Development & Aid, Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Migration & Refugees, Population

SERBIA: Quiet Welcome of Foreigners Belies Insular Image

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 31 2007 (IPS) - Serbia may be viewed by some as intolerant and somewhat nationalistic due to its role in the wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia, but many of the people arriving from distant foreign lands are finding a hospitable home here.

Serbia is home to several thousand Chinese who began arriving here 10 years ago, and it also provides at least temporary shelter for people fleeing wars in distant countries, such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

“Belgrade is my second home, for more than eight years now,” Liu Feng Dun, owner of a popular “New Hong Kong” restaurant, told IPS. “I do go to China at least once a year, but this is where I have built my real life,” he said, adding that his youngest son, born in Belgrade three years ago, was given a typical Serbian name, Marko. His elder son Hu goes to Serbian school.

“We have dozens of Chinese pupils here,” a teacher from the Marko Oreskovic elementary school in the New Belgrade suburb of Block 70 told IPS. She gave her name as Jelena only, and indicated two seven-year-old Chinese girls in the crowded schoolyard.

“This one is Jelena, like me, while the other one is Ana,” she said. “These boys are Milos, Dragan and Nikola, typical Serbian names,” she added laughing, pointing at a trio of Chinese boys playing football with their fair-haired friends of Serbian origin.

Several thousand Chinese live, work and send their children to local schools in Block 70.

New Belgrade is part of the capital, built on the banks of the Sava River during the communist era when a skyline of high-rises was considered a beautiful sign of progress.

Block 70 housed a large shopping mall, built almost 20 years ago, prior to the wars that tore former Yugoslavia apart. But the mall never bloomed to real life, as the strict international sanctions against Belgrade, due to its role in the 1990s wars, brought the country’s economy to a standstill.

However, thousands of Chinese who began arriving a decade ago turned the gloomy place into a colourful neighbourhood. Cheap imported Chinese goods helped impoverished Serbs afford decent clothes and household items, while the new Asian neighbours found the environment amenable to their businesses and ambition. Most of the inhabitants of Block 70 are Chinese now, where their restaurants are becoming a favourite spot for many long-time Belgradians as well.

“Officially, there are at least 4,000 Chinese living here in the Block,” Jing Dong Rong, head of the Association of Chinese Importers, told the Belgrade media recently. He was addressing the Serbian public after an incident in March, when a mentally disturbed Chinese man stabbed several young men with a knife in central Belgrade. The victims survived and the perpetrator was sent to a mental health institution.

“Nothing bad has ever happened to the Chinese in Belgrade; Serbia is the country where our community has least problems,” he said.

The Chinese community was recently granted authorisation to build and operate a Baptist Christian Church in another neighbourhood of Belgrade, Ledine. Serbs are, by tradition, Orthodox Christians in a country where other Christian denominations are almost non-existent.

The Baptist Church for the Chinese was viewed as curiosity and oddity in Ledine, but no one objected to its services. It is a simple two-storey building, with a large banner in Chinese characters.

“We are viewed with scepticism in China itself,” a 30-year-old Chinese man who gave his name as Nikola, told IPS. “It’s unusual to leave the teaching of Confucius and turn to Christianity in China. However, the new religion has helped us turn away from running after money. We have discovered love and psalms,” he added.

In another part of New Belgrade, a group of Iraqi Kurdish families resides in the barracks rented by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). They are awaiting transfer to a third country after arriving in Serbia three years ago. Until recently, the barracks housed families of Afghanis fleeing the war in their country as well.

Three children from one of the Kurdish families, boys Muhammad (11) and Hussein (9), and a girl, Zeinap (8), go to the local Laza Kostic elementary school and are among the best students. They speak perfect Serbian, play with other children and go to birthday parties and other family gatherings traditional among Serbs.

“I like three things here in Serbia: one is the rain, as it rarely ever rains where I come from. Second is that I can walk the streets in the middle of the night without any fear. The third is when a policeman addresses me, he starts with ‘sorry, but’. Where I come from, policemen do not use the word ‘sorry’,” says their father.

Serbia does not have a law on asylum, so transfers all refugees and asylum seekers to third countries, with the help of UNCHR.

“We have at least 50 new cases a year. It takes years to process them and find settlement in third countries,” Vesna Petkovic, a spokesperson for the UNHCR office in Belgrade, told IPS. “As a rule, these people face no problems in their temporary environment, in Serbia. Some of them work in construction or other similar areas and are welcome by locals. Ordinary people here understand the hardships of others and are sympathetic with them.”