The two recent mass shootings in Belgrade, Serbia, have taken the world by surprise. Hence, it is necessary to look into the reasons which may have contributed to or facilitated these tragedies.
One of the co-authors of this commentary lives in Belgrade and, thus, is able to provide a Serbian perspective on these tragedies.
The first shooting occurred at an elite elementary school. The students in this school mainly come from wealthy families. Their parents are predominantly former athletes, politicians, doctors, lawyers, and successful entrepreneurs, but some work in less socially accepted professions.
Although the school’s students lead a privileged life, bullying behaviour by classmates and even teaching staff is very common. The child, who shot and killed nine people, was regularly bullied.
At the request of his parents, he was moved from one class to another to distance himself from his tormentors.
His father is a prominent doctor and a founder of a university clinic for ophthalmology; his mother is a doctor of microbiology.
The child is a talented student who participated in numerous competitions in mathematics and history. Some called him a “nerd.”
In Serbia, due to overcrowding, school classes are split into two shifts: one group of students attends morning classes and another in the afternoon.
The shooter arrived at the morning shift after the first class had already started, and he killed two fifth-grade girls in the hallway and a security guard from 14 metres (46 feet) away.
He entered his history class and shot the teacher, then turned to shoot the students in the front row. Two boys tried to confront him and got shot in the legs.
Thirty-seven bullets in total were fired. He had two guns with six clips and four Molotov cocktails, and a kill list with 15 names on it.
Eight students were fatally shot, six from the list and one adult, a security guard. Four students were critically wounded.
Of the eight students killed, seven were girls—the majority of students on his kill list were girls.
When he exited the classroom, he went to the schoolyard and called the police; he identified himself and said that he killed someone.
Incompetence Brings Schools to a Halt
The shooting incident is evidence that the Serbian education system has failed. The school was aware of the bullying charges but barely did anything.The school principal still has not made a public announcement regarding the incident.
On the third day after the shooting, in multiple schools around Serbia, children were already replicating the shooting on social media. The schools that discovered this behaviour informed the police, who arrested the fathers of these children.
At the moment, all schools in Belgrade are closed because school staff do not know how to handle the disaster.
So, the education system is being mismanaged, and the managers have no clue how to proceed. The system failed because people who are responsible for its management were appointed to their positions on the ground of political allegiance, not merit.
The second shooting occurred a day later. A 21-year-old male started shooting with his semi-automatic rifle out of a car south of Belgrade.
He shot eight people, including children, and wounded 15. The rampage started after 10 p.m. and he was caught the following morning dressed in a Nazi shirt.
Interestingly, the father of the shooter is a high-ranking military officer.
A Failed System
The President of Serbia addressed the nation on national television to inform viewers of the measures the government would be introducing to combat youth delinquency.Among the measures are lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 years and reviewing all gun permits.
There are about 400,000 registered weapons—there are two gun permits in Serbia, one to own and the other to carry a gun (the permit to carry is not obtained easily and is usually reserved for police officers and security personnel).
However, the proposed lowering of the age of responsibility is incompatible with international best practice, which sets the age of criminal responsibility at 14 years.
Also, the number of guns and weapons in Serbia is extremely large; this is due to the multiple wars in the 1990s and internal migrations from the conflict regions.
Many people in Serbia believe that the shooting incidents were tragedies waiting to happen. This is because Serbian society has become bitterly divided into two groups.
On one side, you have the ruling party and people around them who live well; their businesses are successful, they earn good money, and they flaunt their wealth.
On the other side are the people who struggle, work multiple jobs, carry heavy bank debt, and are treated abominably.
For example, the government sector employees have an average net monthly salary of €700 (US$770), whereas it is €500 in the private sector. This difference is even bigger in Belgrade.
The current politicians, the ruling party, and government bureaucrats perpetuate this demographic disequilibrium with their meaningless rhetoric.
Meanwhile, the media is sensationalising incidents like the shootings, contributing to an escalation of social tensions in a divided Serbia.
Media networks use bombastic headlines, make accusations, and destroy people’s lives without checking facts. There is no investigative reporting agency to keep a check on the media.
Several television channels are fully dedicated to reality programmes with quasi-stars, starlets, and even crooks, creating the illusion of the existence of a nirvana, an unreal world. This has been detrimental to impressionable people.
The reality is that these programmes often generate and glorify crime, prostitution, and drugs.
This situation is exacerbated by a seeming inability to introduce and implement much-needed reform to tackle the entrenched inequalities that lead to social alienation and discord.
Where Are the Answers?
The people of Serbia are outraged by the two mass shootings. They are asking questions, but the government is still not providing answers.The blame game has not yet started. From a political point of view, it can be reasonably expected that no one will take responsibility for what happened.
Of course, the shooters are responsible for their actions, and they should be tried. But it’s also important to understand the reasons that led to these tragic incidents.
It is even more tragic when one keeps in mind that, from a historical perspective, Serbian people are not violent and have selflessly helped others.
Serbians fervently hope that these horrendous recent shootings are an aberration. They do not want Serbia to become like the United States.
