Tošo Borković

Superwall

Finally someone in Belgrade realized that all those bleak walls would be a lot better if they had murals on them. Artists that contributed are "world renowned street artists" M-City, Blu (im especially pleased with him doing work here) and Valerio Berruti.

Check out more at BELEF.

Limits of Human Dignity and Decency

Recently appointed prime minister of Croatia, Jadranka Kosor, urged one of the local branches of RTL television network to fire one of their cameraman for wearing highly insulting t-shirt while recording the latest parliament session. The prime minister said that "all of the representatives are democratically elected to represent the people of Croatia, that they are performing very responsible and selfless public work and that she will not allow individuals to insult them". The TV station promptly fired their cameraman, in spite of the critiques and protests of journalist associations and other organizations. The cameraman tried to explain himself by stating that this was the only clean shirt he had and that he bought it at the stand in USA. It figures.
By the way, prime minister Kosor, when she was appointed a few weeks ago due to the resignation of the officially elected prime minister, was "accused" of having Serbian descent, so leave it to the Serbs to be the everlasting keepers of tradition, morality and human decency.

Tošo Borković

Budget

Breaking the Silence

According to the report by Breaking the Silence, Hamas's cynical conduct of war can no longer be solely blamed for the large number of civilian casualties. The Islamists deployed their fighters in densely populated areas, making it difficult for the Israelis to distinguish between Hamas soldiers and civilians. Many of the wounded and dead are clearly the result of a lesson Israel learned in the Lebanon war of 2006: no hesitation, no scruples...

Some veterans also confirm that the army sent local residents into houses where Hamas fighters were holed up, as a kind of vanguard. This method, known as the "neighbor procedure," is expressly banned in Israel. According to one soldier, his unit placed a gun barrel on the shoulder of a Palestinian and forced him to walk ahead of them into a suspicious building. If this is true, Hamas fighters were not the only ones who misused civilians as human shields...

More at BBC news

Srebrenica

I’ve been meaning to write something about the events following Srebrenica massacre for some time now, and this looks like the time to do it. At once i am faced with a dilemma: what is the right way to tackle such a sensitive topic, because the last thing i want to do is to negate the horrible crime that has happened there on July 11, 1995. There are two dimensions of the Srebrenica events – one is the immeasurable amount of human suffering caused by the fact that almost 8.000 people, young and old, were killed by the cowardly men in uniforms in the name of “god and country”. The other is a dimension of international justice and political aftermath of the massacre. I am going to talk about the latter.
In the years following the massacre, the majority of victim’s families, their political representatives and the international community, called for the categorization of the events as genocide – “the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”, the strongest argument (of the victims families and a range of NGOs) being the universal human morality that we all must adhere to, and anyone who challenges this is committing another genocide; this time over the memories of the victims and the justice they deserve. Now, the concepts of justice and morality are relational and culturally infused so the concepts of universal human rights and (concerning this text) genocide were developed to supersede these particularistic loyalties. However, it is my opinion that in case of Srebrenica, the 2007 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the Srebrenica massacre constitutes a genocide is a highly politicized decision. In order to contextualize the events in Srebrenica, we must take into account other similar incidents and the way they are referred to by the advocates for the Srebrenica genocide. The most eye-catching is the mentioning of the Srebrenica “genocide” along with the Rwandan genocide that officially counts 500.000 (800.000 – 1.000.000 unofficially) victims in just 100 days of fighting. In Srebrenica there were 8.000 deaths out of the 35.000 – 40.000 Muslims that lived within 203.5 sq miles of Srebrenica municipality. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory totals approximately 20.000 sq miles. Another incident is the Operation Storm that brought the civil war in former Yugoslavia to an end. At the end of the operation, which lasted for 84 hours, 150.000 – 200.000 Serbs left their homes in fear of the aggression by the Croatian army that sized the territories Serbs previously inhabited. The number of Serbian refugees during the Yugoslav civil war thus totals around 350.000. Today these events and the dates they took place, are celebrated in Croatia as a national holiday, Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day. Also, during the US intervention in Iraq, 1.000.000 people lost their lives and who knows how many were forced to leave their homes and live scattered around the deserts of Middle East.
So why then are the events of Srebrenica a genocide? I think that it is because the genocide can much more effectively legitimate the international communities involvement in the Yugoslav civil war. The genocide bestowed upon the NATO forces the role of savior and protector of human rights and punisher of all who desire to terrorize, enslave and exterminate. However, situational and relational character of justice and morality is far too alluring for their proponents to be dismissed in favor of the universal law and humanity which become a mere front for the political and strategicall relations of power between world’s superpowers. By insisting on calling the Srebrenica massacre a genocide, we are transforming the victims in artifacts of political dominance and power play, which is a method so often used by politicians and other agents of human governance. The victims would not be completely forgotten and erased from history if we would not call it a genocide.

An der schönen blauen Donau

First, to make things clear i am really excited about the notion that Belgrade could get, not one, not two, but four (4) new bridges over the Danube. However, the huge amount of money (118 and 190 million euros just for the first and the second bridge) and the possibility that something like this is going to be built in Serbia, a country that builds all its mid-range projects for up to thirty (thats 30) years, sounds like something straight out of the pen of Hans Christian Andersen. Until that day comes, we will have to do with this.

Tošo Borković

5 (five) billion euros scam recipe

Ingredients:

- one rundown public company (we used Belgrade harbor)
- few local multi millionaires hidden behind a foreign company
- one foreign company
- 50 million euros
- lots of corrupt politicians and city officials
Preparation:
Buy one rundown public company with 200 acres of land, less than a mile from the city core. Do it over the anonymous foreign company so that real owners/buyers stay hidden. Pay the land 50 instead of between 500 million and 1 billion euros. Bribe to taste. Let rise for few months, than wait for the urban general plan to change, so that the purpose of your land is changed from industrial to commercial/residential. Again, bribe to taste. Tear down old outdated machinery and warehouses, build 22.000.000 square feet of shopping malls, residential buildings, office spaces, recreation spaces and sell it all for 5 billion euros. Serve with chilled champagne.

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/projects/show-all/belgrade-danube-waterfront/