The misuse of national and religious identities, which are presented as the only valid markers of belonging, is increasingly deepening social divisions. This approach, which automatically places “others” in an inferior position, was one of the key topics of the PROUDCAST of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE).
Željka Zvicer, programme associate at the CCE, discussed the rise of hate speech and xenophobia, as well as their roots in the Western Balkans, with Ervina Dabižinović, coordinator of the Centre for Women’s and Peace Education ANIMA from Montenegro, Adnan Rondić, a journalist from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Balša Božović, Executive Director of the Regional Academy for Democratic Development (ADD) from Serbia.
One of the triggers for the discussion were the recent violent incidents and hate speech following the attack on a young man in Podgorica, initially attributed to Turkish citizens.
Journalist Adnan Rondić was not surprised by Prime Minister Milojko Spajić’s reaction, which led to the sudden introduction of visas for Turkish citizens.
“Some will call it impulsive, but I am not sure he would have reacted the same way had the initial information, although the one regarding Turkish citizens turned out to be incorrect, concerned citizens of another country. I believe he was trying to sense the pulse of Montenegrin society, and I fear he assessed it correctly. That is why he came out with a political decision to impose visas for Turkish citizens because of an event in which they, as we now see, did not participate. And then this opened a series of situations and events in which we heard rhetoric that has, unfortunately, echoed in this region for centuries,” Rondić assessed.
Ervina Dabižinović believes the atmosphere of hostility is also a consequence of failure to confront the legacy of the 1990s. “After the 1990s people no longer live together. So what happened a few days ago is not surprising. It was well prepared and rooted in memory. How did those ‘patriotic patrols’ suddenly appear on the streets? You see masked men with batons, escorted and nicely guarded by the police. You have state institutions involved in a single fist and a single act of persecution,” Dabižinović emphasised.
She added that these are well-known lessons that should have been learned, yet are still used as a convenient political tool.
“We constantly have a problem with ‘others’ and don’t resolve it. Where attempts were made, it took 30 years to build something very fragile, which was completely defeated in those days. And I was defeated too – defeated by trying to explain that hatred is directed at the person beside us, not some imaginary enemy. The face of the enemy is not unknown, but never determined responsibility for what happened, so we see repetition – 1995 to 2025,” Dabižinović noted.
Balša Božović argued that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s statement about the revival of the Ottoman Empire, following the delivery of Turkish drones to Kosovo, was not accidental.
“You are now in a position where you can round off your national interest and bring Montenegro into the EU. On that path, you will face situations like those with Turkish citizens, the hysteria that followed, false statements, mobilised hooligan groups, orchestrated slogans … – these are all textbook examples of destabilising the political direction Montenegro has taken, not in 2020, because this is inertia. Actually, in 2020 they tried to interrupt it; whether they will succeed, we shall see. But in the next two or three years you will have a hyper-production of this. I do not know whether you will manage to free yourselves of it and whether you will survive that part,” Božović warned.
Reflecting on the multicultural and multinational character of Montenegrin society, Ervina Dabižinović arguedthat these characteristics today are only declarative in Montenegro, while “a cultural matrix and cultural pattern are essentially collapsing and completely changing”. She recalled ongoing polarization since the restoration of independence. “Since 2006 we have had these two groups – those who rejected independence and those who somehow thought they would now, on this new wave, do everything as it should be done. It did not start from zero at that time, there was no lustration, no facing of the past, none of the elements of transitional justice were implemented in this society,” Dabižinović explained.
Božović also addressed manipulations through narratives of reconciliation. “Their devilish craft is such that they devised this idea of reconciliation, but they are not the first fascists to do so. Franco had that policy of mixing the bones of executioners and victims, Tuđman as well. It does not matter – let the one who executed and the one who was executed be mixed. And then Mandić says in one debate with Đukanović, during the election campaign, that they have already reconciled, the bones have already been reconciled. What is reconciliation for them? That Mladić and the Mothers of Srebrenica should reconcile? And then they say – so you are against reconciliation?” he noted.
Adnan Rondić also emphasised that within such discourses it is necessary to distinguish between legal guilt, which cannot be collective, and collective responsibility, as an ethical category. “The genocide in Srebrenica, I still always insist that it was committed by individuals, but very many individuals, considering that it had to be planned, then prepared, then executed, then the traces of genocide had to be removed, then that genocide had to be denied… All this happened before someone’s eyes. If you remain silent, while seeing what is happening, hear what is happening, know what is happening – you bear that kind of responsibility,” he stated.
Božović believes that insistence on collective guilt serves to justify violence. “In the ‘Panda’ café massacre in Peć, the special operations unit, together with members of the emerging Zemun Clan, killed Serbian children to frame the narrative of the international community against the ‘mujahedeens’ in Kosovo, against Al-Qaeda and God knows what else… And to collectively stick a label: you are all terrorists, murderers, which means that the police will now level you to the ground. In that sense, that justification of violence and killings – they do not hesitate to sacrifice as many as needed,” Božović explained.
The interlocutors agreed that Montenegrin society, as well as societies across the region, will have to expand spaces for dialogue, but based on clear principles in order to suppress hate speech and reduce hostility.
“Let us count the damage we have suffered – the first, the second, the third, the fifth. So, was it worth it? We can talk about who started it, about the ideologies that began and continue this story, but no one here has remained untouched. We mostly talk about Serbian political elites, and accordingly about the Serbian people. However much we’ve spoken about the Serbian World, let us go through and see where Serbs are no longer present today. Primarily thanks to Serbian politics – from Croatia, large parts of B&H, and even the Republika Srpska is empty. Especially its eastern part, there is no one there, no Serbs, no Bosniaks, no one, especially that part is empty. It is both ethnically cleansed and people have not returned sufficiently, and Serbs have left. So, it is desolate and what are we actually talking about? Our country is empty,” Rondić concluded.
The full PROUDCAST is available at: https://youtu.be/I_nyGKYVCMA
This PROUDCAST was produced within the REGIONAL PLENUM 2025 – Cracks in Democracy: Nationalism and Clericalism in the Western Balkans, organised by the CCE, the Regional Academy for Democratic Development (ADD), the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo, and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). The content of the episode is the sole responsibility of the speakers.
Maja Marinović, programme associate