Violent extremism is not a grave problem in Serbia. Not only have a small number of individuals joined militants in Syria, but there are also few violent extremists present in Serbia. In this regard, the Serbian Ministry of Interior estimated that 49 individuals joined Islamic state or Al-Qaeda affiliates and splinter groups, which are relatively modest figures compared to other Western Balkans countries. In a similar vein, this research estimates that there are no more than 100 violent Islamist extremists who are grouped in to three masjids in Novi Pazar. Most of them are well known to the local community. However, there is still concern regarding the issue of extremism, with a significant pool of notnow-violent extremists, individuals that do not accept current violent
ideologies or groups but are willing to defend, with weapons, their “fellows” and “brothers”, as well as their faith. In addition, of great concern is the fact that there is a trend of spreading non-violent extremist and radical beliefs among Serbian citizens, especially among young people and the Roma population. This trend could be best described with the notions of relative deprivation
and culturalization of politics. Research findings suggest that constantly worsening economic situation, widespread (political) corruption and malfunctioning institutions disable many people from satisfying their basic needs and achieving their life aspirations on the one hand, and favour very few people with strong (political) connections and wealth on the other hand. With constant pressure from their community and market economy to be successful and to prove themselves, deprived individuals feel frustrated, which can lead to finding a refuge in extremist groups. The very important mechanism here is a culturalization of politics through which above identified political and economic inequalities are naturalised as cultural differences that are given and can hardly be overcome. Therefore, identitarian/cultural factors are vehicles for exploiting grievances by extremist groups. Poor quality of education in Serbia and lack of critical thinking further facilitates the process of culturalization of politics. There are also two important factors further contributing to radicalisation in Serbia which are country specific. First is a division of Islamic community into two official structures – Islamic Community in Serbia and Islamic Community of Serbia – both fighting for the hearts and minds of Muslim believers. However, this competition only damages legitimacy of both communities leaving the space for extremist to attract dissatisfied believers. Second is a different treatment of foreign fighters who had fought on the pro-Russian side in Ukraine and the anti-Assad side in Syria by Serbian authorities. The former group was prosecuted as foreign fighters while the latter has been tried for terrorism, which has created the impression among many Muslims in Serbia that Serbian authorities are anti-Muslim.