Wednesday 16 June 2010

Being a British Serb - living in contrariety

I'm a British Serb, i.e. a person of ethnic Serb origin living in the UK. I personally was not born in Britain, but many other British Serbs were. I can speak Serbian - or Serbo-Croat - fluently as it is my mother tongue and I use it regularly, whereas many of my fellow British Serbs do not speak it as proficiently as I do, but they do understand it in spoken form. Both my parents are Serbs, which, according to most people's understanding of national identity, makes me "100% Serb"; while many of my fellow British Serbs are from mixed marriages, in which one of their parents is a Serb and the other parent is usually of British or other European origin, making them 50% Serb and 50% English or Irish or something else.

Being a Diaspora population, British Serbs are an ethnic minority subject to the culture and language of the majority population. British Serbs tend to live in small communities in big towns, and therefore, their social interactions with other people can sometimes be with fellow Serbs, other times with people who are not Serbs, and occasionally with both Serbs and other people from Britain and the rest of the world! They also tend to spend most of the year in Great Britain and only a few weeks in the year - if ever - in their Balkanian homelands, which they call "zavičaj" or "ognjište".

Serbs have been coming over to the UK from the former Yugoslavia since the end of the Second World War, following the recent Yugoslav wars, and in between the two war-torn periods. They settled into Britain's industrialised environment arriving from a largely rural background, raised in a strongly traditional, patriarchal spirit. Serbs, who were born here, have grown up in those same urban areas settled into by their parents, and have thrived in a vibrantly modern, multicultural society.

Serb immigrants have to various degrees integrated themselves into this Western society, founded on liberal democracy and free-market capitalism; while their children have inherited much of their parents' traditional values stemming from the Balkans based on faith, customs and history. And it is precisely by examining this case of cultural inheritance and cultural dichotomy will we understand what it means to be a "British Serb".

Which language do you speak?

As far as language is concerned, British Serbs born in the former Yugoslavia obviously speak their native language fluently, though many of them can also speak English just as fluently, depending on how long they've lived in the UK - sorry, correction: depending on how much interaction they've experienced with other English-speaking people while living in the UK.

Based on personal experience with members of my ethnic community, I've discovered that living in the UK for many years does not alone make a fluent English-speaker out of a British Serb! In fact, because many Serb immigrants enjoy most of their inter-personal interactions with other Serbs and other former Yugoslavs, both during work and after-work hours throughout their everyday life here, many of them never become fully fluent speakers of the host nation's language, even though knowledge of English is a practical and vital necessity for working and living in this country.

On the other hand, British Serbs who were born in Britain and went to British schools often don't share the same level of proficiency in speaking Serbian that their parents have. Nevertheless, they do understand it when spoken to them or around them, due to exposure to the language within the family and community since childhood.

However, when it comes to passing on the language to the next generation, those British Serbs who can barely speak their parents' language often don't teach their children to speak Serbian as a first language; rather they pass on some Serbian phrases to them once they've already mastered another language, i.e. English, both at home and at school, thus breaking the chain of language transmission linking the generations, while also raising a generation of British Serbs who never attain even a minimal understanding of their ancestors' language (not that they really need it in this country anyway)!

Where d'you come from?

We British Serbs are very proud of our family history and origins, as such pride is instilled in us by our parents and grandparents. Even though we live far away from our Balkanian "ognjišta" (meaning "hearths") on the isle of Britain, we have been raised with Serbian legends and stories about our "preci" (meaning "ancestors") from our various "zavičaji" (meaning "home regions"), that have been passed on from generation to generation, stirring up within us a passionate pride and an indelible sense of glory!

But when it comes to explaining our origins to other people in the UK, we British Serbs tend not to boast about our cultural heritage to other Britons; in fact, for much of the last 15-20 years, many of us have been inclined to keep our Serbian ethnicity a personal secret, as a way of avoiding the stigmatisation surrounding the word "Serb" created during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Unfortunately, none of us can avoid admitting our origins forever, and yet being asked, "Where are you from?" can be such a sticky situation for us!

As a rule, British Serbs from Croatia, like myself, have found it easier to just tell people that they're from Croatia, which is a popular country for Brits, thus conveniently hiding the fact that they're ethnic Serbs; likewise, British Serbs from Bosnia have also found it easier to just tell people that they're from Bosnia rather than admitting the whole truth that they belong to those same Bosnian Serbs like indicted war criminals Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić; and of course, the same rule applies to British Serbs from Montenegro, a land seemingly free of war criminals and wars! But what about British Serbs from Serbia, the former pariah state of the infamous Serbian hard man Slobodan Milošević, the Butcher of the Balkans; how on Earth do they explain to people where they or their parents come from? Why yes, they just say they're from Yugoslavia instead!

Speaking of which, many British Serbs still refer to their country of origin as "Yugoslavia", even though that name is no longer featured on any modern world map! Some of them prefer to use that name to avoid saying "Serbia" (as mentioned above); some use it because they long for those days of living in an internationally respected country, which co-founded and co-led the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, and which was also home to a relatively decent society - albeit a communist one - that lasted for nearly fifty years since World War Two; while others use that name because they're so out of touch with their homeland, so out of touch with all the current affairs and trends over there, that they can't be bothered to refer to it as anything else!

Your surname is…?

Other than being asked where we come from, another annoying - yet comparatively more essential - question we get asked all the time by everyone we meet throughout our lives is, "How do you spell your surname?" Most of our surnames end in -ić or -ović/ević, just like other Serbo-Croatian surnames from the Balkans written in the Roman alphabet (in the Cyrillic alphabet, it's written like so: -ић and -овић/евић. But since we live in a country whose main language only employs the Roman alphabet and doesn't use accents on any consonant, British Serbs are compelled to write their noble and glorious surnames without those decorative yet honourable ticks like so: -ic and -ovic/evic.

Surnames borne by us Serbs in Britain range in size; some of them are short ones, while others are much longer. Bear in mind, however, that short Serbo-Croatian surnames are not always the easiest ones! Nevertheless, some of us have relatively easy surnames like Popović, Zarić or Radusin; but others amongst us have more difficult to pronounce surnames, which for English-speakers look really unusual, like Stojisavljević, Krcunović and even Brkljač!

Serb immigrants are proud and fond of their surnames, and would never consider changing the spelling of their surnames to make it easier for English-speakers to read or pronounce near-correctly - let alone changing their surnames completely. Afterall, they did grow up in a country where they didn't experience any serious problems with their surnames. And a favourite pastime among Serb immigrants is watching the cast and credits at the end of TV programmes to see if they can spot a Serbian name and surname among the rolling credits!

However, British-born Serbs, who retain their surnames' original spelling thanks to their parents not changing them, have to consider whether to pronounce their surnames the way they're pronounced in the former Yugoslavia in the company of English-speakers unfamiliar with Serbo-Croatian linguistics, or whether to pronounce them in a way that would sound more familiar to English-speakers but unlike the original pronunciations. And of course, it's British-born Serbs who are the ones who are compelled to spell out their surnames time and time again for their whole lives, and whose children and grand-children will have to do the same for years to come, even when their immigrant parents and grandparents are long gone!

What's your community like?

In this country, there are significant Serbian communities in London boroughs like Hammersmith and Ealing, or further north in towns like Bedford, Corby, Leicester and Derby, and Yorkshire towns like Leeds and Halifax. In such places, you will often find a Serb Orthodox church like St. Sava's church in London and St. Elijah's church in Corby, which get packed during Christian holidays like Christmas (or "Božić"), Easter (or "Uskrs/Vaskrs"), and saints' feast days (or as we call each of them "Krsna slava").

If you live in the above-mentioned places, where the largest concentrations of British Serbs in the country are, you can feel like you're part of a vibrant community of like-minded people with whom you share a common origin. But if you live outside of them, being a Serb in Britain can be an especially lonely experience. In fact, there are many of us who live most of our daily lives without seeing a single fellow Serb for most of the year! And because many Serbs have moved around the country over the years, many of them have lost touch with fellow Serbs, whether immigrant or British-born, and find themselves outside of any Serb community in the country. Therefore, it's not surprising that many British Serbs often feel that they're the only Serbs where they are!

Upon their arrival to this country, Serb immigrants tend to conglomerate in areas where there are already existing Serbian communities to keep company with other Serbs, which is practical since many of them come to Britain barely speaking a word of English. Because of that tendency to settle into places where there are already some Serbs, most of their daily interactions with other people are with other Serbs, thus forming close-knit communities of immigrants that maintain strong links with the home country, be it Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia or Montenegro.

British-born Serbs, on the contrary, spend most of their time - and their lives - with people who are not Serbs at all! They go to school here among children from a variety of different backgrounds, with whom they make friends and find girlfriends or boyfriends. When they grow up, they find work among fellow Britons, and later on, get married and raise their own families here, either with Serb or non-Serb spouses. Unfortunately, many of them have few Serb friends - even none - with whom they can celebrate their Serbian culture or discuss Serb-related topics (as indicated above). And although their parents take them to their homeland to visit family over there during their childhood, many of them rarely visit their parents' country of origin as adults, and therefore can easily lose contact with however many Serb relatives they may have back home.

So, what does it mean?

Living my life as a British Serb has so far been an experience full of contradictions. As detailed above: you have Serbs, on the one hand, who've spent most of their lives in the UK but have never become fluent in English; while on the other hand, you have Serbs born in this country who have never attained fluency in Serbian. We are proud of our origins and inspired by our ancestors, but don't boast about either in order to avoid prejudice and exclusion. Moreover, we have wonderful surnames each with a colourful history, but nobody can say them properly except for ourselves! And there are those of us who keep in contact with fellow Serbs and "zavičaj", and others amongst us who've lost all contact with fellow Serbs and "zavičaj"!

But what is the future for our community in this country? Well, it could look a bit like this: at one end of the "British Serb spectrum" will be a community of middle-aged and elderly Serbs, who'll keep themselves to themselves, but will continue to maintain links with their homelands till the end of their lives - unless they go back there to spend their retirement; while at the other end will be younger generations of Serbs, half-Serbs, quarter-Serbs and eighth-Serbs, who will completely assimilate themselves into the mass of British society, and who'll have little to no idea what their ancestral land looks like (to be fair on them, they're better off not going there anyway)!

And the main reason why this could be the case for British Serbs - or maybe is the case already! - is simply because there just aren't that many of us on this island anyhow! According to all population estimates, our ethnic community, made up of waves of immigrants into and natural births in this country, only numbers in the five figures and no higher. And although there are concentrations of Serbs in certain towns and cities in Britain, there are many others who are dispersed throughout this country, isolated from any major community.

But whatever the future holds for us British Serbs, whichever language - or languages - we will speak, and however many of us there will be in the UK, the most important thing for us to do is to remember that we are British Serbs; that we came from the Balkan peninsula, bringing our names, customs and Orthodox faith along to the British isles, where we have adapted to and integrated ever since - or are trying to!

35 comments:

Sam said...

Awesome!!! I learned a lot about British Serbs from reading this article.To be honest I didn't even know there was a large Serbian and other Yugoslav community in the UK.from growing up mostly in the states.I know Chicago has a huge Serb community over 500.000!!(maybe even more since they came here since 19th century) and other cities mostly in the Midwest and New England.

Milos said...

Nice post, I met a British-born half-serb that is currently living in Belgrade because his Serbian mom sent him over here to get acquainted with his origins, but he speaks no Serbian and isn't even bothering to learn even though he is definitely enjoying his time here.

Pozdrav iz Beograda

Conchita said... said...

I enjoyed reading your blog - I am married to a Serb whose ancestry is and was in Lika. I've not visited any country in the Balkans (yet!) but I am immenseley proud of my husband's love of his own ancestry. My husband's family actually have 'cousins' in Chicago, Canada, Sweden, Oxford, London, Lika, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Montenegro, and London... all their stories are awesome. I am also constantly having to spell my surname just as you describe!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like the Brit Serbs are too cowardly and/or lazy to defend their own people in a negative atmosphere. With "Serbs" like these, no wonder Serbia doesn't do well.
Furthermore I see you push a lot of the mainstream media false accusations and propaganda against Serbs - at least you seem to agree with it or believe it is true unquestioningly - when in fact and true analysis of the claims show they fall apart. The Balkan wars WERE set up and there was bias against Serbia and Serbs from the start. It was planned to break up Yugoslavia into little pure or ethnically divided statelets. Britain was one of the countries involved with this along with the U.S. and Germany, and still others went along. So many of the "witnesses" against the Serbs have proven themselves bald-faced liars at the Hague. Yet the Hague allows these perjurers to get their propaganda set as the official "truth". There were also staged-for-the-cameras incidents in Bosnia and even some UN personnel and international officials testifying for the prosecution (against Serbs) have admitted Muslims DID stage and provoke attacks and further were witnessed killing their own people (other Muslims) to have the Serbs blamed.

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

Hello, Anonymous. I responded to your above comment with a whole blog post: Response to comment by "Anonymous" - 23 June 2010 00:01. And I apologise in advance if my response disappoints you.

Anonymous said...

That's a fascinating insight. It's surprising how much of what you say could apply to many other "immigrant" groups and "second-generations" in the UK, non-Europeans as well as Europeans. Anonymous hasn't a clue about real life in the UK in which people are born and grow up in a society composed of many diverse groups and cultures. I suspect that for many Serbs Serbia itself isn't the sort of monolithic, mono-ideological society Anonymous would like it to be.

Unknown said...

I'm from Chicago, which is home to one of the oldest and most active Serbian-American communities in the US. But the number cited by Sam ("over 500,000!!") is exaggerated.

According to U.S. Census Bureau in 2005, a total 169,479 Americans declared themselves to be of Serbian descent. That's not just in Chicago, but in all of the United States. One could double that number if one assumes that half of those who called themselves Yugoslav-Americans in the census are of Serbian descent.

The ethnic breakdowns by city from the 2010 census are not yet available, but the Serbian-American population in Chicago is more likely to be over 50,000 than over half a million.

Blackbird said...

Do me a favor and continue to tell people there that you are from Croatia. You're not much of a Serb.

cp said...

Wow, I'm only half Serb but always tell people I am 100% Serb in my heart and mind.

Anonymous said...

I can't understand why any Croatian Serb would try to pass as a Croatian to avoid opprobium from some Owen-ish idiot who doesn't know history or the truth. It's like a Jew passing as a German to avoid antisemitism. Fortunately, most Jews have the backbone to stand up for who they are despite the fact that so much of the world hates them. Serbs should do the same, should speak out for the truth, and not permit the lies and the aspersion to internalize. And especially not try to pass as citizens or even ethnic compatriots of those who perpetrated a horrific genocide over their ancestors just 70 years ago.

Abdulhazred said...

And especially not try to pass as citizens or even ethnic compatriots of those who perpetrated a horrific genocide over their ancestors just 70 years ago.

Anonymous potpuno isključuje činjenice o udjelu Hrvata u antifašističkom pokretu.

Abdulhazred said...

Great movie!

Đorđe Kadijević - Praznik (1967)

Download :
http://rapidshare.com/files/191086857/Praznik.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/191086701/Praznik.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/191085757/Praznik.part3.rar

Pass: rapidserbia.com

No english subs., unfortunately.

cp said...

Don't be afraid of being Serbian. I'm the opposite of you, only half Serb and tell people I'm 100%. Try it, it's wonderful and liberating, Alan.

Anonymous said...

It was certainly interesting for me to read that post. Thanks for it. I like such themes and everything connected to this matter. I would like to read more soon.

Joan Hakkinen

Marie Marshall said...

This blog is very informative.

A friend and anarchist comrade of mine devotes a small portion of his unrelated web site to the little he knows about his father's WW2 exploits with Tito's communist parisans http://gm4uls.webs.com/druzhevinko.htm His observations about ethnicity are brief but interesting.

The BBC recently ran a half-hour programme about the Guča trumpet festival in Serbia, and about how such overtly ethnocentric displays were discouraged by the Tito regime. However, it is interesting to note that one of the most famous trumpeters from Serbia, Boban Marković, is in fact an ethnic Romany (correct me if I am wrong).

I shall place your blog in my Google Reader.

Anonymous said...

Greetings. I like your article. This is a nice site and I wanted to post a note to let you know. good job!

Mira G said...

Interesting article. I want to write one from a Canadian standpoint. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

well, folks, u may think of me as an 'unclean' [necisti] croat.
i descend, as far as i know or can guess, from an admixture of peoples; possibly, illyrians, kelts, goths, thracians, romans, and croat'ns.

my mom appeared to me pure slavic; with deep butiful sunken blue eyes, round faces just like lot of poles, serbs, czechs, and other slavs.

my dad was of much darker skin and eyes than my mom. but who made him, i don't know!

as a dalmatian, living in canada for the last 60yrs, i am proud of my home town's antifascist: anti-,ustasha, -chetnik [serb royalist],-german, and anti-italian armed struggle.

in which my home town of about 16 k in '41 lost 1k lives.

it shld be noted that in canada few people know about the role of croat'n partizani during '41-45.
the reason for that?
well, most diaspora croats have supported [probably still do] croat'n puppet state; while at the same time calling antifascist fighters "criminals", "scum", "godless", and the like.

so, u can see, why none of them wld ever say that croat'ns were also partizani and in great numbers.
etcetc. tnx bozhidar baljkas

Dora said...

First of all, congratulations on a very interesting blog. You write really well, and your Balkan / British anarchist perspective is quite rare and unique. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am not being intentionally provocative, but seriously, why all the infatuation with the Serbian cultural heritage and the proclamation of ethnic Serbian identity? In a number of your posts, you make a great deal of defining and identifying yourself as a Croatian Serb / British Serb. Don't you find it a bit contradictory to the basic ideas of anarchism? Speaking as an anarchist from Zagreb , oficially ethnic Croat apparently, I personally feel extremely uncomfortable with any kind of ethnic identification. When asked about my ethnicity, my default answers are "none" or "homo sapiens". I just don't think that any kind of sense of "belonging" to an ethnic group is an authentic feeling. It is manufactured, socially produced and imposed on people, through state propaganda, religious bullshit, media and popular culture, questionable revisionist "history", myths and legends and fabrications. Now, I am not advocating some insane vision of total solipsism, an individual floating in a vacuum devoid of any ties to community, culture, history. The answer (in my view) lies in embracing locality - the community you grew up in - the neighborhood, the city, the village, whatever. I definitely feel the sense of belonging to Zagreb - I grew up on these streets and among these people, there is nothing artificial and externally imposed about that. There is, however, something deeply fake and inauthentic about the feeling of belonging to a huge imaginary "community" known as "nation". Also, if you think of the basics of anarchist organizing and decision-making processes - the face-to-face democracy, the neighborhood assemblies, the workers unions, the decentralized organic units and grassroots organizations - it really is all about embracing the most immediate surroundings and community and the REAL human beings around you rather than an abstract, faceless mass known as "nation" or "ethnic group". That's not to say that we should be ignorant of the culture and history of our ancestors - no way - I just think we as anarchists should be very, very wary of defining ourselves as individuals in terms of ethnicities.
(Just look at the tragic recent history of once multicultural ex-yu cities like Sarajevo, Mostar, Vukovar, where the rate of mixed marriages was around 40% and there was a genuine lack of awareness of one's own and other people's ethnicities. People would identify themselves as "Sarajevans" rather than "Bosnian Serbs", for example. The sense of ethnic identification, imposed in a most brutal way, was, in many ways, a prerequisite for the war... and it still is one of its most lasting and most tragic consequences. Nilosevic + Tudjman and the other ideologues of Greater Serbia / greater Croatia (comrades in arms in many ways) are the real winners of that fucking war, because they really did destroy multiculturalism and the unified local identities and imposed their barbaric tribal ethnocentrism, which, for most people of my generation - born just before or around the time of the war - it the only known, the only possible and imaginable reality. They've internalized this bullshit)
I'm rambling, sorry - it's late. Would love to get your perspective on this!
pozdrav iz zagreba

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

Thank you Dora for taking the time to read my blog and commenting, and feel free to leave comments on my other blog posts! And let me tell you what an honour it is for me to receive a comment from a fellow anarchist in Zagreb (moj rodni grad)! ;-)

I agree with you about the tribal ethnocentrism, as you so correctly put it, in our part of the world; it really disgusts me that we were reduced to squabbling tribes by those who were in charge of us at the time!

I completely agree with your view of embracing locality and how local identity is more genuine than an ethnic one, and I also agree with you about how this ties in very easily with anarchist principles. Although I was born in Zagreb, I feel a deep connection to my mountainous zavičaj Lika (the area of Gračac), and can envisage an anarchist society in that area of outstanding natural beauty! :-)

To answer your question about the "infatuation with the Serbian cultural heritage and the proclamation of ethnic Serbian identity" and whether it is "contradictory to the basic ideas of anarchism": what I try to do through my blog is one, to examine the history of the Balkans, recent and distant, and how it affects people's views of themselves and other people; and two, I also try to see how anarchist principles can be applied in our part of the world, the Balkans, by taking into consideration the history, people's grievances and the nationalism there. In order for Anarchism to have any hope of taking root in our part of the world, we need to examine the inter-ethnic disputes and also examine the Balkan peoples' various identities, whether national or ethnic, whether genuine or "internalized bullshit", to paraphrase you! By doing so, we might eventually find a suitable anarchist solution to the Balkans' particular problems.

I don't consider myself a "srbenda", let alone a "veliki Srbin"! And if I had a choice, I would rather we identified ourselves by the places we live in currently and/or originate from rather than by abstract, faceless nation or ethnic group! But like you say, I believe we should also appreciate the culture and history of our ancestors, and that's what I've tried to do with this article here and many others, examining the history and people's views and feelings.

Dora, I can see we agree on a lot of things. So if you want, feel free to add me on Facebook (click here) so we can continue our conversation there!

Živila Anarhija, i pozdrav iz Luton-a! :-)

Anonymous said...

Alan you dont know much about British Serbs nor the war in the former Yugoslavia for that matter. You weren't born in the UK and you weren't there during the break up of Yugoslavia. Alot of us British Serbs who were born here are fluent in both Serbian and English, i myself speak three languages fluently. As for the war all the Serb people did was defend themselves, the Croats started the war and they are the real war criminals and they were backed by the States from the start. And stop putting our people down and writing crap. Your iq isn't more than 75.

Anonymous said...

And stop telling everyone you're a Serb when in fact you hold a Croatian passport. Get an education and a life too.

chetnik said...

You dont know what you're on about Alan Jaksic. Every Serb born in the UK to Serbian parents speaks fluent Serbian. Alot of kids went to so called Yugoslav school once a week to learn the language properly, i was one of them. And you just carry on telling people that you're from Croatia as i'm sure you like giving croat men shiners, to you thats a blow job asshole.

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

Chetnik, whoever you are, if you read my paragraph properly, here it is again: "…British Serbs who were born in Britain and went to British schools often don't share the same level of proficiency in speaking Serbian that their parents have." Notice where I said "went to British schools", and that was my point; many British Serbs don't receive education in their parents' language!

Yes, I have heard of the Yugoslav school in London. In fact, my half-sisters actually went to that one. However, like many British Serbs, I've lived outside London and outside any major ethnic-Serb community in the country, and therefore, I wasn't living anywhere near such a school. Instead, I learnt my native language largely at home from my parents, from Satellite TV and the Internet.

Also, making lewd remarks at my expense, like you did at the end of your comment, tells me that YOU don't know what you're on about! :-P

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

And to answer the anonymous commentator dated 2 July 2012 02:40 and 2 July 2012 03:41:

Let me make this clear: telling the truth about the wars and condemning war crimes committed by one's own side does NOT equal "putting your people down", and it certainly does NOT mean you've forgotten war crimes committed against your fellow ethnics. It just means that you oppose INJUSTICE in ALL its forms and that you ALWAYS side with the VICTIMS of any injustice, and you duly condemn the PERPETRATORS of injustice.

And just to clarify, I do NOT hold a Croatian passport! In fact, as of now, I still haven't applied for a "Domovnica"! FACT! :-P

Chetnik said...

If you learnt Serbian from your parents then I definately know you aren't fluent in it. And you seem to have an answer to everything by twisting things around when you know you are wrong. And if you want to make comments about the war in the former Yugoslavia than I advise you to get your facts right first otherwise you'll make yourself look like a right jerk which you have done.

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

Chetnik, I have got my facts straight about the wars, don't you worry about that. ;-) Also, I don't need to twist anything around; that's what YOU need to do, NOT me! And if anyone looks like a "jerk" here, then it's certainly not me! Puno pozdrava! :-)

Chetnik said...

I can tell you've got no qualifications and that you work in a low paid job. You're not married and i'm sure you dont have a girlfriend and you're not a very confident person at all. All you do is sit behind that computer and write rubbish. But when you have to face the real world you're nothing but a wimp. And do me a favour apply for your Domovnica ha ha, go to Serbia and use that word and see what kind of response you get. I'm done with you. Puno pozdrava i tebi od sviju nas koji smo se borili za Republiku Srpsku Krajinu.

Balkan Ⓐnarchist said...

Correction: I actually have IT qualifications, and the job I have is NOT "low paid" compared to my previous jobs — in fact, my wage has risen recently! You are right that I'm single (not that there's anything wrong with it or any of your business, for that matter), and I certainly don't think it's worth being overly-confident. However, I do NOT just "sit behind that computer", and I don't see why this blog is "rubbish". And if push comes to shove, believe you me that I would STAND UP FOR MY PRINCIPLES, and I would even FIGHT FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IS RIGHT, even against all the odds!

I da ti ovo bude jasno i glasno: moji preci iz Like njesu nikaki kukavelji bili, nit ću ja sebi dozvolti da to budem! A drugo, meni ne treba NIKVA hrvatska domovnica, niti NIČIJA majka Srbija! Puno pozdrava tebi od POŠTENOG SRBINA, GRAČANINA, LIČANINA, KRAJIŠNIKA, BALKANCA I ANARHISTE DO GROBA!

Chetnik said...

Take care and no hard feelings my friend.