With the latest round of protests subsiding, followed by a strange, perpetual ritual of government-backed rallies all over the country, it is worth noting that Serbia has a saying analogous to the expression “cutting your losses”. We say “giving up on blind affairs”.
The idea that a blocked country will force Vučić to give up power, based on a square circle logic that a person accused of making Serbia dysfunctional will leave office by protesters somehow making it even more dysfunctional, was just as clueless as the notion that the fit, disciplined, well-trained, and well-paid police officers will get tired of subduing the riots caused by a population that, by some accounts, has 500.000 people living with hepatitis B and C. People of Serbia like to think of themselves as worthy successors to the mythic heroes, such as the Serbian brigands who fought against Ottoman occupation, glorified in epic folk songs, who were said to be both cunning and fierce warriors.
The cunning of modern Serbian rebels came down to endless impotent threats of purges of the entire state apparatus and a repeat of the “people’s relief“, the vengeful violence that transpired in the course of the coming to power of the People’s Radical Party in Serbia in 1889, aimed at he real and perceived members of the former government led by the – oh the irony! – Serbian Progressive Party, as a payback for their tyrannical rule. The lynchings and robberies were later put down by the army.
The protests transpired in an atmosphere of anti-EU hysteria where everyone and their dog, both in Serbia and abroad, asked the EU to somehow fix Serbian stupid and stop the imaginary support and appeasement of “dear Aleksandar”.
Meanwhile, in reality, the Russian ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Botsan-Kharchenko, has been the only person very vocal in support of the Serbian government.
Speaking to Rossia-24, Botsan-Kharchenko had this to say:
I would like to speak once again about the logic of the development of this process, which, of course, has the signs and elements of a colored revolution, as the leadership of Serbia and above all, the country’s President Aleksandar Vučić, has repeatedly said. Instability in Serbia is needed by Brussels structures and Brussels institutions, which are dissatisfied with Vučić, dissatisfied with Serbia under his leadership. Serbia, which defends its national interests remaining a candidate for membership in the European Union, nevertheless does not want to part with its sovereignty…We rely on what the leadership says publicly, on what exists in the press, in open sources, which mostly mentions European structures and funds, known as organizations that encourage various riots or color revolutions. Englishmen and Germans have also been noticed, appearing in the midst of these protests.
Someone might inform His Excellency about that Brexit thing, ya know. Yes, we are all well aware that the imaginary Anglo-Saxon conspiracies live rent-free in Russian and Serbian minds.
Botsan-Kharchenko didn’t stop there. In an interview with RIA Novosti, which isn’t exactly an EU-affiliated source, he said:
“The West wants to draw Serbia into NATO, including to get rid of responsibility for the bombings in 1999. This will close their responsibility and guilt for 1999 and aggression. In addition, according to him, the West wants to draw Serbia into the European Union, this process usually develops in parallel with joining NATO. At the same time, the Serbian leadership maintains a clear position of neutrality, which also causes displeasure in the West, the diplomat emphasized. “Serbia has a very clear position of neutrality, a truly real neutrality…non-membership in NATO, non-alignment with military blocs, military structures, written into the laws.”
Believe it or there’s more. Another interview with Botsan-Kharchenko, another RIA Novosti classic.
“The West wants to replace President Aleksandar Vucic with a weak politician controlled by the European Union. In fact, the desire is to remove Vucic, to install one of the leaders, conditionally, in quotation marks, who would be analogous or similar to those people who are formally in power in other countries, but are completely subordinate to the European Union,” The diplomat noted that many countries in the region have formally independent leaders who in fact carry out the will of Brussels. At the same time, people who are little known in their own country are often brought to power.
A word-for-word repeat of imaginary grievances that the protesters in Serbia have against European countries, the same grievances they keep repeating to the EU officials, such as Marta Kos, who spoke for NIN. In the interview “Kos: Serbia must implement numerous reforms to prove that it truly deserves EU membership” she points out:
“It is interesting that when I asked various representatives why there are no European flags, I received roughly four responses. The first is that you support Vučić. The second is because you bombed us – that was NATO, not the EU. The third is that you are asking us to recognize Kosovo, which the EU does not actually require from Serbia. And the fourth is that we do not want to offend Russia. So, it is a complicated situation,” Kos said, adding that she is in constant contact with representatives of civil society in Serbia.
While the Serbian commentators are quick to jump into gotcha moments whenever there is a criticism of Vučić’s government coming from the European capitals, which only serves to cause further Serbian tirades aimed at the EU from both camps, the remarks coming from the Russian ambassador are generally ignored, except for the denunciations coming from pro-EU opposition parties like the Party of Freedom and Progress, Movement of the Free Citizens or the Green-Left Front.
So why does no one want to offend Russia?
The answer lies in the Russia and China-dominated Serbian economic landscape.
Lukoil owns gas stations, while Gazprom owns the national oil industry NIS, and its subsidiaries like HIP Petrohemija. The ironworks in Smederevo is owned by the Chinese HBIS, while Zijin Mining owns the Bor and Majdanpek copper and gold mines, along with all the environmental and work condition problems. There’s more – Mei Ta, Siberian Wellness, Linglong Tire, Hisense, or the Indian-Japanese PKC Group, just to name a few.
Nobody wants EU regulations and inspections hovering over these companies. Not to mention the Serbian nativist, tribalist society that runs on family ties and informal associations based on birthplace. They won’t offend a potential employer or someone who might have the right phone number to get something done.
Some defiant, fearless rebels Serbs are. And how are they faring in wearing down the police?
Police officer: F*ck your 100 retarded mothers! You up there, why are you shouting, go to sleep, bre! You want me to throw teargas through your window?!
That doesn’t sound like the person ready to surrender to the revolutionary justice of the plenums and people’s assemblies to be purged.
Ten months after the protests started, Serbia is again robbed of its Greatness. Contrary to the fantasies of the student movement, no one is emulating their efforts worldwide, especially their desire to install a specific kind of national-bolshevik system as an alternative to democracy, the slam dunk of attracting Progressive’s and Socialist Party’s supporters with nationalism and hate directed at the EU didn’t work, while the ever-so-loved Russia still stands with the Serbian authorities.
Also, the foreign commentators, especially the ones hailing from the Collective West, might want to stop now with the clueless narratives about the EU keeping Serbian stabilocracy in power in exchange for lithium.
Some further reading, written by yours truly.
Serbianism 