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What purpose do monuments and other memorials serve, why do we have them, and why are these practices are such an important part of any society’s social and political life?

This is in memory of Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister who was assassinated on March 12, 15 years ago, by those who had previously served as a Milosevic’s “long arm”.

It was announced on the 12th anniversary of Milosevic’s death, on March 11, following the elections held in Belgrade the weekend before and amid news that Belgrade City Council will allocate funds for another monument.

Serbia’s Socialist Party has submitted a proposition to erect a monument to its former chief, Slobodan Milosevic, in Belgrade.

Serbia’s Socialist Party has submitted a proposition to erect a monument to its former chief, Slobodan Milosevic, in Belgrade.

It was announced on the 12th anniversary of Milosevic’s death, on March 11, following the elections held in Belgrade the weekend before and amid news that Belgrade City Council will allocate funds for another monument.

This is in memory of Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Prime Minister who was assassinated on March 12, 15 years ago, by those who had previously served as a Milosevic’s “long arm”.

Memorials can serve a wide array of purposes in any society – social dialogue, social reconstruction, democratisation, symbolic reparation, reconciliation and peace-building processes, to name but a few.

On the other hand, they also serve as tools that help define national identity, create social cohesion around political and social issues.

They may well also be falsifications of historical facts written in stone, despicable works that harm the public interest, insult the victims of atrocities, and so on.

The question of who, what and how any society should decide to memorialise is of crucial importance, especially in societies like Serbia, which is still burdened by its war-time past and skeletons that keep popping out of the many closets.

Additionally, Serbia’s current political elite is the same one that was politically and factually born in the wars of the 1990s.

“Milosevic’s monuments, as well as the effects of his policies with regard to Serbian society and its future, but also with regard to the future of the entire region, are still very much alive, although he himself is long gone.”



It was raised on Milosevic’s ideology of Greater Serbia that brought fire and fury, desperation and death to all, non-Serbs and Serbs alike, although in a starkly nonreciprocal way during Serbia’s time of aggression under Milosevic.

What and who we, as a society, choose not to forget, is perhaps more politically potent than what we chose to remember.

Remembering is a passive, often fragile process. Not forgetting is a much more compelling process both for the individuals and for society than “simple” remembering.

Except in cases of traumas, one has to make a conscious effort not to forget something or someone, while remembrance as such remains in the realm of individual or group practices, which can be sporadic, scattered or in other ways ephemeral.

By making the intentional decision what or whom the state, and by extension, the society as a whole, decides not to forget, through some of the many forms of memorialisation practices, the governing institutions aim at sealing in public memory something or someone of great social importance, which is, besides being a psychological act, a political act, too.

By making a public memory site, the state wants it to serve as an anchor, a stepping stone for looking back in the past for orientation, inspiration or what is implied to be the historical truth.

New monuments are of such importance because they represent us, in this moment in time. They show how we perceive our past, but also offer important clues about what we are looking towards in future.

Let us go back to the initiative to build a monument in memory of Milosevic in Belgrade.

This may be surprising, but I’m all for it. A monument erected in Belgrade, bearing his figure, his face and forcing us not to forget him – his ideology, the consequences of his murderous, monstrous and diabolic policies, in my opinion – should be placed by his successors in as popular area of the city as possible.

Journalists take pictures at a mass grave in Batajnica near Belgrade on July 9, 2001. At the end of an overgrown dirt track winding through a special police base on the edge of Belgrade, a gaping pit marks the spot where agents of the former regime of Slobodan Milosevic hid the bodies of some 36 Kosovo Albanians. Photo: EPA/SASA STANKOVIC/AS-ms

This painful reminder of who we are should get immediate approval from the city government, for it truthfully matches the political and social realities we are living in.

It is just the tip of the iceberg of Milosevic’s other “monuments”, which already exist all over the Serbia and the Western Balkans.

Let’s mention some of them, since Milosevic’s monuments, as well as the effects of his policies with regard to Serbian society and its future, but also with regard to the future of the entire region, are still very much alive, although he himself is long gone.

Toma Fila, Milosevic’s lawyer and confidant, said it well recently on live television – that one of the most strongest and most enduring monuments to Milosevic is the existence of the Serb-run entity in Bosnia, Republika Srpska, and its current political leadership.

By creating this proto-state on genocide and the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and other non-Serbs during the 1990s, Milosevic succeeded in at least one thing – he left enough ideological ammunition to his successors to continue realising his master plan, dating back to the early 1980s – the all-Serbs-in-one-country, Nazi-style Greater Serbia state.

Belgrade itself already has an unofficial monument built in the memory of Milosevic – a mass grave in Batajnica, only ten kilometres from the city center, where hundreds of Kosovo Albanians were brought dead from Kosovo and buried in the middle of the night.

If you take a look across Serbia, you will see Milosevic monuments everywhere – you’ll recognise him in the people, their attitudes and their political choices.

“Srebrenica is the most recognisable Milosevic monument, with more than 8,732 souls buried in the cold ground.”

See all the violence and discrimination that rule Serbian society, another set of monuments, look at our President Aleksandar Vucic, Milosevic’s Minister of Propaganda, look at our Foreign Minister, Ivica Dacic, if you want more living examples of Milosevic monuments among us.

Take a look also at our media, the public speeches of our politicians, the intellectual elite, and the growing right-wing and fascist movements and parties blossoming in our society.

Now, if you turn your gaze to the south, you’ll see, for example, Trepca, one of the places where Milosevic’s forces allegedly burned the bodies of many Albanians killed during the so-called Kosovo war to cover their bloody tracks.

If you look north, you’ll find another monument, the place where the former Serbian President Ivan Stambolic, Milosevic’s close ally who later became a rival, was killed by Milosevic’s thugs from the state’s secret service in 2000.

If you look at the west, you’ll be all but blinded by the picturesque towns and villages of once multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina that are now turned into graveyards.

Srebrenica is the most recognisable Milosevic monument, with more than 8,732 souls buried in the cold ground.

But Tuzla, Gorazde, Zvornik, Foca and other eastern Bosnian towns all have at least one Milosevic monument – a death camp, a rape camp, an [un]identified mass grave, a burned house, a family that lost members.

Look beyond them, and you’ll see Sarajevo as it still stands surrounded by the mighty hills where Milosevic erected monuments for himself – countless graves and tombstones of Bosniaks killed during the four-year siege of the city by Serbian forces.

A mother of a Bosnian government soldier killed during the Bosnian war prays at his snow-covered grave in Sarajevo in November 1996. Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR

Further to the east, see the Prijedor, Bihac and Sanski Most Milosevic monuments, built by his own damned hands.

Now take a look back and zoom in Belgrade, where the newest Milosevic monument could be built, and pay close attention to the heart of the city where you’ll find a memory site for the last well-known Milosevic victim.

This site is at 11 Nemanjina Street, in the backyard of the building of the Serbian government.

There stands an invisible but palpable Milosevic monument. It shows him standing over the dead body of Zoran Djindjic who was killed by men who served as Milosevic’s forces with the political and media support of his successors.

Let’s take a look at some of Milosevic’s monuments in the form of paper, too. For example, the 2008 Declaration of Reconciliation between Djindjic’s and Milosevic’s successors, who shamefully equalised these two men and proclaimed “national reconciliation” which in effect only rehabilitated Milosevic and his dogs of war.

Take a look now at the text of the Serbian constitution – the highest law of the land. This also is a monument to Milosevic, with its harmful provisions and their effects on the future of our society, especially those that declare the now independent Republic of Kosovo still part of Serbia.

Take another look at the miserable state of our public life, the decline of public institutions, at our controlled, propagandist media, our corrupt parties both in power and in opposition, the nationalistic system of values cherished by the majority of our citizens and installed by Milosevic – do you see them now? Milosevic’s monuments stand all around us, strangling us, even from his grave.

Have we transitioned from the Milosevic era? Bearing in mind who is leading our country, you must know the answer already.

True, Aleksandar Vucic isn’t Milosevic (only seemingly so), but how about Milosevic’s standing among Serbian citizens today? How they feel about him getting a monument in Belgrade?

Based on the poll conducted during the aforementioned TV show in which Toma Fila explained why Milosevic should get a monument in Belgrade, the television audience voted for or against the proposal.

At the end of the show, more than 55 per cent of the viewers voted in favour of building the monument in memory of Milosevic in Belgrade.

This poll is, of course, unreliable, but it’s nevertheless telling; it’s 2018, and the results of an ordinary TV poll weren’t even that close.

Let’s dismiss this poll and pretend that it doesn’t reflect public opinion, just so we can feel a little better about ourselves.

Let’s return to the issue at hand – do we need yet another Milosevic monument, only this time showing his figure proudly standing in Belgrade’s city centre?

Absolutely. Let them build the Milosevic monument. Then we’ll finally get a historic opportunity to destroy at least one of them.

Milos Ciric is a Serbian politologist, educator, writer, and human rights activist. He holds a BA in international relations from the University of Belgrade, a MA in cultural policy from the University of Arts, Belgrade and Lumière University Lyon 2, France, and an MA in media studies from The New School University, New York.

The opinions expressed in the Comment section are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.