Walking through the Baščaršija a few weeks ago in Sarajevo, Eirik, my Norwegian friend who works in his country's Bosnian embassy, lent a word to the unwise for use during my time in the predominately Muslim city: Never, under any circumstances, was I to hold up my thumb, pointer finger and middle finger in public.

If I happened to be ordering tri piva in a bar, I was to do it the way I was taught as a pre-K'er at Bee Hive, and hold up my pointer, middle and ring.

"But I can't do that," I said, awkwardly maneuvering my not-opposable-enough thumb to try and pin down my pinkie, which has always been amazingly hard for me. "Why is it so important?"

Eirik looked around, and discreetly flashed what not to do. "This is the Serbian nationalist symbol," he explained. "Just don't do it."

I didn't ask why, and for the rest of my time in Muslim Bosnia-Hercegovina, made sure to pin down my pinkie with my thumb when ordering three Bud Dry's.

It was only once I made it back into Republika Srpska, in the capital town of Banja Luka, that I began to see evidence of what Eirik was talking about.


A БИX ШTA JE TO?? At the time, I couldn't read any Cyrillic letters whatsoever, but I immediately recognized the symbol below the sentence -- it was what Eirik had flashed discreetly that night in Sarajevo. It was the Serbian nationalist symbol.

And right next to it,


any ambiguity as to what the artists were trying to convey was cleared up.

A БИX ШTA JE TO?? Roughly translated, it means "And Bosnia-Hercegovina, What Is It??"

To the "Patriot Boys" from Banja Luka, the answer is simple: Bosnia-Hercegovina is Serbia. And if you're proud of Serbia, you show it with three simple fingers -- the thumb, the pointer and the middle.

Serbs from Republika Srpska bear some resemblance to Israelis who, until August 2004, settled in the Gaza Strip, and to this day, reside in the West Bank. The analogy is imperfect; not all Jewish settlers living beyond the 1967 borders are extremists, and the same goes for many Serbs living in RS. But the similarity lies in the cornered-animal theory: When you identify yourself with a certain group -- whether it be ethnic Serbs living in Serbia proper or Israeli Jews living within its internationally-recognized borders -- and live in separation from your brethren, you will feel like a cornered animal. You will react as if your survival is being threatened. You will hold up your thumb, pointer and middle fingers -- not the peace sign.

The "Patriot Boys" in Banja Luka feel like those Jews who used to live in trailers in Gaza; they feel like they have to puff out their chests and assert their Serbness.

Just like the West Bankers who, in 2004, came in droves to protest withdrawal from the Mediterranean sandbox given to their people by God Himself, so, too, do the Patriot Boys view БИX as their rightful land. Gaza is Israel; BiH is Serbia. In their interpretation of history, the facts are indisputable. There will be no debate. It's as simple as that.

But ask a Tel Aviv surfer how he feels about his "brethren" living in the settlements, or a Belgrade intellectual how he feels about Ratko Mladić, and you'll get the same reaction: A shaking head. A look of embarassment. A wish you hadn't asked that question.

In Belgrade, most people that I have met seek to disassociate themselves from the extremism that is uber-prevalent in Republika Srpska. They have no interest in "Greater Serbia;" they have an interest only in peace.

"I hope that we will be reaching a time of relax," Zivko, a Serbian from the town of Nova Varoš, said to me the other night at a bar called Idiott. "I am tired of all this politics. I am tired. I am looking to the future, and I hope that it will be a time where there are no more of these problems," he said, staring straight ahead with a far-off look in his eyes. "I do not need 'Greater Serbia,' whatever that is. You want to know what I need? I need a nice woman, a house on the Mediterranean and a dog. And I invite you, I invite my other friends to come there, and we just relax, go fishing." Zivko took another drag of his cigarette as he burrowed his eyebrows. This was his dream; it had nothing to do with righting historical wrongs in Bosnia-Hercegovina, or in the Krajina region of Croatia, or in breakway Montenegro.

It had to do with finding a nice woman and a dog -- which is all that I want as well.

A song by the mid-90's band Porno for Pyros was playing in the background as Zivko told me what it was that he wanted. I found the lyrics to be foreboding of what may actually unfold in the near future, as tensions in the Balkans continue to simmer beneath a surface of stability: We'll make regrets, we'll make regrets!...

I looked at Zivko's profile, and I couldn't guarantee that Serbia was yet in the clear from the troubles that plagued it and its neighboring countries throughout the 1990's. They made regrets then, and may do the same again soon. It is a beautiful day today in Belgrade: Blue skies, just the right temperature, a stream of sunlight pouring in from the kitchen window, which make it hard to sit inside and type. But storm clouds are in sight. They are out there, on the horizon, hovering above the converging Sava and Danube Rivers.

The country -- and the entire region -- is not yet in the clear. Two days before I arrived in Belgrade, a popular referendum ratified a new constitution, which was needed to replace the invalidated document which governed the former country of Serbia and Montenegro. The referendum was about a new constitution, but it was widely seen as a vote on whether or not to allow the southern Serbian region of Kosovo to withdraw peacefully, as Montenegro was allowed to do just last May.

Kosovo's independence is almost inevitable. The main question is whether or not war is as well. The three-month NATO bombing campaign that peppered Serbia from Kosovo to Belgrade to Vojovodina in 1999 was triggered by the dispute over this region. Memories of the "Bombing Spring" are still fresh. But fears among the populace that their government is moving back towards a radical position on Kosovo are well-founded.


I have met educated people in Belgrade. They want peace; they want a nice woman; they want a dog. But not everyone in Serbia feels this way.


The people who spray paint the words "Sons of Serbia" are like the Patriot boys in Banja Luka. They do not want a nice woman and a house on the Mediterranean -- they want to unite the Serbian people. And if the Serbian people happen to live in a scattering of countries across the former Yugoslavia, then drastic times call for drastic measures.

But people like Zivko will be caught in the cross fire. All I can hope and pray for is that his government, and his people, do not make regrets so soon after the last war. I hope that one day, I will be invited to his house, meet his beautiful wife, play fetch with his dog, and then go fishing.