Halfway down the Danube

Sad Friday Night

A steady drumbeat of bad news from Serbia. I've been blogging about it over at tacitus; you can find my first post here and a followup over here.

I've been in touch with friends there, and everybody seems to be OK. But it's not good news. This is going to force Kostunica to take a more nationalist stand -- not that he'll need much forcing -- since otherwise, the Radicals will eat his lunch. Which they may do anyhow.

So, don't lie awake nights waiting for any more Serbs accused of war crimes to be deported to the Hague. Instead, watch Kostunica and his government play the nationalist card, hard; and never mind what it does to Serbia's image abroad, or its hopes for European integration.

At work this afternoon, I got a call from Claudia. She was watching the rioting in Belgrade on Euronews. "They trashed the McDonalds," she said. "Our McDonalds? The one on Terazije?" "Yep." We'd been in that McDonalds just a month ago; I took Alan downstairs, where he played for half an hour on the jungle gym while I drank coffee and read the paper.

"Oh, now they're showing the mosque," she said. "It's burning. They're burning the old mosque." In the background, I could hear Alan, obviously watching the TV too, saying, "Fire! Fire!"

It's not a happy day.

Posted by douglas at March 19, 2004 10:20 PM