Balkans: One Way to Find Harmony

The four-day festival, EXIT, held in the town 80km north of Belgrade brought together more than 150,000 young people from all over former Yugoslavia -- Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia -- but also from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and other European countries.

{josquote}For four nights they turned the 17th century fortress and its surrounding into a new city of goodwill. The relaxed atmosphere and common interest in music set aside the heavy burden of war traumas and bloody nationalist conflicts{/josquote}.

"I did not believe my friends who told me that such a festival and mood existed in Serbia," Marijana Smolovic (22) from Croatian capital Zagreb told IPS. "I was so sceptical about anything being able to bring us together, but everything I witnessed here turned my opinion in a different direction."

Like other visitors, Smolovic was given a "passport" instead of a ticket. The original idea of the festival's organisers was "creation of the state of EXIT, the only state in the region not born in bloodshed."

EXIT was first organised in the summer of 2000 when Serbia was still ruled by Slobodan Milosevic. He fell from power in October the same year and died in the detention unit of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in March this year.

The ten years of his rule were marked with wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia that took more than 100,000 lives of mostly Bosnian Muslims, Croats and ethnic Albanians. Milosevic left a heritage of war crimes, ethnic hatred and economic devastation.

Novi Sad, which lies on the Danube River, was severely damaged in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing against Serbia in 1999, launched due to the repressive politics of Milosevic's regime against ethnic Albanians in the southern Kosovo province. Novi Sad's three bridges, the vital link between the northern Vojvodina province and the rest of Serbia, were destroyed by NATO bombers. They were rebuilt only recently.

"Much has changed since we first organised EXIT," one of the festival's organisers Bojan Boskovic told IPS. Like his fellow colleagues, he belonged to a youth group that actively campaigned against Milosevic's rule.

"But our mission remains the same -- to use music as a powerful tool to bring people together and initiate goodwill in the region," he added.

One step in this direction is the temporary EXIT tent camp for the four-day festival. The camp is positioned on the banks of the Danube, under the fortress. Hundreds of tents in neat rows fly the flags of the different countries the visitors come from.

"And no one bothers to care or quarrel about that," said Hajrudin Bajramovic (25) from Bosnian capital Sarajevo. "Among us, there is no talk of the wars, we were children when they occurred. One should look to the future, and that is what most young people do."

The music itself was a huge affair. More than 200 international and domestic bands played from 26 big and small stages.

The EXIT festival is an occasion also for local and international non-governmental organisations to rouse the young against common problems in the region like human trafficking, drugs abuse and ethnic intolerance.

But although politics has no direct place in the festival, the event itself did have a political note. European Union (EU) enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn attended the opening of the festival and participated in a panel discussion dedicated to free travel, one of the most painful issues for the countries of former Yugoslavia.

Unlike their parents, the young are now limited in travel by the introduction of a visa regime. A recent survey showed that 80 percent of people aged 18 to 25 in the region have never travelled abroad. But that may change soon.

"The EU Commission will launch a suggestion for liberalisation of the visa regime next week," Rehn said. All the newly created nations in the region aim to join the EU by 2012. (END/IPS/EU/IP/CR/VZ/SS/06)

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency

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