Gays and queers

Kožo called me once at two past midnight to tell a joke. He has this habit of calling in the dead of night from the pub to tell a joke.

Elem, the son asked his father, an English professor, where the word "gay" came from and what it actually meant. "Gay", answered his father, "originally means 'happy', 'joyful', 'cheerful', 'carefree' in the English language... someone who enjoys life with all his being, without restraint or prohibitions." "I understand," nodded the little one, then looked curiously at his father: "And are you, dad, gay?" "No," he answered, "I have a wife."

A miracle, as you can see, is language. The word which, until the middle of the twentieth century, denoted a carefree man who enjoys life without reservations and prohibitions, today denotes a homosexual, a person who actually has nothing else in life but worries, reservations and prohibitions.

In the Croatian language, i.e. Croatian-Serbian, Bosnian, or whatever you want, the situation is – as with all things – reversed. While in English, as we can see, a character trait has become a noun, a name for a member of the homosexual community, in our language a noun, a name for a homosexual, has become a character trait. In the Balkan vocabularies, "fag" is thus a deceitful, insidious and selfish person, a hypocrite, a weakling and a liar, a bad man, someone who always hides behind a stronger person and who will screw you wherever he can screw you, in short - isn't our vocabulary sumptuously rich ? – cunt.

Linguists will be able to explain how and why this is so, just as they explained how the word "gay", denoting a loose person vaccinated against inhibitions, first became the name for a sexually free person - a hundred years ago "gay house" was the name for a brothel , a brothel – and then for a homosexual. The unusual case of the word "fag" could be explained in a similar way, which originally meant a homosexual, that is, a person who, due to his cursed sexual identity, is forced to pretend and lie. Or, more likely, it was a matter of simple offensive intent: homosexuality in our dark, cramped and damp cultures is probably the most serious imaginable crime and the worst imaginable human trait. That's why, you noticed that, in the Balkan languages, there is no pejorative, derogatory name "murderer" or "war criminal" for a person with a bad character, but - "fag". And the worst of all fags, the so-called "fag".

In our dictionary, faggots are, for example, those shameless nits, cowardly weaklings who are strong and loud only in the herd, those who are never in the minority, and it will never occur to them to protect the minority, because belonging to the minority - or standing on on her side - you need to have balls, and faggots don't have that: they will attack only and exclusively those few and weaker than themselves, powerless to defend themselves, then put their shoes on the poor people on the ground and miserably live over them to confirm their majority status and belonging to the herd.

The fine linguistic distinction between homosexuals and fags is therefore the simplest to explain in relation to women: homosexuals do not like women, and fags beat them. Pederčine will thus cowardly, in a herd, publicly beat a woman, humiliate a disabled person, chase a Roma from a bus or, let's say - here's a convenient example - on the eve of the Day against Homophobia in the stadium, over the entire stand, unfurl the banner "May 17 is the International Day against Homophobia of homophobia: in honor of your holiday tomorrow, get high on our dick!".

With that banner, the fans at Saturday's derby between Sarajevo and Željeznicar, you saw or read about it, publicly threatened the gay population on the eve of the Day Against Homophobia. Several thousand - let's call them the language they understand - shameless fags felt the need to proudly demonstrate their sexual orientation at a football match, something like straight-pride, basically the same thing they don't allow homosexuals to do. The area of, um, fag hypocrisy is symbolically quite appropriate: the only two places in Sarajevo where it is legal - indeed, and socially desirable - for sweaty, half-naked men to openly hug, kiss, pat each other's ass and jump on each other, are Koševo and The hunchback. That's how queer women got space for their parade, so maybe it's time for homosexuals to finally get it too.

After all, Sarajevo fans - it doesn't matter whether they belong to the burgundy or the blue half of the city, because the fight against the fight against homophobia is their only common fight, not a whistle of protest against the banner was heard from Grbavica: that "our cock" is, you understood, theirs too - that's why the fans of Sarajevo and Želja know very well what it's like to be weaker and more powerless.

By God, seven pieces were smoked there, there was injustice and theft by judges in favor of the richer and stronger, and beatings and tears and the powerless anger of the smaller and weaker, and yet, together with the gay brothers from Zagreb, Split or Belgrade, the Sarajevo deli will be the first to take out chains and knives and stand heroically against the weaker, against a handful of singing young men and women in colorful clothes. The fags from the fan groups of Sarajevo, Želja, Zvezda, Partizan, Hajduk or Dinamo will not agree and unite about anything, except for the dirty, merciless shoeing of probably the only social group weaker and more powerless than them and their famous clubs.

Finally, isn't the word "fan" a good example of how language is a restless, living being, and how far a word can stray from its original meaning?

Elem, Mujo took his son to the Koševo derby, and at some point the little one asked him what the word "fan" actually meant. "In short," answered his father, "a fan is a bully who drunkenly fights with other fans in the stands, or fights weaker together with them outside the stands." "I understand," nodded the little one, then looked curiously at his father: "And are you, dad, a fan?" "No," he answered, "I like football."

A miracle, I said, is language.

Liberation