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Tag: taboo

Kinship and Taboo: Three Stories about Two Brothers and One Territory

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A hooligan attacks Albanian players during the Serbia-Albania football match, photo retrieved December 2 2014, Nazionale Calcio, via Flickr Creative Commons Attribution

Krisztina Rácz     On October 14, the Serbia-Albania football game made it to the news worldwide. The reason was not the excellent game but rather the fact that during the match a drone, or more precisely a banner with a map attached to a drone, was flown around in the stadium. It is a matter of dispute whether the map represents merely territories where Albanians live, or the politically charged Greater Albania; one would assume though that it is the latter because for instance Italy, a country with a large Albanian emigrant population, is missing from it, but it does include Kosovo, among other territories. With the flying of the drone in the stadium things got out of control: one of the Serbian players caught the banner, some of the Albanians players tried to take it away him, and then football fans (or hooligans, depending on the interpretation) joined the fight on the pitch. Very few Albanian football supporters were involved in the incident since they were banned from entering the stadium in the first place, due to security risks. When the referee instructed the players to leave the pitch, the police did not secure the Albanian players’ exit, so they literally escaped from the stadium amidst Serbian hooligans shouting “Kill, slaughter, so that Albanians don’t exist!” at them (in Serbian this scansion rhymes, and instead of ‘Albanian’ other ethnic denotations can be inserted, most often ‘Croats’). The person accused of flying the drone was held up for interrogation, but eventually released. The reason why he was not even officially detained for questioning is unclear: Serbian media report that it was because upon the request to identify himself he presented his passport, which was of the USA instead of Albania. It is not clear why this would prevent detention, but what is known is that the person in question, who allegedly controlled the drone from the VIP box, is Olsi Rama, brother of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vu?i? characterized the incident as a provocation. Serbian law has no provisions against taking drones into stadiums, however. Several days later the UEFA ruled that the official result of the match was 3:0 for Serbia, but Serbia was punished by having its 3 points taken away. Neither of the countries is satisfied with the result. Mr Rama’s official visit to Belgrade, planned for 22 October, was cancelled until further notice.

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