Book Condition: Near Fine. Uncorrected Bound Proof. Publication 2nd April 2001. This is the story of a courageous group of young people living under Milosevic's repressive rule who waged a 10-year battle for freedom, armed only with a radio transmitter, some rock'n'roll records, and a dream of truth, justice and another kind of life. It's a book about a group of idealists who started out wanting to play good music over the airwaves but had to negotiate two wars, economic sanctions, police violence and government crackdowns, armed gangsters and neo-Nazi politicians. They called themselves Serbia's lost generation; the government called them traitors, spies and terrorists. Despite police raids and state censorship, they refused to be defeated, and kept on broadcasting their message. "This is Serbia Calling" chronicles a decade (1990-2000) in which the legendary radio station B92 kept alive the voices of dissent. B92's aim was: "To establish a genuinely alternative social movement, politics and culture had to be synthesised to create a kind of feedback loop, each amplifying the other, each reinforcing the same message: question authority, think for yourself, don't swallow anyone's propaganda" (p 28). As Collin showed in Altered States, this concept is highly problematic in the British context. Independent radio stations and other media are lauded when they operate in the Balkans or other "troublespots," but here the concept is almost alien, threatening to some, dreamed of by others. On the British airwaves there is a choice between the state-funded BBC, the cynical music and talk stations of the commercial sector and the ultra-marginal pirates of London and the other cities. On none of these would there be space for the type of radical and subversive programming celebrated in this new book: try applying for a licence for anything other than commercial music or getting a serious platform for alternative politics on the BBC.
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