As Edward Said famously pointed out, it has long been a tradition in the West to view the East as savage and wild. Serbia, as a global pariah, suffers from this more than most places despite it being on the very edge of what would be considered global East at all (indeed, many Serbians see themselves as one step away from EU membership, but I have a feeling they are going to be disappointed...). A very mild version of this notion of the Balkans as an untrapped wilderness came to light yesterday as we were sitting in sunlight infused cafe having a chat with Igor, a friend of James'. About a week ago the BBC was reporting wild storms lashing the Balkans, and causing havoc on the streets of its major cities. I expressed surprise that the weather had calmed down so quickly, as yesterday it could have almost been spring, and people were striding through the streets with sunglasses or shaking off their too-heavy coats. Igor snorted into his coffee. He shrugged his shoulders and said 'But of course - this is the East. Naturally our weather is more wild, our people more crazy and our politics more absurd.' He rolled his eyes and with that look dimissed any faith I had had in the BBC's neutral reporting skills, at least when it comes to Serbia.
I had already experienced a bit of Igor's frustration at world media myself, while living in Russia. The recent Russian election was a charade, and everyone I spoke to seemed fully aware of this. There was never any question that United Russia would not win by a landslide, and later reports of coerced voting in some regions came as no surprise to most people I knew in St Petersburg (that said, St Petersburgers I spoke to were very proud that their region returned the smalled vote for United Russia, despite Putin being a local - in fact I believe it was the only region in Russia where United Russia did not win the vote, an honour that went instead to the semi-liberal A Just Russia).
You would think the BBC would have enough material from this with which to demonise the Russian electoral process. However, their coverage of the election focussed so disproportionatly on Garry Kasparov and his doomed-from-the-start attempt to register his Other Russia party for the election. Kasparov is a very attractive figure for Western media, it seems, despite the fact that he is (quite transparently) a right-wing neo liberal whose policies reflect the interests and concerns of approximately 0.5% of the Russian population, at least those Russians I have spoken to. What is worse, Other Russia is a party made up not only of Kasparov's party The United Civil Front, but also Eduard Limonov's quasi-fascist National Bolshevik Party, a fact the BBC conveniently fails to mention in its coverage of Other Russia's protests.
None of this is to say, of course, that Kasparov and Other Russia were not completely right to protest their exclusion from the electoral process, and expecially their terrible treatment by the Russian police in the March of Discontent in November. What is irritiating is just that the BBC represent this strange collection of neo-liberals and quasi-fascists as Russia's only hope, and heorise them without interrogating what their ideas are.
As far as I know, Serbia has no equivalent to Other Russia, at least not one that is challenging the presidential election which will take place in seven days. It will be interesting to see how people respond to the outcome - I have seen an equal amount of graffiti supporting Tadic and Nikolic, and heaps along the lines of 'One Serbia. Kosovo leaves us never.' We'll see.
As well as deciphering election posters and graffiti, I've been checking out some of the more aesthetic attractions of the White City, including St Sava's cathedral, apparently the largest orthodox cathedral in the world. It is about a five minute walk from our apartment, and its dome dominates the whole area's skyline (infact, the whole city's). It is all very impressive from the outside, but on the inside its a shell, as they are still finishing the building over 100 years after it was started. Much more interesting is Maly St Sava's (maly=little) which is next to the cathedral and stands in as a surrogate church while building continues. It was finished in 1895 and is a gorgeous church which reminds me of a smaller version of St Basil's in Moscow - the walls are covered with psychadelic murals and the doorframe is worn where the congregation members kiss it on their way in. I wandered in while a service was in process - apparently acceptable in orthodox services, during which everyone stands up anyway and people wander around kissing icons while the priest sings - and let the music and incense wash over me as I checked out the images of St Sava, Serbia's most holy saint.
I'll post again once we know the election results, or something else exciting happens. In the mean time, for anyone for whom my comments re Serbia are inspiring a burning desire to know more about the Balkans (!) the English language website of B92, a major TV network here, is the best source of news I've found. Today its front page is dominated by an image of St Savas from last night, which was the Julien calendar new year, and Tadic's recent pronouncements on Kosovo. I havn't read it thoroughly enough yet to know which side they take politically, but it may be worth checking out anyway. Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment