Another reminder -- get the guidelines and submit, submit, submit!

REMINDER - The Muabet Project at the Watson Institute at Brown University is accepting submissions for the essay competition entitled "Evaluating Intervention: Local perspectives on democracy-building in the Post-Yugoslav countries and territories." Students, scholars, professionals, activists and practitioners in the region are invited to submit essays which analyze the social, cultural, political or economic dimensions of international involvement in transition. Essays can be in English, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian or Macedonian, and the deadline for online submission is MAY 18.

Further details, as well as downloadable versions of the call for papers in languages of the region, are available at http://watsoninstitute.org/muabet/contest.html

Does anybody regret the demise of SPO?

Interesting remarks today by a person who will not be minister of culture for very long, if by "interesting" you mean "utterly foolish and morally leprous." Dragan Kojadinović comments on the recent attempt to assassinate Dejan Anastasijević by pointing out that if he would just fail to do his job, live like a hermit, and have absolutely no expectation of anything as exotic as law enforcement, he would be just fine. Says Mr Kojadinović:

"Anastasijević is an exceptionally good professional, he does something which is unfortunately rare in this country, and that is analytic journalism. His themes are dangerous themes. If I were in his place, I would not permit my child to come home at 3:00 AM, I would not live in that apartment in Vračar, no matter how big it is. He could exchange that apartment for one that is not so nice, but more secure. This has affected me so much that I have considered all aspects of Anastasijević's security. If I were in his place, as a journalist, I would never let myself do this. We can blame the state, we can demand protection from the police, but first we should do everything to protect ourselves."

So for heaven's sake everyone -- do not do your job well, speak the truth, live a normal life, or in any way make anything inconvenient public, particularly if you live somewhere. We still do not know whether Mr Kojadinović has any comment on the housing situation of Dinko Gruhonjić. No doubt he knows where he lives, since the gentlefolk at Stormfront do.

On the off chance that you have not read it already, here is what Dejan Anastasijević has to say about the situation himself.

Update: Students get it, politicians do not. Surprise.

And Plan Nine?

The interview was certainly done before the first of many resignations from the negotiating team was announced this morning, but here is what sometime East Ethnian Florian Bieber had to tell Slobodna Evropa about the future of Kosovo and "Plan B."

For the record, na engleskom

Here is the letter that Geoffrey Nice sent to several newspapers, and here is the response by OTP.

And here is my take: whatever may have happened with regard to documents being made available (or, as it turned out, not being made available) to the parties before ICJ, the very narrow interpretation of the law by the court's majority would probably have produced the same verdict. That may be as far as it goes for the lawyers behind the bench and at either table facing. But of course, it goes a lot further for researchers -- make the documents public, and we will interpret them without the constraints that ICTY and ICJ have.

Horrifying, wretched story from Virginia Tech

You already know about it. Now tell me, since firearms are banned from every place where privileged people in positions of power and influence congregate -- and where ordinary humans who never carry weapons are subject to various forms of humiliation in order to enforce this ban -- why are they not banned from every other place as well? Get moving, irresponsible politicians.

Beasts of burden

Call it a big event, it would be better if wild horses were to drag them away.

Update: Elvis Burazerović has a fine name and a good point. He says, "Surely our big city has enough open spaces where even 150,000 people can fit in. We think the Hippodrome should be left to horses."

Essay competition: "Evaluating intervention"

Just a reminder to everyone that the deadline for submissions for the essay competition "Evaluating Intervention: Local perspectives on democracy-building in the Post-Yugoslav countries and territories," is coming quickly on 18 May. We are hoping for a whole lot of really outstanding articles.

Back from NY

We just got back from lovely New York City, were planning on spending a longer weekend but Sunday's rainstorm with high wind persuaded us to just pack up and begin the trek back to Boston more or less persuaded that it would be slow. Highlights of the ASN conference were mostly seeing friends, but there was a fine panel "fieldwork after fire" in which Orli Fridman, Chip Gagnon and Saša Milićević stepped down, in different ways, from the academic pose of objectivity to discuss ways in which the real experience of real contact with real people, good and bad, transformed their perceptions of what they were doing and why. There was also a screening of the very fine film on Vukovar by Janko Baljak and Drago Hedl -- great documentary work, with amazing footage of various bad guys (particularly Brana Crnčević and Tomislav Merčep) continuing to lie about what they did. Surprisingly, there was not much said in the film about various good guys, including Josip Reihl-Kir.

It was also nice to find out what you get when you type "hrpa bezveznjaka" into Google.

Ivica Račan

I have just been informed by a friend, but have not yet seen in the news, that Ivica Račan died this morning.

Update: I will have to guess, since nobody is confirming the news, that either there is a conspiracy or there is a false alarm. I'm going with false alarm.

East Ethnia: Back with you as if it had never been gone

After ten days of confusion, rushing about, and bricolage, my dear pet computer is back from the majstori. Apparently it needed a new hard disc, so Apple sent one, but it was a bad one, and Apple had to send another. Srpska posla s tim jabukama! This comeback post jets your way from some random hotel lobby, where I am waiting for the bus that will take me to bucolic New York, where every April the world's finest Balkanologists attend the ASN conference.

I know that I have missed major events which could have made for some fine blogging. Will be right on it.

An explanation for blog silence

Nothing dramatic. It's the usual end of the semester work crunch, plus my computer is at the vet. Posting will be fairly intermittent for a while. East Ethnia, as always, thanks its readers for their patience.

Guidance

If you are looking for sensible commentary, you can always rely on Richard Falk. And if you are looking for guidance on the difference between right and wrong, Anegdote has that.

Raštafarijanizam

One of our happier surprises last summer was going to dinner with some friends at a place they chose, Restoran Oskar in Dorćol. This was in fact a place we had passed hundreds of times but never noticed, its appearance is not remarkable from the outside and not much more remarkable inside (when we arrived, we were the only customers save for a couple of cops who were watching a football match). The food was traditional and perfectly prepared, and nicely set off by good rakija and some outstanding Slovenian wine.

Like in so many good places, the best approach at Oskar is to ignore the menu and ask the waiter what is good today. On that day they were featuring sarme (lamb sarme!) with raštan kupus, and the waiter more or less insisted that we have this Montenegrin specialty. Everyone at the dinner will support me in saying these were the best sarme we had eaten in our lives. And naturally we became addicted to raštan, got it and made some sarme of our own, and began to lament the fate the fate that awaited us on our return to a forlornly raštan-free Massachusetts. Apparently other lovers of that little slice of leafy heaven have confronted the same problem.

But now a friend of East Ethnia writes in to tell us that, after exhaustive and delicious research, he has determined that raštan is nothing more or less than that humble and hearty (and monumentally healthy) Southern staple, the collard green. I love them, children hate them, and the bitterness can be turned into a fine sweetness by sauteeing them with a bit of vinegar. Anyone who is intimidated by their healthiness should be reassured by the fact that they go best with some nice, greasy, salty smoked meat.

This also solves an old East Ethnian mystery. Way back in 2006, we posted a photo of a proud farmer with what had to be the biggest kupus anyone had seen. A canny philologist noted that it looked a lot like blitva. Well, there you have it.

Izadjite na terasu....

If you are not happy with your dictionary, that may be because of the way it subjects the nice Morava-Vardar race to the spendthrifty Dinarians. So say a bunch of deep thinkers, who will no doubt say it again.

Up jumped the US representative, he's the one with the tired eyes

I know I haven't been posting much lately -- it's been a busy period at work, and with Mrs Ethnia off on a trip, this has given me the heavy but delightful obligation of single-fathering it these past couple of weeks. Expect the pace to pick up over the weekend.

In the meantime, a faithful reader, who is just fine but prefers to remain anonymous, writes in to ask for your recommendations for the most fabulous new Balkan films. Recommend them in the comments!

The first time as tragedy, the second time as impossibly close to satire

Things that just cannot be made up: who is getting paid to advise the US military on how to transform the wretchedly disastrous and ill-conceived adventure in Iraq into something much worse? You must have already guessed: somebody with experience in that area.

News flash: Drunken twit makes fool of self

As reported here. And also here.

Hardly knew ye

A year ago Slobodan Milošević died. The manner of his death was different from those of the people whose deaths he caused. He was not shot in the street, or kidnapped and shot, or run into by a truck filled with sand on the highway. He was not pulled out of a hospital and shot in a field. He was not kidnapped from a train after which all trace of him was lost. He was not incinerated in a bombing or killed by sniper fire from the hills. He was not rounded up with the other surviving males from his town and shot. His body was not transported by freezer truck to an air base under cover of night. He was not left to face a bombing attack on RTS while the higher-ranking employees evacuated.

Most indications are that he is still dead.

69% support, sort of

I expect there is quite a bit more in the raw data than in the part of the announcement that is carried in this news story. Strategic's survey finds that 69% of people in Serbia support cooperation with ICTY, 15% for reasons of justice, 28% to avoid negative consequences, and 26% to satisfy the EU. I'd like to do some crosstabs and longitudinals on that.

Update: OSCE has the summary.

The royal y'all

My favorite newspaper Press carries a declaration from RS politicians. Pay attention to the prepositional phrase that begins the first sentence:

"U ime Republike Srpske, odbacujemo kao zlonamerne i štetne sve pokušaje da se nametne kolektivna krivica za zločine počinjene u proteklom ratu i na tako iskrivljenoj slici izazove nasilna i radikalna promena ustavnog uređenja Bosne i Hercegovine, na štetu RS i njenih građana, precizira se u zajedničkoj izjavi srpskih zvaničnika u BIH i RS."

Hey guys (and they are all guys):

1. Vas šestorica niste "Republika Srpska,"
2. Šteta ne bi bila po građane nego po vas,
3. Nije bre narod kriv nego ste vi.