A nation that whistles at literally everyone’s anthem, including its own while it was still called “Hej, Sloveni”, considers it normal for the coach of its national team to demand the football players to be bound by contract to sing aloud the current anthem. In this way, the approach of ultranationalist supporters’ groups, based on the assumption that “what we have” is good, and everything “what they have” is either bad or we are not concerned about it, is directly raised to the level of national principle.
A few days after the case of “anthem singing” turned into a kind of national scandal, the newly elected MPs in the Serbian parliament took an oath, and, quite surprisingly, many of them did not sing the anthem. Among them was also the Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic.
The MPs could do so because they were not obliged by contract to sing the anthem, but also because no one had been so careless to try to establish such a rule. But, in the domain of football someone did attempt that, even though the whole thing actually has more to do with politics than the football itself. One member of a national minority had dared not to sing in public and so offended “our people” showing that he is more prone to “his people”. Therefore, he should be publicly put into his place.
Now, many will say that the coach would also expel a majority member who refused to sing, but then the story would be reduced to nonsense and primitive conception of patriotism. However, many other, more important and painful issues were opened with the case of a minority member Adem Ljajic. Forcing people to sing the anthem is becoming a kind of public and imposed infusion of Serbian patriotism to minorities, a careless irritation of unhealed wounds which, as we know from experience, can lead to new polarizations in society.
Both those who sang the anthem in the parliament and those who didn’t should know that football is here often more than just a game and that coaches did not get the national team as their personal dowry with which they can do whatever they like, shaping the relations in the team in accordance with the scopes of their own minds. A person holding an important function should still say that this kind of “imposed” patriotism is not appropriate and that Serbian national question is not the only issue in this country. Ultimately, there is a need for a discussion on the usefulness of the anthem which acceptance is being imposed to some citizens.
The director of the NGO Urban-in Aida Corovic, the president of the Social Democratic Union Zarko Korac and the commissioner for Human Rights in the Liberal Democratic Party Marko Karadzic write and speak for the portal of Novi magazin about Ljajic’s “silence while the anthem was playing” and the possible implications.