The formation of the socially acceptable, national-populist political bloc in Serbia opposed to that thing we keep calling the Progressives is now complete – and guess what, it’s that thing we keep calling the student movement.
It has its indispensable free and independent media represented by the N1 and its tabloid portal Nova, part of the United Media owned by BC Partners, which bring us earth-shattering revelations such as the identity of two young Russian police officers (emphasis on the “young”, so we should be more inclined to pity them) killed in a bombing attack, with supporting roles played by two weekly magazines and one daily newspaper, plus the various capilary sidekicks of various persuasions.
Here’s why it won’t work
- It is the economy, stupid. No one other than Vučić talks about it, and no one offers the alternative to the present model of state capitalism, other than “ban all things“
- The fact that someone blasts propaganda at a certain demographic doesn’t mean it will hypnotize them into obedience and votes.
- Asking for a system that emulates Russia and China, but then complaining about the consequences of such a system, is often characterized both in Serbia and abroad as nothing short of a mental illness, so no one should expect to win additional hearts and minds.
But that still doesn’t seem to stop them from trying. Vreme’s editor, Andrej Ivanji, speaking to N1, laid out two scenarios for resolving the current situation that people in Serbia refer to as a crisis. They trimmed it down from four scenarios, it was too much to handle for the ultra-cerebral Serbian audience.
Anyway, either the evil wizards of the wicked West, who run the European Union, cast enough magic spells at the BC Partners to keep the current CEO of the United Media, the parent company of the N1 and Nova wells of wisdom, which will continue to enlighten the Serbian people about the fact that Vučić’s government is bad. The “pessimistic” option is that, motivated by some backroom deals, the Omnipotent Evil EU lets the light of journalistic integrity fade out. You know, the Smartest Nation on Earth has to get an expert opinion from brilliant journalists working at the free and independent media to realize that the political organization formed from the ones that presided over the criminal mayhem of the Yugoslav Wars is bad. They simply couldn’t figure out that on their own, because in their minds, there was nothing morally abhorrent about chauvinism, lawlessness, and expansionism that were the trademarks of Vučić’s former political party and his tenure as the government minister during the Milošević years, or at least they wouldn’t denounce it because of peer pressure or lack of civic courage.
Serbian people are still in a state of shock that nationalism is lethal to its own population, so they’ll pick the next set of nationalists that will genuinely love them.
Promotion of the public intellectuals sympathetic to the Greater Cause is also in motion.
Nenad Lajbenšperger, the conservator of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, was made the person of the year by the weekly Vreme, for, among other things, his refusal to remove the buildings of the Belgrade’s General Staff from the registry, thus resisting the announced real estate project led by Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
Speaking in a popular talk show panel “Impression of the week” (Utisak nedelje), when asked how he comments on the government’s claims that they are protecting a ruin, The Person of the Year asked back: “According to that logic, all ancient buildings, prehistoric sites, and many monasteries are ruins. If someone had thought like them, we would not have the [monastery] Sopoćane today on the list of world cultural heritage. We also have the ruin of the National Library, which stands in that condition, and we have heritage abroad that is in even worse condition. How will we defend anything from the Albanians in Kosovo?“
Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the Person of the Year might ask for some advice from all those Serbian generals who worked at the General Staff back in the 1990s, especially those who ended up at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. They sure did manage to kill a lot of Albanians in the process of “defense in Kosovo”.
With a dominant mindset like this, completely oblivious to the fact that insisting on the repetition of terrible ideas of the past, it’s really no wonder that Brussels has now come to the conclusion that there aren’t any partners in Serbia to continue any EU accession dialogue, because there’s no one to talk about it. There are just two loudmouth sets of stubborn Luddites, and that’s it.
The pro-EU part of the electorate, which fluctuates between 35 and 40 percent of the adult population, clearly registers the messaging of the People of the Yesteryears, yet still shows no inclination to either physically join the protests or vote for such individuals. Trying to force the imperative of the Higher Cause – let’s just get rid of Vučić, then we’ll sort it out – won’t jive this time, considering how such a maneuver was already performed 25 years ago during the September 2000 elections. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia was led by a supposedly moderate nationalist federal presidential candidate, Vojislav Koštunica. Mr. Koštunica’s subsequent political career in the years of Serbia’s short-lived democracy of 2001-2012 has made the pro-European electorate completely allergic to any sort of “moderate nationalist” mind-tricks. Nowadays, in no way, shape, or form will they ever accept shutting up and taking it from “moderate nationalist” for the Greater Good. My more liberal compatriots are perfectly aware that the Higher Causes for which the “defenders of Kosovo” are fighting range from catering to Russian and Chinese expansionism over the backs of their “allies” to the profits of whatever patriotic criminal organization latches onto the patriotic People of the Year, regardless of all the noise trying to paint them as “moderate”, “manageable”, “compasionate” or “well-meaning”.
The established opposition parties kinda managed to register such an untapped potential, so they do try to portray themselves as pro-Western, to the best of their abilities.
- Dragan Djilas and his Freedom and Justice Party and Serbia Center submitted a law proposal that would enable the Serbian state to take over the control of the Serbian Oil Industry
- Five opposition parties coordinating their efforts on Serbia’s path towards European Union membership: Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), the People’s Movement of Serbia (NPS), the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), Serbia Center (SRCE), and the Green-Left Front (ZLF)
- Yeah, that’s about it, other than sometimes making noises about how the EU is a better option for alignment than Russia
But how does it work out for the students? Their signature collection campaign last Sunday can only be characterized as a fiasco. Less than 400 thousand signatures ain’t much for a movement that claims to be more popular than the ruling coalition, considering the fact that the second-placed election ticket at the parliamentary elections held in 2023 won 902 thousand votes, opposed to Vučić’s 1.78 million.
Serbianism 