The regime dragged its supporters into Xatsiland during the "Slavija, You and I" student protest, but this time it hid them from "enemy" cameras. Unlike previous progressive fairs, Christmas village i three days of sausage patriotism last spring, were locked in Pionirski Park.
This is another indicator that the government is no longer allowed to go out among the people. But also that most of the people who are sent to serve and transferred to Ćaciland do not want their friends, relatives and neighbors to see them. They are ashamed.
I saw just one like that on May 23 inside Pionirski Park. I managed to get in with my colleague from "Vremen"., despite the tight security. We missed them because the state tabloids also arrived after Ana Brbanić. Colleagues from "Mašina" and "Kompas" prevented them from entering, but they noticed us when we were already on the ground of Ćaciland, so they probably didn't know what to do with us.
And just as we were trying to get away from Brnabić's entourage and sneak around, I noticed him - a neighbor from the area, with whom I spend almost every day in the park.
This information came to me in its full meaning only a few days after the protest. As if I suppressed her. I saw him in Ćaciland, but I had to work and left there, I didn't contact him, and what would I say to him?
The babysitter who looks after my child
We both have young children of the same age, so we wear them out from one park to another on the block. We don't actively hang out, but I know his child's name and he knows my son's name. Sometimes he saves a child for me to answer the phone or catch him if he sees him fall from the climbing frame. Nothing special, everyone functions similarly in our neighborhood.
But now this completely changes everything for me. The man was among the hundred or two hundred who agreed to come on the day of the huge student protest and be part of a company to provoke opponents of the regime and take pictures for the regime media. Whether it's some petty official in the municipality who needs a job or a progressive is high on the list, it's irrelevant.
I realized in a moment that the child, no matter how banal it may be, occasionally looks after my uncle. Crazy thoughts seized me.
Come to your senses, man.
There was no point or safety in telling him anything on the spot, but this afternoon, when I see him in the park, I have to tell him. That I saw him there - and that he must come to his senses. That he gives his voice and life for corruption, destroyed lives under the canopy and thousands of torn heads, that his people beat people and threaten to rape them in the garage of the Government of Serbia. That all the money he got, and probably the one for the daily wage in Ćaciland, comes from dealings with criminals and covering up crimes.
That his son, if he continues like this, will live the same way - on a miserable wage, feeding violence and hatred, filling his pockets outside the law. In a country where lives are lost, and then maybe no one will be there to hold him so he doesn't fall even deeper.
Just as we should "vote with our wallets" and market to people who do not financially support this hardened regime, we should also condemn people who physically strengthen it. Let the whole block talk to him, let him change people every day, let him feel that he is important to the community and that he can release him.
A conversation that is (not) worth it
Some would say that these people should not be talked to. Because this man lives almost the same life as me, but he consciously chose Aleksandar Vučić and his whole package. They would say that these people are not worth fighting for, only against them, because they are the core of the regime, what feeds and supports it from below.
But that is not the right way. Whoever has the opportunity, should use it to pierce the system, to penetrate inside, to stake their nerves on unpleasant conversations. To tell them to come to their senses and return to the community of people who care about the rule of law. This is the only way the tower holding the regime will fall. And these people will be saved.
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