Gazeta Blic re-runs an opinion piece by Tim Judah that originally appeared in the Economist.
There is nothing like a football match to push simmering ethnic tensions to the surface. No love has been lost between Serbs and Albanians for more than a century, and in modern times the battle over Kosovo has further divided the two peoples. In 1999 ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in the then-Serbian province, which was wrenched from Serbian control by NATO. In 2008 Kosovo’s majority Albanians declared independence. The European Union (EU) has worked tirelessly since then to reconcile the two sides, and has made significant progress over the past two years. But those efforts were dealt a harsh setback on October 14th, when a football match in Belgrade between Serbia and Albania degenerated into a bizarre riot.
The event, a qualifier for the 2016 European championship tournament, was always going to be tense. The two countries’ football teams had not played each other since 1967. Fearing violence, the hosts prevented Albanian fans from attending. It was clear even before play began that any hope of friendly reconciliation through sport would be dashed, when Serbian fans hissed at the Albanian national anthem. But in Balkan football manners such behaviour is par for the course: Albanian supporters have burned Macedonian flags, and the Serbian faithful have taunted Bosniaks with chants of “Knife, wire, Srebrenica”—referring to the 1995 mass murder of some 8,000 Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces.
The first half of the match proceeded without further serious incident. But in the 41st minute, a small drone-like aircraft began to buzz around the stadium. Underneath it was a banner with a map of the Albanian nationalist dream of Greater Albania comprising Albania, Kosovo and parts of south Serbia, Macedonia and Greece. It also showed portraits of two of the fathers of Albanian independence, and the nation’s unmistakable double-headed eagle symbol.
As the drone buzzed low, a Serb player grabbed it and hauled it down. Two Albanian players promptly took it off him. That set off a pitch invasion, as fans rushed onto the field to attack the Albanians. In a rare display of chivalry, some Serbian players helped to protect the Albanians as they ran off, causing the match to be abandoned. The Serbian police then proceeded to search and check the entire 45-strong Albanian delegation—which includes Kosovars, who cannot form their own team because Serbia and its allies have blocked Kosovo from joining international football organisations. The Serbian interior ministry later told the press that its officers had arrested the brother of Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, whom they reported had been controlling the drone. The arrest story was untrue, and a group of Macedonian Albanian fans claimed responsibility for the craft, though so far there is no proof. But the political damage was done, and Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian prime minister, is repeating the assertion.
In recent years Novak Djokovic, a Serbian tennis player currently ranked as the best in the world, has done wonders for his home country’s international reputation, by giving foreigners something to associate with Serbia besides its bloody recent past. But this episode sadly returns Balkan sports to their historic role as a force that divides rather than unites. Seared into the former Yugoslav collective memory is the 1990 riot that erupted at a match in Croatia between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade, which is widely regarded as a turning point in the lead-up to the war that consumed the country. The sight of Albanians across the region celebrating what many saw as an audacious stunt humiliating the Serbs is likely to confirm the worst and crudest prejudices of outsiders about people in the Balkans: that they are violent, nationalistic and do not deserve the place in the EU they claim to seek.
The direct consequences of this debacle remain to be seen. UEFA, European football’s governing body, has not yet announced whether it will levy sanctions on either team. Mr Rama is scheduled to lead the first official visit to Belgrade by an Albanian leader in 68 years on October 22nd; that powerful symbolic gesture is now in jeopardy, and a senior Albanian source says the odds of him going are “looking less likely by the hour”. The unfortunate spectacle that unfolded last night is a powerful reminder both of the importance of Balkan integration—within the region and with the rest of Europe—and of how far from reality that dream remains. “I was shocked and depressed,” said Fatos Lubonja, a famous Albanian writer who was launching a book in London the following day. The event, he said, showed how “fragile” Balkan societies were “and how quickly passions can blow everything up”.
