Welcome to the Crossroads: Snapshots from the White City

Inside Kalemagdon, Belgrade’s ancient fortress, there is a tomb. Its inscription is in Arabic. The tomb is one of the last footprints of the Ottoman Empire which captured and recaptured Belgrade some 40+ times over the centuries. The tomb lies in a courtyard encircled by Austro-Hungarian towers built on Roman walls built on Celtic foundations. This is Belgrade. Welcome to the crossroads.

Downtown Belgrade. Glass and steel skyscrapers. Speeding taxicabs. Upper Market Street in San Francisco with a Balkan flair. Orthodox churches, temples, even a mosque. But in the middle, a building straight out of the CNN nightly news. The former Yugoslav Ministry of the Army…with a giant hole in the middle of it. Twisted steel girders and shattered glass. You can still see the scorch marks. Reminders that less than 10 years ago the city was hit day and night by NATO bombs. Welcome Belgrade. Welcome to the crossroads.

Across the Sava River. Under the freeway overpass. Forgotten by much of Belgrade. A shanty town. Hundreds of tin and cardboard shacks. You expect this in Kigali, not one of the oldest capital cities in Europe. These are the Roma. The gypsys. The Belgrade not shown in the postcards. A young girl singing on a bus. A woman selling stockings at the bus stop. A man pushing a cart covered with cardboard. Welcome to Belgrade. Welcome to the crossroads.

Embassy District. Scrawled in green spray paint on the wall: “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia.” And in a way, it is. Hundreds of years ago, the first Serbian independent kingdom was founded in a region that is now recognized by the U.S. as a different country. Now Kosovo population is 90% ethnic Albanian. Many Albanians suffered terribly under the ruthless ethnic cleansing of Slobodan Milosovic, the democratically elected President of Serbia in the 90’s. Many Serbs still will not acknowledge that this took place, or that they are at all responsible. Kosovo’s Albanian majority now treat the small Serb minority as second class citizens. Nobody right, nobody wrong. Welcome to Belgrade. Welcome to the crossroads.

Department for Media and Communications, Signdum University. Our group listens to young Belgradian activists from the Youth Human Rights Initiative describe their work. Everything from observing elections to training the next generation. They try to erase the prejudices embodied by the green spray paint on the wall in the Embassy District. It is as simple as a bus ticket. A ticket that allows youth in Belgrade and youth in Pristina (capital of Kosovo) to visit each others’ cities. To see the reality behind their parents’ harsh stories of “them.” To see that “they” are not really that different.

Welcome to Belgrade…Beograd…the White City. Welcome to Serbia. Welcome to the Balkans. Welcome to the crossroads.

Be The Change

Our tour guide during our visit to Sabor, the Croatian Parliament, was Marija Lugaric, age 30. Given her age, most of the group thought she was a junior delegate. Ne (no in Croatian). Marija Lugaric has been in Sabor for almost 10 years. She first got involved in politics at 18 when she and her friends lobbied the local government in Zagreb to free up the city’s nightclubs and concert halls from the strict state controls of Titoist Yugoslavia. From there she worked her way up quickly through the youth branch of her party and is now one of the senior members of Sabor, much to the chagrin of some of the older, but not yet senior delegates. Her message to us was clear. It doesn’t matter what you want to get involved in, whether it be politics, civil society, or the private sector. Just get involved. Make a difference. Be the change. Obama…Lugaric…us…coincidence? Yes we can.