Protest in Novi Sad September 5 "Serbia, can we hear each other?" to which the students in the blockade called, represents a turning point for citizens who have been demonstrating against the autocracy for over ten months Aleksandar Vučić, lawlessness and corruption, as well as for the regime of the Serbian Progressive Party. Gray tones disappeared from the picture of progressive Serbia, the morning of the next day dawned in black and white. After the brutal and systematic caning of citizens carried out by the Gendarmerie and the Police Brigade, several conclusions can be drawn.
First No more pretending to be a democracy, no more lying about "Serbia's European path", after returning from China, Aleksandar Vučić followed the path of Eastern despots. Maybe his colleagues Lukashenko, Kim Jong Un, Putin and Xi Jinping reproached him for being lukewarm, maybe they gave him the courage to go over to their side of history, only the Serbian supreme leader decided to use brutal police force to put an end to the civil protests that have been ruining his dreams, plans and undermining his authority in his own ranks and abroad for more than ten months.
Another Vučić's facial expression was strange when he addressed the people on the night of Friday to Saturday. He was grinning from ear to ear while talking about the 7020 demonstrators in Novi Sad, the blockaders-terrorists, the extremists who will all be arrested and the police who dispersed them, of course all in accordance with the law.
Some will say that he felt a perverse thrill and satisfaction watching how, at his behest, in the capital of Vojvodina, an unprecedented police force beat those who opposed him, suffocated them with tear gas, threw them to the ground and arrested them. That he felt elation at the demonstration of his own power.
And it is also possible that that crooked smile is a reflection of the escape of a coward who is aware that she has taken a path from which there is no return, on which there is no more excuses, which leads to a direct confrontation with functional European democracies, the European Union and the citizens of their own country who saw through and despised it.
One also got the impression that the process of self-delusion has advanced with the President of Serbia, from which a dangerous irrationality arises, that calculated lies have turned into a projection of the truth that suppresses fear.
Third The process of resolving the deep political and social crisis has finally gained momentum. The use of force as used in Novi Sad hints at a direct confrontation of the progressive regime with all those who try to stand in its way. Such a situation is unsustainable.
Fourth Citizens who rebelled against the kleptocratic rule of one man and one party, against the abnormality and insanity spread by informers and pinks, no later than after the protest in Novi Sad, became aware that the Vučićs and their associates are ready to defend everything they have created with the most brutal force. There is a justified fear that they would not stop at caning, trampling and tear gas and mass arrests if they were pushed against the wall.
Breastplate The attempt at intimidation will either bear fruit, and Serbia will turn into Belarus, and even more mass purges and dismissals of disobedients will follow, universities will be destroyed as the core of the rebellion, judges and prosecutors will be removed, for whom the law interferes with the will of the supreme progressive leader.
Or the country will go from the phase of peaceful protests tolerated by the government to the phase of physical conflicts with unforeseeable consequences. Vučić demonstrated that there is no peaceful solution with him.
Sixth One should not be fooled into thinking that the end of this regime is in sight. The conditions of bare repression can last a long time, the production of fear can be significantly intensified, for example by the mass imposition of multi-year prison sentences for all who try to oppose the state power controlled by the SNS led by Vučić.
Seventh What will happen to Serbia is breaking now, today, starting from September 6. If the protests die down, the basic human liberties on which the democratic world rests will disappear into the dark progressive darkness.
Osmo Since the opposition political organizations are completely marginalized and unable to unite, the near future of Serbia depends on young people, above all on students. It's a thought as terrifying as it is encouraging. These generations, who have just exchanged school desks for university amphitheatres, in the past ten months have not shown fear or willingness to bow their heads and take the line of least resistance by joining the progressive force or start packing their bags. And no parent will leave their child in the lurch.
Ninth If the European Union does not react to what happened on Friday in front of the members of the European Parliament in Novi Sad, in a country that has the status of a candidate for EU accession, it will lose all credibility. Then we can begin to say goodbye to the liberal democracy on which peace in the Western Hemisphere has been built since the end of World War II.
