With the alleged use of a non-lethal, yet efficient crowd dispersal method against the student protesters during the rally in Belgrade held on March 15th, the Serbian government is actually galvanizing its support among its electorate.
After months of chest-pounding about how they were ready to fight Vucic’s regime until the end, coming from the anti-government crowd, the single sonic boom cleared a street full of them. Their cowardly reaction has made the Supreme Commander look like a champion of law and order among his constituents.
People who voted and still vote for political parties originating from the rise of right-wing Serbian populism, which started with the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, tend to favor strongmen and a mentality that preaches order, hard work, and diehard etatism.
The students and other groups joining them in protest are seen as disorderly, lazy bugs that indulge in the luxury of wasting their time, instead of doing something productive for the good of the State.
While the government tactics to initiate the dispersal during the minutes of silence were insidious and ghastly (and they employed the same antics while driving over protesters while they were standing still to commemorate the Novi Sad tragedy victims), it didn’t make the protesters look like innocent victims.
An image of protesters throwing eggs and paint on riot police in Novi Sad doesn’t trigger Brave Rebel emotions in a large portion of the Serbian population, and most people here have a very authoritarian mindset that might makes right. Considering how the only “institution” that ever functioned in this country was the police baton, now apparently joined by an LRAD, people seeing these are more like wondering, “Why are all those cops not beating the hell out of them, and where are the water cannons?” And it isn’t the first time they heckled the police in this or some other manner.
People opposing Vucic have already created a useless schism in Serbian society by branding all of the retired people here, pensioners, as mindless supporters of our kakistocracy who want to rob our children of their future and are zombified old people who believe everything they hear on government-aligned television channels.
Now they are creating a zero-sum situation with the members of the security services by drowning social media and private conversations with threats of purges after the government change, while at the same time asking the army and the police to switch sides and overthrow the government. After Saturday’s events, these threats became even louder and more unhinged.
Most of the people serving in our police and armed forces are honorable and dedicated men and women who chose a taxing profession and are not amused by people who are having buyer’s remorse after getting a party of idiots back in power in 2012. because Vucic promised them the national-populist moon but didn’t deliver.
Serbia plans to reintroduce compulsory military service in 2025, and the garrisons are getting ready to receive their first recruits after a long pause. The General Staff of the Serbian Armed Forces must be very disappointed by the low level of courage displayed by their future recruits, who ran into a panicked stampede after a minor discomfort, especially when many of those same protesters are loudly demanding military action against the breakaway province of Kosovo. You can’t exactly have capable soldiers that run off because of an unexpected loud noise and strong wind, now can you?
The ruling coalition and its associated media are now having fun trolling us with hints of what exact device was used and how many of them are in possession of the Serbian government. The protesters and their unofficial social media bullhorns are clinging to this minutia and trying to paint themselves as victims of an alleged government terrorist attack.
Guess wearing religiously themed garments to a protest can’t save you from energy weapons.
Science 1 : Jesus 0
Notice the same imagery during a Neo-Nazi rally in Budapest:
Serbianism 