Regime Fall: Reality Strikes Back

Is it possible to rule without content and without form? So, is it possible to rule by offering an illusion instead of reality? It seems that Vučić has been able to do it all these 13 years. However, something has changed. What?

Reality rests on matter. For example, if there is a concrete wall in front of you, and you claim that it is not, in fact, a wall, you will not pass through that wall anyway. Nor does anyone in their right mind try to pass through the concrete wall. But if every day, 24 hours a day, you scream from all the propaganda media that the wall is not, in fact, a wall, a considerable number of people will believe the propaganda, and not their own experience, their own senses and their own reason.

Nothing new, Machiavelli wrote about this phenomenon more than 500 years ago. But reality is stubborn and indifferent to the production of appearances. When on November 1, 2024, the canopy of the Railway Station in Novi Sad fell and, completely indifferently, killed sixteen people, the regime continued to create an illusion: we did not touch the canopy, said the first man of the regime, it fell because it was old. But in reality they touched her as well. Incompetent, because they do not communicate with reality. They touched it, as in a magic trick, not to do something, not to reconstruct the station, but to divert attention from what it is (from reality): from the robbery.

The canopy, however, does not rest on appearance, but on substance, on a well-calculated relationship of concrete elements. It fell because the Builder and his team did not respect the relationships in reality, but the relationships within the illusion.

The reality principle

The exact same principle of balance applies to all of reality. If the principle of balance is violated in reality, reality, as indifferent as it is, will behave like a canopy: it will refuse obedience.

Vučić and his regime have declared reality as their enemy. And now the reality (as indifferent as it is) simply retaliates. What happens to the regime is what the regime did to the canopy: it collapses because there is no more content (material) to hold it up. Propaganda, therefore, creates believers who are the substance on which the regime rests ("If my daughter went out on the street and someone stepped on her, I would congratulate him," said a believer on the appearance of support for Vučić in Jagodina.)

But the number of believers has decreased dramatically because the appearance does not offer matter: unlike God, Vučić and his team are only people. The police, as a system of coercion, is the keeper of appearances only until the moment it functions as a unified system. Therefore, the same principle applies to the police as to concrete structures: it works as long as there is a balance. That balance, however, has been upset by the regime using the police to perform tricks. So the organization first began to cough, and now it is already falling out of decayed parts of the lungs.

Immaterial reality

Reality is, of course, made up of intangibles as well. If someone stands in front of a wall and claims that it is not a wall - but does not try to pass through it - there are procedures (forms) that determine whether his claims and his behavior are true or not. The court, for example, determines the truth according to predetermined rules. And science does that, or philosophy.

All these years, Vučić stands in front of the wall and convinces us that it is not a wall, but he does not try to pass through the wall (because he knows he cannot pass), nor does he follow the procedures (because he knows he is lying) that would confirm his claim as true, or, on the contrary, reject it as false. Or it stands among the ruins convincing us that we are, in fact, at the heart of a stunning edifice.

In the meantime, all matter has worn out, and forms (laws, institutions) show no signs of life. The counter rally in Belgrade is the last chapter of Vučić's uncompromising war against reality: he gathered several thousand people, gave them some money, dragged them to Belgrade, fed them, organized a concert for them and, I guess, sent them home. And yes. And he fenced them in, like animals so they wouldn't escape from the pen while he gives a long, empty and boring speech, and the drones of his personal propaganda newspapers with a national frequency maneuver as they know how to create the impression of an impressively large crowd.

But in vain. It was a lie that bit its own belly. The reality that he has almost successfully avoided, like the wall that he claims is not a wall, refuses to be removed in front of him, even though he shouts.

Respect for reality

How, in other words, can one govern people who feel on their own skin that what they are participating in is not real?

How can the police, who lost their civilizing purpose under Vučić's regime (to protect citizens from criminals), do their job if reality and illusion have switched places, so the task of the police is now to protect criminals (see under Ćaciland) from citizens?

How can prosecutors do their job when they are instructed to pursue truth, not lies, and how can judges do their job when they are instructed to protect injustice, not justice?

This is not about any ideals, but about elementary respect for reality, which, indifferent as it is, disobeyed Vučić and his team.