Serbia Today Interview Uros Petrovic

TODAY

INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE ON SERBIAN CURRENT AFFAIRS

Serbia

Custom Search

SerbiaTODAY
BLOG

Amazon.com Widgets

Forecast Satellite

INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK
Interview, Sept. 28 2009
Uros Petrovic
The President of Serbian MENSA

By: Li Novak

Belgrade, Sept. 28, 2009 (Serbia Today) - Besides being the president of Serbian Mensa - high-IQ society, Uros Petrovic is a popular writer, who also deals with design, illustration and photography. His best known and rewarded books are Riddle Tales, Stories From The Other Side and Aven. Uros Petrovic speaks for Serbia Today about Mensa’s activities on improving Serbian image.

How would you define the position of a very intelligent man in today’s Serbia?

Fortunately, there are different kinds of intelligence, and fortunately, nobody can be a champion of everything, but everyone can be the champion in something. Your question probably refers to so called “logic intelligence” so once again, we are back on the fact, that nothing is absolutely black or white. Serbia is still a developing country with a specific mentality. It is not exactly the best place on earth to be born, but it’s definitely not the worst either. Comparing to the western world where everything is already invented and tested, Serbia has more than enough room for new ideas and inventions. The economic situation is never ideal, which can be very inspirational for the writer. Serbia is sometimes an unsuitable place for the thinking men, but in the same time, very stimulating.

Being the president of Serbian Mensa, you often meet the members of foreign Mensas. Are there any differences in organization’s functioning, here and abroad?

Even if we are a country in a background, we made a successful Mensa. In a way, we are among the first five Mensas, according to our activities and the number of our people in world’s boards. The key is in quality of our people. That applies on any kind of society, even on the enterprises, that are, after all, made of people.

Tell us something about Mensa’s projects – Photo cup 2009 and NTC learning system.

NTC learning system is a project which goal is to improve our student’s results on the PISA test in following years. Ranko Rajevic, the member of world’ Mensa for talented and I, have invented the program for the children of early age. They are included from their third year of primary school. This program encourages functional knowledge and creative thinking. We enjoy the support of all the relevant bodies like the Teacher’s union and the Ministry of Education. Besides that, the program is already running in Czech Republic, Slovenia and several other EU countries.

Mensa World Photo Cup is a project created and started in Serbia with an aim to connect all its sectors around the world. Although the members of Mensa speak different languages and come from different cultures, they have one thing in common; the love for photography. Every year, lots of photographs are sent to Serbia, where they are carefully evaluated and the best 10 pieces are published. The judges committee includes well known names like Emir Kusturica, Anatolij Karpov, Manfred Cimerman, Bert Dankaert among the others. The president of the jury this year was the Oscar award winner from Germany, Florian Gallenberg.

This project is related with your personal and professional love for photography?

You could say that way. And I’m glad that many people share the same love. My web portal www.fotografijesrbije.com has 300000 visitors.

Can you tell us more about your own literal or other plans for the future, like what are you working on right now ?

Right now, I have 2 parallel projects. One is a new novel and the other is one completely new literal form, that breaks all the genre and literal borders. The novel “Peti leptir” (the fifth butterfly) is translated to Russian language while “Misterije Ginkove Ulice” (the mysteries of Ginkov street) is translated to Italian. Some of my books before that were translated to English. I am going to spend the next couple of months in effort to publish these books abroad.

Is Mensa planning any new projects?

Mensa has created a stimulating atmosphere among its 1300 members, motivated to come up with knew ideas that include anything from relaxing activities, to the very advanced scientific studies. I am familiar with their new training program for NTC learning system.

How much influence does the Serbian Mensa have in promoting the general picture of Serbia in the world and in what ways?

It’s enough to say that we are among 5 most influential Menses in the world and considering the fact of our modest size and population, one could imagine our satisfaction with this result. Our involvement in decision making is right up there, behind USA, Great Britain and Germany.

What is necessary for the success in Serbia? Are those the same factors and personal characteristics as in developed countries?

People here, often describe Serbia as a different planet, but unfortunately, our problem is really not that much different from the neighboring countries, for example, the southern Italy.

In some areas, the success is easier abroad; in others is the other way around. Some Serbian experiences could be very useful abroad.

But, neither road goes just one direction or one path. Everything is a mix of different circumstances; I usually don’t like to generalize. Even when speaking about the par of twins, one can not generalize since they can be very different, not to mention members of the whole nation.

Is there anything positive about the World economic crisis?

The civilization is going in totally different direction nowadays from what I would consider the right one, since the money represents the main value, above all others.

Nothing is absolutely positive or absolutely negative. The most things in this world depend more on an observer’s eye, than on its own essence, so the same things could be interpreted as good or bad, white or black, inspirational or boring. The very existence of things depends on a way one looks at them.

So, this crisis will bring a lot of problems, but lots of good sobering feelings too. When we objectively observe the human species in a modern age, it is obvious that most people spend their days in a very bizarre way. It’s just endless race for money, something you can’t take to the grave and something supplied by the greedy bankers. I can only hope that this crises will, in some way, wake people up.

And, for the end – how do you imagine Serbia in 10 years from now?

In ten years, Serbia will be a member of European Union, which, unfortunately, will be falling apart. Serbia is one of the Balkan’s tigers. In which sense I used the word “tiger”, I’ll let the readers figure out for themselves. I hope someone will read these lines ten years from now, and see that I was right all along (laugh).