Odmah da kažem da me u ovom trenutku ne zanima vlasnička struktura kompanije, niti da li je taj mlađahni Vlahović sposoban ili ne da vodi tu kompaniju. Ne poznajem ga, niti znam išta o njemu, a ’81 godište može da znači i da ima 10+ godina iskustva u biznisu, isto kao da je tatin sin kome je dato na upravljanje veliko preduzeće. Zato bih ostavio da se ovime bave specijalizovani mediji, blogovi i uopšte oni koji imaju mogućnost da dođu do više informacija. Siguran sam da ćemo vrlo brzo sve saznati

Ne zanimaju me ni trenutni problemi sa očitavanjem kartica. To je tehnički “hiccup” koji će se rešiti – ne znam sistem koji je zaživeo prvog dana i lepo radio sve vreme. Sigurno da ih ima, ali tehničke izazove na samom početku rada sam spreman da oprostim.

Gužve za izdavanje kartica – imali smo nekoliko meseci, bili smo lenji, nemamo pravo da se bunimo što ta firma nije pre 2 meseca rekla da će biti -15 u poslednjoj nedelji pred start rada sistema

Privatnost podataka i ostale paranoje? Dajte, ljudi, manite se brige… Jedan od retkih državnih službenika koji radi svoj posao savesno i u kojeg imam bezgranično poverenje je upravo Šabić koji se bavi ovom temom. Siguran sam da će on izaći u medije i reći da se oni igraju Velikog brata, ako dođe do te situacije.

E sad, ako zaboravimo sve ove hejtove na prvu loptu – ono što mene zanima je sam sistem, koji smo tako dugo čekali i kojem smo se radovali (bar ja).

Sistem kao sistem ima potencijala kol’ko hoćeš. Uzet je iz Istanbula, gde funkcioniše odlično (živeo tamo, ne pričam tek tako), i unapređen je tehnološki (kartice i kolor ekrani plus GPS servisi umesto tzv “akbil” privezaka i metalnih kutija), tako da sistem u ovom slučaju nije problem. Problem je to što su ga Beogradu prilagođavali oni koji se ne voze prevozom, bar ja tako to vidim.

Prvo, autobus treba da ima samo jedan aparat za validaciju, i to na prednjim vratima. Ovi kod nas valjda misle da smo mi stoka razmažena i da nećemo prihvatiti da ulazimo samo na prednja vrata? Ne znam samo kako se tako lako prilagodimo kad odemo u neki drugi grad ili državu? I ne, ovo ne usporava sistem – dokazano u Istanbulu gde svi lepo ulaze na prednja vrata i otkucavaju svoju kartu na način sličan ovome. Da, ovo švercerima smanjuje mogućnost švercovanja, ali o njima ovaj sistem i ne treba da vodi računa, zar ne? Za one koji ne mogu da priušte da plaćaju gradski prevoz – o njima Grad treba da povede računa na drugi način.

Drugo, ako su već stavili aparate za validaciju kod svih vrata, onda je potpuno nebulozno da zahtevaju od ljudi da validaciju urade dok je autobus na stanici. Ideja je i u ovom slučaju, pretpostavljam, da se spreče oni koji bi kupili nepersonalizovanu karticu i otkucavali je samo kad moraju. Da su ti bajni konsultanti razmislili malo, ili pak izašli iz svoje kancelarije i uložili par hiljada eura da obiđu par gradova i njihove sisteme javnog prevoza, videli bi recimo sistem u Pragu gde ti možeš da otkucaš kartu kad god hoćeš, a kontrola kad uđe u bus svojom karticom blokira ceo sistem tako da ne možeš da otkucavaš kartu kad oni jednom uđu. Jednostavno i elegantno rešenje. Ja sam i dalje za ono prvo za validacijom na prednjim vratima i pri ulazu u bus, ali i ovo može da bude dobro rešenje.

Treće, ja stvarno ne mogu da verujem da su digitalizovali sistem, a da ti i dalje naplaćuje 60 dinara svaki put kad promeniš prevoz. To je stvarno bullshit i to moraju pod hitno da menjaju. Ne znam nijedan uređen gradski prevoz (a ovo pretenduje da bude baš to) da nema karte koje traju 60 ili 90 minuta. Naročito kad imaš ovako sve digitalizovano, to je bar lako uraditi. Taj isti sistem iz Istanbula ima ovu opciju, pa ne mogu da se vade da nije moguće trenutno to uraditi i sl.

Ostaje da se nadam da su ovo sve samo tehnički izazovi, te da će greške ispraviti. Ovako mogu samo da sabiram 2 i 2 i skontam šta 3x više aparata za validaciju i jednokratne karte mogu da znače – cash cow wannabe. Voleo bih da me ubede u suprotno, ili da se opamete, jer komunalnih policajaca za legitimisanje nema dovoljno, a ovakav sistem podstiče na šverc u najmanju ruku (a koliko vidim, klinci divljaci su već počeli i da lome aparate).

Obožavam kad se moderne tehnologije koriste za društveni aktivizam!

Ushahidi je platforma koja je često korišćena u ove svrhe (npr. jazakraljevo.rs), a koja omogućava da na izuzetno lak način nešto “mapirate”, odnosno pokažete na mapi mesto i opis nekog događaja.

Dokukino, regionalna organizacija građanskog društva, je iskoristila ovu sjajnu platformu da u saradnji sa Institutom za održive zajednice (ISC) kreira platformu “Super građanin” na www.supergradjanin.com, koja pruža mogućnost građanima da brzo i efikasno sami učestvuju u brzom i efikasnom evidentiranju slučajeva nasilja. Jednostavnim pristupom preko ličnih Fejsbuk i Tviter naloga, građani i aktivisti moći će da prijave slučajeve nasilja postavljanjem fotografija, video zapisa, u vidu pisanih poruka, kao i slanjem SMS-a.

Ideja je da ovo mesto postane neka vrsta alternativne baze podataka nasilja, da pokaže građanima gde se nasilje vrši, koja vrsta i sl, te da pokrene na akciju. Činjenica je da podaci o nasilju generalno postoje, ali su oni deo nekih većih istraživanja koja najčešće ne dopiru do nas, “običnih građana”, a ovakva platforma to može da nam približi.

Uključite se na www.supergradjanin.com, jer “kad se Građanin uloguje na net, događa se neverovatna promena! Građanin postaje Super Građanin – uvek spreman da stupi u akciju. Super Građanin nije policajac, nije vlast, nije snagator. On je savestan građanin koji čini ono što je u njegovoj moći – kada svedoči nasilju, on ga prijavi na internetu!”

Da li set ikada čuli za izraz “mladi u riziku”?

Ja nisam, do pre par dana. A siguran sam ni puno vas koji ovo čitate.
A pričamo o tome često, na ovaj ili onaj način.

Elem, Timočki omladinski centar (TOC) smatra da su mladi u riziku mlade osobe od 15 do 30 godina (u skladu sa Nacionalnom strategijom za mlade) kojima nisu dostupne adekvatne razvojne mogućnosti, i pokušava da svojim aktivnostima radi na prevenciji bilo kojih oblika rizika (zdravstvenih, ekonomskih, socijalnih).

Kao što rekoh, pričamo o toj temi stalno, ili bolje rečeno o problemima vezanim za tu temu, i postoji veliki broj organizacija koje se na ovaj ili onaj način bave mladima i raznim oblicima rizika kod mladih (finansijska moć, nezaposlenost, maloletnička delikvencija, zdravlje…).

Specifičnost pristupa TOC-a je što pokušava da sistemski reši ovaj problem, tačnije da stvori uslove za kreiranje sistemske brige o mladima u riziku, u isto vreme radeći i konkretno na rešavanju određenih problema.

Njihov projekat “Mladi u riziku” obuhvata 5 gradova (Novi Sad, Zaječar, Niš, Užice i Kragujevac) u kojima se radi na ojačavanju kapaciteta Kancelarija za mlade i drugih lokalnih aktera koji se bave mladima. Nakon nekoliko treninga i radionica, lokalne radne grupe će na Nacionalnoj konferenciji predstaviti specifičnosti svojih lokalnih zajednica, mogućnosti rešavanja i sl, te šta je do sada urađeno.

Konferencija se održava u utorak, 13. decembra, u hotelu Zira, sa početkom u 11h. Ja ću biti tamo, tvitovati i blogovati sa konferencije, a pozivam i sve vas koji ste zainteresovani da pogledate kratki promo video i pročitate zvanični poziv i prijavite se.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_ft-MyXqJA

We all were once children. Some of us still are.

And we all had dreams. Some came true, some we forgot about, and some we are still dreaming and expecting to happen. Or we’re working hard to achieve them.

Of course, this is not always easy. One should earn enough for a living, you know,  for children’ education, new shoes or vacations. Each and every one of us has a thing or two that distract us from those bold goals we set when we were kids – to be pilots, doctors, firefighters, teachers… To fly to the moon. To make a summer vacation last for 3 months, they way it’s meant to be. To simply do what we love to do and be happy.Of course, that’s far from easy.

And if  you live in Kosovo, it’s even harder.

Everything around you tells you that you should stop dreaming – poverty, politicians who are playing their game with your life in stake but for their own short-term and personal gain, life that is “neither here or there”, and above all – uncertainty. You’re waiting to receive some help or humanitarian aid, waiting for some of the numerous international organizations to hire you (because they are the only ones hiring), waiting for the whole situation to just finish already and your life to finally settle. You’re simply waiting.

But you want to believe! And you are hoping!

Because faith and hope are the main drivers and motivators of people to persist and fight in order to be able to experience sometimes the chance to do what they love doing, and there is no environment bad enough or the darkness that dark to kill this faith and hope in people.

Ramonda Serbica is a flower that perhaps describes the best what I am talking about – it’s a rare plant, found only in certain parts of Serbia and it’s very specific: even if it is completely dried, it miraculously comes back to life when watered. Some say that this special attribute helped it survive the ice age. This ability to return to life was discovered by the Russian botanist Pavel Černavski who had this plant placed in a herbarium back in 1928. And when he accidentally spilled some water on the herbarium, previously completely dried plant suddenly bloomed. Magical.That is why people never stop struggling, never stop trying to survive, and always  believing and hoping that someone will appear and spill, accidentally or not, a drop of water in the direction of a forgotten flower archived in a herbarium long time ago. And when something happens by accident, maybe in the form of your brother’s friend, who accidentally discovers that, in all this darkness around, you’re creating beautiful origami models in all colors and shapes, and when this brother’s friend again by chance has something to do with “The Week of Japanese Culture” in Gracanica, you realize that this is your drop of water, the chance that something that waited patiently in the herbarium finally blossoms, be noticed and light up the whole surrounding with it’s beautiful glow.

Meet Mateja, my nephew.

He lives in Kosovska Mitrovica and a few days ago he had his first solo exhibition of origami models in Gracanica, where he also tried to demonstrate his skills and creativity in order to motivate and inspire a crowd of children to, regardless of the overall darkness around them, they still need to keep doing what they love doing and never give up.

By the way, Mateja is the cute little guy on the photo. He is 9 years old.

I am convinced that he is a drop of water for many kids in Kosovo.

Check out all photos here.

Note: this is a translation of my text written in Serbian for 365lepihdana.rs (365 beautiful days), which is a “river of optimism” of people that strongly believe that, despite all the pessimism and criticism around us, we are still surrounded by so many wonderful things that we simply fail to articulate and notice. Therefore – 365 blog posts for 365 days this year, to remind us where we really are living.

 

What an extraordinary experience!

And I’m not saying experience just like that… This was simply all but a usual conference. It’s so different (to anything happened so far in Belgrade) that I continuously struggled to explain people where the hell I am and what kind of a gathering that is. Even now, after the conference, I had to go to their website – www.shareconference.net – in order to find a proper description

“…is a unique educational platform that represents new forms of social activism, and promotes internet, new media and music related contents, a feat done for the first time in the region.”

So, take a bunch of social and internet activists and media artists, put them in a fantastic new setting of recently renovated Dom Omladine (Youth Center), organize free WiFi, get connected with the internet community to create a hype around it, create a fantastic night program throughout the conference and add a thing or two in the halls to make the atmosphere relaxed and enjoyable, and there you go – Share Conference has begun its, we hope, long and prosperous life in our capital.

The whole program of the conference can be seen on their home page, along with the short biographies of speakers and explanations of almost all sessions, so I won’t go into detailed explanation of all of them, but I’d like to point out a few memorable ones. Memorable for me, that is…

Day 1&3: ImprovEverywhere – Causing a scene

Brian Fountain i Robyn Sklaren shared a story about all the famous videos and activities most of us already knew about (Frozen Grand Central, Grocery Store Musical, Best Buy etc), but now with an extra flavor – background stories, anecdotes, results…

All in all, a hilarious presentation that culminated 2 days later when they organized one of their activities with all of us in downtown Belgrade!
We gathered in front of Hotel Moscow where we were instructed briefly to split into 3 groups and get into 3 positions downtown respectively. The idea was to create a Mobile Club downtown, with all the possible things one awesome club usually has – walls, great people, music, light show, queue in front, security in dark suits and dark sunglasses, foursquare spot , and of course a fantastic atmosphere. And what a party it was! Before the videos are out by the organizers, check out a couple of photos here:

Photos credits: ShareConference on Flickr

Day 1: Face2Facebook - Paolo Cirio & Alessandro Ludovico

Now these 2 guys are completely nuts! They followed the same path Facebook had when being developed – they downloaded 1 million (yes, one and six zeros) photos from cca 250.000 Facebook profiles, ran a special face recognition algorithm to divide faces into various groups (by facial expressions) and then built a dating website around these photos.  If you’ve seen The Social Network movie, you probably know that Zuckerberg did pretty much the same when he built FaceMash.

The theory behind this idea is that Facebook already plays a role on the thin line between a social network and a dating website, because if you look closely into

what kind of data are we asked for and how technology within Facebook is directed into making it easy for us to share photos, statuses and communication in general about our relationships, then it’s easy to draw a conclusion that one of the main things Facebook is being used for is to be a platform to build relationships.

Website they built  - www.lovelyfaces.com – did not last long (nor was it supposed to), and they are still fighting legal battle with Facebook (and their accounts were banned for good ), but nevertheless they are very happy about the outcomes of the project. Along with other initiatives at that time, they succeeded to force Facebook to change their claim over users data, which is a huge success.

During the Q&A session, they didn’t want to reveal future plans, as they are not sure whether they want new legal battles before they finish with current ones

Day 2: The Copyfight – Peter Sunde (PirateBay & Flattr)

I have to admit – when I checked out the program of the conference for the first time, I did not recognize Peter’s name. Never heard of Flattr before neither. But then, just before his lecture, I realized that it is actually Peter Sunde, one of the founders of ThePirateBay.org, which is, in a way, guilty for almost 60% of today’s internet traffic, as it played a crucial role in popularizing torrents which are today the most popular peer2peer way of sharing files on the internet.

Peter told us about the history of PirateBay, about their legal fights with providers, courts, governments, about how they tried to buy Sealand and were followed by private investigators (stupid ones, but nevertheless), even how Belgrade played a role in the whole story when famous PirateBay bus was hidden in Belgrade during the trials etc.

Don’t know the age span of the participants, but I’m sure that I was not the only one thoroughly enjoying this fantastic story and smiling stupidly as a sign of being happy that I live in this time and that I was a part of the whole story around PirateBay, at least as a simple user of their revolutionary website. My Serbian readers will understand what I’m trying to say if I compare this smile with the one that only those who were old enough to see and actually enjoy the 3 point shots of Djordjevic with Partizan and Serbia can have.

Peter also shared with us that they are not putting almost any effort in maintaining the website (hence the prehistoric

al design , and that they would probably shut it down if the server broke today. They are basically keeping it alive because it’s still in top50 sites worldwide (!!!) and people simply use it.

A part of Pirate Bay, he is mostly into developing Flattr.com these days. It’s a social micro-payment/micro-donation system that allows users to put a monthly amount/credit on flattr.com and then user “flattr this” button (similar to FB Like or Google +1). In the end of the month, the credited amount is donated to the flattered websites per flattr-ing ratio. The idea is that they make donations as direct as possible, without expensive middle-men etc. It’s a great project, and I would love to see it working in Serbia soon.

Day 3: Technologies of Empathy – MIT Media Lab - Chris Csikszentmihalyi

That’s what I call a special guy! He is a director of MIT Center for Future Civic Media, which develops new technologies and techniques to strengthen local communities. Pretty cool, huh? I mean, just mentioning MIT was enough, right? But that’s not the only thing he is special for. Check out his style on this photo and video and you’ll understand why we all tweeted frantically about him for the first 10 minutes of his lecture

Jokes aside, he was awesome. He spoke honestly about projects they are trying to do to re-balance power between citizens on one and corporations and political factors on the other side. He reminded us that MIT became so big and important because it is one of the biggest defense contractors of the US Army. He also reminded us that most of their work was inspired by the fact that during the Bush rule, government did not share much information about it’s activities, and yet wanted to have and control the data about everyone and everybody. We’re talking about pre-Web2.0 time, of course. Now, Chris argued that government did not ask us whether they can use that info, so what would happen if we just took the info from the government and used it in any way we can think of?

This way of thinking inspired many activities and serviced in the years to come, including Txt2Mob which was a java applet that helped sending SMSs to many recipients via foreign countries’ servers, and all because government instructed phone companies to shut down services protesters in the US used to organize them

selves. There’s apparently a rumor that the source-code of this service was used when Twitter was being developed. How cool is that?

Chris mentioned many more services and you can explore them at their website, but the one that I loved the most is SourceMap which runs under a motto - “We believe that people have the right to know where things come from and what they are made of”. It’s basically a system that allows you to map literally anything in a structured and organized way. You can also browse many maps that are already in the system, and that are really detailed. I believe that no-one in the room felt completely comfortable after Chris has shown us a video of where and how certain materials that exist in all our smartphones are made. Check out this intro video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30laGwoYTU

All in all – a great lecture. He definitely marked the day with showing off all the amazing work they do at MIT Media Lab and certainly left many of us drooling and dreaming about being part of it.

Day 3: Deconstructing the role of social media in Tunisian Revolution – Global Voices – Sami Ben Gharbia

Sami is Tunisian, but lives in exile in the Netherlands where he works as Advocacy director at Global Voices, which “seeks to build a global anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free access to information online.”

He got one of the longest applauses on this year’s conference and for a reason – he deconstructed, step by step and in details the whole story – what, when, how and why it happened. It’s really not easy to explain the whole story in a few sentences, and for that you’ll have to wait for the organizers to upload all lectures (yes, they promised to do so shortly after the conference), but let me just tell you that it was proven that Facebook is good to start the revolution, but Twitter is the one that really brings it to another level (Facebook is a closed platform, you need to be registered and also friends with people or a member of groups if you wanna see news, while twitter is a completely open platform).

Also, it was all about strategy, not tools. Sami presented the 3-way ecosystem, where Facebook, Twitter and other tools is just one part, while 2 others are organizations supporting these kind of activities (human rights, big NGOs etc), and classic media, such are big media networks (CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC etc). As Milos Djajic nicely put it today – it’s about finding a way to get published in influential media. So it’s not just about organizing protests, it’s about creating a hype around it, so that people and organizations get interested continuously. I mean, if 30.000 people protests against Gadaffi and no-one know about it – technically Gadaffi can kill these 30.000 people in a matter of hours probably. But if the eyes of international community are at Libya, then it’s not that easy anymore.
And it helps when government makes stupid steps, like trying to censor internet and specific tools like facebook or posterous, which only brought more people on these platforms.

And this strategy is different in all places – i.e. Facebook and Twitter revolutions were good for Tunisia, but are unlikely to work in Gaza, where internet connection is not so good.

We all followed the situation in Tunisia, but when someone puts it in such a cool presentation and explains why something happened in certain moments, then you realize it’s pretty much modernized version of what Otpor (Resistance) did in Serbia while fighting against Milosevic. As someone putt it nicely – if we had social media back in the nineties, Milosevic would be gone by Dayton Peace Agreement (1995 – Peace in Bosnia).

A really great lecture it was. Too bad that organizers could not set up a video link with Dalia Ziada – an Egyptian blogger and human rights activist, would be cool to hear Egyptian part of the story too…

Conclusion

To conclude, there were more really cool lectures, some I visited and enjoyed (News Analysis, Visualization and Summarization by Institut Jozef Stefan, or Belgrade, beyond an image of a party city by Viktor Markovic from Belgraded.com, Istinomer (Truthmeter)) and some I unfortunately missed (Crisis mapping in Action by Jaroslav Valych, or What makes a movement by Sam Graham Felsen).

And I’ll just say once again how great and inspiring this experience was, that I’m happy that Belgrade and Serbia were hosting such a fantastic conference and that I’m really hoping it will become a tradition.

Exactly one year ago I wrote a post Serbia.hope about the image of Serbia in the world and an initiative of a group of bloggers, twitter peeps and other enthusiasts to do something to change how Serbia looks like to foreigners.

This group met on a Tweetup in Belgrade and several people volunteered to start working on the project, some offered logistical help, hosting etc. The idea was to create a platform where people that visited Serbia would write about their experiences and invite others to come and see for themselves. Sure, this should be done by a National Tourist Organization, but they wouldn’t even start thinking about it if there wasn’t a big budget behind it.

Now, one year later, this great group of people came up with the best looking website of this kind I’ve seen in ages.

You can find the website at www.enterserbia.com. Viktor from Belgraded.com gave a pretty good description of what it exactly is:

EnterSerbia is a nonprofit, ad-free, user-submitted article, photo and video database for all your Serbia-related stories. Stories written mostly by visitors who found the country to be not all that bad. In fact, most of them found it to be surprisingly good.

If you are a regular at my blog, then there is a good chance that this platform is for you – either to enjoy nice stories from Serbia or to share your own story from Serbia or from your experience with Serbs.

I’m inviting you to click here and start sharing.

Kraljevo

The other initiative I wanted to present here is also made possible by a group of web enthusiasts from Serbia. If you missed news from CEE these days – there was a quite a strong earthquake in Serbia recently with an epicenter near city of Kraljevo in Central Serbia.

Local and National Governments started the standard procedures for these types of crisis and the TV news were pretty much the same – everything will be all right, we are doing all we can etc etc.

But, unlike earlier, people are not easy to fool in times of twitter and other real time communication channels. In a matter of minutes after the earthquake we knew where the epicenter is and in matter of hours we had so much information shared via twitter that watching TV felt like watching last month news.

Right away, some people went to Kraljevo to volunteer and sent info that there is no serious organization whatsoever in the city and something needs to be done.

Again, a couple of great enthusiasts thought that waiting for the government to do something is like “Waiting for Godot” and in just a couple of days they built www.jazakraljevo.rs (Me for Kraljevo). The website is built on Ushahidi platform which “allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline”.

The website is already recognized as unofficial Crisis HQ as it offers an easy way to submit data about each and every house/building affected and offers a clear image of what needs to be done to the wider public. All information submitted is, of course, been checked and confirmed by an official crisis HQ in Kraljevo.

This crisis has brought up another great online initiative and I really hope it works out. Website Saglasni.rs (Eng. Agreed) is made upon an idea that all cities in Serbia give 50% of their New Years Eve celebrations budget to Kraljevo. As simple as that.
In times of great crisis, we have to show solidarity and rebuild the country as soon as possible. I honestly don’t know anyone that doesn’t agree with this initiative. Let’s just hope that Mayors and Local Governments will think the same.

If you are from Serbia and agree with this idea, please send this website to your Mayor and ask him/her kindly to act upon it. As soon as the first one is “Saglasan”, am sure many will follow.

Conclusion

To cut the story short – we, the internet community in Serbia, are becoming increasingly visible and, dare I say, influential within the wider public.

And it is not because we are many, it is because we matured and started using all these communication channels and tools laying around in a very effective way. Just look how these initiatives are brought together… I mean, anyone can build a blog or website about “Beautiful Serbia” and put on it several hundreds of pictures found via Google and expect miracles. Or anyone can write a blogpost or whine on news websites about the importance of solidarity and how the Government is not doing enough.
But, to put together these initiatives that are very down to earth and offer concrete actions and results – now that’s new and refreshing for Serbia. Sure, we always had these great people having great initiatives, but those have never been put in practice in such an efficient and easy to use way. These are all simple ideas, packed in a nice outfit and presented in a way easy to understand and with clear action steps.

Awesome, simply awesome.

It makes me happy that even with a huge brain drain, Serbia still has these great people.
It makes me happy that they are not suffering from apathy, like most people in our country do.
It makes me not just happy, but privileged to know them personally and learn from them.

So it happened…

9 years after a last attempt of having a Pride walk (or gay parade, as many refer to it) in Belgrade, and 9 years after a bloody attempt, that is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIQqw68d_s

It was a wrong timing, obviously. Serbia early after Milosevic’s era and a decade of isolation was unprepared for such an event.

This time, however, the government and the police were on the right side and decided to show the world that they can protect those who want to practice their basic human and constitutional rights – to walk freely regardless how different they are from the majority.

It wasn’t easy though. Around 6000 hooligans, most of them supportive of extremist right-wing organizations and movements, were attacking whole day 5000 policemen defending the Pride. Shock-bombs, tear gas and demolitions of Belgrade down-town reminded us of the days we thought will never happen again… And again these criminal groups managed to attract the worst type of people to the streets, many of them being there only so that they can use the opportunity to destroy the shops downtown and steal new clothes. Carpe Diem, in a way…

Some of them used it for their political agendas, so they attacked and tried to burn the headquarters of political parties (namely Democratic Party and Socialist Party). I guess they looked gay with all their blue, yellow and red colors… (latest news: papers proving that Obraz, a hardcore right-wing movement, is one of the organizers of violence have been found with their arrested leader)

Some of them were stupid enough to also throw rocks at try to destroy the mobile mammography scanner, only because it has a TV B92 logo on it. As if their sisters and moms won’t ever need it…

Total damage was estimated at 1 million euros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq0R9uk6xW0

Photo credits and more photos at: Mondo.rs

In the end, there were 150 injured and 200 arrested. An interesting fact is that more then 60% of arrested are not really from Belgrade, but from other cities in Serbia. Dunno if this is a good sample of the whole bunch of hooligans or people from other cities are less experienced in fighting the police, but it’s still indicative.

I mean, I followed a good part of the happening from the airport actually. Was on my way to a business trip and there was a TV in the airport coffee shop, so we all followed Studio B (they really stepped up and did what national TV stations failed to do – covered the whole event thoroughly – kudos to them!) while waiting for our flights. Interesting fact was that the large majority (90% or more) were supporting the Belgrade Pride!

What does this tell us? Most of these people are probably not travelling for their first time. They’ve seen the world, they’ve seen how developed countries treat all their citizens equally and how everyone is entitled to walk freely and proudly. On the other side, you have a bunch of kids from small, poor cities in Central Serbia that have probably never travelled outside of Serbian borders, and have grown up in isolation, poverty and bad education system. Should we be surprised that they are easily becoming hooligans and vandals? Nope, I don’t think so… But I’m sure that this will change very soon – as we don’t need visas for Schengen zone anymore, travelling is becoming cheaper and cheaper, so these kids will eventually see the world and finally chill out. It maybe sounds stupid and simple, but I’m sure that’s the only way for this generation to change and make a difference between human rights and promiscuity.

So, it wasn’t easy, and I’m truly sorry that there are so many injured, but this is a big win for Serbia regardless. Violent majority will never again keep this country a hostage, and hopefully next year less people will see the Pride as a provocation of violence (how dumb does that sound?) and more people will realize that this is as much about LGBT rights as it is of the other minorities – Roma, disabled, war veterans etc…

(Apart from TV Studio B, the only channel of communication that worked properly and gave real time information was Twitter. Check out how it went at #bgpride hashtag)

All right, this is an important post for me.

I’m becoming more serious about moving back from business to doing good full time.

There, I said it!

My “About me” page says a lot about me and my career, but it doesn’t say that I did not just move back from doing CSR in Microsoft MEA in Istanbul to be working for a Bank in Serbia. I mean, Banks are not listed high in “favorite jobs” lists of people who want to change the world (only later have I realized that this bank is actually different, but nevertheless).

My “About me” page doesn’t say that I came back to Serbia because I didn’t want to work abroad. My job in Microsoft was helping other people and it was very rewarding, but that wasn’t enough. I had a strong drive to do something in Serbia, to try to change something here. And I tried allright. Gathered a team, wrote an amazing project, applied for funds, was so full of positive energy that I was almost flying  and – failed. Officially because they (the Fund) had a different focus, but unofficially someone told me that they give funds only to organizations they are friends with, and advised me to start befriending them (kissing their assess) and to start writing project that are not interfering with project they are doing already (so that funders don’t have to think too much when funding). What does this tell you about the situation for NGOs? A lot, I believe…

So, I failed and convinced myself that it might not be the time yet, and I accepted my current position (very fulfilling and rewarding too, not to be understood wrongly) and waited for the right moment. And trust me, waiting for such a moment in a country in transition is just not easy. Especially in a country that is in the news all the time either because of the fight for Kosovo or because of the corruption, high criminal rates etc. The government is huge, slow, made out of unlikely partners and always has “more important things” to do then to create a positive climate for us that want to do something good here. Actually, for anyone that wants to do anything.

However, I never lost faith, and am still not losing it. Sounds cheesy and pathetic, but it’s how it is…
For more then 2 years already I’m trying to find a way to start something really cool in Belgrade. Not to say too much, it is a social business that can generate many new jobs and support innovative social entrepreneurship ideas. And it is a sustainable business, not typical donor-dependent NGO. Something very cool and fresh in Belgrade and Serbia. A logical and awesome partner came along some months ago, and as we are beginning to speak more loudly about the idea, the support is coming along too – individuals, companies, friends, potential investors…  All showing quite a lot of understanding for what we are trying to achieve. Some of them are even already promising some concrete help, and I thank them for that.

Unfortunately, this is also where the first real hurdles pop up too… I believe that only those that have tried to start an NGO or a small company know how hard it is to work with our Government and in this system. They eased the registration of organizations, but doing anything after that is ridiculous.  The amount of people hired by various governments in past 20-30 years and power of this people even today, within this system and under new government, is just enormous. The level of corruption you can see everywhere is frightening. It looks almost impossible to succeed (and by succeed I mean to start an initiative, so you see how low my expectations are). No wonder that the statistics are not in favor of startups. I’ve read somewhere a great quote: “one should start a company before he turns 30, for he knows too much afterwards”. Very true, if you ask me… I just turned 30 and am scared shitless…

Anyhow, one event happened and one information received recently made me start believing again.

The event was a tweetup with Jasna Matic, Serbian Minister for Telecommunications and Information Society – several bloggers wrote already about it (google translated: Pedya, Tatjana Vehovec, plus Danica Radisic at Global Voices), but let me summarize it in short – she invited us to their new offices, she spent some serious time with us, she listened to what we had to say, she asked us what we want and told us what she would like to have from us. A very pragmatic woman, great approach, relaxed atmosphere and a concrete output from a meeting. Sounds ridiculous, but a Minister actually talking to people and offering concrete actions to support them is a huge thing for Serbia – never ever has this happened before. But it will happen again – in 45 days from the first one. By her wish, that is.

The information I mentioned is also very encouraging. Apparently, there is one Municipality under the City of Belgrade that is not full of arrogant and corrupted politicians that don’t care about anything else but their own asses (I honestly believe that our Mayor is doing good things for the City, but helping NGOs and startups is still in the hands of corrupted people within the City government). I’m not gonna name these good people yet, as I still did not contact them, but I met with already 2 organizations that had fantastic experiences with them. They listened carefully, read the projects and supported them with all the power they got! Let’s hope they like our idea too! If this works out, I’m gonna be inviting everyone to start their business/NGO only in this municipality and nowhere else.

I’m in heavens again. Full of energy and faith that these few good (wo)men can make a difference. Government is not a big faceless machine anymore. It is “vulnerable” now.
And if I manage to use this vulnerability to do something good, I’ll be happy to share my experience here.

“Legal experts said that while the International Court of Justice had ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was legal, it had avoided saying that the state of Kosovo was legal under international law, a narrow and carefully calibrated compromise that they said could allow both sides to declare victory in a dispute that remains raw even 11 years after the war there.”
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/world/europe/23kosovo.html?_r=3&ref=world

Disgrace.

And I’m not saying this as a Serbian nationalist from Kosovo or anything. It is a disgrace because  an institution that is supposed to use the logic and common sense (whatever that is in this case) decided not to decide at all (!!!), and left the politicians in the UN to play the game and make a “final decision” withing the General Assembly of the UN. An easy parallel would be if the pedagogues in the kindergarten would be asked for an opinion on who is right and who is wrong and they just tell the kids to decide themselves. Who wins? Bigger and stronger, of course, and in most cases those that won’t ever admit they made a mistake.

This way, all they did was to pretty much retain the status quo for now. Both sides will read between the lines in their own ways and we are still far from any kind of a decision. Disgrace!

What has this shown us? Only one thing, in my opinion – that ICJ doesn’t have cojones/balls/muda to do their job.
I mean, since the ’90s, we are being told that we have to deal with what our leaders and people did in the past, been that Srebrenica or whatever else. And we pretty much have dealt with it. I don’t know many people in Serbia that don’t accept Srebrenica as a crime against humanity, and don’t feel ashamed that someone of our kind did that. Sure, there is still a lot that needs to be discussed and accepted on all sides in that bloody war, but we are going into the right direction. As a whole region, that is.

However, what we have in this case is that a major institution – International Court of Justice, which was created to deal with such situations, clearly rejected to show some courage and either confirm that independence is OK, or admit a mistake and support the negotiations about the final status.

What kind of a crap is that? Were they afraid to make a decision that either USA or Russia will not like and thought that this way they won’t get in a position where one super-power doesn’t care about and overrules such decision (remember USA and UN)? Or were they just afraid that a clear decision will spark either fights between Albanians and Serbs or enforce secessionist movements in many regions in the world (Catalonia, to start with - check out the reaction of their PM yesterday, or Armenians in Azerbaijan, or Cyprus situation - check how quickly Germans issued this press release)? (check also other reactions here and here)

I honestly believed that this agony will be finished, whatever the decision would be… Honestly… For the sake of  the youth that should grow up learning about important things and enjoying life and not watching the news and looking forward to find a way to get a passport and leave the country. I honestly believed that international community has balls to make a decision and stick with it.  And, believe it or not, I was ready to accept that Kosovo will not be part of Serbia anymore. I knew it would be hard, but I was ready to cry my ass off and feel miserable for some time. For the sake of the future.

But that was until yesterday. Who is going to convince me today that it is OK to be OK with losing Kosovo? Nobody. Ever. Again.
I’m OK when someone proves me wrong. Someone with a clear idea why I am wrong and he/she is right. But who can prove me wrong here? Someone without a stand?
And stupid rhetorics about “de-facto situation” or “it would be too hard to get back there and convince Albanians that living with Serbs is OK” doesn’t work anymore. It’s just absurd.

And don’t think I’m becoming a nationalist. Nope. Never been, never will be. My thoughts are on a much higher level. I’m actually sure now that my old idea about the need of the  World War 3 and “restart of the system” is actually very good. Couple of nukes would probably help solve all the world’s problems. Am sure that Mr. Bush and Clinton would agree with me, along with all leaders of NATO countries. Don’t you agree?

That, or and old idea of Mr. Arthur C. Clarke (somebody reminded me of this idea today):
“Any teacher (leader) that can be replaced by a machine, should be!”
Machines think logically. They know only 1 and 0, true or false. Their logic cannot be affected by Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Putin or fancy Mr. Obama and his administration. They don’t know what the word “inat” means. They don’t give a fuck. That’s why I love computers.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true…

Cartoons from: http://www.donika.com/cartoon.html