When it comes to Serbia, the foreign commentariat remains as clueless and manipulative as ever.
This particular substack, Axis of Losers by Simon Nixon, will simply be used as an example here. So let’s get busy, shall we?
▪️ First of all – stop giving space to Aleksandar Vučić.
I’m not a fan of deplatforming. But a lot of high-profile social media accounts and wire services simply make a post or an article, “Vučić said X about Y”. No filter, no context, no additional info. Presented as is, in the info-limbo. And it’s somehow “news” or even an “analysis”.
▪️ Another reason not to give room to our Supreme Commander is his rather nasty track record ever since he got into politics, back in 1993, when he became an MP, representing a genuinely vile and dangerous ideology. Nobody should be echoing such people.
But his sentiments get taken at face value, as if there is some value to be had there. The Westerners make the same mistake with Russian and Chinese authorities – the Kremlin and Beijing say SOMETHING, so it must be taken seriously, as if there is some merit to it. Yeah, but no.
▪️ “I have little doubt that Vučić is a deeply problematic authoritarian in the Orbán mould,” quoth the author.
I have little doubt as well, because it’s nonsense – Fidesz didn’t commit or instigate any war crimes.
If someone doesn’t know anything about the history of this country and the meanders of its politics and society, why make the simplistic comparison between two unrelated factors? It’s a variation of “Everything I don’t like is Trump/Putin” and it’s stupid.
▪️ “But I have some sympathy with his insistence that the NATO-driven separation of Kosovo was a historical mistake. Every Serb I have met regards the forced redrawing of international borders as a deep injustice…”, he goes on to say.
Every crocodile I met HATES vegan food. What of it? So, Vučić sux, “just like Orban, my dudes”, but the Serbian nationalist revanchist ideology he represents gets sympathy? Wow. And who gives a damn about the bandwagoning fallacy?
1) Not every Serb feels that way
2) Even if they do, it doesn’t matter, we don’t get to decide what happens to Kosovo
▪️ “More intriguing still is Vučić’s proposal that the Western Balkans be offered a halfway house: access to the single market without full membership.”
Rama, the Albanian PM, and Vučić did make those noises. Bruseless, more precisely Marta Kos, said NO way before this substack was written. JFGI.
▪️ “Left outside, these countries will remain a playground for adversaries seeking to undermine European cohesion.”
The notion that EU membership is not based on implementing EU rules but on a geopolitical trade-off is a common misconception here.
There is a common belief in Serbia, and elsewhere, how Bulgaria and Romania are “backwards countries” that got into the EU without achieving the level of developed nations, especially in regards of rule of law standards, simply because the “West” decided so.
Serbian vox populi considers it a grave insult against its superiority complex – we always needed to look down on someone, and with Romania and Bulgaria joining the EU, the “poor cousin” club shrank. “If they got in, why not us?”, we keep asking. Or even worse, in a display of ridiculous, sadistic self-defeating Serbian schadenfreude, “I hope my neighbour’s cow dies”, we tend to boldly proclaim, “If it were up to me, Bulgaria and Romania would never get in”. How neighbourly of us, real swell. So nice of us to keep signaling Brussels and Strasbourg that if Serbia ever gets accepted, it will do its darndest to sabotage other countries out of spite.
▪️ “Integrated into the economy, many of the region’s conflicts would lose their oxygen.” No. That’s just money – real pleasure here derives from making others miserable. “Integrating” Russia didn’t curb their revanchist ambitions – why does anyone think that bending the rules for Serbia will make us forget about the Serbian World?
Anyway, you might wanna give such opinion-makers a wide miss. Trouble is, there’s a dime a dozen of such folks. I dread to think how much they don’t know, yet comment about all that other stuff they have no clue about.
Serbianism 