Self proclaimed Četniks, Serb ultranationalists, attacked me in Banja Luka. I got away. I had intervened on behalf of a bystander they had attacked. Read more about this incident here.

The guy in the black T-shirt holds the strap of the photographer’s camera firmly in the grip of his big fist. He is pulling the tall and scrawny 20-something guy towards the table, looking him firmly in the eye.

The young guy’s eyes are bulging with fear. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He has no chance against his assailant, who is almost as tall, muscular and weighs almost twice as much as him.

The others are looking on or even laughing. The guy on the left seems to cheer his friend on as he tries to snatch the young photographer’s camera, and perhaps to thoroughly beat him up.

„That’s enough, I say“, and grab the assailant’s wrist, and jerk it into the other direction. I am trying to pry loose the camera strap, or to at least lessen the strain on the photographer’s neck. I hold on to his wrist, pulling into another direction he’s pulling the young guy’s neck towards, trying to make it too exhausting for him.

The assailant, a construction worker who obviously works out a lot, too, eventually lets go. The young guy gets away as fast as he can.

Nothing had indicated this absurd and dangerous escalation.

Serb Nationalist Paranoia

The young guy had been taking photos at a party in a courtyard in the city center of Banja Luka in Bosnia. The crowd near the popular cafe Cinecitta was several hundred people strong.

Eventuall he had asked us if he could take a photo.

Before I could sneak out, the guy on the outer left of the title photo had put his arm on my shoulder, pulled me closer and extendes his thumb, ring and index finger into the tri prsta – the Three Fingers, a Serb nationalist gesture.

Except me, they were all quite voluntarily posing for the photo. 20 seconds later at most the situation exploded.

„You are working for Dodik and Vučić“, the guy in the black T-shirt accused the photographer out of the blue and tried to take his camera off him.

Milorad Dodik is the openly separatist President of Republika Srpska, the ethnic Serb dominated state in Bosnia, who regularly invokes Serb nationalist tropes. Aleksandar Vučić is the President of neighboring Serbia. His party SNS is best described as clericonationalist.

To those four nationalists at whose table I had ended up standing, both are traitors. They are not nationalist enough.

The Assailants Go After Me

After the black guy had to let go of the young photographer’s camera strap and the boy got away, they target me in their frustration.

„You fucking asshole“, the guy on the left yells at me. „Get lost“. He kicks me on my leg.

I’d like to punch him on the face.

Realistically, he alone could wipe the floor with me. What the four of them together could do with me I don’t want to find out.

Before I even manage to gather my things, he kicks me again.

As I slowly make my way around their table, through the dense crowd, I feel a punch against my shoulder. Seconds later I feel a punch against the back of my head.

I can not see who the assailant is. I presume it is the guy who kicked me before. 15 minutes earlier he had described himself as Četnik, a Serb ultranationalist, who glorifies the WW II traitor and war criminal Draža Mihailović.

The guy in black grabs the straps of my backpack from across the table, trying to pull me closer.

I manage to get away and vanish into the crowd, backpack and all. Save a minor and very superficial scratch under my knee I am unhurt.

Had I Not Intervened, I Would Have Been Complicit

My dignity may have taken a hit, too. I console myself with that I probably saved the photographer from getting beaten up, or his camera from getting smashed.

Had I not intervened, I would have been complicit in an act of unprovoked, public and ultimately rightwing violence.

All it takes for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

Albeit minor, this was one of those situations where this saying is true. Particularly in this region.

This is what I think as I try to untangle the incident.

Might Makes Right Down Here

Public violence certainly isn’t specific to Banja Luka – which is otherwise a nice city -, or even Bosnia, Republika Srpska or the Balkans.

It’s just that in the Balkans, public violence has come to be more accepted than in many other regions I know.

This is especially true if the assailants are nationalists of any color, or thugs well connected to The Powers That Be.

You bang your fist on the table hard enough down here, you get to dominate public space at will. Might makes right.

It’s the ones who oppose you who are considered the real troublemakers.

This, more than anything else, explains the incident.

The assailants acted the way they did because they knew they could do so with impunity.

As long as the young guy or I have one eye left each, they don’t have to fear police. Especially not in this part of Bosnia, where politics and police are dominated by Serb nationalism.

I was somewhat involved in a roughly similar incident in Zagreb a few years back. A couple of drunk Croat nationalists wanted to start a fight in a bar I was at. A few of us patrons managed to separate the participants from each other, and thus prevent a very ugly brawl.

To his credit, I must say that one of the young nationalists helped us older patrons break up the fight before it started.

No such help came here from the other guys at the table when the guy in black T-shirt dragged the photographer’s neck towards himself by the camera strap, and when I grabbed his wrist to intervene.

No such help came seconds later when the self proclaimed Četnik went after me.

Help could have only come from within this group.

The courtyard was so packed with people, and the music was so loud, that no one at the other tables could have noticed what was going on our table, including the waiters.

I was banking on one of the drunk guys at our table in Banja Luka coming this senses when he saw his buddy get into potentially big trouble. Smashing the photographer’s camera may well be considered over the limit, even here.

I was wrong.

Tough luck.

Still would have intervened had I known beforehand.

Who Our Uber-Serbs Are

What makes this incident ironic in a bittersweet way is something else.

None of the assailants or their buddies was from around Banja Luka.

They were all born in Serbia, so the self proclaimed Četnik told me. And they all live in Austria, as construction workers.

In fact, finding out we were all living in Austria was what got them talking to me in the first place.

And what got the self proclaimed Četnik to flood me with his nationalist BS right before the escalation.

Living in another country for higher wages and better opportunities, going to yet another country to teach them what being a real Serb is like.

Some patriots, eh?

True, it works a lot the other way around as well.

Rumor has it that Mr. D. is loaning his Repblikaserb nationalist hooligans to Mr. V.

Mr. V. has been a bit in a tight spot for the past few months. A lot of people don’t like him anymore.

Mr. D’s hooligans seem to come in rather handy.

Likewise, the biggest nationalist troublemakers in Croatia often come from Hercegovina, a province in Southern Bosnia and Hercegovina, with a relatively large Catholic, i.e. Croat, minority.

Conversely, homebred Croat nationalists from Croatia often tell their Catholic brethren in Hercegovina how to do things the Croat way. As if they needed any instructions.

As if any of the countries in the region needed any troublemakers from the outside.

One may argue they have enough problems of their own.

How much public violence is accepted, is one of the major ones.

This incident has also been covered by the critical and independent portal Lupiga in Zagreb. Lupiga and Balkan Stories are partners in a long standing cooperation.

The photo above shows the assailants about fifteen minutes before the assault. As is obvious by how they are posing, I took the photo at their specific request. I made their faces unregonizable for legal reasons.

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