A couple of months ago I reconnected with some childhood friends of mine on Facebook. Among them was the girl who used to be my best friend from when we were both still in diapers till I was deported from Bosnia-Herzegovina. I also found the girl who was my closest classmate. I lost touch with both of them when I got deported. Both the girls are Serb so they didn’t get deported anywhere.
We sent some messages back and forth about where we were in our lives now, all these years later. It was odd but alright.
Then I came across the news about the Serb authorities forbidding the use of certain Bosnian towns’ names which naturally ticked me off. I wrote a status update about it, ridiculing the decision. And these particular two girls who had once been so close to me turned out to be nasty beasts who hadn’t even understood the status update, but used it as an excuse to spill some nationalistic bullsh*t all over my profile.
For some reason I was really shocked. Then I wrote them one final message and deleted and banned both of them from ever seeing my profile again. I used to have some nice memories of them too but now I can’t think of either of them without feeling violently disgusted.
I take comfort in the fact that this only happened with these two girls. Other old friends I reconnected with are still nice people 
6 responses so far ↓
Kirk Johnson // 29. May 2009 at 14:06 |
How sad that they have been poisoned by nationalist poison; I fear for the future of Bosnia if the younger generations haven’t learned from the stupidity of their elders.
The good news, of course, is that it’s only two friends. Sounds like the rest of your friends have managed to transcend that kind of stupidity.
Daniel (Srebrenica Genocide Blog) // 30. May 2009 at 08:31 |
Dear Amila,
Please raise awareness about the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s eyewitness testimonies about the Srebrenica genocide and Serbian war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Watch videos:
1. http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2009/05/srebrenica-genocide-videos-ushmm.html
2. http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2009/05/video-ron-haviv-eyewitness-testimony.html
Daniel
visegrad92 // 31. May 2009 at 21:25 |
Just keep in mind the people who think like these two girls but who didn’t want to comment on your status…
Amila Bosnae // 31. May 2009 at 22:48 |
That is a possibility, of course, but if they show it, I won’t hesitate to remove them from my list of contacts. I guess I was shocked by these particular two girls because we used to be close friends, and although one of them said some dumb things in the war, the other never did – to me at least. Now I know I remembered them as something else than they really are.. Kind of sad.
Daniel Ringby // 2. June 2009 at 18:08 |
It’s remarkable how some younger Serbs (1990+) are so full of nationalistic propaganda—and most of the time they don’t even know for sure what they hate, or think they hate; they’re just repeating the mindless blabber the older generations vomit to the right and left. Jebana gomila gluposti nabacanih jedna za drugom, bez ikakve povezanosti i smisla…
I used to know this Serb chick in Vojvodina (I think it was). One day the conversation drifted onto politics and ex-Yu, and before I knew it she had made it unambiguously clear what she felt about other parts of ex-Yu. Bošnjaci were this and that, someone ought to “jebati” the Croat šahovnica, Србија до Токија, три прста all over the place, bre bre bre.
When I asked her what it is specifically about these two nations that she loathed and disdained, and for what reason, she had no real answer. Seems she was committed to pseudo-hating just for the heck of it. Saddening.
That said, not every Serb born post-1990 is a mindless little mini-bitch-Milošević, obviously. I have nothing but the fondest memories of, say, Bojana i Snežana, two cute receptionists u Beogradu, and one of whom actually pointed out about Serbia that “seldom has one seen a nation so proud of itself for so little reason”.
Lepa curica. 
Gabriela // 14. June 2009 at 20:22 |
It’s so sad how good old friendships can be disturbed by reasons totally beyond your control.
I think you did the right thing, although I can guess this saddens you: like why-does-it-have-to-be-that-way kind of thing.
Saludos.