Photo: Iva TanackovićThe government presents the "blockaders" as thugs, while its supporters physically attack rebellious citizens, and the regime's media add fuel to the fire every day. In the progressive system of government, the one above you beats you, but that is why it gives you the right to beat those below you. It is about a "sado-masochistic type of authoritarian personality", says sociologist Ivan Živkov for "Vreme".
In the past three months, the director was beaten in Belgrade Stevan Filipovic and writer Vladimir Aresenijevic. In the last 48 hours, the public learned that Mayor Aleksandar Šapić attacked a councilwoman of the movement Go-Change Tanja Mićić, and that Partizan fan Nikola Jovanović was left without a spleen after he was beaten by unknown persons in front of the Belgrade Arena because, as he told Vreme, of his tweet about a convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić.
Sociologist Ivan Zhivkov tells "Vreme" that the problem of violence in Serbia is far deeper and more complex than it appears at first glance.
"The government encourages it, bullies are promoted and protected, but we live in a society that is collectivist and patriarchal, and such societies reproduce and nurture the bully pattern in themselves," Živkov believes.
Partizan fan beaten - "fans of Ratko Mladić" left him without a spleen
At the moment when on Monday evening (September 28) videos of Tanja Mićić's testimony appeared on social networks that he attacked her Aleksandar Šapić, former president of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić posted a video of a conversation with a woman on his X account with the description that women are "the pillar of Serbia".
Serbian Progressive Party In the last two years, he has been doing his best to portray the "blockaders" in the public eye as thugs, and their supporters as peaceful and modest people. In this spirit, in the last week SNS launched a campaign on social networks "I am a girl" in which women who support the first on the "United Serbia" list for the upcoming elections participate, saying that they are not afraid of "rape and violence carried out by the blockaders".
Recording live on Tik Tok and Facebook, Vučić repeated for the umpteenth time on Monday that the "blockaders" are the ones who cause violence and that this is their only policy.
This should probably neutralize a series of videos in which people in cars crash into the gathered citizens and students who give 16 minutes of mail to the victims of the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, residents of Ćaciland attack someone, thugs harass those who question the policies of the former president of Serbia, or the police brutally beat demonstrators.
Živkov believes that the way society treats authority shows why such a narrative persists.
"People who grow up in a society where violence is normalized, quite naturally later submit themselves to the authorities - from the company director to the party leader. This is where abuse by the authorities occurs both at the national and social level," says Zhivkov and adds that this takes society back one civilizational step back to the state of the rule of the stronger, not the rule of law.
If citizens watch the program of any regime television or read regime newspapers, they will receive information that the candidate for prime minister Aleksandar Vučić and the entire state leadership are actually fighting for the "safety and protection of every mother, sister, daughter", while "blockaders and opposition vultures only offer attacks on pregnant women and threats of rape".
In fomenting hatred among the regime's media, Informer is leading the way. An example of this is the case from March 2025, when Snežana C. (70) from Niš injured Natalija Jovanović, then dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, with a knife, who stated during the trial that she was influenced by television Inform.
In connection with this case, Aleksandar Vučić said that it was an attack by an "obviously mentally unstable, elderly woman who bought a knife that morning", and that the injury suffered by Dean Jovanović was "like when you cut a cucumber or an onion".
Ivan Živkov believes that it is a preversion that is used for daily political purposes, where the victims are presented as bullies, and the bullies as victims. "The problem is social and deeper, but the government and its media abuse it."
He points out that in the nineties we were in a situation to see how Vojislav Seselj pulls out a gun in front of the Assembly and on television, but also Željko Ražnatović Arkan, who is presented as a hero.
"All that occupied our society at the time, and so we are in a situation where the same structures are in power that have continued where they left off," says Živkov.
The former president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, pardoned or pardoned 49 people, including 12 activists of the "Novi Sad group", while the rest are still unknown to the public, just before resigning.
That was the third wave of pardons.
"Presidential mercy": Which eleven of "his" did Vučić pardon?
The first happened in January, and the second in July of last year, when, among other things, Aleksandar Vučić showed mercy towards SNS activists who broke the jaw of a student of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and towards Milica Stojanović from Jakov, who drove her car into the participants of the protest, which was originally legally qualified as attempted murder, only for the later legal qualification to be changed to a serious crime against general security.
The thugs who attacked the students with bats were called "heroes" by the former president.
Zhivkov believes that abolition "Novi Sad groups"has a broader meaning, because the former president of Serbia thereby equates people who were persecuted by the state for political reasons with those who actually committed violence. "It is presented as the mercy of the ruler, but in fact it sends the message that he is the master of the destinies of both victims and abusers," he says.
However, he adds that it is a reproduction of an authoritarian pattern:
"In authoritarian societies, you always have someone above you, whose violence you have to endure, but at the same time you are given the right to be violent towards those below you. Erich Fromm called it the sadomasochistic type of authoritarian personality, and today we can easily recognize that pattern in the political hierarchy," says Zhivkov.
On Sunday, September 27, the former president of Serbia and candidate for prime minister, Aleksandar Vučić, was a guest on the program "At the Table with the Apostle" on RTS and said that he has knowledge that some people from outside will work with some people from here who should "shoot in the air so that it will be a reason for unrest".
Such messages are not new. For two years, the government has been talking about an attempt at a "colored revolution" before every announced student protest, as a prelude to chaos and an attempt to overthrow the state.
And while it assures its electorate that it protects it from the "violence of the blockaders", the government carries out violence against citizens who are against it, and this is one of the most recognizable features of the progressive system of government.
Zhivkov says that the bully's goal is to enjoy the status of power and control and concludes:
"As long as the abuser has unquestionable power and control, he will not show his true face, but the moment someone wants to free himself from the pattern in which he is subordinated, potential violence turns into real, and even then society does not detect it to its full extent."
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A citizen of Belgrade whose polling station in Banja Luka was changed in the voter list without his knowledge claims that the Ministry did not correct his data and that the deadlines have expired. The elections are on October 25 and he still doesn't know where he will vote.
The pardon procedure implies the appropriate role of the Minister of Justice, who should initiate the procedure or submit an opinion on the pardon, says prosecutor Radovan Lazić.
Phone numbers 064 876 85 05 and 011 2068 100 will be available 24/7 for reports and addresses to citizens, and the possibility of direct addresses at the premises of the Protector of Citizens is also provided.
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