A woman in black carefully places a single white lily between the teddies and other soft toys that cover the fence outside the school. Two weeks after the gun attack in which a 13-year-old boy killed nine classmates and a security guard, most of the flowers are wilting. But still people come. I ask a younger woman what one of the Cyrillic signs means. “Sleep peacefully, little angels,” she says, before breaking down.
This attack, on May 3rd, and another by a 21-year-old the following day that killed a further eight people, has shocked many who blame what they say is Serbia’s violent media and aggressive political culture.
“It’s a very big event for Serbia,” said a 22-year-old university student who didn’t want to give his name. “At the first march the other night, every single person cried. It might sound stupid, but it was like 9/11 the way it changed something.”
I had stopped him for directions to a mural of the convicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić that had been painted over as a response to the shooting. He offered to escort me. The mural has been covered in white, with a red heart at the centre.
While courteous and helpful, the views of this student (who wasn’t born at the time of the war in Bosnia) are an insight into how Serbia has not faced up to its past. “I’d like something to commemorate the victims, but not this. Karadžić is a positive figure for us. He protected Serb civilians in Bosnia. Many of the things that are said to have happened there were orchestrated lies against the Serbian people.”
The artist who took the action was Djorde Miketic, who is also an opposition MP.
“This mural celebrating a war criminal responsible for the death of children is 200m from the school where that shooting happened,” he says. “There are 200 murals like this in Belgrade. We need to clean the public space. The promotion of war criminals is all over the TV. There’s a glorification of violence and no sanction for it.”
The next day I go to a protest outside the National Assembly and feel a sense of deja vu. In 2000 I was in the square when protesters overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, who had refused to accept electoral defeat. Today’s protesters are not seeking to overthrow the government but their demands include a number of ministerial resignations (the education minister is already gone), the banning of the worst TV shows and proper media regulation. The government has set up an amnesty to hand in illegal weapons before June 8th, after which they promise severe sanctions. Rocket launchers, guns and grenades are among the items already handed in.
The crowd builds and sets off down Kneza Milosa, swelling to tens of thousands as it passes the seat of government, then blocks a bridge over the Sava. I meet Dejana among the crowd, whose sister teaches in the school where the shooting happened.
“She had to identify the children. Another teacher helped carry out the bodies. It was a complete meltdown, a complete grief. But this is the culmination of 30 years of violence and oppression.”
Most people outside Belgrade don’t have cable, and the protest will not be seen in smaller cities and rural areas where TV stations are controlled by the government. Serbia’s president Alexander Vucic learned his trade as a young information minister under Milosevic, and was formerly a member of an ultranationalist party. A former journalist, Dejana says a free media is the only way things will change.
“The political system here now is autocracy. One man, our president Alexnader Vucic, decides everything. It’s like North Korea. Now he is calling his own protest for May 26th. Thousands of people who work for the state will be blackmailed to join it.”
While there were no party banners among the protesters, the opposition was involved in organising them, including green group Nedavimo Beograd – Don’t Let Belgrade Drown.
“These protests are about mobilising society to say enough is enough,” says Robert Kodma, one of their MPs. “Whether you are pro or antigovernment, we need to make systematic changes about how we deal with violence. But now the president is calling ‘his’ people on to the street. That contributes to the polarisation of society and brings it to the verge of escalating into violence.”
I meet Polish-Irishman Jas Kaminski, who runs the Belgrade-Irish festival, at a graffiti strewn skateboard park on the banks of the Sava river. His 10-year-old son is enjoying a session with a group of local kids. “My son was actually at that school [where the shooting took place] until January. We felt it was too competitive, too much rote learning, and we moved him somewhere else.”
We head to the gleaming USCE shopping centre for a coffee. In 1999 Nato bombed the tower behind it, which contained the offices of Milosevic’s political party. As a reporter for RTÉ, based in the hotel across the road, I heard the impact of the first cruise missile, and the terrifying whistle of the second one coming in. Now international brands fill the space, sushi is on the menu and there’s a fashion show taking place. We could be in any EU capital but that path is proving long and tortuous, and it’s not clear it will ever happen.
“I know it would be a good thing for them, as it has been for Ireland,” says Kaminski, who has lived here for a decade. “But the context is very different. In order to get in they have to compromise on Kosovo, and they’re not going to see the real benefits for a long time. On top of that many people here think – you want us to join an organisation that bombed us?” While it was Nato that took action to stop Milosevic in Kosovo, in the public mind the EU includes most of the same countries.
Many Serbs who are pro-EU don’t believe it will ever happen. I meet student Elena and Lada at a cafe in the hipster Cetinjska enclave, on the site of an abandoned brewery. It’s an inclusive space; one of its galleries is hosting an exhibition by a Bosnian artist. In sharp contrast, Elena shows me some clips from one of the reality TV shows, which she and many others blame for contributing to a culture of violence. It’s a disturbing mix of housemates fighting, women being beaten, and in one case a gun being pulled.
“This stuff is being broadcast 24/7 on these private channels that are run by people who are close to the government. When there are protests they stop showing the worst shows for a week or two and then it starts up again.”
Art student Lada is applying to transfer to study in Berlin. “Corruption is so rife you feel so hopeless sometimes. People think, if I rise up I might lose my spot for the entirety of my life. That’s why I want to go abroad. So many talents are leaving because they don’t have soil to grow.”
Serbia’s economy has improved significantly since the war years, with investment from EU member states and a growing IT industry, but still falls far short of its potential. While Vucic claims to want to lead Serbia towards the EU, the country has fallen to 91st on the Reporters without Borders press freedom index, corruption is rampant and he is still fence sitting over a European proposal to normalise relations with Kosovo. Last week the European Parliament said accession negotiations with Belgrade should advance only if the country aligns with EU sanctions against Russia. In the meantime, Serbia allows Russians to move to Belgrade in their tens of thousands (a proportion are, however, opposed to Putin and/or avoiding conscription) and state run TV parrots a pro-Moscow narrative.
The war in Ukraine has prompted greater political attention on Serbia, with western countries, Russia and China all vying for influence, and Vucic perceived to be playing every angle. Last week saw a flurry of visits by diplomats including USAID administrator Samantha Power, EU Pristina-Belgrade Dialogue chief Miroslav Lajčak and Irishman David O’Sullivan, the EU’s special envoy on sanctions.
Nedavimo MP Kodma doesn’t see how the country can join the EU under the current regime, and doesn’t believe the EU should reward Vucic if he eventually joins in sanctions against Russia.
“It’s a stalemate. For this regime to go forward with EU integration they would have to fight corruption and organised crime. But they are connected with corruption and organised crime. They would have to make the media independent. But they are in control of the media and ruling because of it. If they stop that in order to become a EU member they will lose power. In any case, for the EU – do you really want another Orban in your midst?”
