me.”

Serbia is where “Partizan” is

As a teenager Sale founded the fan club “Vandal Boys”, which supports one of the two major football teams in the country “Partizan”. This was actually his first contact with the outer world. “I have never left Serbia, except for the football game in Bosnia”, Sale says proudly. It was brave back then, to oppose other fan groups, which are also supporters of “Partizan”. He admits he had no idea how violent that can become. “I didn’t think it could go that far.  Some of my friends lost their lives in the clashes with other fans of  ‘Partizan’”. After those tragedies, Sale felt responsible, because he thought he could prevent it. But today he is still a “Vandal Boy”. People learned to stick together within the blocks and groups they made and don’t hesitate to get into a fight outside of the block or the group. A block is defining its inhabitants maybe even more than a country, more than a nation, more than a religion. “Who is my family – of course my sister, my mother, my grandmother. But my friends from the block are the fourth member of my family.“

People who block

A huge amount of people in a small space – people in the block differ in so many ways, but in the end their conservative views bring lots of them together. For example, many of them think homosexuals don’t even exist. Sale is aware of the fact they do exist and they are, as he says, everywhere. And it seems he does not have a problem with that. However, when it comes to the yearly gay parade in Belgrade, a strange mixture of homophobia and nationalism appears – Sale went to almost every gay pride, but not as a supporter. “The gay parade in Belgrade – they are striking the core of our Serbian identity as if we were a nation of faggots. And we won’t let that ever happen.” It seems like a block has its own opinion, philosophy and that rarely anyone is ready to question it, to defy it. People don’t want to leave it, but when they do, this block identity remains.

What if…

Sale sometimes regrets it didn’t turn other way, that he didn’t get educated. He is pushing some of his younger friends to study hard and to have a chance to do something with their lives. Still, he doesn’t see he had a choice and that he had his own life in his own hands. The block has it. And he is particularly pleased with his life, but afraid that it is time for him to get serious. “You live here, surrounded by all those fools, a lot of them, you go to the match, you meet the fools from the rest of the city, and there is no way back. You know what you know, if you manage in that circle, you are good.”

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Uroš – the gay James Dean

The Serbian urban guy has an avant-garde taste – in his lifestyle as well as in his way to fight for gay rights.
by Lisa Crinon and Milka Domanović

He definitely got something from James Dean. With his worn-out jeans and his lascivious way of smoking his cigarette, Uroš is undoubtedly a cool guy. 29 years old, a purposely three-day bear, big brown eyes, thin and always, a smile. Beside his studies and his work as a travel and a social media agent Uroš is fighting to make gays, like him, a normal part of the society.

Drinking his Latte in the back of a fancy bar, Uroš depicts the struggle being gay still represents in his country. “It is a difficult fight. In order to have more political influence you have to play a good game” he claims. For himself and his own sexual background, no need to play, “It just happens”. No denial, no rejection from his surroundings, no mean jokes from peers, as it seems: no discrimination. “It was just a normal feeling that it should be that way”. And so does he live his life, as it should be. Whether downtown in one of the plenty cafés he usually goes to, or in a club where he will sometimes take his shirt off, just to feel free and dance, as any party boy will do in another normal capital. But in Serbia, he is still an exception.

A psychological torture

“Living in the countryside as a gay can be awful. I can just imagine the psychological torture those people are probably going through, from their community, friends, surroundings. It can be really difficult in Serbia”, Uroš describes. And there are still fathers who prefer killing their own sons than letting them be gay.

It is about raising the awareness on the gay community. Therefore, a good instrument is the gay pride, called “Belgrade Pride” in the Serbian capital. Not only is it the biggest event of the gay community but it also has a tremendous symbolic power. It is about getting LGBT people in the middle of the street, in the middle of the society. Since 2009 the pride is banned almost every year – slowly it becomes a tradition, an unsound game between activists and politicians and a statement for the LGTB community. Even policemen position themselves. Like the one Uroš met, “I hate doing the parade, I hate to have to protect gay people” he told him.

Feeling oppressed by the ban of the pride, the gay community stick to the planned controversial photo-exhibition. Depicted: the scene of the Last Supper reconstructed, with queer apostles wearing latex and leather, but not a lot of it. Another picture shows Jesus, all in white, his hair flying in the wind, and with his fetish believers in total admiration. Sex and Religion, enough to raise a societal debate. And it did harm, according to Uroš. “That exhibition heated up the situation even more. You just give more arguments to the opposite side to ban the parade”, he says, still smiling.

Act!

“If you are doing something for the community, you have to think about the community”. Organizers do have a responsibility. And Uroš does have a problem with the way some human rights activits still protest in Serbia, “they use street protest in order to change something”. Time for some changes, for some entertainment, and why not, for a flashmob.

Downtown in Belgrade, rush-hour in the fancy but still conservative Serbian capital, the perfect moment for a see-and-be-seen. It is also the moment Uroš choose for his action. A pop-like music begins to drone in the streets, louder and louder. Young people step out of the crowd to move to the rhythm, more and more. Passersby stop by, looking amazed, curious and intrigued. In the middle two couple in wedding outfits are attracting all the attention. Even a registrar is here to wed them. The song is almost finished, the two brides found to each other, hold hands, raise their veils, and kiss. “The approach should be like this”, Uroš says.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Special wish: being normal

This flashmob earned mostly positive feedbacks. Mostly. Yes, there is a slowly emerging gay scene in Belgrad. And yes, somehow it allows young boys to wear tights pans or wide neck t-shirts in the city. But it doesn’t prevent the yearly ban of the gay pride, the violent protests against it, nor the fear of gay couples to hold hands in public.

Normality can help to make the gay community an accepted part of the Serbian society, according to Uroš. And then it will all come from itself, everybody, politicians and civil society will follow, Uroš is confident about it: “It is inevitable, it is just a matter of time for it to happen”, he assures, and lights another cigarette.