Football Beyond Borders Balkans Tour Day 8 – East Sarajevo

As a charity of only five years, we know the value of solid, long-lasting partnerships between like-minded organisations. One of these was forged the day before in Ilidza, south-west of Sarajevo, when we agreed to work with KULT, who work to counteract youth unemployment in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and also their partners Motus Adolescenti, who are in the process of passing laws banning internet hate speech across the country.

Little did we know how much this partnership would immediately pay dividends until we agreed to meet them on a small, concrete 5-a-side pitch deep in the suburbs of Eastern Sarajevo. The premise was to organise a mixed-gender, mixed-ethnicity football match with ourselves and local Bosnian Serb girls and boys.

Arriving into East Sarajevo, we immediately saw why it is so distinctive as to render it a different city altogether from the main capital. The streets were much wider, the houses and flats brightly-coloured and of a more European design than that of the Ottoman centre, but most poignantly, the graffiti showed that although we had only travelled 3 miles, we were dealing with a completely different society.

This was as the markings did not commemorate the massacre of Srebrenica or the siege of Sarajevo, but instead the ‘ultras’ elements of the two main Belgrade clubs a few hundred miles away – Red Star’s ‘Delije’ and Partizan’s ‘Grobari’ (Gravediggers) – fans with a known history of violence against Bosnian Muslims and Croats to the point where they were even heavily recruited to fight in the Civil War by Serb radical generals.

Whether or not it was the children we played with on the gravel surface who wrote these slogans is unknown, but even if it was, this Friday afternoon match was a resounding success. There was no discrimination whatsoever between the men and women on the same teams, with the rule that there must be at least one woman on each 5-a-side team observed.

Undoubtedly the most important impact made on the community, however, was that of Abs and Dominic Best. These two, a couple of Football Beyond Borders’ newest members, were, according to the Serb teenagers themselves, the first black people they had ever come across in their lives. Having gone eighteen, even nineteen years of their lives without ever seeing a person of this different skin colour, and having most likely only been fed with the stereotypes from television and the nationalist fans depicted on the walls, the same who disgraced the name of Serbia in a football match against England U21s, they reacted brilliantly and were visibly brightened by the experience.

The way in which Dominic and Abs were received by the young people, with smiling, inquisitive crowds always asking them questions, requesting photos and even autographs, showed how worthwhile and needed anti-racism projects such as ours are in this region.

We then asked them which match they would be viewing in the evening. Bosnia and Hercegovina were on the brink of World Cup qualification and had a crucial game against Slovakia that night, an atmosphere we were eager to experience in Sarajevo’s centre.

But of course, that was 3 miles down the road. Here, they followed Serbia and hated Bosnia and Hercegovina, despite being within the official territory of the latter country. As we later experienced the Bosnia fans’ disappointment at being beaten 0-1 by the Slovakians in Sarajevo centre later that night, it was really striking to us to remember that just down the road, they would be celebrating the defeat, following a game that was over 7 hours away.

This made Sunday’s mixed-ethnicity tournament that we would organise between Serbs and Bosnian Muslims really seem like an unbelievable mission that we couldn’t wait to see the effects of.

Tomorrow, though, we will travel to Pale, even deeper into the heart of Republika Serbska, where we will see how our anti-racism efforts are interpreted. Read on, right here on the International Political Forum or www.fbeyondborders.tumblr.com, our own blog.

Read the whole of our Football Beyond Borders coverage here.