I really think it must be hard to be a rebel here in this part of the Balkans. I really do. The peer pressure that’s so evident stifles the will of most young people to want to do much in the way of progression (apart from run away to another country where they think the streets are “paved with gold”). They simply don’t want to see that it’s “Same Shit, Different Location”

Being an immigrant is cool.

Yeah right!

Together with the schadenfreude that is expressed almost on a daily basis here, the recipe for disaster especially for civil society lurks and looms over the shoulder every single day.

Why this depressive tone you may well ask.

These past few days, I have spent some time at “Demofest”, a local indie/rock band competition organised for groups based in the region. It’s well put together and has managed to get the financial support of a Serbian brewery to cover the costs.

The reason for attending the event was that, together with two local girls, I had the crazy idea of seeing if using simple equipment and free social media tools and platforms, we could provide some alternative coverage of the event and have fun. The experience would be useful even if it all went wrong. It was self funded so what the heck! Maybe someone would ask us to cover their event.

Our initial experiment can be seen HERE

You will come up with your own comments and criticisms (please make then constructive?) I am sure, but during the course of gathering content I found out two rather disturbing facets surrounding Demofest.

The first was a response from someone in the audience when I asked about how events like this are funded. It seems that the local/regional/entity/national government are not too interested any more in stumping up cash and so the commercial sector has to be approached. That’s normal actually as I still believe hard earned taxes shouldn’t be spent on raves or “headbanger gatherings”. Funding hospitals etc is FAR MORE important.

Pause here. OK Bosnians aren’t too keen on paying taxes but you get the drift?

The local brewery, “Nektar” had funded the first few Demofests, and, allegedly, once they found they were the most recognised beer brand in the area, ceased to sponsor any further as “well we are the top so what’s the point”. Now I say allegedly. I haven’t checked the facts in any way whatsoever, and to be frank am not going to bother, but the perception on the streets is powerful. The perception is that a major local business doesn’t care about promoting anything youthful. If the big players don’t care it won’t say much for the small ones. As I say, perceptions.

The current sponsor “Jelen” is a Serbian brewery, no local connection there at all.

The next concerning strand was that during interviewing some of the festivals’ organisation it seemed that Banja Luka youth don’t want (or don’t see the point) of paying to attend these types of festivals etc. Demofest hadn’t sold too many tickets preferring to allocate various media outlets with competition give-aways.

Pause again.

The “urban” youth of the region aspire to be at the cutting edge of entertainment, technology, fashion and sport. To a greater degree they are doing extremely well in all of the above, but when it comes to pay to see something that’s professionally organised there’s a “push back”. It’s certainly strange to see why.

Bringing good quality acts and performances that are seen across Europe don’t come cheap. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Sponsorships are a contribution towards operational expenses NOT the funds that will totally pay for an event.

On Day 1 at this years Demofest, there were numerous local bands to see, Kelis was the major attraction and the after party was Ian Pooley. Now argue if you want about the standard of the artists I mentioned, but for 10 BAM (the local currency) = £4.50 = 5.12 Euro = $US 7.40 to see all that is the bargain of a lifetime.

So what is causing young people to complain, to baulk at paying such a small amount?

Maybe they prefer to spend what little money they have on drinking coffee in coffee bars. Maybe “smokes” are better value for money. Maybe the “dependence” culture that the International Community so successful cultivated here both during and post conflict in the late ‘90’s and early 2000’s is now maturing.

I don’t know the answer. I am not that clever.

What I do know is that slowly sponsorships wont be including quasi free entrance to events. If the youth of Bosnia and Hercegovnia don’t start to place some value on their cultural and social activities, then international performers wont come and possibly unscrupulous political concerns will fill the void to manipulate with their own twisted perceptions.

God help us all if the “Turbo” world fills the void.

A totally roasting weekend (eating, funnily enough, “roast lamb”) has had me considering whether or not to sacrifice all my current social media platforms and tools for a solitary presence using Google Plus, or Google+.

I am not sold on the argument that Google+ is another passing fad, as already I can see how more in control of my content I am. The idea of “circles” certainly looks a better privacy proposition for the everyday user like me.

Wondering if the News of the World would have found a way to hack them though?

Anyway, I have migrated all my Facebook (FB) images into picasa, and so by default, into google+ and next I will see what other existing media and data I have on line can also be migrated.

I also have researched a little about google plus and came across “How Google+ Will Balkanize Your Social Life”

WTF has the term “Balkanize” really got to do with Social Media?

Maybe the idea of segragating content in a more controlled way is a step forward from what we all experience now. I mean, FB is forever being slated for exposing privacy flaws concerning the data WE put on line.

Balkanization though?

The word itself has such emotional overtones as a result of the “Terrible Nineties” in this region where I now live.

Whatever.

Maybe Google+ is what the Balkans need though as a tool for open communiaction without “Big Brother” (Veliki Brat) being able to snoop and thereby snuff out dissent.

For more about Balkanization click HERE

The past few days have seen a catastrophe unfolding in the UK concerning unethical and I have to add, unlawful, practices by journalists especially surrounding the use of “phone hacking”.

Centring on the News of the World newspaper, it has transpired that as well as “snooping” on the lives of so called “celebrities”, the newspaper has also hacked into voice-mail and landlines of victims of tragic, serious crimes.

There is now a growing groundswell of public opinion that this type of journalism is both obnoxious and disgusting and that such behaviour should be stopped by law.

What has transpired so far is obnoxious and disgusting, without a shadow of a doubt.

BUT there is an even greater danger looming.

That danger is a total over-reaction by government to current events and laws being passed that will seriously curtail future investigative journalism.

Challenging and investigative journalism is almost the bedrock of policing democratic systems by exposing wrongdoing and thereby holding politicians and senior public servants to account.

Here in the western Balkans (and especially in Bosnia and Hercegovina) the media landscape is controlled by “elitist groups” masquerading as “political parties”. Anyone who even considers BiH as a country with free, independent media, is certainly drinking the “Kool Aid”.

Balkan politicians and media controllers, are masters at using western European examples of behaviour as they see fit and they will certainly be watching how this story unfolds in the UK.

Their argument, I suspect, will be to tell their constituents (the Bosnian people) that free media is not needed (“just look at what’s happening in the UK”) and that having a muzzled or gagged media landscape is good for everyone.

“AND you see, the UK want to have what we have always had, so how cool are we?”

Whatever the outcome of the phone hacking saga in the UK, what’s needed is an ongoing, robust, media landscape that can continue to expose wrong doing.

A spin off of this will be, that truly independent media practitioners in the western Balkans, will still have role models and procedures to base further developments on, in this still insecure, part of south east Europe. 

Just a thought.

I am now settling into my new, “slower”, lifestyle here in north west Bosnia.

Living in a very rural environment does takes some time to get used to. Firstly, I am a city boy who was born in London and I have never sat comfortably with gardening and traditional ways of doing things and secondly, the pace of life for me has always been hectic to break point, maybe that’s why I still expect to be jumping on a plane very soon.

Of course that’s not the plan.

What is the plan however, is for me to slow down and not to focus on tasks and jobs that would take me away from my new “home” for anything longer than 4 weeks at a time (with long breaks in between).

I have designed and put together a really superb working environment just a few steps from my front door (bliss) and can work, rest, whatever I please, when I please.

I know!

It’s what most of us dream of. Right?

But these life changes are taking time. Changes do, after all, require time.

I have been, for a while, considering a potential project to follow and document (utilising social media tools) some part of Balkan culture or lifestyle.

It looks very much as if I have found my “hook” and will very shortly start to document the activities of a local ethno music group, based in the local town of Laktasi, called “Trag”.

I had my first meeting with 3 members of the group last night sat outside a coffee bar in Banja Luka. As well as discussing what could be achieved etc, we talked about the changes that this part of Bosnia has undergone.

I was very keen to describe my observations from the past 13 years, about the cleaner streets, more professional looking police force, better road and other civic infrastructure, the border crossing even looking a bit tidier at Gradiska!.

How things had changed and for the better!

The response to my observations was that they hadn’t thought things had changed that much, but now that I had mentioned it in the way I saw progress, yes, things were changing. It seemed that because they didn’t travel outside the country as much as I had these past years, their perceptions were of a much much slower progress.

Bosnia is moving forward. Well in this part of the country it is. It’s no way democratic (as northern or western Europeans would perceive democracy) in fact its just as autocratic as in the days of the late Josip Broz (Tito), where loyalty to the party over-ruled loyalty to civil society, but things are moving, slowly, towards a pluralistic environment. And that’s got to be good for everyone.

To help with speeding up change, more people from Bosnia, especially younger people, need to travel abroad, experience new lifestyles, see how others with similar problems resolve and improve situations and then come back and implement change.

A dream too far from a foreigners mind?

Maybe.

But whatever happens, you can’t get away from what Bob Dylan sang back in 1964 “The Times They Are a-Changin”

You know, when you commit to writing about almost anything, there should be an element of research, cross checking content to see how factual and credible the information is and if the story is interesting. Some of the basics of “Journalism”.

I look at things differently. I am not a trained or even experienced journo, rather a broadcaster that’s fallen (on occasions) into a “newsy” type of role.

Inform, Educate, Entertain = “Content is King”

Of course I know the principles and can give basic common sense advice on how broadcast journalism works, but when it comes to my blogging I just prefer to write about MY observations, the world as I see it.

Being a non conformist excites me!

It’s also my blanket excuse for my lousy spelling and grammar!

So having been back in the Balkans for a few weeks now, I have started to once again immerse myself back into the local “scene”, talking about hyper local events, listening to the gossip (Balkan people JUST LOVE to gossip!), feeling part of the “pulse” of everyday life.

My Facebook friendships have started to take on a local flavour as well.

In this region of South East Europe there seems to be a trend of what I call “jealousy paranoia”. Everyone it seems, loves to relish in either “rampant schadenfreude” or simply can’t bear to recognise that people have become successful through their own hard work and merit. An extremely weird and destructive characteristic amongst a group of people who are so warm and hospitable. I mean, when you think or even talk about Bosnia, “tolerance” doesn’t jump at you word association-wise now does it?

So, back to Facebook. Anyone here who gets mildly creative, wants to push the envelope or dares to be different with either style or content of their Facebook status updates is immediately branded an airhead, stupid, or even worse.

Being different simply isn’t on.

So how do the youth of Banja Luka for example, use Facebook then? Surely the peer pressure of publishing your life on such a dynamic social media platform would drive fear of public ridicule deep into the heart?

The answer it seems is two fold.

1. Facebook is used as a glorified “Chat Up” and “Dating” platform.

2. A place to post links to Youtube music videos (which some people do with AN almost addictive fervour).

Why the above?

No one seems able to provide a reason.

Mister Zuckerberg’s plan didn’t pan out too well here. Although Ceca’s could be.

Balkan “vets” will understand the description “Turbo-Facebook”

This is not to say however, that there isn’t a westernised, European, progressive and urban sub culture that is lever-aging Facebook as a social media information and influence platform.

There is, BUT this sub-culture is not in the ascendant.

YET.

Back in late May 2010. I was in the admin phase of my departure from Kabul and had an amount of things to “take back home”. My employers (NATO/ISAF) gave a generous 50kg shipping allowance for personal effects, which I fell easily into BUT I had a small portable suitcase studio that I wanted to ship to Bosnia, rather than the UK where my personal effects would be delivered.

Off I went to the base DHL office, who said for the princely sum of US $236, they could ship direct to Banja Luka.

Now I have had the ultimate in shitty customs experiences before when shipping effects from Canada to Bosnia, where my clothes etc spent some 5 months in the customs sheds at Sarajevo airport while people decided about the rules, import duty etc etc. Finally everything WAS released but the duty I paid was, to say the least, rather High!

Shipping again but this time using DHL would be easier, less stressful, Right?

Wrong!

The shipment didn’t make Banja Luka to start with. Once again Sarajevo comes into play. Bosnian Customs asking for all kind of documentation (I have to point out here that there’s nothing of value, well intrinsic value, in the suitcase), but no! they want to know everything. I was waiting for them to ask for my inside leg measurement.

Again the total valued case (US $170) gets an import duty of 135 BAM (US $99), some 40-50% of the value!!!

Can this possibly be correct? On researching the web it seems Bosnians are almost united in their annoyance regarding 40-50% import duty.

But in this part of the world people power makes little difference as the country is still run by politicians of extremely dubious credentials and where “Back Hand Bribes” are still the way life goes round and round.

I am NOT saying Bosnian customs officials are corrupt.

But the following statistics for 2011 so far might just suggest …..

79.3% Bosnians and Hercegovinans pay in cash (a sum of 222 Euros average - 28% of the average wage), 14.5% pay in food & drinks, while 10.8% pay through other means. The remaining 2% do not recollect.

According to total calculation of all factors and to the corruption rates, the most corrupt nation in the Western Balkans is Bosnia and Hercegovina, with approximately 20.7% of the country corrupted.

Stats from Corruption in the Balkans, 2011 report

So, should you have gifts or anything else for friends, relatives, significant others in this beautiful country in the “Heart of the Balkans”, then wait till you can bring them yourself (or find a mule). The chances of a border crossing inspection is a lot less likely and you just MIGHT be able to “negotiate” any duty should it be asked for.

Me?

Well 135 BAM is being paid and I now wait to see if DHL will finally complete the “door to door” delivery.