Fifteen-year-old Elmir S., a teenager with no police record, walked into the Bosanska Krupa police station a week ago and cold-bloodedly stabbed one and injured another police officer. Not long before that, a boy in Zagreb was so violent towards his classmates that, because of him, the whole class withdrew from school. In May of last year, a minor in Belgrade killed nine kids and a guard with a gun.
Is the problem in the children who have become criminals or is it just a consequence? Miradie from Kosovo, in the show “Perspektiva”, thinks that violence overshadows society.
“I think that our society promotes violence as mentioned earlier. We may have grown up with violence because of the traumas that people here have survived, and this all contributes to the degradation of our society in a very bad way. Parents and we have to be careful what we allow our children to do.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/32914444.html
Sladjana from Tuzla is shocked by the hatred that exists among young people.
“I want everyone to know that this generation has so much hatred in it that is not even supported by anything. They have no reason for it, absolutely none. They have that kind of hatred that I can’t say that their parents passed on to them, but it’s like they heard it, like it’s normal that everyone should have that kind of contempt for the other.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/tuzla-mladi-nasilje-perspektiva/33120855.html
Marija from Podgorica agrees.
“Violence in the family, violence in relationships, and violence in general is a taboo topic in Montenegro and something that is rarely talked about.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perspektiva-budva-crna-gora/32300214.html
Uma from Sarajevo says that society ignores problems.
“We live in a very ignorant society, a society that refuses to talk about difficult topics and a society that stigmatizes these same topics.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perpektiva-u-sarajevu/32995305.html
Staša from Belgrade sees one of the causes of the violence that spreads in the media.
“And the media, as was said, somehow propagates this violence as something normal. On the other hand, the media use sensationalism to get money or more views and clicks, so, in that sense, when children learn from television, from games, from mobile phones that are constantly in their hands, the new generations grow up with the phone, with the television, while our parents, of course, are not, and in that sense they learn violence, reduce their tolerance for violence and consider it to be normal, that is, they are moving towards normalizing violence.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/retrospektiva-perspektive-devedesete-i-dalje-traju-/33053814.html
The media are not the only ones to blame, says Blend from Kosovo.
“The biggest problem is the lack of solving problems and the lack of desire to solve these problems”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/32914444.html
Blend supports this thesis with examples from Kosovo.
“I’m talking specifically about Kosovo and I want to say that last year was the year of murders of women in Kosovo because almost every month there was a femicide. As for the court and the system, I may not be familiar with it, but I don’t think any decision has been made to prevent such events in any way. If we had some system and some laws, things like this wouldn’t happen. A pregnant woman was killed in the middle of the hospital. Killed by her husband. So, in a public institution. Then we had a case of serial rape of a 14-year-old girl. She was systematically raped. First by the doctor to whom she went to have an abortion, then by the policeman to whom she went to report the case. And I don’t remember who else was involved. So, a policeman and a doctor. So, the girl was raped by the crap of the system in Kosovo.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/32914444.html
Hristina from Belgrade sends a message that violence does not solve but creates a problem.
“The very idea of violence as a type of communication, as a type of conflict resolution, this goes under quotation marks because violence never solves a problem but opens it up, it is adopted as a completely legitimate way to communicate and relations between Serbia, BiH, and Kosovo, and even within each countries individually because, let’s not lie, there are conflicts within each country as well.”
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/perspektiva-mladi-beograd-pomirenje-/32933982.html
Murders and acts of terror by children have increased around the world. In the USA alone, in 2022, there were 1,036 murders committed by children under the age of 16. That’s almost three murders every day. Analysts have called this phenomenon Tik-Tok terrorism. In Australia, the parliament will soon have to decide on a law that bans kids under the age of 13 from having mobile phones. In Croatia, many schools now do not allow kids to have mobile phone phones in the school. If you want to solve this problem in the Balkans, then violence should disappear from the speeches of politicians, from the media, and in schools. Unfortunately, the Balkans are governed by divisions and hatred, and it will take a long time for the manner of governance to not morph into violence.
