The European Festival of Serbian Diaspora Folklore, our diaspora’s largest event gathering 2,500 dancers from 40 cultural and artistic societies from Europe, will be held in Belgrade’s MTS Hall on 18 and 19 May, under the auspices of the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region.

Director of the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, Arnaud Gouillon, says that under the circumstances when the resolution on Srebrenica genocide is being imposed, it is not easy to be a Serb in the diaspora, and that Serbia wants to tell its people that they have nothing to be ashamed of.

‘At the moment of attempts being made to impose a stigma of collective guilt on the Serbian people, Serbs in the diaspora are having the hardest time because that is where propaganda is the strongest. That propaganda is already part of the educational system in some countries and there is a threat of Serbian people stigmatization being part of the school system everywhere. We want to send a message that Serbs are gathered around their motherland and that they respond to the stigmatization attempt with the beauty of traditional dance that is a UNESCO cultural asset, of culture and children’s smiles,’ said Gouillon.

Source: Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region

Photo: Arnaud Gouillon