I watched that video, the one from Zeleni venc. Blurry image, black and white, static camera, like an early stage reality show; show, unfortunately, is not, and reality, unfortunately, is. The image goes without a tone; we don't hear who is saying what, what is and isn't important. Yes, to the extent that the tone would have given us a more complete insight, and yet it didn't, because nothing said can justify a brutal and painful attack on a man - and I don't really care if that person is local or German, gay or straight, etc. I don't really care, but his attacker - for all we know - did care...
This case "in itself" would not be worth a weekly column if it weren't for everything that has been woven around it. One of the favorite theses of the wooden lawyers of a guy who attacked and seriously injured a man who did not threaten him in any way is the claim - unargued, as if it were self-evident - that the attacked somehow provoked the attack. But how and with what? In the famous video from the security camera of a fast food restaurant, we see how the one who will be beaten, possibly drunk, talks to the cleaning lady, and at one point takes a broom from her and sweeps the floor. And that's everything that jumps out of the "usual". There is something bizarre in that scene, perhaps exhibitionist, but many young people, especially in the wee hours, are prone to somewhat bizarre frolics in public places, and every God's night in Belgrade, and anywhere else, you will see even more wacky scenes. Now, when we know that the victim was in Belgrade on the occasion of a rally on LGBT rights, we put that knowledge into her fate, but it is unlikely that the attacker knew anything about it. Apparently, he was provoked by the very fact that he was a foreigner, a German, who, imagine, speaks his foreign language in public, and also behaves casually in our city (and over there we bombed, fuck!), instead of being contrite and full of fear, grateful and happy that we don't beat him - I mean, until we do.
A letter from the mother of a boy who did not participate in the attack, although he was in the company of the attackers, was released to the public. A mother defends her child, and that's normal, since before that guy apparently didn't really hide anything. However, she does not stop there, but actually finds, to put it mildly, circumstances that seem to facilitate the real attacker, including the nationality of the victim, and some "geopolitical" nonsense from the Petparaka "conspiracy" literature, concluding that the attack was was provoked by the fact that one, uh, German, demonstratively cleaned our, uh, territory there. Pay attention to: territory! Here's what your perception difference is: on that video I see a guy sweeping the floor in front of the bar, she sees a German/foreigner who clean (I guess ethnic, or what?!) some kind of territory!
Well, well, what's in those heads, and how did it get there!? Whatever it is, we should look for a good part of the cause of street violence with extra-political cover, and all other manifestations of hatred and intolerance. Don't we hear the same pirouettes around every Pride Parade: "They are aggressive, and we just fight back!" And how are they They aggressive? Because they exist, and they don't want to apologize for existing, they ask that their existence be recognized as a public fact, which has its own legal and other social consequences. That is, they are looking for the same thing that every other related category of the population is looking for.
An essential part of the eternal perpetuation of the culture of violence is the covert and corrupt patronage, almost openly, of "right-wing" parties and political organizations, intellectual circles and the media. An integral part of that is also kitschy romanticization of the perpetrators. The methodology is: production of confusion through shameless inversion. The victim should be slandered, humiliated and made at least co-responsible for what she experienced, and the perpetrators should be portrayed as, in the worst case, reckless dechurlia who "perhaps went a little too far", but were driven by honorable reasons... That's right, after "social networks ", the famous Mother received a shoulder to cry on and in "Večernji novosti", always ready to listen to the "warm human story" of anyone from the environment associated with political, fan and similar violence, and on the way to spice up the soup of the victim, who in some half-expressed way is certainly to blame for what happened to her - and in all likelihood she didn't deserve better. You'll forgive me, but I can't help but remember this: when those two attacked me, and in the end received some kind of punishment for it, they are the same News published a "warm human story" about the perpetrators and their families, the central motive of which was that one of them had just entered university, so why should the child waste a year in prison?! As if I forced a man whom I didn't even know existed a second ago to attack me with some sorcery, wouldn't I harm him... All that was missing was an explicit accusation against me that I am a heartless person who is undermining the future of a wonderful young man with my pettiness - although this one might even be willing to forgive me for beating me. Well, that's how it looks; die of envy, all Serbian comedy dramatists!
And therefore, there is and will be no point in superficial, moralistic whining and finger-wagging about violence and bullies: they are always a small part of the problem - a much larger part are those who taught them to be just that way, and who like them just the way they are .
