The Rise and Fall of Migration Solidarity in Belgrade: Marginalising Solidarity and Institutionalising Aid
Résumé
One afternoon, a friend and I are taking a walk along Belgrade’s Sava riverfront. This has become the site of a controversial development project pushed forward by Serbian ruling elites, and particularly president Aleksandar Vučić, as part of a plan to give the city “a new identity” as the “Dubai of the Balkans”. Known as the Belgrade Waterfront, the project will include luxury apartments and the largest shopping mall in the Balkans. As we walk along the banks where construction started in October 2015 (Eagle Hill, 2015), my friend points to some derelict houses. These were the state-owned homes of workers of the national railway, regrettably located near the site of the future project, right where the Serbian government envisaged the construction of a boulevard for its future users and inhabitants. Over 230 families were evicted from their homes to pave way for the construction of the Belgrade Waterfront. When some refused to leave, the state did not shy away from heavy-handed methods. One night in April 2016, thirty masked men armed with baseball bats and machinery turned up to enforce the demolition of several buildings that stood in the way of the Belgrade Waterfront. By the morning, several witnesses and passers-by had been brutalised, and the obstructive (mainly residential) buildings had been razed (OCCRP, 2016; Surk, 2018). (first paragraph)