From Ends to Trenches, and Back: Football in the Former Yugoslavia

Abstract

Fan behaviour in the former Yugoslavia reveals a structural nexus between football fandom and politics during times of grave social crisis. This politicisation of the fan world and political instrumentalisation of fan behaviour occurred during the massive social crisis of civil war that afflicted Yugoslavia between August 1991 to the present day and in the context of the ethnicification of politics (Offe 1994) following the death of Tito in May 1980. In turn, this has resulted in the emergence of new states which act not only as nation states but also as nationalising states (Brubaker 1996). There is no chasm between the subculture of football followers and the mainstream culture; both in regard to violence as legitimate during social and political crises. The ‘tribal’ activity of football following, particularly ‘hooligan’ actions, was transferred from the ends to the trenches. Waving banners and scarves was replaced by the brandishing of weapons, evidencing what one writer calls the ‘move from dramatic and ritualistic representation or rather from symbolic behaviour to non-symbolic behaviour’ (Battacchi 1988: 325). To borrow Ficoneri’s (1990: 59) words, ‘these absurd soccer warriors’ turned almost overnight into soldiers in a cruel war. The symbolism of fan aggression was easily transformed, first into aggressive political symbolism, then into military symbolism, demonstrating that ‘it is possible to die by symbolism, and that this was not purely symbolic at least for the dying ones’ (Battacchi 1988: 326).