They asked the famous historians, why world thinks Serbs are the "bad guys": Their answer is strong lesson for everybody (PHOTO)

Serbs have been hostages for three decades of the stereotype of being "the bad guys", and Bernard-Henri Levi recently reminded us about that, despite the fact that there are a lot of reasons to see our "pretty face", historians Milan St. Protic and Cedomir Antic, consider that a lot of time needs to pass, "cultural politics" and patience to get out of it all.

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Serbia, before everything, needs to care about arranging it's own society and about elites which are representing it in the world "brawlers, spitfires and culprit for everything that is bad on the Balkans", said Protic and Antic.

So far, the world's media, after the incident at Beldocs festival, when Levi was hit with a cake, rushed to place Serbia again in the "politically unstable periphery of Europe", in which there is no political culture, elementary education, discipline and order.

Aside Levi's cake in the head in response to a documentary in which the Serbs were again the only ones to blame for the horrors of the nineties, but the stereotype is repeated for almost thirty years.

And in these almost thirty years many things happened and lot of times Serbia reacted with restraint to such reviews, while trying in the same time not to reject its own guilt for the suffering and trouble it inflicted to others, to show and present its European, human settled face.

Foto: Tanjug/Dragan Kujundžić/Tanja Valič/Rade Prelić

Historian and diplomat Protic believes that we have moved as a society in those three decades, in total extremes, from "rusty spoons" to tasteless condescension toward great powers.

- We can not seem to find a measure of behavior in relation to the external environment. This is due to the lack of courtesy, knowledge, education and self-esteem of people who represent us - Protic is convinced.

He reminds namely that Serbia acquired a bad image of the nineties in the Milosevic era, as well as that the media simply worship stereotypes.

Partially, he said, we have ourselves to blame for being "wicket", but also the superficial and one dimensional image of world media "contributes" to that.

In the case of Levi, he added, we reacted showing despair and complexes of poor environment, in spite of the fact that great deal of France doesn't think highly about him, because he showed many times that he has no beliefs, nor intellectual depth.

- He just doesn't deserve to be dealt with - thinks Protic, but he noticed that the fact he got a cake in his head in Belgrade, made him a winner in most foreign media, and we are shown, once again, as losers.

Levi will pass on and the cake and everything... But once again it was confirmed that we act impulsively, reckless, aggressive, Protic comments and he adds that the old truth was confirmed - once an idiot destroys something - a hundred smart people can't fix it.

Foto: Tanjug/Rade Prelić

- Bad image of Serbia and Serbs in the world can't be changed over night, even though it was created over night. We need systematic action of decent behavior if those people who are on the main scene in various professions and works they are doing.

- Serbia has to take care about the arranging its own society and elites which are presenting Serbia in the world, and then foreign media will will get from stereotypes that Serbia is "brawler, spitfire and culprit for everything that is bad on the Balkans" - mentions Protic.

For the historian Cedomir Antic, a very important characteristic is the race to bring Serbia closer to the developed world, all people involved in education, modernization and development of the society are not allies of representatives of the major powers, which he explains with the difference in relation to the elite in French England to Germany after a period of fascists government and those same elites towards Serbia after Milosevic.

- The essence of the difference is in the perception of Germans as a nation of culture, Goethe, friends, and Serbia and Serbs in a completely different concept - says Antic.

For the Germans, he explains, there is a dogma "they experienced an incident and that the Holocaust was the result of criminal pathology groups of individuals".

In addition, it is insisted, as he says, on the good side of traditions of the German people, such as philosophy or the arts, industry, economy ...

"Have you ever heard about insisting on good traditions of Serbian people anywhere on the west", asks Antic and adds: "Perhaps Zoran Djindjic and Dimitrije Davidovic exceptions besides Broz". 

We must, therefore, he notes, deal with that perception.

- Serbia has to take care about the arranging its own society and elites which are presenting Serbia in the world - Antic is determined.

Foto: Tanjug/Sava Radovanović

Protic is offering similar concept - patience and education of those who represent us, and that he considers we should have a bit more tact when we have someone from the world coming to visit, a bit more dignity, no matter what they say.

- French have a saying "Sound is the one making the music". Things can be said on different ways and the one who can speak, will manage to say the hardest and the most difficult situation in the most civilized way - notices Protic.

- Levi has been hit since 1986. One of our TV reported would say: it is now already traditional "caking". Levi was not surprised when the cake hit him", noticed Antic, but he added that that it is bad "because the rightists disappeared thanks to the political centers in Brussels or Washington, at least the one that was already there, or the one turned to the center".

That is one problem, and the other one is, he adds, that the leftists, which is represented with us, does not have foundations in work class or peasantry, but on some entirely incorrect perceptions of our past and tradition.

- Our anarchist Left denies parliamentary democracy as opposed to the Left in the West. For our Left it is acceptable to not be tolerant towards the opinions of others - said Antic.

When it comes to Levi, Antic sees him as controversial person who sinned against Serbia and the Serbs.

Foto: Tanjug/Oksana Toskić

He however agrees with Protic that, whenever someone comes to our country, the state has to guarantee the same rights, because, as he explains, our relations with the West are much more complex than inner relations in France.

- We have to watch our plans and to create our policy and to protect economic and every other rights of our people outside Serbia - said Antic.

In Levi case, as he said, one "old intellectual belatedly came to us whose opinions have experienced inflation and now we have to apologize because Kosovo and Metohija was abducted from us and because our people was banished from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and because it was deprived from their rights in Montenegro, and because we were bombed outside of any legal framework and Charter of United Nations in 1999.

All of this, he considers, is leading us in the situation to run after the culture of the West, and for Serbia, it presents running after its own shadow.

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- That is the situation one of the officials of the Liberal Democratic Party defined as "Serbia has to change even, if it disappeared."

- We need a cultural decontamination. We did not fit in with the West when it was in the greatest euphoria after the Middle Ages, a period when Imperial Russia under the Romanov was in big trouble. West will not be in such euphoria for the next few hundred years. Even if we are fit then, we would be European pariah and as a nation we need to face it - said Antic.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Tanjug)