Virtual Hatred, Real Violence

Thirty two detained and fourteen injured citizens, several smashed windows and appalling video recordings are the official balance of an attempt on the part of football fans, supporters of the "patriotic" movement, members of the Serbian Radical Party and the Youth of St. Sava, to unite themselves in hostility towards the participants of the first Serbian gay parade on June 30th, and cleanse Belgrade of 'sick and perverse people' who intend to 'destroy the concept of Serbian entity. What has not entered the official documentation is that on the same day, June 30th, there were also such crowds of people who supported the defenders of the national entity, regretting for being to courteous and polite to smash someone's head. Besides, there were no official statements by representatives of the republic and federal authorities, and all comments of certain political subjects were reduced to a conclusion that it is far too early for expressing sexual freedoms'. The unofficial communication, especially on the web, was much more lively and concrete.

Several days before the scheduled gay parade in Belgrade, the Crvena Zvezda fans announced the 'crush of stinky gays' on their official web site, but they were quite divided about how to make that crush happen and whether to get involved in it or not. However, even then there was hardly any clear sense of right and wrong: 'Anyone who strikes the homosexuals, who definitely won't defend themselves physically, is gay himself (I wonder where you've been during the SPS - the Socialist Party of Serbia - rally?)... I can understand those Nazis from the "Valour" movement, they also hate the Gypsies, beat up women and children. As far as they are concerned, if I see some of those chaps on the north side, I cannot guarantee their safety, ha, ha, ha. The Nazi sculls will be smashed, ha, ha, ha', one Crvena Zvezda fan wrote on June 24th. Here is the answer of another fan: 'We are not going to come into conflict with gays, but with the police, who gave them assurances.' At the same time, there were posters around the city with the invitation to 'lynch the sick', whereas the gay population requires a special protection from the police. Although they had no official confirmation for the additional protection, they eventually decided to put their plans into effect. Even the more cultivated public generally endorsed that idea, but added that 'it may not be the right moment'. The response to that was that 'the question of the right moment is always there' and that 'there is absolutely no reason to wait'.

Absorbed by the Milosevic extradition to the Hague Tribunal, the state apparatus revealed not a single reaction to what happened on June 30th, though it was more than clear that such conflicts were likely to happen even before the parade had taken place. The Serbian Orthodox Church failed to appeal to reason and unanimity, as it used to do before (though such appeals were all more or less of political nature). Still, unofficially, its representative, archpriest Zarko Gavrilovic, appeared at the main square. He is famous as a fervent critic of homosexuality. However, instead of calming down the situation, Gavrilovic caused an even greater havoc: 'God has given them those organs which they wish to abuse, so let us rise against that satanic evil, which some quasi intellectuals support. We have not fought against the communists, in order to yield before the Satanists', said he for Radio B92. He also reminded a BK TV journalist that the 'dispersion of the semen is a sin and that something must be done about it'. Asked to comment the beating up of the gay parade partakers, he said that 'it probably happened out of his sight', thus avoiding to call on the Christian doctrines.

When the thugs became exhausted and when the situation settled down, the horrifying confessions of the victims of spanking started to circulate on the one hand, while on the other, their adversaries began to expose the achieved results. A certain R. writes to his friends that his problems commenced in front of the cinema Jadran. As soon as he released the flag, a guy armed with a wooden stick approached him and asked him to define the content of the flag. As he got the answer about the flag carrying the symbol of anarchy, the defender of moral values started seizing the flag from the other's hands, while he, in the meantime, grabbed the tear gas from his pocket: '...It seems as if they waited for a fuckin' signal; a horde of Serbs dashed at me, and I only managed to kick someone and spray one of them with the tear gas. Then, they took the flag away from me and had me knocked down on the floor, kicking me in the head, kidneys, back, legs... And then, when it became clear that I was dead, one of them asked: 'Are you gay?' I said frankly that I was not. I wondered later whether I would have told him that I was gay, even if it had been the truth... but I'm not quite sure. And, then they said: 'Go now, get lost!', kicking me for a few more times, and I finally escaped them.'

At the same time, the 'Grunf' internet site circulated the following" 'Since we kicked their asses and scattered the mob from the square, the cops started clashing with us and that's how the war began. All in all, it was fantastic!'

Yet, some fans were still revolted: 'Fuckin' gays, we have other more important problems as a nation, and they would like to propagate the homosexuals! Kill, kill, kill the gays!'. Later, some accomplices in the spanking phoned the media with disappointing reactions: they claimed that their patriotic group was not sufficiently covered in the reports on beatings.

In the meantime, none of the official organs made any statement, while psychiatrists probably gave up giving the official explanations of the degree of hatred demonstrated towards anything different from the 'standard'. Meanwhile, the gay population announces their further activities and more profound collaboration with the organisations that fight for human rights. As far as the other side is regarded, the impression is that they too will continue their activities.