Unlike Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic whose names were mentioned often during one of those popcorn political interrogations I had for the Bosniaks, I never heard of Arkan. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t talk politics all the time, when I have time I listened to Turbo folk. But don’t tell the Bosniaks since they will make fun of my choice of music. For many Bosniaks, Turbo folk associated with those Serbians who once raped, them, figuratively and literally.

“You know why we hate Turbo folk?” One kid tried to explain to me. “The most famous Turbo folk singer, Ceca was the wife of a Serb general who murdered us.” From her wiki page, I discovered “Arkan.” I am not going to discuss details about his life since such information is everywhere on the internet. What more interested to me is how skewed and strange human perception and interpretation can be. For many Serbians, this world-recognized war criminal was a national hero.

I had no doubt in my mind he inspired his followers and gained their supports for his ill-fated mission to defend his country which he claimed he “loved”. Ignore the undiplomatic and uncivilized language in his speech; one can feel a lot of charisma from this man. I believe this guy truly loved Serbia and Orthodox faith, albeit in a twisted way. Too bad, by loving his own, he turned into a bigot: “…all Muslims are WILD DOGS. This is the war between us and the WILD DOG…”

What a waste! These radical Serbians could have done a lot of good for Serbia instead of dragging their country’s name to the mud and ravaging neighboring ones at the same time. But what is more utterly incomprehensible? Arkan can not exist and flourish WITHOUT the support of the people–a lot of them.

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