Young (in) Serbia
Despite the Milošević era ended in 2000 Serbia is still somehow in a post conflict period. Although troubled by recent history, slowed down by the economic decline and the heritage of Tito’s Socialist Yugoslavia the transition of the young republic of Serbia (2006) is continuously. The past and present come in many appearances, some bitter, and some beautiful but still clearly visible. To disclose the ordinary, I used an approach of observation, through surveying different places I get involved in life of people I meet. I mainly focus on the young generation and their relationship between identity and home ground. The boundary between intriguing and stereotypical approaches is difficult to draw. In the Western imagination, the image of the Balkans is dominated by the cliché of rash bandits, wild gypsies and otherwise ill-mannered half-barbarians. In a certain sense the Balkans are a symbol for what we in Western Europe have gradually gotten rid of in our so-called civilisation process. Our image of Serbia is still further clouded because the country is regarded as the chief culprit in the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s. These wars are history now, but Serbia still has to live with their effects every day. For the young people of the capital, who grew up relatively far away from the real violence of the war, these consequences are visible and tangible.In scarcely twenty years Serbia degenerated into a regressive society that has become accustomed to the certainty of uncertainty and the lack of any perspective on the future.