One true anecdote from the 28-year history of the weekly "Vreme" reads as follows: in 2000, an issue was prepared that was supposed to come out exactly one week after the Fifth of October. There was no doubt about which photo would be on the front page: the Federal Assembly and the immense mass of demonstrators who officially overthrew Slobodan Milošević that day. However, there was a serious dilemma about the text on the title page: whether to put the word "end" or "beginning". The editors were not clear, so they conducted a survey among those present in the newsroom. The "end" won, as readers can see for themselves by searching the archive on the vreme.com website.
Today, it is safe to say that that choice of words was absolutely correct and somewhat prophetic. The "golden age" for Serbia did not begin on the fifth of October, just as it does not today. We did not experience an economic boom and an increase in the standard of living, nor did the European Union embrace us and welcome us into its fold. We did not go through a social catharsis and get rid of the burden of war crimes from wars in which Serbia did not participate. Milošević outwitted us once again by dying unconvicted, leaving us to forever debate his guilt and the political character of his rule. Zoran Đinđić, the central figure of the October 2003th changes, was killed in March XNUMX before he could even start the promised reforms. It is certain that on the fifth of October this society did not start much. But on that Fifth of October this society finally finished something. It was really the end. The final fall of an undoubtedly criminal regime took place, the end of a regime that may not have been dictatorial throughout its duration, but in the last years before the fall of Milošević, it was undoubtedly dictatorial - arrests of political opponents, political murders, closure of unsuitable media are the characteristics of every dictatorship and so on. there should be no dilemma.
And yet, every year, as soon as the anniversary of October 2013th approaches, we are inundated with a lot of fruitless analysis, recapitulation and various "what if" and "should have been different" theories. All of them are characterized by disappointment and undefined regret for missed opportunities. This has been the case ever since the first anniversary of the Fifth of October and the now forgotten Otpor action, when the few remaining activists of that movement gathered in front of the National Assembly with banners saying "You are the same." From year to year, the observance of the Fifth of October mostly looked like this, until XNUMX. Then the dominant discourse began to change, but not in the direction of the true appreciation of the Fifth of October and its historical significance, but the exact opposite.
REDUCTION TO ANOMALY: In 2013, the Prime Minister of Serbia was the first man of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Ivica Dacic. At that moment, he is a coalition partner of the Serbian Progressive Party, which came to power a year earlier. Dacic, as we all well remember, previously served in the government led by the Democratic Party. If he had not decided to turn to the progressives in 2012, they would not have been able to form the government, but that is less important now. It is more important that in 2013 the then Prime Minister Dacic had already largely washed himself and distanced himself from the political ballast of the SPS as it was under Slobodan Milošević. The SPS was a reformed party at that moment, and hardly anyone remembers that the entire clique more or less actively participated in the inactions of the Milosevic regime. And in 2013, on the anniversary of the Fifth of October, Dacic declared: "The Democratic Party of Serbia of President Vojislav Koštunica, at the head of the DOS coalition, defeated Slobodan Milošević in 2000 with the story of joining the EU." Kostunica is someone who opposes the EU today, while the Socialist Party is part of the government that helped the country get candidate status."
In fact, at that moment, Dacic resorted to some kind of pub version of historical determinism: Serbia's joining the European Union is an unquestionable certainty that would have happened even if Milosevic had remained in power, admittedly, it was the Fifth of October when we threw a little tear gas at the citizens and the Federal Assembly was burning. , but judging by Dacic, at some point we would have received the EU Accession Agreement and we would have started negotiations even if the Fifth of October had not happened. That historical date turned out to be a kind of one-day incident, an anomaly in the natural course of things, banal and insignificant, because even without it, today's outcome would be the same.
Last year, on the 17th anniversary of the Fifth of October, Dacic dared and made a bold statement, saying something that somehow goes more with an authentic than with a converted Ivica: "Where are they now, and where am I?", Dacic asked and said: " I am in my place in my party, and they betrayed everything, both the people and their parties, they changed everything they could change. I am grateful to them for the fact that it happened, because I probably would never have become the SPS president, nor would that party have changed, but I have to say that the Fifth of October is a big fraud," he said.
Dacic told Vojvodina Radio and Television that he was not talking about ordinary people, but about the way it was prepared and financed from abroad, as well as the fact that Vojislav Koštunica did not win.
COUP: Word by word, from 2013 to the present, the narrative of the Fifth of October as a subversive, anti-systemic, foreign-funded enterprise has become commonplace for government officials. This year, the emphasis is on the "robbery" character of the demonstrations that took place that day. In April, during one of the stormier parliamentary sessions, SNS MP Milimir Vujadinović stood out, comparing the Fifth of October with Hitler's burning of the Reichstag in 1933. On Thursday, September 27, the President of the Assembly, Maja Gojković, opened an exhibition of reproductions of paintings and cultural treasures that were stolen or destroyed in the National Assembly on October 5, 2000. On the same day, "Večernje novosti", which is edited and run by Milorad Vučelić, pleased the readers with a special supplement on 12 pages. With the title "Art Awaiting Justice" with an appropriate text, the supplement consists mainly of photographs of works that have disappeared from the then Federal Assembly, and today the House of the National Assembly. To be honest, 60 pictures were lost, damaged or burned that day, and that is an irreparable loss. But also for the sake of truth, it is quite different when it is said that the disappearance and destruction of works of art is an irreparable loss, or, as "Novosti" formulated it: "The loss of October 5, 2000 is irreparable." The first is precise and correct. The latter reduces the entire event to the destruction of works of art. It is interesting that along with the photos of the lost works, no one included what was found in the Parliament that day: ballot papers with the name of Slobodan Milošević circled.
The anger of the ruling elite and supporters of the October 5th demonstrations culminated this year in the pro-regime tabloids through a fake news that, given the degree of untruthfulness and monstrosity, was soon removed, but will live forever in our memory. It happened during protests over the rise in fuel prices in June of this year. So many events and upheavals have taken place in the political life of Serbia since then that it seems as if this June was ten years ago, and not a little more than four months ago. Three media - Srbija Danas, "Informer" and BK TV - published identical "news" about a pregnant woman from Topola who lost her baby because she could not get to the doctor due to roadblocks, that is, a protest against the increase in fuel prices: "She fell and the first victim of the road blockade in Serbia, organized by certain parties of the former DOS coalition. The same ones that organized the coup d'état on October 2000, XNUMX. A few days ago, a pregnant woman from Belosavac near Topola lost her child because she was prevented from reaching the hospital and receiving adequate medical help due to the blockade of the road to Belgrade, claims our source from the municipality of Topola, who asked that we not mention his name due to the sensitivity of the topic. That woman tried in vain to stay in another state for nine years. In the end, she entered the Topola municipality's program for financing in vitro fertilization and became pregnant."
THE ARMCHAIRS ARE COMING HOME: The news was quickly and easily exposed as completely fabricated, but along with the exposure of the falsehood, the intention to redefine the Fifth of October once and for all as a "coup d'état" was also exposed, although the facts say that it was ten days before that, on September 24, 2000 , Slobodan Milošević lost the presidential elections, that Vojislav Koštunica won, and that the demonstrations on October XNUMX were a reaction to Milošević's attempt to go to the second round of elections. The demonstrations themselves were preceded by the miners' strike in "Kolubara", the consequent electricity restrictions and general civil disobedience throughout Serbia - educators suspended classes, many catering establishments did not work and, all in all, Serbia rose to its feet in those days and decided to put an end to it. to a regime that, in essence, fell democratically, in the elections.
When the spin with the pregnant woman from Topola proved to be insufficient and wrong, the Speaker of the Parliament Maja Gojković stepped in in one of the most bizarre episodes we have seen since the progressives came to power until today, and we have seen a lot of them. Although today many people only remember that Gojković found two armchairs, many forget that the "pregnant woman from Topola" was the prelude to the "armchair case". On June 18 of this year, the President of the Assembly organized a press conference only to announce that two armchairs had been found that had disappeared from the House of the National Assembly on October 15. Eighteen years later, the armchairs have returned home. One was found in the Belgrade neighborhood of Kaluđerica during a MUP raid, and the other allegedly appeared on the Kupujem-prodajem website on Friday, June XNUMX. Maja Gojković personally asked the lady who bought the armchair to bring it to the Assembly, which she did. The president of the assembly did not fail to mention that "for the last six, or rather five and a half years" she has been dedicated to the search for furniture and works of art that were stolen on the Fifth of October. Her statement was as tragicomic as the sight of two broken armchairs in the hall of the Assembly.
Maja Gojković concluded that the people who entered the assembly knew what they were taking and stealing, because: "According to the list of these prestigious painters, who marked art, there is no doubt that amateurs did nothing there."
First, even before the Fifth of October, only the works of prestigious painters were exhibited in the Assembly, so even if someone stole paintings, he would steal something valuable, whatever he got his hands on. In no nationally important institution, especially not in the parliament, are there posters with motivational messages, but valuable works from the national cultural heritage. This is how it is with institutions and works of art, just as it is when institutions betray and fail citizens to such an extent that irrational anger is poured out on buildings and demolition and arson occur. It is not the first time in the history of the world. The only difference, we repeat, is that the Fifth of October was not a revolution or a coup d'état, as we are being served now, but a demonstration where, since then, the dictator Milosevic was obviously asked to admit his electoral defeat, to recognize the will of the citizens. The fact that a complete revision of the events of 18 years ago is underway is also confirmed by the speech of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, in Kosovska Mitrovica, when he referred to the period from 2000 to 2012 as an era of general darkness and horror, but also pointed out that Slobodan Milošević was a great politician.
In the end, two questions in the last five years beg for an answer: why is revision of the Fifth of October necessary and what was the Fifth of October. The revision is necessary because the people who lead Serbia today have revised themselves from then until today: some were part of Milosevic's regime and want that part of their careers to be forgotten. Some, however, were in the crowd demanding justice on October 5th, so they are not very comfortable today sharing ideology and interests with those whom they destroyed. That's why it suits them that the Fifth of October remains an anomaly, an incident, well, we played a little bit.
The question of what was the Fifth of October might be better rephrased as: what do we object to the Fifth of October. And immediately the catch phrase about the Sixth of October that never happened, about arrests and lustration comes to mind. But could it have been otherwise? Vojislav Koštunica won the elections, but the true leader of DOS was Zoran Đinđić, the man who made a compromise with the strangest set of parties and movements in Serbia's political history. Yes, there was no lustration, but who could carry out the lustration? The Government of Serbia at the time, in which, let's recall, were former associates of Milosevic, Nebojsa Čović, Momčilo Perišić, Vuk Obradović, Dušan Mihajlović? Could they really lust after those less sinful than themselves? And how do we know if it was possible without them or if it had to be with them? Maybe that's where we should look for an answer to the question of what the Fifth of October is to us. Contrary to politicians' views, citizens are not idiots. They knew perfectly well even in 2000 that not much should be expected from those who replace Milosevic. Anyone who claims otherwise is dangerously deluding himself. On that day, people did not take to the streets for DOS to come to power, but for Slobodan Milošević to leave. They came out to play the end. And they succeeded in that. Although everything that followed the Fifth of October probably turned out to be a defeat, that day was a victory. A painful and difficult victory, with the burden of two human victims and in the shadow of material damage, but still a victory for which you should never apologize to anyone under any circumstances.
