"Adio" to Dubrovnik A tale of two refugees Full Monty Parlor Games Share My Fire Car - the relationship-saving device Going Straight West A year to expirience, a lifetime to understand Meeting Vuk Cultural insensitivity Sex in Serbia Buvljak experience What's news in Yugoslavia? part II What's news in Yugoslavia? Trust issues: Yugoslav Banks Hosting, Serbian style Flat-hunting Staying legally in Yugoslavia Welcome to Belgrade Border crossings The Paper Chase: Single - entry visas

Conspiracy theories and urban myths can reveal much about the cultures they originate from and how people relate to the power structures governing them. In the U.S., for example, the theory of a government cover up of extra-terrestrial life is now embedded in U.S. popular culture and spread through popular tv shows like "The X Files" as well as the ever-useful propoganda tool, the Internet. It's entertaining for some of us, but deadly serious for others, such as the 39 people who annihilated themselves based on a rumor that a spaceship was tailing the Hale-Bopp comet. Even after the fraud was exposed, many continued to believe...

South of the border, in Guatemala, locals react to the problems of poverty and its impact on children by accusing foreigners from North America of selling their childrens' vital organs on the black market.

In Yugoslavia, we have what is known as the public secret. These nuggets of information arise in an environment where public information is vehemently guarded and rumors takes up the slack. Yugoslav culture possesses a particularily active oral culture with a well-developed grapevine. Journalism as practiced here taps into the grapevine and amplifies the story even greater, sometimes without much fact checking and attribution.

Public secrets run the gamut from the classic conspiracy theory (such as the claim that Western diplomats, in a pact to keep Serb President Slobodan Milosevic in power, convinced popular ex-bank governer Dragoslav Avramovic to step down as the opposition's number one candidate) to suspicions that phone calls are tapped.

Whether these things can be proven or not, the main thing is people behave as if they are true.

Most of the public secrets I've read about recently deal with personal health and safety. Think about those mad cows discovered in Pancevo next time you take a bite out of that pljeskavica. Watch where you step on the bus or wind up like that woman who died after falling through rotting floorboards. Feeling ill? Maybe we can blame nearby Vinca's radioactive waste storage problems or a dangerous strain of flu virus that escaped from a state-hospital.

In each of these cases, the public appears competely helpless in the face of ineffectual government administration. Public secrets increase citizens' perceptions of their country as accident prone, and near complete collapse.

So what's really news here in Yugoslavia and how can people use information for their benefit, safety or general enlightenment?

With all the peices of information located in hard-to-reach places, people subsist on a diet of public secrets, rumors or hearsay. Therefore, the average citizen remains uniformed while a slim minority of super sleuthes are in the know, or at least they think they are. In between these two extremes is the game of heresay and analysis practiced by journalists and commentators. In the absence of real hard facts, they draw up different scenarios based on several variables.

Let's apply this method to understand better, Serbia's economic situation. Two months ago, I heard predictions that hard-currency reserves wereabout to dry up and the price of bread was about to skyrocket. Soon after, there were complaints that pensions weren't paid and employees of private company that does contractual work for the government complained that they hadn't received their salaries. All of a sudden, something happened and there was cash flow again. What happened? Did some kind of economic miracle take place? Are better days ahead? Can we blame it on Hale-Bopp?

When Serbs hear a rumor that bags of money were recently spotted at the airport destined for Greece, it makes them all want to pack their bags too. This fits well with the speculations that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his family are preparing for their grand exit to a remote Greek island. The bail out story is an easy one to spin because it has happened before. A few years ago, a local banking mogul called Jezda the Boss bailed out of the country when his investment bank collapsed, taking the life savings of many citizens with him.

The Greece-bound money could also be a sign of renewed laundering. Add the fact that the value of the Deutsch mark has dropped from 4.0 dinars to 3.6 dinars in the last month (which might explain where the extra dinars came from). There's been another jump in inflation too. From that, we can assume that somebody in the know is sure that troubles are ahead it's time to head to Greece..... or catch the phenebarbitol intergalactic express.

by Jennifer C. Brown    

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