THE ROAD INTO THE UNDERGROUND

SFOR and Serb Journalism

AIM Banja Luka, 7 October, 1997

Last Sunday, when the editor-in-chief of a Belgrade radio station was called by a colleague from Pale television to publicly support their strike and civil protest against SFOR's seizure of transmitters in Republiuca Srpska, the man was more than astounded. (He responded with the inevitable question: "Why me?") They say, he quickly pulled himself together and told his interlocutor in Pale that he would convene a meeting of the editorial team and call back in two hours. Then he told his secretary that if anyone called him from Pale, he would not be in. Even that was not enough to set him at ease, so he called your reporter and told him what had happened. To the question why it was so difficult to support colleagues whose transmission system was occupied by foreign soldiers, the man answered: "I cannot say that I am happy about it, least of all that I hate the colleagues from Pale. But, you must understand me, it is impossible to defend them".

On the first day of October, a thing happened in RS which at first sight seemed like the ideal cause for alert of various domestic and foreign guardians of human rights: a foreign fully-armed force climbed up and seized RTV transmitters in a small country and jammed the program of its radio and television stations. If it is clear why such a convenient occasion to distinguish themselves was missed by Cathy Morton, "Reporters without Frontiers", the International Crisis Group or "Women in Black", how can the complete failure of Belgrade to react be explained, from where only the Democratic Party of Serbia could be heard stating that it "resolutely supported the justified protest of journalists of Serb Radio-Television (SRT) because of violation of the principles of freedom of information". Not a single eminent intellectual, not a single editorial team from a media, not a single union of journalists reacted. Is it really "impossible to defend" Pale even in the case of such obvious military intervention?

Why there was no support from Banja Luka

It is true, however, that the Editor-in-Chief of SRT, Drago Vukovic, one of those whose departure is demanded by Carlos Westerndorp in exchange for restoring the signal from Pale, said that support to the protest action in this mountain town called "Freedom" was offered by journalists from all over the world, although by Sunday, only messages from DSS, SRNA, trade union of RS and Union of Writers of RS were publicized. There was no support, Vukovic noted, from the colleagues from the Studio of SRT in Banja Luka, which he said was only "their concern". Having grabbed, just a few weeks ago, the last opportunity to save the honour of those "who had decided to be journalists", those employed in Banja Luka television station realized that their colleagues were the only point in the whole wide world they could look down on. The coordinator of the Banja Luka SRT studio Radomir Neskovic declared that the strike of workers of the studio in Pale would not resolve the problem, but just further complicated the situation. "They are not on strike, because they have been forbidden to work", Neskovic said. Immediately after that, the board of editors of the Banja Luka SRT studio appealed on the journalists from SRT Pale to find a solution and interrupt the strike, because it was "not a good way to resolve problems".

Is it really impossible to defend Pale? When the head of SRT, Miroslav Toholj, announced the hunger strike on Wednesday immediately after the transmitters had been seized, some malicious persons could have reminded him that just a few years ago in the evening news program of the SRT, one of the announcers ate a juicy steak causing watering of mouths of the spectators in Sarajevo, where anything of the kind cost about a hundred marks at the time. There was a war going on, those who believe that this could be defended would say. Exactly, but it also proves that the Serbs were waging two wars at the same time - the ethnic one against the Muslims and the Croats and as customary, a social revolution against their own compatriots whose mouths also watered at the sight of the mentioned steak, exactly like those of the Sarajevans.

Does anyone still remember the extent of enthisiasm with which SRT last February (after the end of the war) assisted in turning thirty thousand householders from Sarajevo in just a few days into miserable refugees without a penny to their name. Does anyone still remember how that same television station, with united cadre from Banja Luka and Pale, just recently extradited the President of RS and opposition leaders to the Hague and accused them of ethnic cleansing referring to "reliable sources". Has anyone been idle enough to count all the persons stigmatized as traitors for ever and ever? It was not so long ago when a text from exemplary regime press was read for almost half an hour in which the President and her supporters were defamed by carrying police material which these all of a sudden lovers of freedom did not even bother to make

Defenders of national truth

But, one should not be malicious, tanks have not taught anyone to write. This situation in SRT should not be surprising especially to the cadre of the federal B&H Television who are themselves also followers of the tradition of Radio-Television Serbia and Croatian Radio-Television and their ideal of fixing the truth. When speaking of the Serbs, however, the additional problem appeared in 1994 when, after the dreadful pressure exerted from Belgrade, when SRT committed patricide and proclaimed itself the exclusive representative of national interests of all the Serbs of the world. Belgrade was then stamped as Ustashe and SRT persistently advocated that it was possible to go against the entire world, because Zhirinovsky would soon arrive with his destructive weapons and teach the Americans a lesson. But, today, "treacherous" Russia is silent, the Red Army will not cross the Drina after all, "corrupt" Belgrade is silent and with just a pinch of bad conscience says: "it is impossible to defend them". It is possible to hear only senators - a curious group of pseudo-patriots who are selling their "wisdom" from Belgrade across the Drina, just as workers employed abroad are bringing back with them watches made of fake gold to their native land.

The greatest sin of SRT is the one committed against their own compatriots. The "magic box", two years after Dayton, has not yet told the Serbs that peace has come and that life should now be lived according to other rules. It was easy to rule the Serbs when the magic from the screen had turned them to a living example that Kusturica's "Underground" could be for real. SRT is an experiment "in vivo" which shows how many political lies could be instilled in a man and still permit him to continue to live and walk the earth. That same television, as a reflection of the policy which believes its subjects to be just a mob, and the world a mass of deodorized fools with good manners and bad intentions, can continue with its hunger strike and idleness, sending letters around the world, requests for telegrams of support and organization of civic protests, but it simply cannot succeed in it. Why? For the simple reason that for a civic protest it is necessary to have an amount of innocence which is very far from these makers of virtual reality. Because, when Gandhi does not eat, he is on hunger strike. But, when the head of Stalin's agitprop does not eat, he simply does not eat.

If anything good can come out of the story on SRT transmitters, it will be the final end of Serb journalism from the left side of the Drina where this concept meant more than a linguistic determinant or an item in cirriculum vitae. Because Serb journalism the way it is understood not only in Pale but also among anti-Pale journalists, is just a substitute for social and political work of highly aware comrades from the communist era. When a single party has the monopoly over national interests and usurps the right to proclaim traitors, then there is no difference between national, state and patriotic journalism, and the journalists are nothing but cat's paw of the party in power. But, they should not be believed when they say that they had not enjoyed themselves while it lasted.

But, why foreigners and why tanks - this is the last defence formula of state journalism in Pale. Because, the problem is that those who are nowadays engaged in killing (communist) "social and political" journalism are not teachers and that their action could mean death of much greater values than journalism on the left bank of the Drina. Because, by keeping company of an army it might be possible to become a man, but in no way can anyone become a journalist. That is why one should be neither malicious nor at ease concerning the latest developments. SFOR could unintentionally help make the worst in Serb journalism disappear, but it might also help journalism in general among the Serbs disappear altogether, and many other things as well, and leave those whose tv signal it blocked deeply convinced that they had known everything best all along.

Ivan Ðorðevic