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Give my regards to your uncle. Originally: Poselami amidžu. Very colloquial greeting, intentionally formulated from two Turkish words, to emphasize the familiarity of the speakers and their strong connection notwithstanding their jobs and the public. In purely semantical terms, a phrase Pozdravi strica (which would translate the same into English) might be used, but it would not have the same conspiratorial weight. By using colloquial discourse, the speakers distance themselves pointedly from the language of ubleha and thereby quite conciously confirm the essence of ubleha as an autoreferential non-identity. It is also worth mentioning whether an „amidža“ exists in the family in a sense of one's father's brother is irrelevant and that actually, in most cases, he does not exist at all; however, the greeting performs its function which a greeting Pozdravi strica could not perform at all and would perplex the speaker.


Essays

  • Reflections on Ubleha

    Course Participant: Anastas Vangeli Introduction: Ubleha as a reference point If there is an adequate explanation of the state of the civil society in the Post-Yugoslav (Western) Balkans, then it is the one...

    Read more: Reflections...

  • Family memories

    Course participant: Kaja Haelbich (Hamburg, Germany) In our course "Understanding Internal Dynamics of Societies in Conflict" we started to engage in the topic of Israel Palestine conflict by...

    Read more: Family memories

Videos

Ubleha for idiots

  • Infrastructure

    Everything that makes taking money for the ublehas (See) easier; very often is undeveloped and increases the project costs (See) considerably; also, if it is undeveloped, it is used as a HLRW (See).

from Ubleha for Idiots – An Absolutely non useful Guide for Civil Society Building and Project management for Locals and Internationals in BiH and Beyond by Nebojša Šavija-Valha and Ranko Milanovic-Blank, ALBUM No. 20, 2004, Sarajevo, translated by Marina Vasilj.