Not long ago our government issued a tender for international marketing agencies to help change and improve the image of Serbia in the world."Image, what an ugly word!", Zuko Dzumhur used to say."What have they made of the beautiful French word image..." In a fit of contrariness, he would use the similar Turkish word"amidz" instead of "image".
The most well-known international agencies put in proposal for the tender;for one milion euros they were to create a campaign that would change our image in the world.A million euros is no small amount!Teams of experts got together, all of them comprised of young, elegant Anglos with diplomas from the world,s famous universities and with all of their teeth in their head.They are efficient, productive and they all have same "Samsonsite" luggage with the same contents inside the luggage and inside their minds.We kindly ask that you turn off your cell phones before the meeting. Thank you!
And so, the action begins.An art director with a shaved head introduces the assembled with the guest from Belgrade, who represents the agency "Smith and Smith", and then presents a well-worn image about Serbs in the world, which must be transformed fundamentally.Who are, in fact, Serbs?In that very brief introduction, which he picked up from a general history, he explains that Serbs have always been an obstructive factor, beggining from their hero Milos Obilic, who killed the Turkish Sultan by deceit, to the persevering guerillas called hajduks and caravan robbers uskoci, all the way up to Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who started World War One.He introduced them to more recent history, like the spontaneous March 27 th protests, when Serbs rejected an alliance with the Axis powers, to 1948, when Serbia said NO to the giant Russian bear, all the way through recent events in which they killed innocent Muslims and Croatians, raped their women, and eventually provoked 17 Nato countries bombing Serbia.In short, what needs to be done to change this horrible picture?
The next step is the following:the gatherd should relax and throw out ideas, no matter how ridiculous they might seem at first glance.Something similar to group therapy.
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to be continue...look at the second blog.
Dubravka Ilkic
