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rfmcdonaldBelgrade's gay pride parade has been cancelled, as the Serbian interior minister wanted so as to avoid harm coming to the police the way that they did last time, when anti-gay protesters rioted and attacked--among others--the police. There have been six arrests of potential hooligans, but Belgrade's mayor Dragan Djilas would have banned the gay pride parade himself.
GLBT rights in Serbia have experenced very slow progress and in fact some sustained regression, liberalization in the autonomous northern province by Vojvodina in 1978 being followed by its recriminalization in 1990 when Vojvodina fell back under direct rule of Milosevic's Serbia. Balkan Anarchist Alan Jakšić's overview of homophobia in the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia excluded, on account of its rather less eventful history) suggests that the nationalism of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, perhaps particularly in a Serbia that cut itself off from degenerate foreign cosmopolitanisms and was cut off by the outside world, too, is key. Gays are foreign; heterosexuality is hegemonic.
Three notes.
1. In political science, a state is an entity that has a monopoly over the legitimate exercise of force within its claimed territory. By banning Belgrade's gay pride parade and giving as justification the need to protect the forces of law and order from being exposed to disorder, the Serbian state is either abandoning its sovereignty or is ceding violence to anti-gay hooligans.
2. I'm rather glad that gay rights are increasingly considered human rights, and that the Serbian government's concession to violent homophobes will cost it.
3. As the Economist's Eastern Approaches blog speculated, this shameful event is just one policy decision of many that suggests Serbia will be far from following Croatia into the European Union. Notwithstanding that bloc's ongoing problems, the promise of European Union accession--even eventual accession--has been key in ensuring reforms to "Euro-Atlantic standards". Especially since the European Union is more likely to be introverted than not in the coming years, this suggests that Serbia--and its neighbours--will remain a black hole in the middle of Europe. Bad Things will come of this, most notably for the people of Serbia. Serbian talents and geography may be potentially central to southeastern Europe, but the region can cope.
“It allegedly aims at showing differences and waking up tolerance, but it always causes the opposite. Xenophobia has increased in Serbia after last year’s parade,” the mayor pointed out.
“If you are a homosexual, that’s your right and nobody should harass you because of it, but you won’t gain anything with a walk,” he said and insisted that it was important to come out with an idea how to make our society more tolerant and expressed belief that the only way to do so was through dialogue and concrete actions.
Đilas stressed that Serbia currently had much more serious problems than the Pride Parade, pointing out that Serbs were unable to walk freely in a part of its territory.
“Today you have a situation that you cannot walk around a formal and official part of Serbia’s territory, in Kosovo and Metohija. Somebody gets killed over there just because they are Serbs and we live with it,” he pointed out and added that it could not be expected to have such situation in one part of the country and completely different in the other.
The Belgrade mayor rejected accusations that the Pride Parade was cancelled because of the upcoming elections.
“Do you really think that somebody out there is thinking whether there will be more votes if the Parade is held or banned, and the elections are in April of next year? That has nothing to do with it,” he explained.
GLBT rights in Serbia have experenced very slow progress and in fact some sustained regression, liberalization in the autonomous northern province by Vojvodina in 1978 being followed by its recriminalization in 1990 when Vojvodina fell back under direct rule of Milosevic's Serbia. Balkan Anarchist Alan Jakšić's overview of homophobia in the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia excluded, on account of its rather less eventful history) suggests that the nationalism of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia, perhaps particularly in a Serbia that cut itself off from degenerate foreign cosmopolitanisms and was cut off by the outside world, too, is key. Gays are foreign; heterosexuality is hegemonic.
With regards to gay rights issues specifically, the solidarity demonstrated by LGBT activists around the world, including those in Balkan countries, is perceived by far-right advocates and supporters in the Balkans as evidence of some kind of "concerted effort" by gays and other "sexual deviants" within a well-funded international "gay lobby" to infiltrate society, influence it to its detriment by "promoting" homosexuality as a natural and normal part of everyday life (something that they wholeheartedly reject), and even seeking equal rights with married straight couples, thus encouraging moral "decadence" and "degeneration" throughout society! (Read here (homophobic article) and here in Serbian.) But most "conclusive" of that suspicion of all, more so than those "provocative" gay rights activists within those various LGBT organisations active in Balkan countries, are: one, the human rights activists, who detail discrimination and attacks against LGBT people and speak up for their rights, as they are particularly suspected of being linked to and funded by liberal Western sources; and two, pro-EU liberal politicians in the region, who want their countries to follow the course of "Euro-Atlantic integration", who likewise defend gay rights activists' "freedom of expression" et al., and likewise are suspected of being linked to and funded by liberal Western sources themselves. Such support from human rights activists and pro-EU liberal politicians "confirms" the far-right's suspicion that there is detrimental foreign influence present in their countries, that "promotes" the toleration of "immorality" as something perfectly acceptable, and in so doing could undermine the fabric of society in their countries completely!
[. . .]
Apart from "provocative" pro-gay websites, it's not difficult to find homophobic graffiti, posters and stickers on the walls of many buildings, containing hostile messages like: „Marš Pederi iz Srbije!“ ("Poufs, get out of Serbia!"); or morbid ones like: „Beogradom krv će liti, gej parade neće biti!“ ("[Through] Belgrade blood will pour, the gay parade will not be [held]!"). Other than messages on walls, among the far-right, Nazi-saluting crowd of protestors that gathered round to intimidate the small number of marchers during Split's recent gay pride mentioned above, there was one particularly threatening taunt being jeered at them: „Ubij, ubij, ubij pedera!“ ("Kill, kill, kill the pouf!"). But what is more shocking than the messages that are seen and heard in the region is how a lot of ordinary straight people in those countries consider the violent counter-protestors as the "good guys" in these stories, rather than the LGBT marchers, who bravely venture out to openly express a fundamental part of their personal identity.
[. . .]
You will also find that a lot of very homophobic, right-wing straight people in Balkan countries feel "under attack" or "discriminated against" for being "normal" by gays and those of a liberal persuasion (read here in Croatian). In fact, homophobic outbursts and rhetoric are widely commended by such people as "healthy" and "reasonable" reactions to the "sick" and "immoral" promotion of LGBT "propaganda" and gay-friendly liberalism that supports it! And to top it all off, they resent any liberal politician from parties supportive of joining the European Union, who is vocally sympathetic to gay rights and promotes tolerance of homosexuals and other "sexual minorities" in their countries, with the intent of encouraging their societies to be more tolerant of diversity, and thus increase their countries' eligibility to join the EU. Homophobia, therefore, represents a morally-righteous defense to save the nation's "sound reason" (zdrav razum in Serbian and Croatian) from pro-EU, pro-gay, politically correct liberalism in their countries!
Three notes.
1. In political science, a state is an entity that has a monopoly over the legitimate exercise of force within its claimed territory. By banning Belgrade's gay pride parade and giving as justification the need to protect the forces of law and order from being exposed to disorder, the Serbian state is either abandoning its sovereignty or is ceding violence to anti-gay hooligans.
2. I'm rather glad that gay rights are increasingly considered human rights, and that the Serbian government's concession to violent homophobes will cost it.
3. As the Economist's Eastern Approaches blog speculated, this shameful event is just one policy decision of many that suggests Serbia will be far from following Croatia into the European Union. Notwithstanding that bloc's ongoing problems, the promise of European Union accession--even eventual accession--has been key in ensuring reforms to "Euro-Atlantic standards". Especially since the European Union is more likely to be introverted than not in the coming years, this suggests that Serbia--and its neighbours--will remain a black hole in the middle of Europe. Bad Things will come of this, most notably for the people of Serbia. Serbian talents and geography may be potentially central to southeastern Europe, but the region can cope.
