Monday, May 24, 1999

It's payback time?

    Q: The accounts of Serb suffering that you relate on your site pale in comparison to the scenes and reports of hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees suffering that we see on CNN every day.

    Good thing you mentioned that all those pictures you've seen were on CNN. Media coverage of this war, like all wars in the past, is neither objective nor professional. You have CNN; we have our state television.

    This doesn't mean that we don't believe that Albanians are suffering. On the contrary. Many of us were involved in various activities since the beginning of the conflicts (one and a half year ago), tried to get in contact with the moderate Albanians on several occasions. Serb sufferings (using this term because you did) are pale in comparison to what is happening (and has been happening) in Kosovo: we sometimes have electricity and water (this is the situation in Belgrade, it is only worse in smaller cities), we manage to buy bread, sugar, cigarettes if we stand in line long enough. But we still have our homes, are living in our hometown and don't have police forces breathing down our necks. We're not trying to compare our misfortune to the one of the Albanians. We are, and have been, against any violence methods, regardless of their origin: Serbian forces, NATO forces or KLA.

    Q: If the bombing is so bad, how do you manage to attend concerts and have leisurely brunches at the sidewalk cafes in Belgrade (this is the image we see on CNN too).

    After spending the whole night in shelters or sleepless in your own apartments if there are no shelters nearby (which is the case in some older parts of Belgrade, let alone the small towns and villages in Serbia) you have to get some steam off or you'll go nuts! Some of us study, some work on sites like this one, some sleep hoping they'll manage to sleep through this and, yes, some drink coffee "at the sidewalk cafes". As for the concerts: people attended them in the beginning to try to forget the previous night and prepare thmesleves for the next one. Now, there are maybe 50 people attending them.

    I'd gladly trade with someone working 16 hours a day for a small but secure salary in a safe surroundings than to have coffee during the day and listen to the sounds of missiles and explosions nearby at night, hoping they'll miss my house.

    Q: Although most Americans are quite indifferent to your plight, those who do take an interest are thinking "Well, it's payback time for all the savagery committed by the Serbs over the past decade." How do you respond to that?

    This is just another prejudice we're fighting against. All Serbs, Iraqi, Vietnamese, Koreans, Cambodians, as well as all Albanians, Bosnia's, Americans or Germans are not savages. If a nation's dictator regime (like ours is), that doesn't have people's support (on the contrary, see FAQ or the latest comment by Cancer Woman), commits savage, brutal, inhuman deeds, you accuse the whole nation? Having in mind all anti-war protest since the 1991 (see also this question), you can say that all Serbs are butchers? Like all Germans were in WW II? Speaking of which, why didn't you raise your righteous voice in 1995 when half a million of Serbs were banished from Krajina (part of Croatia)?

    Payback time it is. But don't punish innocent civilians for something they haven't done and for something they strongly oppose.

    Question for you: should all Americans pay for the Hiroshima, genocide on native Indians etc?

    We think NOT.

Ivan, msn.com