The thirty-first anniversary of Srebrenica in Serbia, it was appropriately marked by beating the writer.
Writer Vladimir Arsenijević he was beaten this morning under the Branko Bridge, near the Krokodil area, which he has been running for years.
He was beaten in the area where the commemoration of the victims of the genocide was supposed to be held tonight. He says that 20-30 of them were waiting for him...
The area under the bridge is disfigured with graffiti glorifying Ratko Mladić.
Are we used to it?
Arsenijević informed the public about the incident via social networks.
With a swollen face, with a split lip, he calmly and concisely told what happened, respecting the journalistic rule: who, what, where, when, why.
The fact that he told the public immediately after the beating in this way what happened to him is actually astonishing.
Imagine: you get beaten up by 20-30 hooligans, you get up and calmly tell what happened to you.
Vladimir Arsenijević added that they threatened him "with the already known vocabulary". And no, he didn't make the video to announce that he was beaten, but to inform the public that tonight's event is being canceled for security reasons.
Everything about this event is terrible, but what we witness afterwards is perhaps even more terrible because neither Arsenijević himself, nor we, the interested and supportive public, are surprised.
Moreover, we already know what are the attitudes and statements that can lead us to this situation: say that genocide was committed in Srebrenica; that Serbia has de facto no jurisdiction over Kosovo since 1999; say Kosovo, and don't add "and Metohija", so everyone will know "which" you are from, then move around the city and wait for your turn.
This is different though.
Yes, you wait your turn, but mostly you get threats through social media.
Actually, regardless of the protests that have been going on since November 2024 and the attacks on citizens and journalists, we have not had such attacks on public figures for more than fifteen years.
In August 2005, after a performance at Beerfest, musician Darko Rundek was beaten in Knez Mihailova Street in Belgrade.
He was attacked by a group of young people (Arsenijević also says that his attackers were young men), beat him and insulted him on a national basis.
Then, in July 2010, in a city bus, three guys beat the "Vremena" columnist Teofil Pančić with a metal bar, and later we found out that they belong to ultra-right organizations.
From then until this morning, it was mostly safe for public figures to move around Belgrade: here and there a few pranks, but nothing more radical than that.
And then, this morning, the evil crawled under the bridge and there, hidden from the light, it was silent and waited.
When Vladimir Arsenijević got out of the taxi, the same evil that prevented Ron Haviv's exhibition at the beginning of this millennium, the same evil that prevented the holding of the first Pride Parade in June 2001, so today we remember that event as "bloody pride", the evil that set fire to the Bajrakli Mosque in 2004, then the Embassy of the United States of America in 2007, and then vandalized the entire center of Belgrade during the 2010 Pride Parade.
A moment of verification
But there is a difference that this morning does not erase. This is no longer the city from 2001 or 2004, but a city and country that have been taking to the streets for twenty months. Belgrade is no longer a silent city. That's why this evil no longer has power. There is only an ambush. He doesn't go to the square, he doesn't speak publicly, he doesn't convince, he doesn't have media space. It crouches in the dark, in a group and strikes when it thinks no one sees it.
So this is the moment to check. Not Vladimir Arsenijević, but us, the rebellious society. Do we really believe what we have been repeating for months: that no one is alone? Does this also apply to those with whom we may not agree in every detail? Are we ready to stand by a man because of what was done to him and not because of what he thinks?
Zero tolerance to violence does not apply selectively, it either always applies, or it does not apply at all. The society that has been defying violence for twenty months now has a simple task: to show that the struggle was not only for ourselves, but for everyone and everyone.
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