Stage for Propaganda

Everything that was taboo and forbidden in other areas of Yugoslav society, such as singing national anthems and wearing nationalist symbols, was openly flaunted by fans in the sports arenas. This symbolic communication was characterised by a deep hatred. Sporting rivals were now considered to be members of a hostile political, national and religious group.

In Belgrade, Croatian athletes were mocked with crude banners calling them 'Ustashas', Croatian fascist collaborators during the Second World War; and in Zagreb and Split Serbian fans were bombarded with insults such as 'Cigani!' (gypsies) or 'Ubij Srbina!' (Kill the Serbs). And today, little has changed.

In the wake of the mass riots of May 1990 football clubs from Croatia, Slovenia and Kosovo immediately withdrew from the national leagues. They said this was in protest against ‘Serbian rule’. ‘Yugoslavia’ with Serbia at its head was no longer a country. The capitulation of the multi-ethnic state in the Zagreb football stadium marked the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia. The whole world knows what happened next. This huge European drama in the midst of the euphoria triggered by the fall of the Berlin Wall had many acts and many ups and downs.

The dramatic collapse of Yugoslavia was accompanied by a sense of optimism as people looked forward to a bright and peaceful future. And the images of war that shocked Europe were accompanied by dancing Eastern Europeans as they celebrated their liberation from the Soviet Union. In Europe people thought that the horrors of 1941 and 1945 could never be repeated. This meant that they were totally unprepared for the smaller-scale but comparable horrors that dominated the 1990s in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, involving mass graves, the murder of children and old people, the genocide at Srebrenica, hordes of refugees and aeroplanes bombing bridges and houses.

The destruction of a multi-ethnic state in Europe happened in plain sight – in a country that triggered happy memories for many people in Germany, France, Britain, the USA and Austria. They had visited its beautiful coast as tourists, admired Yugoslavia’s top athletes, and heads of government had welcomed the country’s autocratic father, Josip Broz Tito. 10 years of brutal war destroyed a country that Europeans felt they knew.

After the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, new nations emerged as components detached from the former whole. They were societies that had been through terrible suffering, that were inwardly traumatised and now facing an uncertain future.

And now, after all this, the fans in the stadiums no longer have to draw on resentments from the Second World War when they want to insult their neighbours. Now they can look to more recent conflicts. The end of the wars that broke up the country marked the end of direct violence, but also marked the beginning of a deep-rooted social transition with a very nationalistic flavour.

On 12 October 2005 the teams from Serbia-Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina met at the Red Star stadium in Belgrade to contest a key qualifying match for the World Cup in Germany. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina had been over for 10 years. But Serbian hooligans replayed it in the stadium and on the streets of Belgrade in a mini war against the Bosnian fans. 11 people were injured. With gestures and words they threatened the victims of the Bosnian war with a continuation of the brutality. It culminated with Serbian hooligans rolling out a huge banner with the words ‘Knife, Wire, Srebrenica’, a deliberate insult to the victims of the worst massacre of the Yugoslavian war in 1995.

As if using data from a seismograph, the events in football allow the last 25 years of the former Yugoslavia’s history to be reconstructed, including the collapse of its government and society.

Reports in the Serbian media claimed that the Albanian players had refused to continue with the match. Their condition was that all the – mainly Belgrade – fans should leave the stadium. According to the Albanian Football Association, UEFA had recommended that no Albanian fans should travel to the game. In return, the following year no Serbian fans were to travel to the game in Tirana. Apparently the national associations had agreed to this.

As if using data from a seismograph, the events in football allow the last 25 years of the former Yugoslavia’s history to be reconstructed, including the collapse of its government and society.

Relations between the two nations are still strained. With its large Albanian population, Kosovo was part of the former Yugoslavia for many years. It then became part of Serbia, before the final war in 1999 later led to the territory declaring its independence. The riots in the Belgrade stadium in October 2014 initially threatened the planned visit of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama to Serbia. On 22 October 2014, he was to be the first Albanian head of government to travel to Belgrade. The visit would have fallen through if it had not been for the calls made by Angela Merkel to Edi Rama in Tirana and Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic in Serbia.

Now that we are in 2016, have we learned anything? I’m not sure. History repeats itself, and this is also reflected in sport. The fact that the sparks flew in a stadium in the former Yugoslavia and ignited a war perhaps means we are now better able to identify the sports arenas, football grounds and training camps where trouble could be brewing today.

Perhaps we now pay a little more attention to sportsmen and women who are a little too passionate? Venice Flying Services – Huffman Aviation was the name of the flying school attended by Mohammed Atta (33) and Marwan Al-Shehhi (23), who were ‘average pilots’ according to their instructor. Here they practised their attacks for ‘sporting’ purposes and later became notorious on 9/11 when they attacked Western lifestyles, security and freedoms. It was a declaration of war that has since escalated to bring us the consequences we see today.

No, it would not be right or fair to brand sport – and certainly not my favourite sport, football – as a troublemaker. Team spirit, fairness, the joy of movement – sport has so many benefits, including fair competition. But it also acts as a seismograph for society. It uncovers and can even promote ambition, rivalry, deceit, hatred, nationalism, fanaticism and megalomania.

It is striking how nowadays people brand athletes as their countries’ ‘heroes’ or as ‘losers’. Just like in the Cold War, they seem to be used as a measure of a country’s standing. In parallel with this phenomenon, we observe the growth of irrational and dangerous nationalist tendencies and religious fanaticism. We see floods of refugees trailing across fields, at borders, on railway lines and streets, all as a result of this painful trend.

Whenever I think about refugees it reminds me of my schoolfriend in Kosovo, Ismet. Ismet and I were always playing football. We called him ‘Žungul’ because he was the spitting image of the Yugoslavian legend from Hadjuk in the late 1970s. Nowadays it would be like having a friend who looked like Cristiano Ronaldo. Ismet was a huge sporting talent, but his problem was that he was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Born in 1970, he could have been one of the greats of our generation if world events had not so destructively thrown our lives into disarray.

I’ll never forget the first time I was reunited with Ismet in Germany. It was in 1996, when my daily life revolved around my student residence in Stuttgart and whether I should become an academic or a writer. One day I suddenly saw Ismet walking down Königstraße. He was working as a florist! This huge talent from our childhood was now a florist in Stuttgart, in Germany. I was utterly astonished. We were no longer concerned with football and our youthful dreams. There were refugees everywhere in the Balkans and all over Europe. We no longer had to risk life and limb, and Ismet had had a stroke of luck by finding himself a job as a refugee. When I asked him whether he had tried to introduce himself to a club such as VFB Stuttgart, he responded in a flash: ‘It’s too late for all that’ – despite the fact that he was only 26 years old. Today, 20 years later, I regret asking that question.

Thousands of former refugees from the former Yugoslavia spread across Europe and turned to professional sport, from Scandinavia to Germany, Austria to Switzerland, and now they are in their second and soon third generation.

For a few months I saw Ismet selling his flowers, then he disappeared. He probably became a father, found another job brought up his children – perhaps they are now playing football somewhere. Thousands of former refugees from the former Yugoslavia who scattered across Europe turned to professional sport, from Scandinavia to Germany, Austria to Switzerland, and now they are in their second and soon third generation. Children whose parents came from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Albania are now playing football for Germany and France. Some of those whose parents live in the West have returned to play in their former homes, where they now have to learn about the country and its language.

Perhaps the biggest irony in this story of how sport has been abused and misused by nationalists is how sport once again finds itself in exile. In the diaspora, a new mixture of emotions can arise thanks to the experiences of flight. We are happy to be with others but also happy to be ourselves, we can be with others yet also be on our own. This would make a good platform for the future of sport.