Nikola Samardžić
the poverty have contributed to the destruction of the urban environment:
casinos, betting, kiosks, squalid fast food and bakeries. Belgrade has been re-
Orientalized, similarly to what has happened after the Austrian rule 1718-1739.
In Belgrade the authorities are everywhere, while lawlessness is pervasive
as well. The administrative buildings, the ministries and the remaining state
administration are scattered by 200 points in the center of Belgrade and Novi
Beograd. The terror of the officials armed with official cars, sirens and police
escort is part of a daily scenario, including occasional dignitaries from abroad.
The urban development of Belgrade is revealing challenges and traumas
both from the recent history and, as well, from the long term conjecture and
mentality: poverty, sharp social, cultural and ideological differences, inheritance
and influence of nationalism, socialism and political religion, undeveloped or
inappropriately developed infrastructure. All these problems are related both
to the failure of utopianism and particularities of urbicide. The urbicide was
a systemic pressure on the city to be deprived of its most important quality,
individualism, free thought, political courage and resistance to all kind of
extremism. All the shortcomings of the contemporary Belgrade, the inadequate
solutions or the lack of them in the urban development, the maintenance and
building of infrastructure, the cultural and social policies framework, can be
discerned from both the historical perspective and the analyses of the current
condition. They can be related to the shortcomings of the middle class, the
citizenry, and their deficient involvement in the processes of transition,
democratization, emancipation of rule, of law and of market liberalization. The
important question is to what extent the Serbian intellectual elite challenged in
the last two centuries the significance, sometimes even on the moral basis, of
all mentioned modernization processes. The relative poverty and the negligible
public influence of citizenry are partly the result of the incapability of the local
humanistic sciences to become one of the means for the problem solving.
The absence of a “middle class” in the transition process and at the top of the
political decision-making correlate probably with the weakness or absence of
institutions, including the institutions of culture: the temporary closed National
museum and Museum of contemporary art, no Opera house, the bankrupted
cinemas etc. The insufficient economic potential of the middle class particularly
affects the stability and effectiveness of the institutions.
The urbicide in the former Yugoslavia started during the upcoming era of
the intensified globalization, considered to be the largest spontaneous social
experiment in the human history. For the first time the most of the planet’s
inhabitants live in the cities. This process took place in the past few decades.
With its intensity and controversies, the globalization has imposed important,
therefore sensitive, and sometimes painful issues. Whether the world is
urbanized, or cities ruralized? Are the immigration and the multiculturalism
challenging the right to direct the future urban and social development
mainly on the basis of the genuine historical cultural heritage? Does the cities’