YOUTH, MEDIA, AND SUBCULTURE IN POST-CONFLICT SOCIETIES Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 98 YOUTH, MEDIA, AND SUBCULTURE IN POST-CONFLICT SOCIETIES Benjamin Perasović Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences This article explores the extent of ethnocentrism, xenophobia and chauvinism among the younger generation in contemporary Croatia. It considers what generates and maintains xenophobic sentiments and the potential for, and evidence of, resistance to them. The argument set out has three inter-related parts. The first concerns the general rise in levels of national affiliation among the majority (‘mainstream’) of youth and their social distance from ‘other’ ethnic groups. Here the article draws on a series of sociological surveys that allow comparison before and after the collapse of the former Yugoslav federation. Such data indicate that, over the last two decades, Croatian society has been characterised by a rise in religiosity and an increase in the importance of national identity (Ilišin 2002). To explain this, sociologists have applied Durkheim’s notion of anomie and accentuated the particular difficulties in generational transfer of experience in the context of the post-socialist collapse of values and institutions (Županov 2002). This arises not only from the difficulty of socializing young people into a normative system itself only emergent, but also from the lack of authority accruing to the older generation who appeared, overnight, to switch from preaching brotherhood and unity to propagating war and hate. The second part of the article considers the role of the media in generating ‘moral panics’ and in constructing ‘folk devils’ (often in the shape of skinheads and football hooligans) that serve to distance such 'extremes' from 'normal', conventional, nationalism often dignified by the term 'patriotism'. The final section of the article draws on original empirical research by the author with youth subcultures that directly articulate ethnic intolerance and discrimination as well as those who oppose them. The analysis of their cultural practices suggests that such xenophobic practices are only the tip of the iceberg, beneath which lie deeper social processes of socialization, retraditionalisation and the maintenance of patriarchal relations that sustain not only practices of ethnic hatred and violence but also the conventional, unquestioned, moderate nationalism of the silent majority. ‘Mainstream youth’: National affiliation and social distance A series of social surveys conducted by Ilišin (2002), Baranović (2002) and Radin (2005) provide the opportunity to compare degrees of national affiliation and social distance expressed by young people before and after the socio- economic transformation and military conflicts of the early 1990s (see Table 1). In the first of three surveys (based on a sample of 2,000 15-29 year olds in Croatiai The first real change in the ranking of statements is visible only from 2004. Although the statement ‘I feel a sense of belonging to my and conducted in 1986, 1999 and 2004) exploring national affiliation, Radin identified three basic positions among the population - national realism, ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism. In 1986, in the context of the growing crisis of the one-party system, he found ethnocentrism to be articulated by a significantly smaller proportion of the population than either of the other two positions. The same survey was repeated 13 years later, in the aftermath of the war and radical change in the political and economic system. The statements that had received most support in 1986 - ‘I feel a sense of belonging to my own nation and to mankind in general in equal measure' and ‘Every nation must be open to the world and the influence of other cultures’ – remained the most popular (see Table 1). Evidence of a rise in national affiliation, however, can be deduced from the fact that a lower proportion of the population sample agreed with the statement ‘No fundamental human characteristics are rooted in national belonging’ (44.2% in 1986 compared to 33.1% in 1999) and from the rise in support for the statement ‘All members of my nation should always respect it over the nations of others’ (supported by 9.5% of respondents in 1986 but by 19.4% in 1999). Nonetheless, more extreme statements such as ‘Nationally mixed marriages are doomed to failure from the outset' continued to be supported by only a tiny minority of respondents. Interpreting these data, Baranović (2002) concludes that the national realism expressed in the first survey had, by 1999, turned into an uncritical national identification whilst cosmopolitanism had weakened and ethnocentrism had retained its marginal presence. Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 99 own nation and to mankind in general in equal measure' remained popular (supported by 52.7% of respondents), it was pushed into second place by the statement ‘Every nation should revive and promote its own national ideals’ (supported by 53% of respondents). What is most striking about the 2004 survey, however, is the rise in support for the statement that ‘All members of my nation should always respect it over the nations of others’ (to 30.7%) and even for the statement, deemed a measure of ethnocentrism by Radin (2005), that ‘One should love even the weaknesses of one’s own nation’ (supported by 23.3% in 2004 compared to 17.8% in 1999 and 16% in 1986). Agreement with more radically ethnocentric statements -‘One should always be cautious and reserved towards other nations, even when they are your friends’ and ‘Nationally mixed marriages are doomed to failure from the outset' - also rose. The fact that levels of support for neither exceeded 9%, however, indicates such positions remained marginal across the social spectrum. These findings – the simultaneous growth in the articulation of strong national affiliation alongside a retention of an openness to the outside world – has led Radin to suggest that ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism do not oppose but complement one another and their co-existence has allowed the development in Croatia of a relatively moderate national affiliation alongside an openness to the rest of the world. This finding confirms the earlier study of Branka Baranović (2002), which noted a trend towards widespread support for the promotion of national belonging and a strong and rather uncritical emphasis of one’s own nationality, alongside an openness to the outside world and ‘other’ cultural influences. Table 1 Survey data on national affiliation Statement ‘Completely agree with’ (1986) ‘Completely agree with’ (1999) ‘Completely agree with’ (2004) ‘I feel a sense of belonging to my own nation and to mankind in general in equal measure' 46.3% 42.2% 52.7 % ‘Every nation must be open to the world and the influence of other cultures’ 40.5% 40.6% 37.6% ‘No fundamental human characteristics are rooted in national belonging’ 44.2% 33.1% 39.4% ‘All members of my nation should always respect it over the nations of others’ 9.5% 19.4% 30.7% ‘Nationally mixed marriages are doomed to failure from the outset' 3.7% 4.7% 5.4% ‘Every nation should revive and promote its own national ideals’ 26.4% 32.5% 53.0% ‘One should love even the weaknesses of one’s own nation’ 16.0% 17.8% 23.3% ‘One should always be cautious and reserved towards other nations, even when they are your friends’ 6.3% 7.6% 8.9% Baranović (2002) and Radin (2005) also conducted research into social distance using the Bogardus 7 Scale. Although comparing the data from the two surveys is complicated by the fact that the first, conducted in 1999, allowed multiple answers to the questions posed whilst the second, conducted in 2004, permitted only one answer, the two surveys reveal little change in the hierarchy of social distance between ethnic groupings. Both surveys showed that Croats felt closest to their own national group followed by a number of Western European nations (Italians, Germans, French) as well as Americans. Other Central and East European national groups featured mid-way through the scale. Czechs, Hungarians and Slovenes were seen to be the closest from this grouping while at the bottom were Russians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 100 Serbs and Albanians. The only notable difference between the two surveys is that ‘Bosniaks’ii What does this macro-sociological data tell us about Croat youth today? It helpfully links changes in national affiliation with wider processes of transition in Croatia and suggests that young people confronted by the challenges of survival, risk and uncertainty in the new capitalist arena seek protection, security and certainty in family, nation and the church. It is also extremely useful in indicating that although there are very real issues of xenophobia, racism and chauvinism among young Croatians, these remain minority views and practices and thus that we should be wary of public discourse that exaggerates the social threat posed by ‘xenophobic youth’. , who were at the bottom of the scale in 1999, had moved towards the middle in the 2004 survey while Slovenes had slipped down from the middle towards the bottom. It should be noted also that a significant proportion of respondents (one third) indicated that they felt distanced not only from other national groups but also from the Croat nation. Youth and the Media World of Spectacle The mobilising role of the media during military conflict is well established and the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina provided further confirmation of the tendency of the media to emphasise, strengthen and reproduce stereotypes and prejudice at such times. A decade after the conflicts, however, the media in Croatia have undergone significant tabloidisationiii Tito’s or Tudjman’s speeches on 'our' youth provide a good illustration of the first paradigm in its past socialist or nationalistic form. More recently, it has been used in the run- up to elections. This is exemplified by the following excerpt from an interview with Ivo Sanader of the Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ) party, but similar statements have been made by politicians linked to the social- democrats, liberals and other parties: and, today, are best understood as operating within the classic capitalist paradigm of ‘spectacle’ in which even stories and images related to national identification take on a Hollywood hue. The discussion of youth issues in the Croatian media takes place within one of two paradigms. The first is a political discourse, which employs ‘youth’ as an ideological notion in a way largely unchanged from the past except for a change of predicative from ‘Tito’s’ or ‘socialist’ to ‘Croatian’ youth. There is significant continuity also in the way young people are talked about as ‘our investment in the future’, the ‘pride of the nation’, ‘those who will inherit the world’, ‘the country’s most valuable resource’ etc. This paradigm is particularly prevalent during election campaigns when the serious, mature and responsible political world of adults chooses to remember youth, women and the environment. We know that our future lies in our potential to construct a knowledge- based society. That is why we are determined to stop the brain drain by providing conditions for our youth, especially young scientists and researchers, to ensure that they do not have to leave the country, to ensure that our youth stays in the country to construct our future. (Prime Minister Ivo Sanader speaking on Croatian TV, broadcast 15th October 2007. The second paradigm constructs young people as agents of deviancy and persists regardless of immediate political events or the general political orientation of the media concerned. Within this discourse young people are portrayed through a series of debates about moral decline as personified by young people who ‘take drugs’ and ‘start sexual relationships younger and younger’, who are ‘increasingly violent’, belong to ‘extremist’ groups, ‘terrorise’ the city on graduation day, ‘drink until they collapse’, join ‘sects’ in increasing numbers and surrender to various ‘gurus’ and ‘Satanist’ or ‘goth’ movements. Young people are criticised for being too ‘urban’ one moment and too ‘rural’ the next, for attending Thompsoniv concerts, on the one hand, but listening to new Serbian folk on the other. This second paradigm is epitomised by the moral panic over the rave scene in the second half of the nineties, an example of which is provided by the characterisation of ‘youth today’ in the daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija as wearing ‘their shirts and trousers two to four times bigger than they need be and carrying a bottle of alcohol in their hand and a tablet of ecstasy in their pockets…’(Slobodna Dalmacija, 17the May 1996). This labelling of youth culture as essentially ‘deviant’, however, needs to be read in the light of a parallel media glorification of the rich and famous (‘stars’, successful businessmen and the ‘jet set’) whose Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 101 material wealth could never be acquired by an average young Croat. Consequently, young people inhabit a media world in which an article about social policy to tackle drug use on one page is followed by a celebration of the return of ‘heroin chic’ and excessively thin fashion models on the next. Of course such media discourse is not unique to Croatia; it is a well-established phenomenon whose existence led to the development of the universally applicable sociological concept of ‘moral panic’ by Young (1972), Gusfield (1963), and, the most frequently quoted, Stanley Cohen (1972/1980). The key components of Cohen’s theory – media exaggeration, distortion of facts, generalisation, prediction, symbolisation, and exploitation - could be found also in the Yugoslav media of the 1980s in their discussion of punks in Ljubljana (Slovenia) or ‘goths’ in Zagreb (Croatia), or what was dubbed the ‘Nazi birthday party’ in Sarajevov It is interesting to dwell a moment on the case of football fans since they are a classic example of how a set of constant practices, and in some cases, the very same people, are recast by the media in a way that reflects changes in the political direction of the government. Thus, if we take as an example the football fans known as the ‘Bad Blue Boys’ (Bosnia and Herzegovina), or football hooliganism across the region. Moral panics typical of the 1990s concerned the rave (techno, trance, house) party scene, the use of drugs generally and, of course, football fans, while the most recent example of moral panic, especially in Zagreb, concerns new folk music and its connections with the mafia. vi, we see that their media portrayal shifted considerably across the eighties and nineties. At the end of the eighties the Bad Blue Boys were depicted as ‘hooligans’, ‘dangerous nationalists’, ‘anti-socialist elements’, and ‘mindless vandals’. At the beginning of war, however, they became ‘our boys’, ‘Croatia’s defenders’, ‘Croatian knights’, ‘heroes’, ‘Croatian volunteers, fighters’ and, because some of the Bad Blue Boys were killed in the war, ‘martyrs who gave their young lives on the altar of the homeland’. But, by the mid nineties, and as they waged a struggle to restore the name of the football club,vii the very same group of young men, were being described as ‘anti-Croat elements’, ‘enemies of the Croatian state’ or as being ‘nostalgic for Yugoslav communism’, ’sponsored by George Soros’, and, once again, ‘mindless vandals’.viii For the purposes of the discussion here, however, it is the media coverage of the Thompson phenomenon, which is most significant. The Croatian public became aware of Marko Perkovic Thompson at the beginning of 1992, when he released the song ‘Cavoglave’ based on the story of the armed defence he and his brothers conducted of his home village. The song - with its Macedonian rhythm, rock riffs and call for defence and revenge - became very popular, almost an anthem of the first phase of the war in Croatia. After the war, he began singing professionally and, in the period after the change of the government in Croatia from Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union party (HDZ) to a social democrat–liberal coalition in January 2000, and on the wave of nationalist protests against sending Croatian generals to The Hague, Thompson came to epitomize for many the sufferings of the ‘wounded Croatian soul’ as he successfully wove together post-conflict emotions, the vocalisation of national identification and a popular type of folk-rock music. The media crowned him ‘the first right- wing pop star in Europe’ and he attracted 50,000 people to his performance at the stadium in Split in September 2002. During his concerts thousands of people would chant ‘kill the Serbs’ and it was not uncommon to see people there sporting ustasha ix It is important to recognise the ‘moral panic’ surrounding the Thompson phenomenon. This is not to deny that a proportion of the Thompson audience is ethnocentric and chauvinist. However, the superficial, campaign- like and sensationalist coverage and criticism of Thompson conducted in the press has hindered genuine efforts to discuss and address the causes of nationalist and chauvinist behaviour. Articles in the daily newspapers Jutarnji list and Vecernji list on the day after his big concert in Split (17th September 2002), or those in the weekly papers Globus and Nacional in September 2002, for example, focused on the problematic issues at the concert while subsequent reporting centred on the iconography of some fans and the tendentious nature of the lyrics in some songs, and headlined with news of his concerts being symbols from the second world war on t-shirts or baseball caps. Thompson has always denied any political links or overt political message and claims to be a patriot rather than a chauvinist; he sings, he says, about God, love and the homeland. However, the lyrics of his songs throw this defence into doubt and at some of his concerts open support was lent to individuals accused of war crimes. Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 102 banned in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The problem with this kind of reporting is that justifiable criticism of the use of fascist symbols and some of the slogans and chants of sections of the public is undermined by the generalisation of this minority behaviour into a descriptor of the whole ‘Thompson phenomenon’. This is accomplished through the chain of signification established by journalists through their constant us of terms such as ‘right-wing’, ‘fascist symbols’, ‘ban’, ‘Croatian nationalism’ in relation to Thompson; in this way, as Stanley Cohen (1972/1980) argues, every symbol connected to the phenomenon becomes imbued with deviant status. Such media sensationalism is ultimately counter-productive since headlines portraying every young person attending a Thompson concert as wild ustasha ready to kill and slaughter Serbs, Jews and Roma do little to disrupt ethnic stereotyping whilst providing a stream of images and headlines that often find their place on the walls of those same young people they seek to criticise. Another example of the way in which media reporting on subcultures is used to explore the ‘unfinished business’ of the Second World War rather than shed light on subcultural movements themselves can be seen in the media discussion of skinheads in the mid 1990s. For example, when a member of the punk scene in Zagreb was stabbed several times in the stomach by skinheads, articles in the daily newspapers of 15th and 16th December 1997 labelled the incident ‘A war between skins and punks on the streets of Zagreb’ (Vecernji list), while one of the most popular TV shows, ‘Latinica’ devoted a whole programme to the conflict between punks and skins in December 1997. This media discourse not only focused on fighting between skins and punks but also portrayed the groups as direct descendants of traditional enemies within their parent culturex – the ustasha and the partizani.xi It is important, of course, to recognise also the important role the media play in bringing to light social problems - paedophilia, sexual abuse and harassment, violence against women and children, bullying and violence among the young - that have been neglected up until the recent past. At the same time, it is vital that we recognise the danger inherent in allowing discussion of such issues to generate ‘moral panic’ that not only labels and stigmatises sections of the population but also diverts attention away from the real problem. In the case of the discussion of paedophilia recently, for example, one of the Croat tabloids published an article on its front page warning against ‘Daddies with cameras prowling our beaches’, effectively directing attention away from the family and relatives (the most common site of the sexual abuse of children) to ‘foreigners’, public places (the beach) and the ‘stranger’s camera’. In a similar way, this kind of spectacularisation in the media frequently misdirects the discussion of youth problems towards public debate about youth as a problem. This was particularly evident in the discussion of the symbols used within the two movements with advocates from one side claiming that ustasha symbols are fascist symbols and should be banned while the other side claimed that the red star was a symbol of totalitarian terror. Even if the content of the media discourse is clearly more sympathetic to the punks than the skins and to multiculturalism than ethnocentrism, one of the problems of this kind of spectacular reporting is that it leaves a large amount of violence - including domestic violence - outside discussion. Moreover, by talking about a ‘war’ between skins and punks and by linking the contemporary use of symbols from the communist and fascist past to the ‘origins’ of punk and skinhead movements, the media, to some extent, not only define but create this war, or, perhaps more accurately, re-create the unfinished business of the second world war. Youth Subcultures, Xenophobia and Violence It is tempting to assume that the small proportion of respondents with ‘marginal’, xenophobic views identified by the surveys cited above are precisely those people highlighted in media reporting of violent, xenophobic activities. In practice, however, young people’s articulated views and their behaviour in particular contexts cannot be presumed to be logically consistent; young people are not frozen bearers of generalised questionnaire responses but dynamic agents responding to particular contextual situations. Thus, it is perfectly possible to imagine respondents ticking boxes in a questionnaire in such a way as to make them fit well within the ‘mainstream’ yet, in another time and place, finding themselves in a crowd throwing stones at coaches carrying the Serbian football team or its fans. The only way to understand whether or not marginal attitudes are articulated by subcultural groups, therefore, is to conduct long-term, in-depth sociological observation, which situates young people’s Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 103 narratives within the context of their everyday life experience. The study of ‘marginal’ or ‘extreme’ youth groupings has taken place largely upon the theoretical terrain of ‘subcultures’. The understanding of youth via ‘subcultures’ first flourished in the mid-1950s (Cohen, A 1955) rooted in structural functionalism albeit incorporating elements of Chicago School thinking. Through the 1960s it continued to feature – more as a recurrent theme than as a strictly applied concept – as part of a wider interest in theories of symbolic interactionism (Becker 1963). It reached the height of its academic presence in the late 1970s and early 1980s within the neo-Marxist paradigm of ‘youth subculture’ developed by the Birmingham School (Cohen, P. 1972, Hall & Jefferson 1976, Hebdige 1980). In Croatia, discussion of youth subcultures began with reference to 1970s phenomena such as the šminkerixii, štemerixiii The notion of ‘subculture’ to explain these cultural phenomena has a contested history in Eastern Europe, however. This is not only because subcultural styles have been encountered there outside of their original Anglo-Saxon context but also because the concept of subculture, in both its 1950s and its 1970s variant, was rooted in an understanding of social class as the primary site of socialisation. In Croatia, however, determining the class base of any particular youth subculture is problematic and it has proven more appropriate to provide thick description of particular subcultural styles whilst using notions like traditionalism, patriarchalism or urban-rural to understand the everyday cultural practices of the individuals involved. This is not to say that social status and the socio-economic location of parents is irrelevant to the subculturalisation process in Eastern Europe but to suggest that its significance is not as great as studies rooted in subcultural theory of the 1970s and 1980s in the United Kingdom would make it appear (Perasović 2001). The research presented below thus understands the experiences and cultural practices of young subcultural actors in relation to their location on society's margins but, at the same time, explores how these practices are mediated by mainstream society including via the media and socialisation processes. and hashomani (hippies) and continued with punk and new wave. The rock-based scenes of the mid-1980s splintered into heavy metal (speed, death, trash), rockabilly, dark/gothic and hard- core and were joined, in the late 1980s, by hip- hop and other music-based subcultures. The 1990s were characterised above all by the rave scene (house, trance, techno, breakbeat) and the revival of anarchist punk identity and its related network of fanzines. The most recent phenomenon has been a new folk wave, although in this case status as a ‘subculture’ is challenged by its closeness to the parent culture. It is argued here, therefore, that the macro-sociological approach reported above, which explains the rise in national affiliation as a response to the insecurities of ‘wild capitalism’, is important but insufficient. A sociological understanding of these tendencies needs to consider also the parent culture, which is characterised by nationalist exclusivity, xenophobia, prejudice and stereotypes and which, from the beginning of the 1990s, instigated a process of retraditionalisation in Croatian society from both above and below. Retraditionalisation is complex and cannot be treated in isolation from other major social processes - especially demographic and economic - taking place in Croatia at this time. However, for the purposes of this article, it might be disaggregated into a number of key processes, including: the increasing influence of the church in society and the public arena; the rediscovery of ‘old ways’ of doing things; an emphasis on patriarchal norms and values; the idealisation of the ‘honest’, ‘simple’, ‘rural’, hard-working man with a historically rooted and strictly delimited role; and a high degree of social control. Of course there are many progressive consequences of the process of retraditionalisation,xiv but it is also deeply infused with the re-assertion of patriarchal values. A notorious illustration of this is the claim of the Minister of Science and Education, Ljilja Vokić that she automatically stood up whenever a man entered the room.xv This is particularly important because patriarchal society is based on relations of domination and subordination that are underpinned by violence and harassment; 25% of women in Croatia have suffered some form of physical violence from a male partner and 33% have suffered some form of sexual violence (AŽK, 2006). Although these facts are discussed in public, they are treated in isolation from other social processes, which means that when youth violence (associated, for example, with skinheads or football hooligans) is discussed in the public, including academic, sphere no Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 104 connection is made between the reassertion of patriarchal values and the problem of violence in society in general. A final, but not unconnected, factor in the reproduction of ethnically rooted prejudice and discrimination is the ‘paternalism’ that continues to characterise Croatian society. In a sociological survey conducted in 1999, Ilišin (2002) measured paternalism via the level of support among respondents for three propositions: young people, above all, must obey their parents at home, teachers in school and employers at work; society can be maintained and developed only if young people respect everything done by the older generations; and young people should be allowed to enjoy themselves, study, work and earn money, but they should not interfere with decision-making about social issues. In this survey 40-70% of respondents either ‘completely agreed’ or ‘mostly agreed’ with these statements, suggesting that a significant proportion of young people are subject to traditional and patriarchal social models that facilitate the emergence of authoritarian consciousness and uncritical national identification. At the same time, however, the survey responses revealed a strong tendency towards recognising the ‘innovative potential of the young’, favouring the young over the old and supporting the abandoning of established habits and patterns (Ilišin 2002). It is interesting to note here also that while support for paternalism was correlated with certain socio-demographic variables,xvi the survey revealed no statistically significant correlations between the eight key socio-demographic variables and views on ‘innovative potential’. Unfortunately, however, despite the recognition of this potential among youth, in reality, such innovation is blocked by power relations rooted in age, gender, and wealth stratifications. Moreover, for both economic and cultural reasons, young people in Croatia move out of the parental home at a very late age. This delayed separation prevents the realisation of the innovative potential of young people and is just one example of the disempowered status of youth. A Note on Method In the remainder of this article the significance of ‘subcultures’ in the articulation of - and challenge to - xenophobia, violence, discrimination and hatred are discussed. The material drawn on comes from research conducted with subcultural actors and their leaders over a period of more than five years. The research was conducted primarily through participant observation in the rituals of punks, hippies, ravers, football hooligans and other groups with less stylistically rooted identities. As part of this study over 100 individual interviews and twenty group interviews were conducted. This research - conducted originally for the purposes of a PhD thesis - was completed in 1999 but contacts with all key actors on the subcultural scene in Zagreb, and with some in Split, Pula, Rijeka and Osijek, have been maintained and informal conversations as well as interviews in the post 1999 period are also drawn on in this article. Since the focus of this article is ethnocentrism, xenophobia and chauvinism among the younger generation, the discussion here focuses on those subcultural actors - football hooligans and skinheads - who, in many cases, openly advocate nationalism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and homophobia, and who carry out violent attacks on various 'others' (members of rival football crews, gay men, punks, hippies). Of course, this is not to suggest that all football fans (or even all skinheads) behave in this way but it cannot be denied that these groups (for example the Bad Blue Boys or Torcidaxvii A central aspect to the research has been the testing of narratives of subcultural actors from multiple sources since anti-sexist or anti-fascist statements by a particular individual or group of people in one context may give way to quite opposite sentiments at another time or place. Such dissonance in internal subcultural narratives can only be captured through sustained participant observation. Another important characteristic of the research was the recognition of the researcher's constantly shifting status with relation to his research subjects. For some - veterans of the scenes - the author was known as a researcher, while for others - those joining the scene later - his observance of the ) have consistently exhibited such behaviour and values over the last twenty years. Anarcho-punk and alternative movements, in contrast, are discussed because they constitute the section of the contemporary youth cultural scene in which anti-nationalist and anti-ethnocentric views are most strongly voiced. This article, in contrast to media reporting, also attempts to place both sets of subcultural movements in the broader context of Croatian society. Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 105 rhythm of scene life made it hard to see him first and foremost as a sociologist. Frequent appearances on television talking about subcultural practices also afforded the author the opportunity for dialogic feedback from respondents. Members of various rock-based subcultural styles (hippies, punks, goths, metal fans) felt the author's public narrativization of subcultures lent legitimacy to their (often stigmatized) cultures. However, the same individuals were angered by his use of the term 'subculture' to describe, for example, football hooligans since, for them, the use of this term to describe such 'mindless violence', threatened to undermine the legitimacy afforded their own group. Football Hooliganism From the end of the 1970s until around the mid- 1980s football fans were less a distinct subculture than part of the parent culture; violence against the long-haired followers of rock subcultures was rationalised by recourse to widely held views about ‘dirty addicts’ whose right to walk the street should be challenged by physical attack or symbolic cutting of their hair. However, from the end of the 1970s, a clear process of subculturalisation began among football fans as they became aware of themselves and their media image. As part of this process they began experimenting with drugs, spray painting graffiti, paying attention to their outward appearance, which included adopting Bomber jacketsxviii By the 1980s, the core elements of football fan groups – those calling themselves hooligans – had developed a number of subcultural characteristics including: a strong sense of masculinity; an inclination towards hierarchy and leaders whilst retaining an emphasis on spontaneity and unpredictability; a preference for alcohol over all other drugs (see Plate 1); competitive practices and ritual confrontation; and the adoption of particular style attributes (see Plate 2), symbols and iconography as well as the use of material objects such as flares and smoke bombs. and piercing their ears, giving names to their fan groups and forming affiliations with other such groups at home and abroad. They also began to borrow some rituals from other music-based subcultures and their music preferences began to diverge from the parent culture. The terraces became divided by age, and so, symbolically and partially physically, football fans began to desert their fathers who had, originally, taken them to the stadium. Plate 1: ‘Fans at Hajduk-Varteks match in Split. The banner with the bottle reads “Always thirsty”. Photo by Mate Prlic, 26th October 2002. Plate 2: ‘This photo is of Torcida hard-core fans in the North stand of Hajduk Stadium in 2007. By this time, some fans had adopted the Lonsdale t-shirts formerly associated with skinheads. Photo by Mate Prlic, 18th April 2007. This identity was also articulated through strong local, regional and national identities and an ideology rooted in anti-communism, religiosity, nationalism and chauvinism. This is expressed clearly by the following two football fans: We are here to defend our city [Zagreb]. If we weren't prepared to do this, outsiders, fans from other cities would come here and insult us, make jokes and take the mickey. But we have our pride and no one's going to come here and walk our streets as if they were at Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 106 home. (Influential member of Bad Blue Boys, male, 24 years, interviewed in 1988, Zagreb) We are Croats. We are proud of that. We'll sing Croatian songs even if the police arrest us. We believe in God. We're not communists. We're not the police or Gyppos like those from Rijeka. (Member of Bad Blue Boys, male, 20 years, interviewed after the match Dinamo-Rijeka, 1988) But how, precisely, is nationalism, chauvinism and xenophobia related to the subcultural practices of football fans? Based on a study of the Split based Torcida (see Plates 1-3) Lalić (1993) identified four basic types of fan: fan/fan; fan/trendy; fan/violence seeker; and fan/political activist. Plate 3: ‘Torcida fans at friendly match in Maribor, Slovenia. Photo by Mate Prlic, 5th July 2002’ Despite the fact that Lalić conducted his research almost 20 years ago, this typology remains broadly relevant today. ‘Fan/fans’, who are neither nationalistic nor violently oriented but become members of fan groups because of their fanatic devotion to the club and because they enjoy the ecstatic situations, travelling and friendships that develop within fan groups, remain clearly visible on the scene. The number of ‘fans/trendies’ varies according to the status of football fans on the wider youth cultural scene but also remains a relevant category. Since Lalić’s study, the major change has been the decline in the significance of the ‘fan/political activist’. Twenty years ago, the socialist political system labelled all fans that participated in singing old (prohibited) Croatian songs ‘political activists’ (nationalists) and any fan carrying a Croatian national flag risked a few months in prison. This explains why this type of fan was important in Lalić’s study. However, it should be remembered that these young fans were not always as politically active as the political system made them out to be. For example, fans writing ‘We love Hajduk’ on a white piece of cloth that looked like a flag could result in being refused admission to the stadium by the police since the banner contained ‘no red star or other symbol of socialism’xix Finally, Lalić’s ‘fans/violence seekers’ also remain an important presence on the scene and such fans continue to feature in the headlines of media reports. There is a core element, often fans who no longer go to matches regularly, who attend special events charged with ritual hostility in order to participate in violence for their own adrenalin-charged enjoyment, however destructive it may be. The thrill of the ‘fight’ is articulated by the following fan: . Today the situation is radically different since Croatian national flags and symbols are part of mainstream culture. Another change affecting political activism among football fans is the withdrawal of other politically engaged subcultural groups – such as the punks – from football stadium rituals and their replacement (by the mid nineties) by skinheads who had not featured at all at the time of Lalić’s research. Thus, changes in the broader political system means that political activism is not so present as it was twenty years ago but remains alive in the form of the skinheads and other football fans who use the opportunity of the stadium to express their support for Croatian generals in Den Haag, or to emphasise nationalistic and ethnocentric, as well as anti-gay and similar values on the terraces. You know, if you really want to fight, your heart has to be in it. Heart is the most important thing, not your size, training or skills... they help but they are not decisive, you know. Look, you might be bigger than me, but if I have more heart, if I am mad, I will smash your face before you do anything. Yes, you know, you have to be crazy in a way, and hit first, there's no point hanging back. (Member of the core group of Bad Blue Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 107 Boys, male, 25 years, interviewed in 1998, Zagreb) Such ritual fighting, however, is as much about friendship, bonding and empowerment as xenophobic violence or destroying the enemy. This is implicit in the statement of the following fan: Those poor šminkeri. They might have money, they might have the keys to the motorbike their parents bought for them in their hand, but they don't know what real life is - what passion, friendship, a fight, or anything real is. (Member of the core group of Bad Blue Boys, male, 23 years, interviewed in 1988, Zagreb) It is undeniable, however, that a constant element in fan groups has been the presence of individuals with ethnocentric and xenophobic views. Suggestions from initial research on football hooliganism in the mid-1980s (Buzov et al 1989) that some fans were inclined to nationalistic and militant options of conflict resolution were confirmed a few years later by the massive participation of soccer fans in the war (although some read this participation as motivated by a simple impulse to (self-)defence). The proportion of politically active people on the terraces varies over time, however, and currently political activism involves little more than support for the Croatian Generals in The Hague and disputes with the club management. Nonetheless, terrace rituals, and the subculture of football hooligans in which they are embedded, remain a stage for chauvinistic and racist insults, protests and ritual conflicts on national as well as other territorial (regional, urban, district) grounds. Skinheads The first skinheads appeared in the mid 1980s, although they were small in number and did not constitute a recognisable, cohesive group. They should not therefore be confused with a much larger group of football fans who - because of their Bomber jackets, very short hair, frequent use of the Celtic cross, strong masculine identity, local, regional and national pride, and violent and exclusionary behaviour - resembled skinheads. Despite outward similarities, these young people remained essentially football hooligans; they identified only with their own fan group, were not informed about skinhead culture and were not interested in the nuances of skinhead style (braces, Doc Martens, white laces, Lonsdale t-shirts, etc.). The first ‘real’ skinheads – those who identified themselves as such – in fact emerged both within and outside of the football fan scene. They listened to punk music, were part of the linked ‘fanzine’ network and were fully versed in the wide spectrum of political orientations among skinheads. Thus skinhead subculture in the first half of the 1990s was united in maintaining a conscious distance from neo-Nazi imagery whilst including both members of the SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) movement and skinheads with moderate nationalist views. Indicative of the constitution of the skinhead subculture at this time is an incident in 1994 when punksxx squatted a place close to the main bus station in Zagreb and were joined by members of a skinhead group. One of the youngest skins painted graffiti - including a swastika - on the wall of the building. This enraged both the punks and the older skinheads, one of whom painted over the swastika himself. This is how one older skinhead explained the incident: You know, almost all skinheads go through a phase, when they are 14 or 15 years old, when they draw swastikas and go round saying 'Sieg heil!'. But later, when they are 17 or 18 they realize it's childish and move on to traditional, or SHARP, or some other branch of skinheads... (Member of first generation of skinheads, male, 24 years, interviewed in Zagreb, 1994) However, in the mid-1990s, a younger generation of skinheads appeared in Zagreb that was more oriented towards the culture of the terraces than bands and fanzines. The second half of the 1990s thus saw the return of football hooliganism as a central element in skinhead culture. In sharp contrast to their predecessors, moreover, these skinheads cultivated a neo-Nazi image drawing on attitudes they had heard in programmes about foreign skinheads but Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 108 adapting them to fit domestic ethnocentrism. They also reworked external skinhead symbols slightly; the colour black was preferred, for example, as a symbol of identification with the ustasha and the ‘Black Legion’xxi. The stylistic and verbal articulation of a xenophobic ideology was backed up by street politics; attacks on dark- skinned tourists, members of the Roma community, homosexuals, punks and accidental passers-by in Zagreb began to be reported in the press. As noted above, however, most media attention was devoted to the conflict between skinheads and punks. This conflict was presented to the public as being between skinhead ‘young patriots’ and pro-Serb or Yugo-nostalgic punks, in the Croatian nationalist press, while, in the left-liberal press, the same conflict was described but skinheads were relabelled ‘neo-Nazi thugs’ and punks portrayed as ‘antifascist’, ‘self- organized’ youthxxii This media coverage created the impression that ‘it takes two’ to fight and diverted attention away from the underlying racist violence and abuse. The viciousness of that violence is articulated in the following excerpt from an interview conducted at the end of the 1990s with a 25-year-old skinhead who had been heavily involved in the fighting between punks and skins: . I have been a skinhead since I was 14 years old... You know, I'm a skinhead to the very core... And, if I were to see a punk on the street, with some anarchy symbols, or palestinian scarf or any other punk shit, you know, I'd hit him in the face, with my fist, or kick him. And when he fell to the floor, do you get me, when he was lying on the ground, I'd jump on his head, with both feet - but only once, not two or three times, because I wouldn't really want to kill him... (Skinhead, male, 25 years, interviewed in 2001, Zagreb) Skinheads (the active and visible ones) appeared late on the Croatian youth scene and, partially due to police attention and partially because they grow up and change their ideas about society, they have undergone a number of image shifts. This produces generational rifts within skinhead culture itself, as indicated in the following comment, made by a moderate nationalist skinhead from the first generation about the new generation of skins in 1996: I don't like the spoiled kids, these new skins, you know. They don't understand what it's all about. They live with their parents... I work from time to time on construction sites, and there really are a lot of Romanians... working there... And then I go to a football match and I find loads of new skins complaining that Romanians are coming to Croatia, that it's bad... But I don't see any of them working. Why don't they come and work, as Croats? If they did, they would be hired ahead of the Romanians... But they just talk and wait for their parents to send them to university... (Member of first generation of skinheads, male, 27 years, interviewed in1998, Zagreb). While skinheads are notorious above all for their stylisation of xenophobia, it is the aggressive impulse (the desire for attack), which precedes its ideological rationalisation. This is evident from incidents when, failing to find a suitable ‘target’, skinheads attack simply the first person to pass by. The activities of skinheads (and the radical right-wing views that are used to legitimate them) are thus a kind of mirror to the parent culture, drawing on similar patterns of intolerance, chauvinistic discourse and violence as forms of communicating one’s views and frustration but in a particular, stylised form. Central to the re-creation of elements of that parent culture is football, with its emphasis on masculinity, alcohol, competition and tradition. The vast majority of skinheads on the scene over the past 15 years have been active football fans, forming visible subsections of larger subcultural groups of football hooligans. Thus, although skinheads can articulate themselves in opposition to dominant culture, or link themselves to music, fanzines and other political values, for most skins, football hooliganism has been a core part of their identity. In this way football hooligans use their ascribed identity (being Croat, catholic, male etc.) as the basis for achieved identity (as ultras, casual, traditional hooligan, skinhead, etc.) Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 109 The Hard-Core/Punk Scene and Alternative Movements The hard-core and punk scene is not a breeding ground for ethnocentrism and xenophobia. On the contrary, it is a place that nurtures an enlightened form of radical opposition to nationalism, racism, sexism and domination in general. However, punks of the 1980s and punks of the 1990s in Croatia are two quite different phenomena. Punks in the 1980s shared many masculinist rituals with their peers, often as a result of sharing the terraces with them: I have visited many punk concerts, not only in our country, but also abroad. I have experienced many wild crowds dancing pogo, jumping, but the wildest pogo, the wildest and the most real, most authentic punk experience is at the football stadium. (Member of Torcida section Zagreb, male, 25 years, interviewed in 1989, Zagreb) Their ideology was anti-systemic but borne of a deep disappointment in society as they encountered it. This is captured by the following respondent from the 1980s punk wave: I hate people because they are so hypocritical, they say one thing but do the other.. Our system is meant to be socialist, on paper, but look at the reality. The West is also sick. The East is completely ill. The older generation are fucking liars. (Female, student describing herself as 'inspired by punk', 23 years, interviewed in 1985, Zagreb) In contrast, after a hard-core interventionxxiii, punks of the 1990s became increasingly aligned with a number of alternative movements (environmental, peace, feminist, vegetarian, squatter). At the same time they distanced themselves from stadium rituals and relinquished their space on the terraces to the skinheads. This shift in primary focus is indicated in the following statement of a punk from the 1990s: I don't like football... I might enjoy watching a match on TV once or twice a year, just to remind myself how stupid it is – all that national pride story. Nationalism is shit. As Disorder were saying Fuck Nationality... Football is about war and hate, us and them, and we've had enough of that, haven't we? (Punk and member of NGO 'Attack', male, 22 years, interviewed in 1998, Zagreb) The punk scene, in collaboration with various alternative movements, often creates its own autonomous zones, providing more space than in other subcultures for reflection on issues of chauvinism and racism. This mixing of punks with activists from new social movements, alternative theatre, spiritual movements and the anarchist movement has made this alternative scene a genuine cross-over between ‘subculture’ and ‘counter-culture’. The scene thus creates a space where views on respecting other people, animals and the environment can be turned into actions and applied in everyday life. This new ethos is summed up by an activist from the 1990s thus: Punk is not about violence... People associate it with that because of the image of the first punks, you know all this chaos, English style punks who eat meat and drink a lot of beer. But punk has evolved since then... What Crass started was something else, something with much more conciousness...Who the fuck is Sid Vicious? If you still say 'Sid is God', you are really stuck in time. Those who preach Sid could easily preach Iron Maiden. (Member of fanzine scene, male, 23 years, interviewed in 1999, Zagreb) In Zagreb, the NGO ‘Attack’ (Autonomous Factory of Culture) created a space reminiscent of the squatter scene in Western Europe where peace, feminist, ecological, anarchist and vegetarian movements came together with groups involved in alternative theatre, music and action. The Do it Yourself Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 110 (DiY) scene has long adopted the late-1960s slogan ‘If you want to change the world, try to change yourself’ to make explicit that revolutionary spirit and honesty are judged by everyday behaviour and cultural practices. Thus, while punk of the 1980s in Croatia was characterised by masculinity, in the 1990s, under the influence of Attack, the scene became much larger, more diverse in terms of musical tastes and, probably for the first time on such a scale, open to women, to feminist discourses and to anti-sexist lifestyles. Moreover, because of the emphasis placed on changing oneself and acting out the struggle in everyday life, members of the scene could not advocate openness towards others and yet hate their neighbours. Nor could they talk about gender equality whilst continuing to use sexist language to talk about women. Indeed, it was impossible to inhabit the alternative scene and judge people on grounds of ethnicity, religion, sex or sexual orientation. It is this that constitutes the real significance of the alternative scene and its autonomous zones and, long before the Croatian media raised such issues, the scene provided access to information about how ethnic and other ‘minorities’ were treated both at home and further afield. Under the auspices of the contemporary punk and squatter scene, groups such as ‘Skinhunters’ and ‘For Antifascist Action’ also emerged in Zagreb in the second half of the 1990s and began to conduct a form of organised opposition to skinhead groups. The importance of such direct action should not be underestimated; Katziaficas (1997) documents how such anti-fascist groups were alone in providing protection to asylum seekers in Germany after unification when neo-Nazi skinheads hurled Molotov cocktails on asylum seeker centres. Punks in Croatia too had learned the hard way that they needed to be able to defend themselves physically. However, for some individuals, masculinist, violent behaviour and constant engagement in physical conflict, became a pattern of behaviour from which it was difficult to abstain. It came to dominate over their leftist rhetoric and, in a small number of cases, expressed itself in violence towards women; Katziaficas (1997) documents a number of cases of rape occurring in punk squats in Germany. Notwithstanding this, the Croatian punk scene of the 1990s in general was characterised by an awareness of the importance of patterns of socialisation in the reproduction of xenophobia and they consciously linked their fight against racism and xenophobia to ecological awareness and gender equality. The fact that they are forced to defend themselves, and their autonomous zones, thus says more about the dominant culture than about the alternative actors themselves. Conclusion Sociological surveys and media reports have made visible the small minorities within Croatian society who articulate ethnocentric views or participate in violent direct action against people of non-Croatian ethnicity. It has been argued here, however, that the task of the social scientist is to look beyond the tip of this iceberg to identify not just the expressions, but the deep- rooted causes, of xenophobia in contemporary society. In seeking to do this, it is important to recognise that the rise in the expression of xenophobic views in society from 4% to 8% of the population is, paradoxically, not as socially destructive as the tendency among a much broader section of the population to think of themselves as ‘mainstream’ whilst practising a high level of intolerance and lack of trust towards others. In the recent period this mainstream intolerance has been revealed in a series of public responses to social issues. In one such case, the parents of primary school children refused to allow two HIV-positive girls to study in the same class as their children. In another incident, parents protested against the inclusion of Roma children in their children’s school. In still further cases, residents of, well-to-do neighbourhoods attempted to prevent recovering drug addicts from settling nearby or asylum centres being built in the vicinity. It is such ‘normal’ responses to everyday events that reveal the depth of fear of the unknown or ‘different’ among the population more widely and indicate the deep-rooted nature of social intolerance. When these attitudes go unchallenged, when public and political discourse infused with nationalist and intolerant sentiments is seen as ‘mainstream’, then xenophobic sentiments become legitimised. In another sense too, xenophobia, nationalistic and chauvinistic discourse is only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lays a deeply embedded patriarchal system that socialises ’normal’ and ‘average’ individuals into patterns of domination and subordination in a way that complicates the task of achieving ethnic and religious equality. The patriarchal system and structures of male domination are even slower to change than prejudices based on ethnicity, Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 111 nationality or other collective identities. Yet, without a shift in this respect, any real progress in moving towards equality, understanding and dialogue among individuals engaged in such recent conflict is impossible. Explaining the phenomenon of football hooligans and skinheads without addressing the question of violence against women is to barely scratch the surface of the problem. Patterns of socialisation into traditional gender roles provide a framework for the image of the masculine man and warrior - prepared at all times for the violent resolution of conflict - to be modelled and reproduced over centuries. The enormity of the task of unravelling these deeply embedded patterns of socialization makes it even more important to lend support to those young people who expose this system of domination that they have inherited from many generations of adults and who link questions of gender equality, environmental awareness and the need for non- violent and non-authoritarian education to active resistance to xenophobia and violence. Notes 1 These surveys were carried out on the same territorial space, first in the socialist republic of Croatia within the Yugoslav federation and subsequently in independent Croatia. 2 In the former Yugoslavia, the populations of Muslim faith were deemed to be ethnically Muslim. After the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, the term ‘Bosniak’ came into use, to denote Bosnian citizens of Muslim faith. However, as noted in Obradović’s article in this special issue, Muslims in some areas of Serbia also chose to use the title Bosniak to refer to themselves and, similarly, the term does not necessarily exclude Bosnians of non-Muslim faith. 3 Today all Croatian leading dailies include a degree of tabloid sensationalism even if the paper purports to undertake serious political analysis and investigative journalism. 4 The Thompson phenomenon is discussed in more detail below. 5 This refers to the media coverage of a young person's birthday party in Sarajevo reportedly themed around Nazi dress and symbolica. The media referred to it as ‘the Nazi birthday’. 6 The ‘Bad Blue Boys’ is a Dinamo Zagreb fan group founded in 1985 along the lines of a classic ‘football hooligan’ subculture. The group became widely known following its struggle to restore the club's name, after it was changed by Tudjman's government of the 1990s. 7 President Tudjman, and the establishment, forced a change in the name of the football club ‘Dinamo’, first to ‘HASK-Gradjanski’ and later to ‘Croatia-Zagreb’, arguing that the name Dinamo was too linked to the communist past. The club's hard core fans – the Bad Blue Boys – however, opposed the name change and vowed to restore the old name ‘by any means necessary’ since the name Dinamo, for them, was associated first and foremost not with communism but with Croatian national identity. 8 These labels were omnipresent in daily newspapers such as Vjesnik, Vecernji list, Slobodna Dalmacija and Jutarnji list, weekly magazines, radio and television programmes in all three periods. Some evidence of the glorification of fans in the war period can be found to this day on the monuments erected within or near to football stadia in Zagreb and Split, and the labels attached to the Bad Blue Boys can be found in a wide range of public material, including the speeches of Franjo Tudjman, broadcast by Croatian television in the mid-nineties. 9 ‘Ustasha’ refers to the movement for an independent Croatian state prior to the Second World War and the armed forces of the so-called Independent State of Croatia during that war, which fought on the side of Nazi Germany and was responsible for the imprisonment and murder of its ‘ideological opponents’ (including Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and Croats opposed to the regime). 10 The term ‘parent culture’ is used here following scholars at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and developed most extensively by Phil Cohen (1972) when he argues that youth subcultures work out, at a symbolic level, tensions in the parent culture in the process of which young people both distinguish themselves from, but also recreate, things central to the parent culture. The need, in the Crotian context, to rethink the CCCS understanding of parent culture as determined primarily by class is addressed later in the article. 11 ‘Partizani’ refers to the anti-fascist guerrilla forces, which, at the beginning of the Second World War, fought the German and Italian occupying forces as well as their supporters in the form of the ustasha and chetnik. The partizani were mobilized and organized by the Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 112 communist party and, by the end of the war, had been turned into the Yugoslav People’s Army under the commandment of Josip Broz Tito. 12 The term ‘šminkeri’ refers to ‘wannabe’ followers of fashion. Their nearest equivalents are the ‘poppers’ in Germany and ‘paninari’ in Italy. 13 The term ‘štemeri’ refers to working class kids whose leisure time is spent largely hanging out on the street and fighting. They have a strong sense of normative ‘hard’ masculinity and often seek to impose these on those they perceive as not conforming to it (e.g. hippies). 14 These include: the revival of alternative medicine; the raising of awareness around environmental issues and the need to preserve the bio-diversity of Croatian regions; and movements to preserve traditional cuisine and sports. 15 Although Vokić later claimed this had been intended as a joke (http://arhiv.slobodnadalmacija.hr/20020209/tjed an02asp), her statement had earlier been quoted by other politicians in parliament as if said in all seriousness (see: http://www.sabor.hr/download/2003/09/19/ihs_3 73_za_web.pdf). 16 The greatest support was among younger students, students with less education and those living in rural areas. 17 The most well-known and largest fan group in Croatia after the Bad Blue Boys. 18 The Croatian term for this is spitfajerica or ‘Spitfire jacket’. Unlike in France, where anarchists or others of left-wing persuasian wore black jackets whilst neofascist skinheads wore green ones, in Croatia the outside colour of the jacket was unimportant; what mattered was that they were orange on the inside. When fighting – with the police or other fans – began they turned the jackets inside out to display the orange colour on the outside, thereby marking the fighting ritual but also generating an 'alternative uniformity’ which was experienced as a challenge to authority by the police, especially in the socialist period. 19 This example is taken from the personal experience of the author. 20 These punks were anarchists and other activists linked to squatters and new social movements and inspired by hard-core interventions in music from Crass to MDC. 21 The ‘Black Legion’ was one of the most well- known ustasha units during the Second World War. It was under the command of Jure Francetić and adopted a black uniform reminiscent of the Italian fascists. 22 Of course this portrayal broadly follows the self-identification of skinheads and punks. Skinheads always presented themselves as Croatian patriots and nationalists and, if asked to place themselves on a left-right political spectrum, would situate themselves on the far right. In contrast, most punks in the nineties presented themselves as anti-nationalist, cosmopolitan, environmental activists and would place themselves on the radical left of the political spectrum. 23 Hard-core music is a continuation of the punk tradition whilst at the same time a protest against that tradition. Hard-core was stylistically more diverse than punk, associated in dance terms with slam rather than pogo, and ideologically mobilised around the formula 'anarchy+peace=equality' rather than anarchy alone. Although the British band 'Crass’ and American groups like the Dead Kennedys were important at the start of the movement, hard-core quickly became highly decentralized and bands from Finland, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal and Poland were significant on the international scene. In Croatia, in the second part of the 1980s, hard-core was a quite distinct subcultural style and was often consciously shaped in opposition to ‘old punks’. Thus, hard-core activists established an extensive fanzine network and linked up with environmental, pacifist, feminist, squatter, anarchist and vegetarian movements. From these small beginnings in the second half of the 1980s, emerged a much bigger movement from the mid-1990s that completely reshaped the whole punk scene; it became less masculinistic and closer to the tradition of 'new social movements’ of the 1980s in Western Europe. References AŽK (2006) Materijal objavljen kao letak, Autonomna ženska kuća, Zagreb. Baranović, B. (2002) Mladi u Hrvatskoj – između nacionalnog identiteta i europske integracije, in: V. Ilišin & F. Radin, F. (Eds), Mladi uoči trećeg milenija, pp. 125-54 (Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu / Državni zavod za zaštitu obitelji, materinstva i mladeži). http://arhiv.slobodnadalmacija.hr/20020209/tjedan02asp� http://arhiv.slobodnadalmacija.hr/20020209/tjedan02asp� http://www.sabor.hr/download/2003/09/19/ihs_373_za_web.pdf� http://www.sabor.hr/download/2003/09/19/ihs_373_za_web.pdf� Anthropology of East Europe Review Volume 26, No. 1 Page 113 Becker, H. (1963) Outsiders: Studies in Sociology of Deviance and Social Control (New York: Free Press). Buzov, Ž., Magdalenić, I., Perasović, B. & Radin, F. (1989) Navijačko pleme (Zagreb: RZ RK SSOH). Cohen, A. (1955) Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe). Cohen, P. (1972) Subcultural Conflict and Working Class Community, Working Papers in Cultural Studies No 2 (Birmingham: CCCS, University of Birmingham). Cohen, S. (1972/1980) Folk Devils and Moral Panics ( Oxford: Martin Robertson). Gusfield, J. (1963) Symbolic Crusade (Urbana: University of Illinois Press). Hall, S. & Jefferson T. (Eds) (1976) Resistance through Rituals (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd). Hebdige, D. (1980) Potkultura: značenje stila (Beograd: Rad). Ilišin, V. (2002) Mladi i politika, in: V. Ilišin & F. Radin, F. (Eds), Mladi uoči trećeg milenija, pp. 155-202 (Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu / Državni zavod za zaštitu obitelji, materinstva i mladeži). Katsiaficas, G. (1997) The subversion of politics: European autonomous social movements and decolonization of everyday life (New Jersey: Humanities Press). Lalić, D. (1993) Torcida (Zagreb: AGM). Perasović, B. (2001) Urbana plemena (Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada). Radin, F. (2005) Nacionalna vezanost i odnos prema Europi, in: V. Ilišin (Ed.), Mladi Hrvatske i europska integracija, pp. 173-95 (Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja u Zagrebu). Young, J. (1972) Drugtakers: The Social Meaning of Drug Use (London: Paladin). Županov, J. (2002) Od komunističkog pakla do divljeg kapitalizma (Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada). ‘Mainstream youth’: National affiliation and social distance Table 1 Survey data on national affiliation Youth and the Media World of Spectacle Youth Subcultures, Xenophobia and Violence A Note on Method Football Hooliganism Skinheads The Hard-Core/Punk Scene and Alternative Movements Conclusion