“The country where the generals are superstars is a lame country, I mean it’s a lame country. … I hate that. … It’s about time to give more space to beautiful people, nice people, young people. … No, not the politicians, I mean every country where politicians are superstars is a lame country, like (Joseph) Stalin-style or (Ruhollah) Khomeini-style. I don’t like that. I like normal people to be superstar; I like talented people to be superstar. I like people who work, people who work hard. People who make nice poetry, nice songs, I like that.”

These are the words of Damir Niksic, a Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) who fled his homeland of what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina to avoid Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. In the post-war Balkans, many young and old alike saw polarizing politicians that led the region to a genocidal war as heroes. Hearing Niksic’s words struck a chord with me because it made me realize that even though I grow tired of hearing about how amazing athletes, such as Ray Lewis and Lebron James, are, our cultural idols could be much worse than athletes.

Growing up in the Midwest — almost seven years in Indiana and the rest in good old Illinois — I know all too well how our youth turn to idolize basketball and football players. Living in Fishers, Ind., during the twilight of Reggie Miller’s career and Peyton Manning’s heyday, it was hard to find any male (myself included) that didn’t idolize the Indy superstars. Their skills and feats were impressive, but in the end what are any of these athletes really accomplishing?

Let’s say Illinois men’s basketball were to win the national championship this year. What would that do for the world? What would it do for you? 

Perhaps a short economic spike to the University for licensed-merchandise sales, our school plastered on ESPN for weeks, but America’s problems and our problems would still persist. Unemployment would still hover around 8 percent, our national debt would still be more than $16 trillion and your tuition would continue to increase.

As an aside, I want to iterate that I love sports. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t cover hockey and football for this paper. What I don’t like is how successful athletes are often far more revered in our culture than those who truly make a difference in this world; it infuriates me.

While college students have the opportunity to learn how to help fix some of the world’s problems, some waste entire lectures browsing through ESPN.com pretending that Mel Kiper actually knows what he is talking about. Unfortunately, they are not taking advantage of what so few worldwide are afforded: a world-class education.

But Niksic’s words made me take a step back. Yes, the over-inflated importance of athletes in American culture is absurd, but it is a hell of a lot better than our youth idolizing genocidal dictators, leading to the true hatred of one’s neighbor, like Niksic’s fellow Balkan dwellers have done.

Ever since I watched the crooked-nosed Owen Wilson depict downed Naval pilot Scott O’Grady and fellow Danville, Ill. native Gene Hackman depict his commanding officer in the movie “Behind Enemy Lines” in fifth grade, I have been enthralled with the conflict.

How could such awful atrocities happen in 20th century Europe, only 322 miles away from Rome? We are talking over 100,000 people dead, the longest siege of any city (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) in modern history, rape committed as an act of war and concentration camps — yes, you read that correctly, concentration camps in 1995. All in a country that hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Unfortunately, even after peace had been negotiated, some in the Balkan states have idolized the perpetrators of this utterly inhumane violence.

Young Serbs took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia, in protest when Ratko Mladic, a former Serbian general, was finally arrested. These nationalists were irate that the architect of the Srebrenica massacre — an event that left over 8,000 dead at a former U.N. outpost — would be put on trial at the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia for his war crimes, which included genocide and wanton destruction.

Radovan Karadzic, former president of Republika Srpska, was so idolized that his name was chanted during Serbian soccer games as a sign of solidarity. Karadzic, known in the West as the “Butcher of Bosnia,” is still at The Hague on trial for orchestrating genocide against Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. 

Similar events occurred following the indictment of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic — the only head of state to ever be indicted at the International Criminal Court — but I think you get the idea.

Let’s put this into perspective. Could you imagine University students chanting the name of any American politician at Assembly Hall as a proverbial middle finger to whomever that politician opposes?

I want to be absolutely clear: I am not equating American politicians to the murderous thugs that ran the YNA (Yugoslav National Army) and its infamous scorpion paramilitaries during the ’90s. I am simply saying that as Americans, we are fortunate to have the luxury to focus on the game, not politics.

That is what Niksic is saying and wishes for as well, and his words were nearly as refreshing as the many brisk dips I took into the pure blue Mediterranean Sea when I studied abroad last year.

While I lived in picturesque Aix-en-Provence in southern France, I decided to spend part of time away from the perfect Provencal lifestyle to visit Belgrade. I originally wanted to head to Sarajevo, but oddly timed flights and a concerned mother kept me in the slightly more-developed Belgrade.

With my usual travel companions elsewhere in Italy, I boarded the cramped Alitalia flight to Belgrade alone. While visiting the city that the United States — technically NATO — had bombed only 11 years earlier, I saw many things that surprised me and some that didn’t.

During my second day in the country, I decided to visit the House of Flowers, the gravesite where legendary and respected dictator Joseph Broz Tito is buried. The site is a shrine to the man who crushed the very thing that tore the region apart after his death: nationalism.

I saw the ancient Kalemegdan fortress, which is where the iconic picture of the bombed Usce tower was taken during the 78-day NATO bombing campaign.

But it wasn’t until my final day in Serbia that I saw something that would bring a smile to Niksic’s face. As I was walking down Belgrade’s most famous commercial street, Knez Mihailova, at around 10 p.m., I heard a raucous crowd at a nearby bar. I decided to head down the dimly lit alley to see what the locals were so worked up about.

Not being a soccer fan, I had no idea that Manchester United was playing, nor did I care. But for some reason a pub full of drunken Serbian men were glued to the bar’s single television screen to watch a team from England.

I ordered the house beer, and after some interesting experiences with Serbian cuisine, I knew my chances of making it back to my hostel without some involuntary bodily functions occurring were slim.

I sat at a table near some locals, and as the game went on, the entire crowd would erupt whenever No. 15 would touch the ball. I asked the English-speaking bartender what the big deal was, and he told me that No. 15, Nemanja Vidic, is from Serbia, and he is a sporting hero throughout the country.

Even though it was an election year in Serbia, there was seemingly no talk of politics while the game was on. No, I cannot speak Serbian, but I could definitely tell that then men gathered around the television weren’t preoccupied with thoughts of their former generals, or even the current nationalists running for office.

These men were doing what we Americans do: drink too much beer and yell at the television when our team is doing poorly. Hopefully, for Niksic’s sake, that night at the Belgrade bar was a sign of progress.

While I would rather have Americans look up to people like Richard Holbrooke, the man who negotiated Balkan peace via the Dayton Peace Accords, I realized that adoring athletes isn’t so bad.

So next time I see an overly enthusiastic city enshrine their linebacker on the side of a building, I may instinctively grimace at the spectacle, but I will definitely think back to Niksic’s comments. Sure, sports are trivial and their players are merely pawns in that trivial game, but we are fortunate enough to live in a culture that is conducive to idolizing athletes instead of evil.

Patrick is a senior in Media. He can be reached at pkelley2@        dailyillini.com. Follow him on Twitter @_patrickkelley_.