Lituanica

It is only a matter of days before Lithuania officially will recognize the Kosovo Independence.  Meanwhile the Lietuvos Rytas basketball club supporters raised a banner ‘Kosovo is Serbia’ during a match just few days ago.  So, what is happening in Lithuania?

First of all lets talk big politics.  According to the Lithuanian Constitution such an act could be adopted only by the Parliament (Seimas).  However, some politicians argue that the President alone could do this.

Nevertheless, the President already congratulated Kosovars with their Independence and asked the Minter of Foreign Affairs to submit the recognition proposal to Seimas.Hence, Seimas will begun its spring session on the 10^th of March.  Then it looks that the matter will be solved soon after.  When the Chairman of the Seimas’ Foreign Affairs Committee was asked why Vilnius is lagging behind its Baltic neighbours and does not recognise Kosovo now he replied that ‘this is not a sports race’.

Well said, because Lithuania and Serbia (maybe more accurately, ex-Yugoslavia) has a very long sports ‘love and hate’ relationship.  This is of course about Lithuania’s second religion - HM basketball.  Since the Soviet times every game between a Lithuanian team and an ex-Yugoslavian team (regardless BCs or on the National lever after we gained Independence) was a nerve rack.  Lithuanians were good but the Serbs or Croatians could also play, and sometimes win.  When the Lithuanians lost it was never our fault, it was the Yugoslavians who bribed the referees, and so on, and so forth.

We have one or two ex-Yugoslav basketball players here and our Lietuvos Rytas team is trained by a Serb Trifunovic.  As we know the sports could be very political.  A great manifestation of that was a match in Vilnius when some of the Lietuvos Rytas’ supporters raised a banner with a slogan ‘Kosovo is Serbia!’  The Serbian coach refused to comment on it.

I am not convinced that the supports thought about the politics, more likely they thought about a moral support for their coach.  Same as the Kaunas’ Žalgiris suporters raised the Palestinian flag during a game with the Tel Aviv Maccabi team.  I am quite convinced that when the Lietuvos Rytas will change the coach to not a Serbian, we will see the Kosovo flags flying during a match against a Serbian team.  The Lithuanian sports fans are notorious of their Political Incorrectness.  We should only remember when the Lithuanian national team’s football fans unveiled a large banner with a shape of African Continent in the French national colours with a slogan ‘Welcome to Europe’.

Even thought the Lithuanian media is covering the Kosovo events well, I am not sure that many Lithuanians too concerned what is happening there.  However, the media and the politicians are quite united in support of Kosovo case.  First of all, Serbia is portrayed as the last bastion of the Russian influence in the Balkans.  Hence, this automatically puts Serbia ‘on the wrong side of the fence.’  Second of all, the commentators argue that this is not an ideal solution to the problem but it is the best in this complex situation.

However, there is a feeling in the air that the Serbs put their bet on the wrong horse, starting with Milosovech and ending up with the Russians.  Nevertheless, the Lithuanians congratulated the outcome of the Presidential elections in Serbia.

But the biggest talk in town at the moment is not Kosovo, it is the Vilnius Book Fair, the International Baltic book fair.  Reading books is once again become a fashionable past time in Lithuania.  This year the Fair welcomed the acclaimed American novelist John Irving (read an interview with him) and the most popular living Norwegian writer Per Petterson.

P.S. I am not sure that many from the general public aware that the Kosovars are the Muslims.  Having in mind that absolute majority of the Lithuanians have a ‘reserved’ attitude towards the Muslims, their view of Kosovo would alter.  Paradox is that a ‘reserved’ attitude towards the other races than white does not obstruct Lithuanians’ fascination with the black NBA players.  Furthermore, my generation’s never ending ‘love affair’ with Freddy Mercury goes on despite a very ‘reserved’ view towards the gay persons. 

The most famous Lithuanian basketball supporter Tomas Balaišis-Sėkla has been released from detention in Madrid and would be able to attend tonight’s match between Lithuania and Slovenia.  However, the supported will have to return to Madrid sometime in September or October for a hearing, since the Spanish policeman was not able to formulate his accusations against the supporter.

The incident acured between the Spanish police and the Lithuanian national team’s supporters two days ago just before the Lithuania – France match.

The Lithuanian national media actively reacted to the incident.  Even the Lithuanian Prime Minister Mr Kirkilas office issued a press release regarding the incident.  Part of it states that – ‘Concerned about media reports on the incident between Lithuanian basketball fans and Spanish police in Madrid, during which the Lithuanian flag was torn and the fans were beaten by the police, Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas held a telephone conversation with the country’s Ambassador to Spain Mečys Laurinkus.’

Basketball is regarded as a second religion in Lithuania, after Catholicism.

As the BNS reported some fans of Lithuanian basketball team suffered right before the match of Lithuania and France in Madrid. Fans of the Lithuanian team and the police officers pushed each other near entrance to the arena on Monday night.One of the Lithuanian fans suffered during the incident, he was taken to the police commissariat with handcuffs and beat-in head. As the agency informed  according to primary data, the incident arose when one of Lithuanian fans tried to bring Lithuanian flag with long handle into the arena. Guards of the Spanish arena forbade that and they tried to solve the problem by cutting the flag, Lithuanians resisted it. Additional force came for suppression of the indignant Lithuanians, they started beating Lithuanians with rubber sticks.According to the report, Lithuanian women also got several beats of the officers.

However, the Lithuanian Ambassador confirmed that both, Lithuanians and the Madrid police are presenting the different sides to the same story.Some of the Lithuanian basketball fans gathered in the front of the Spanish embassy in Vilnius to protest against detention of on the most known Lithuanian basketball fan Sekla, at the incident scene.  The Lithuanian might face a penalty of 1.000 Euro or even more serious concequencies.

As the BNS reported according to the information available to the ambassador, observation cameras are installed in the incident location, so it will not be difficult to find out the truth. On Tuesday, Spanish court will decide how to punish the fan detained, diplomats of Lithuanian embassy to Spain will also attend the hearings.Lithuania’s attaché in Spain Mindaugas Gabrenas informed BNS that Balaisis detained by the police is accused of resisting to the police officer and will probably be implied a fine. “A stepped-up trial will take place this morning, I will also go to it and I also will be the interpreter in the process. A lawyer has been appointed for the Lithuanian, we expect to finish it today,” Gabrenas told BNS.

In his words, more Lithuanians experienced troubles during the incident on Monday.

“They all feel hurt morally, but I myself saw two people who suffered physically: lightly injured detainee and one girl. We went to a hospital with her yesterday at midnight, she asked for medical examination, today we have plans to apply to the police because of bodily injuries,” the diplomat said. In his words, there are different versions of the incident. “The media says one, the fans another, the police has the third version and all the versions are different. As far as I understood, the incident arose because of a try to bring in a flag with stem, even though it is forbidden to bring such things into arena. The police tried to take off the stem, the flag kind of was torn, I cannot say it exactly because I did not see the flag. Then the conflict arose and spread into other locations of the arena. Additional police forces were brought, the most aggressive our fans were dispersed and calmed down,” Gabrenas said.Still, the Lithuanian team won the match against French with a result 88:73 and has no losses in the European Championship

The game took place in a new Šiauliai city sports arena, which was open only few day ago.  The Swedes managed to get into front from the first minutes and won the game 62:69 (18:22, 14:15, 18:19, 12:12). 

Basketball is a second religion in Lithuania.  The national team is getting ready for the European Championship.  This is a major blow to a new coach of the national team.

I spoke with two Swedish tourists in Vilnius, who happen to be in a bar where the game was on.  After admitting that that they didn’t know much about basketball they said that they were surprised to learn that Sweden had a national team at all….

Just imagine if Lithuania would beat the national Swedish Ice Hockey team…  Congratulations Sweden, for those of you who are interested in basketball!