A better life for Serbians

Serbia has been trying to join the European Union for more than ten years now, and is officially in line for membership, if all goes well, by 2025. They're not alone. While the Brits shot themselves in the foot by pulling out of this ambitious experiment to bring the European family around the same table, most of the continent is going the other way. There's Turkey, already a member of NATO.  And besides Serbia, all of the Balkan States (Slovenia and Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania are already in) want to join. And then there's Moldova and Ukraine, on hold for obvious reasons: Moldova because it's so damned poor and Ukraine because it's fighting for its life against a Russian invasion.

What's holding things up is the ability of these petitioners for membership to get their economies and their social institutions in line with the acquis communautaire, the body of laws, institutions, policies and ways of doing things that are standard in the EU.

And Serbia has been in the news the past couple of days for demonstrating that, thanks to the particularly retrograde influence of a backward thinking religious minority, it's simply not ready. Not yet. Not even close.

The good news is that Serbia has a lesbian prime minister, if you can believe that. Her name is Ana Brnabic, and she supports the efforts of the EPOA, the European Pride Organizers Association, to hold a gay pride march in Belgrade in September.

Thirty years ago, give or take, the many European gay pride organizations joined forces to create the EPOA. Gay organizing is very much in the zeitgeist. There's Interpride, for example, through which I believe (don't take my word for it) they are connected to USAPride and FiertéCanadaPride, all organizations formed to move collectively for the advancement of LGBT people around the world.  The point is the EU now insists that if you are going to join them, your local civil rights must extend to LGBT folks. (Can we pause for thirty seconds of hallelujah shouting?)

The prime minister has some fierce opposition in the Serbian analogue of our Bible-thumpers, the folks that worry gay people are going to corrupt your children and not rest till they have destroyed what's left of civilization.

Damn!  For anyone who thinks anti-semitism has been laid to rest, you need to take note of the good folks of Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not replace us." And if you think there will be no more wars on the European continent, what do you make of Putin's invasion of Ukraine? It would seem the optimists can't get a break these days. 

The EPOA chose Belgrade as the site of their march this year, over Portugal, Ireland and Spain, no doubt because they knew the Serbian LGBT folk could use a little help. Provocative, of course, but what is the civil rights struggle if not provocative? It took a Civil War to free the slaves in the U.S., decades to rid South Africa of apartheid. So what's a little backlash from a few nuns in the street carrying icons of their savior Исус Христ (Isus Hrist), who they are certain endorses their efforts.

Also marching in the streets against allowing European Pride to hold a gay pride march in Belgrade this year are people carrying the Russian flag in support of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Serbia has officially condemned it, but it has not supported the sanctions. It has strong ties to Russia, including the fact that the majority of its people belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church, a sister church to the Russian Orthodox Church. That means it shares with them a monotheistic trinitarianism, a belief in the incarnation of the logos, a balancing of cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by sacred tradition and a therapeutic soteriology, in case you were wondering. Also a concern about people touching themselves down there.

But I digress. I was remarking on the struggle by the lesbians, gays and transgendered folks of Serbia for dignity and freedom from bullying as well as the struggle for Serbians to enjoy the benefits of membership in the European Union.

And bewailing the fact that I will not likely see these good people achieve those victories in my lifetime.

And for that, I am truly sorry.

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