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Published: July 29th 2014
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A tip for anyone planning on traveling to the Balkans in summertime: plan for heat with random intermittent thunderstorms during the day and every night. Also, do your best to not need to wear pants or long sleeve shirts: it's that much worse, and odds are that your destination will not be air conditioned. Not that I'm referring to anything that may have happened today, when it was about 85-90 degrees and we visited the un-air conditioned Parliament building, of course dressed business casual.
That was actually our second meeting of the day; we first visited the Zoran Djindjic Fund. The Fund is in memory of the first democratically elected prime minister in Serbia, who was assassinated in 2003. It exists to aid in international relations, student exchanges and internships abroad, and furthering Djindjic's vision. While there, we learned a bit more about Djindjic's rise to power and the later history of Serbia, and the legacy he left behind, which includes the Fund.
After a break, we took the trip to Parliament. While there, we took a look at a bit of the building, then met with representative Borko Stefanović. He is currently the head of
the Democratic Party in Serbia, which is the second biggest party in the country: a sad commentary, given that they won 6% of the vote in the last elections. His past accomplishments include 5 years as Deputy Ambassador to the US and a 15-year stint in a rock band -- two very clearly related experiences. It was refreshing to speak to a politician who was willing to tell it like it is, tho; our experiences, while intriguing and educational, have mostly been with politicians who are intent on maintaining their political correctness. Mr. Stefanović, though, freely admitted that there are no real freedoms of speech or media due to coercion and pressure, that Serbia needs to recognize Kosovo's existence, and that the government isn't making the necessary reforms. He did provide some more controversial views, too, such as claiming that Kosovo would likely be a war zone without the current foreign aid, that the recent labor law (while beneficial) wasn't the best thing for the country (as it allows businesses to lay off workers at will without worker protection), and, surprisingly, even suggesting that reunifying the former Yugoslav countries may be the best path to EU membership.
After that fascinating meeting and a run to Hajd (Hyde) Park, which is gorgeous and huge, and of which I will provide pictures when I go back there again, final preparations began for our disputations, which take place Thursday and Friday. My team will be the judges in our debate, which will center around whether the EU should mandate that Serbia support Kosovo in a bid for UN membership. At this point, we are finishing our executive summaries of arguments in preparation and designing rubrics and questions for judging the debate, which should be an entertaining morning.
On an somewhat related note, I'd like to put a brief apology out there: I know my blog has been lacking in quality and pictures lately. The last week and a bit has been crammed with meetings and assignments, and I'm doing my best to keep up with those and keep you all updated. They'll be done soon, though, and then it'll be free running through the rest of the summer!
In the meantime, we're down to 3 more meetings and 3 museum/site visits over the last few days here in Belgrade. I know I keep mentioning it daily, but time has truly flown by here. In 6 days, we split up, with people going in all directions: Boston, California, Slovenia, Russia, South Korea, Greece...I suppose you can expect nothing less from a group of International Affairs students. As for myself, as much as I'll miss this group, I can't wait to meet up with my friends flying over from Northeastern and spending the rest of the summer Eurotripping with them!
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