Habibi Kiosk meets balkaNet

The members of balkaNet e.V. are not only creative spirits, but also living voices of Munich’s urban society: their storytelling is always characterized by personal experiences of war, flight and genocide and permeated by trans-Yugoslavian identity. The diversity of people from the Western Balkans in Germany is difficult to quantify. It includes guest workers and subsequent generations, war refugees and students as well as artists and all other professions. According to surveys, there are around 1.58 million in Germany alone. A large proportion of them are in Munich, where people with an ex-Yugoslavian background make up the largest minority. So it’s high time that balkaNet e.V. presented a musical narrative at the Münchner Kammerspiele that tells an important part of their story in the city’s theater: YUdéjàVU. And today we want to tell you about the preparations: Until the collapse of Yugoslavia, the society of the non-aligned multi-ethnic state was steeped in subversive ideas: Punk rock and avant-garde were not a marginal phenomenon here, but mainstream. But how could a society characterized by subversion, tangible awakening and utopias slide into a bloody war and genocide? And what does this do to the survivors from different population groups? And is there any similarity with the emerging right-wing populism in Europe, which is becoming increasingly dominant? In the Habibi Kiosk, author Denijen Pauljević, music cabaret artist Nadina Memagić, artists IRiS Špringer and Asmir Šabić, documentary filmmaker Nils Nebe and media and photo editor Danijel Kober talk to hosts Daniela Schroll and Sebastian Reier.