Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Sections G through H
In sections G through H, we attempted to identify and analyse the narratives
used to sustain a Serbian identity from the past to the present, but also
under the pressure of potential transformations created by the events that
provoked and followed the dramatic break up of Yugoslavia.
Section G – accounts of the current situation in Kosovo, as compared to
perceptions and expectations:
10 (g) How do you feel in the current situation in FRY? What has
improved and what has worsened?
12 (h) What does it mean to be from Yugoslavia now? How has this
changed in the last ten-fifteen years? What does it mean to be
Serbian now? And before? Do you think that traditional culture has
an important role in contemporary Yugoslavia? In what aspects of
life, in particular? Do you think religion has a new role now? What
kind of role?
Section F – Articulation of current and past identity-forming strategies and
discourses.
Section I – Perspectives: dreams, desires, and projects for a future society
in Kosovo.
13 (f) How do you imagine the FRY in ten years? How would you picture
an ideal FRY?
The answers were as follows:
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
A Serb has always been a symbol of courage, morale, eagerness and it is
the case even now. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but there
are very few of them. Despite everything, I think the Serbs will always
win, regardless of the sacrifice they have to make, they will survive all
the changes, catastrophes, but they need to be united. After all, the Serbs
are a humane nation, and only their Orthodox religion says you should
offer bread to him who casts a stone at you. It’s not the case with the
Muslims, or the Roman Catholics. When Jesus Christ was sentenced to
crucifixion, he carried the cross with difficulty and, being the God’s son,
asked the God to forgive them, for they didn’t know what they were
doing. [(V5): Serbian man, aged 73, a former teacher, who claims that his
family has been living in Kosovo for six centuries and that an ancestor of
his participated in the battle of Kosovo in 1389. At the time of the interview,
he was living in a former primary school with his wife].
Subject: But I don’t know what kind of people we are, the Serbs. My
late father used to say that maybe there is a reason why all
the world hates us. We might be wicked sometimes, I don’t
know.
113