Thursday, April 29, 1999.

NOT SO INNOCENT VICTIMS

    I have been striving to write something about the greatest shame of Serbia. No, I am not talking about all this misery Milosevic dragged us in. I am also not talking about all these crimes done with three fingers in the air. I want to speak about the mobs decorated with paper targets, who desperately bring their hands up in the air, asking: "Why are they doing this to us?"

    Soon after the first bombings, one of the foreign news stations put the following text on their web site : "Not so innocent victims". This site tried to explain the development of this situation on Kosovo, with special references to aggressive Albanian separatistic politics. These same Albanians are now considered to be innocent victims. I agree that we shouldn't even discuss if anyone deserves to feel the terror of Serbian police on Kosovo, even the Albanians. But Milosevic is not the only one who is to blame. Their above-mentioned politics is to blame, too. Is that an excuse for the actions of Serbian police and army in the southern province? I wouldn't say so.

    The Serbs are generally very fatalistic, and they think that "heroic" equals "one who suffers". That's why there is a mania for paper targets, and also ones on T-shirts and badges. Milosevic and his television are wisely manipulating with these trends, and they channel all the negative nationalistic features toward this goal. The Serbs are indeed the victims of this war, for the civilians are being killed, and a great problem is how anyone will live in this country after all the industry, including the agriculture, is destroyed. But the thing forgotten and not mentioned is that Serbs are also not so innocent victims.

    I am not talking about all these people in Serbia who have a political common sense and who had been aware of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo (which had been waiting behind the corner all these years), those people who saw the future when it started in Slovenia. I am speaking about people who are not only against Milosevic, but are also aware of the reasons for bombing Yugoslavia.

    People who suffered the greatest shock are those who never had any interest in politics, no matter if they are for Milosevic or against him. They have been watching all the wars Serbia was in (although Milosevic never publicly admitted that) on the television, as some evil that is happening somewhere far away. They didn't understand why it is happening, and they especially didn't understand that it has anything to do with them.

    The sanctions are also considered a great injustice, not only because the originally chosen target didn't feel them, but also because of the lack of reasons. Of course, noone can say that Serbia is the only villain in all these wars up to now. But the citizens of Serbia refused to accept that every bomb hitting Sarajevo hit Belgrade in the same time. Now we all suffer from the consequences of such thinking.

    "How can the world tolerate this?" Easily, because the world doesn't care about Yugoslavia, in the same manner that Yugoslavia lived quite normally while people from Sarajevo fled from the bombs and the Nero of the Pale. That is the reason why the question "how can they do this to us?" is a pathetic vail of somebody who refused to see what happened before his or her very nose for the last eight years.

    This comment is not a support to the NATO actions, because a blackmail with the complete destruction of the country can not lead to any normal way out. This is oriented to Serbia, who can not see the top of its very nose, because of the paper target covering its face.

Cancer Woman