Our Impressionable (Hitler) Youth

Wandering home the other night with my girlfriend I was confronted by a somewhat troubled lad. Around eighteen years of age he had decided to accost my girlfriend and I as we made our way through the underpass at Zeleni Venac. I am used to pleas for money or assistance (both here and in England) and I am also fairly used to the occasional threat of violence (more so in England), but what occurred fit into neither of the above categories. He had apparently been attracted by my un-Serbian looks, which despite my best efforts these last few years I have failed to mask, and enquired, in Serbian, as to where I was from. 

This was an odd, new line of questioning which got me wondering where it might lead. He then ventured, helpfully, that perhaps I was Swedish. He seemed eager to find out and I could almost see his desire for an affirmative response, but one that I couldn’t give him. Perhaps he had a long-lost and favorite aunt living in Malmo? Could I disappoint the lad? Of course I could. And so I proceeded to tell him I was English. My answer however, produced anything but the disappointment that not having met his aunt from Malmo might expectedly produce. 

In response to my English-ness the lad seemed to puff himself up, a look of respect and pride all too evident in his expression and his posture. My answer had obviously met with his approval but I was, as yet, in the dark as to why. The explanation for his approval was not, however long in coming. In reply the teenager took an almost military step back, another apparent mark of deference, before informing me that I was a ‘true Aryan’. Unsure what to make of this ‘compliment’ I continued home but before I could leave him and the subway behind he gave me a departing gift, stating that ‘in Serbia the wheat is this high’ accompanied by a hand gesture that became a Nazi salute. 

What should I have made of such an apparent ‘compliment’? I couldn’t bring myself to reply in kind although I imagine this was what the youngster hoped that I would do. Instead I left a little stunned, and he left probably well pleased with his ‘performance’.  

The episode raised a number of questions in my mind that I would simply like to list: 

1.Is far-right politics popular in Serbia and if so what is the attraction?

2.Towards whom are far-right groups directing their anger?

3.Is their a popular Balkan Fascist agenda and if so what is it?

4. Are Nazism and Fascism regarded as one and the same and if so what about Hitler’s views’ concerning the Slavs and their position within race theory?

5.Are we simply looking at the impressionable youth who will always be attracted by the allure of extreme political thinking?