Within the last 20 years Serbia was involved in a war which was based entirely on the various races and, to a lesser extent, the religions of the peoples of that region of Europe. You would think that the various sanctions imposed on Serbia by the UN following that awful conflict would have given them a hint that the rest of the world won't put up with that sort of thing any more. Racist chanting at football matches may not be on the same level of bad behaviour but it points to the fact that they haven't completely learnt the lesson.
The trouble with tribal conflicts is that they get entrenched because of events that both sides can't forget. I'm sure Serbians have grudges that they believe no one but them can understand. Closer to home...we all thought that the Irish problems were over, everyone was friends and moved on, but recent events show that it has just been simmering under the surface. And to be honest, how would we feel if someone we loved had been killed or we felt we were being victimised. Takes a couple of generations to make the memories less sharp.
No answer to that...but people always look for victims who are different from themselves in order to feel superior and to reinforce their inclusion in the crowd. Our players conducted themselves well, but no one should have to go through what they did. I'm pleased that more of them didn't react badly. I hope that Serbia have been firmly told that they will be expelled from EUFA competitions if it ever happens again.
The thing about Serbia is you can easily compare them to their former-Yugoslav neighbours, as they've all been through the same things over the past few decades. Why is it that these other countries (Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro) seem to have far less of the racism and less general hostility towards each other?
Fran's absolutely right as you acknowledge. If I may have a guess at an answer to your question, I suspect it doesn't make the average Serb more likely to abuse a black Englishman, but it does go some way to explaining the "What? Racists? Us? Outrageous!" response from the Serbian authorities when they were brought to book for it. Serbians in general feel pretty aggrieved at how they have been perceived and treated by NATO, the UN, and other countries since Milosevic and co had their fun. As you can imagine there's a lot of denial about what happened and misinformation. Many Serbs probably don't know the full extent of the crimes committed, as evidenced by the fact the perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing were living freely and quite openly in Serbia until very recently despite being wanted for war crimes. As a result the average Serb feels like the rest of the world has got something against them and that they're the ones being persecuted. So these are the particular circumstances which make it difficult for them to accept admonishment from outside authority, and deal with this kind of thing in general. It's a bit more complex than a lot of people seem to realise. Simply, as I've indicated above, because the Serbs are the ones who got the blame for it all (I'm not saying they are wrongly blamed, just that they don't like it much).
As much as these points are valid, and I can see why you're raising them, UEFA and FIFA control the biggest sport in Europe. They should be at the forefront of issues like this, and making a stand against them. There needs to be a benchmark for what is deemed as an acceptable way for a member of the organisations to behave, and the Serbian players, staff and fans went way beyond it. Just because Serbian society is less advanced than ours on the racism front shouldn't be seen as a valid excuse. Just because a country is racist doesn't mean that racism should be accepted by other countries. I agree that it should be taken into account, however the sentence that has been handed to them is still an absolute joke. I have to disagree with your point that the whole FA shouldn't be punished for a vocal minority. The punishment must fit the crime, and the whole Serbian national team behaved disgracefully. If it was just a minority then that argument would be more valid, however it was the crowd, players and the coaching staff who all got involved.
