Aleksandra Simoni: Countering nationalist narratives in the Western Balkan region

Aleksandra Simoni from Budva, Montenegro.

A short interview with the Balkan Forum. Her views on countering nationalist narratives in the Western Balkan region: "...I would definitely suggest to young people and older people too, is to separate nationalism and patriotism, because for the most part this narrative is related to those two things among younger and older ones - to do something good for their homeland, for their neighbors, for their friends, when in fact we are all connected and we are all neighbors in the region.

If you already want to be a patriot, you can focus on three things: to vote, to buy domestic products and pay taxes, to throw garbage in the bin and other things that most of those same patriots do not respect.

What I would definitely emphasize is that we need to focus on those things that we all have in common, and that is our values - that we all have a better and higher quality life, and I don't know why we would spread such negative ideas, negative narratives and negative feelings.

First of all, every man is in some way egocentric and selfish, in that sense why spread and provoke hatred towards others and negative narratives and feel generally bad when we can spread something positive and work on common goals, which in the case of everyone in the region, is a better economic situation, a better standard of living, protection of human rights, equality, faith in institutions.

What we definitely need is to regain faith in institutions and in that way we will not have so much problem with brain drain or negative narratives, because if everyone is more or less satisfied with their life they will not have so much need to look for differences in others, if there is a good heritage in themselves and if they develop themselves. And that would be some of my suggestions so that these negative narratives could be suppressed, because most people nowadays, due to their worries, insufficiently, paradoxically, dedicate themselves to themselves and their families and their loved ones.

When we all sit together like today at a REACT camp, in a cafe or anywhere else, we don’t notice so many differences at all, we all talk about the same problems, we all have the same torments, the same concerns and we should focus on solving them, not further deepen those problems that have existed for centuries among people, let's work on good things, that would be my suggestion."