November 7th
2003
B92
(By Andrea
Saula)
That was the Jingle that for about ten years in Serbia, listeners who wanted to be aware of what was really happening, were avidly waiting to hear in the radio.
Those who were looking for more in news than just the trite reports on the heroic battlefield achievements throughout the former country, or biased complaints; or the financial successes of the Milosevic regime, didn’t have a lot of options; unless they were lucky enough to live in Belgrade or in some other town governed by the opposition in those days they could get some real news through b92 Radio. In that sense b92 played a very important role in the democratization process in Serbia.
Hello and welcome to this edition of UNMIK on AIR.
For those people who lived in Serbia during the 90-ies, and
especially for those who were against the former regime, b92 was more then a
radio station; it was a fresh breeze of optimism, a socio-cultural energizing
movement, in the days when the hope of better times to come in fact didn’t
exist. Even in the beginning of the 90-ies when b92 was a small, underground
Belgrade radio station, it had a wider meaning and impact on society. B92
managed to cover most of the cultural spectrum; and as a result the Tickets for
theatre plays, lectures or concerts organized by b92 were in demand and quickly
sold out. In 1993 b92 founded a publishing house Samizdat; during those years
stained by wars and the subsequent devastating economic consequences a new
cultural movement had been created and B92 was its leader.
Veran Matic is b92’s manager and editor in chief.
Veran Matic: Creating a b92 cultural
movement was the strategy at the time. Partly it’s the currant strategy as
well. We didn’t want to have only one media or a group of medias but we wanted
to create an entire cultural movement. One of the reasons why we were pushed to
create something like that was the fact that we had been constantly limited in
our work. There was no other option we had for our audience but to organize
some other activities and publishing was one of them. That helped us get
additional publicity and realize the strategy for the defense of b92.
To understanding well the meaning of b92 it’s important to take a look back at what was happening in Serbia during the 90-ies. While the Serbian regime at the moment was involved in leading and supporting wars and armed clashes inside the former country, some people in Serbia itself were endangered and under huge political pressure. Those years were the years of the Slobodan Milosevic regime, when many people emigrated, some withdrew from public life, and some were expelled. But under that same regime a strong civil, anti-war movement emerged and B92 played a big role.
Veran Matic: During those days, the cultural
scene was closed. In fact one couldn’t find a place to promote its book or to
publish it in some big publishing house. Whenever our news program had been
attacked we counted with the best authors, painters, theatre artists, a whole
intellectual elite was prepared to defend us. On one hand we were in a position
to defend our selves from the regime and on the other hand we would use the
attack on b92 to develop ourselves.
From the very beginning b92 was a progressive news and
cultural outlet; talking about a lot of “taboos” within the Serbian society;
which somehow are still indented in the society. Veran Matic explains how, in
last three years, that has been the dominant concept of the publishing house.
Veran Matic: The idea is to provide the information
about the recent past that was limited back then. The sort of information that
was restricted in many areas in the Milosevic times. Although the ones that
wanted to know something could get informed; still the majority was not
informed what was happening.
A lot of changes have taken place since the early 90’s. To
begin with, there is no Milosevic anymore, Serbia got its first democratic
government, there is no fear of a new war, some democratic processes started to
happen in Serbia and b92 is not anymore an underground, weekly independent
media. Even though, the lack of democratic rules is creating a bad environment
for the so-called “real freedom of press”, b92 is considered to be very
influential in Serbia today. Radio, TV, book publisher, music productions,
concert activities, and cultural center are some of b92 activities. Most of these activities have an aim and
that’s to shed light on the events of the recent past. Veran Matic, again.
Veran Matic: We think that the precondition for
the democratization of a society and its development is facing its past. First
we have to find out what happened, in order to learn how to avoid those
mistakes from happening again. That’s not happening on the national level. It
is supposed to be the obligation of the state but we can see that today those
mistakes are happening again.
Stirring the soup can be a risky job and rejections are
inevitable. But, as Veran emphasis, persistence does bring results.
Veran Matic: In the beginning we were faced
with some serious rejection of the audience. They were not that keen to survive
wars again, to learn the facts, to face some unpleasant information. But no
matter how unpleasant that is, it’s obvious that if you are persistent enough,
that project with time gets to its consumers and I think that we succeeded in
making some progress.
Presently b92 has been working on a series of projects
dedicated to introduce the Serbs to the different peoples and cultures of the
region. Overall, says Veran, not knowing each other contributed to the brutal
clashes and wars of the past years.
Veran Matic: We published a book “Serbs and
Albanians through centuries”, by Petrit Imami. In that book practically on each
page everything is new to us. Actually it is a part of our history. Also we
published a book by Bekim Fehmiu, a first part of his autobiography, the story
about Albanian family living in Prizren before and during WW II. That was
something totally new for me. First we should have a wish to find out something
about each other, then we should have some habits and principles in our
behavior and we should have a need to find out how does some Albanian theatre
function that is governed by the actor that used to be vary famous in Serbia.
If nothing else b92 made some people in Serbia more curious about people that live so close to them. And our intention today was to present a picture of Serbia, in which the role of b92, during a time of repressions and lack of freedom was remarkable.
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.