Taking life back into your own hands

Nothing happened in these five months Serbia - numerous studies and books will be written about it, not only here - so we may have forgotten that the all-citizen rebellion, now historic, began with a magnificent rally in Novi Sad five days after fall of the canopy at the Railway Station. Even then, the authorities felt that the tragedy had spilled the beans, that the anger of the citizens was huge, accumulated over time, and used a mechanism used many times to crush the demonstrations in the root, this time more cruelly than usual. She hired rascals and criminals from her payroll to demolish the City Hall, "crowd together and create chaos," as the hero of Žilnik's long-ago film says. The action was directed by the president himself. The goal was to portray the protesters, or at least those who organized the rally, as thugs who want to abuse the tragedy in order to come to power through the streets.

This propaganda-violent mechanism was seen earlier in Novi Sad, and was most obviously used during the covid-rebellion in Belgrade. It is important for the regime to portray the anti-government rallies as "crazy" to its believers, members and those with free tickets, but it is even more important to demobilize the so-called. ordinary citizens, sending them a message that they should not participate in the dirty business of the "infamous opposition", which is paid from all over the world to destroy Serbia led by the omnipotent "subject institution". All this was followed day and night by the majority media, which represent an integral part of the combined executive and judicial power.

The mentioned matter felt another "vibe": its members were frightened, disoriented, taken aback by the tragedy, the myth of the "great builder" and his unquestionable omnipotence collapsed like a house of cards. Vučić's arrival in Novi Sad on the same evening was intended to encourage the progressives: nothing has changed and they should not worry. They will continue to proudly rock the country.

photo: marija janković

THE THING DIDN'T WORK OUT

The thing didn't work out. The rebellion, on the contrary, spread (you can't use the same style a hundred times), and neither then, nor until now, the progressives, from top to bottom, have not come out of the knockdown. Organized students and other young people who joined the rebellion, or rather assumed unquestionable leadership over it, were not easy to declare "enemies of society", even with all the cannon fire. The narrative that they are thugs, "Ustasha", "foreign mercenaries", "Djilasov" or "Kurti" created a counter-effect, and a dramatically unwanted effect was achieved by hiring thugs who beat, trampled, insulted and threatened them. The students disarmed the regime by themselves, with courage, but also with collective intelligence based on non-violence and persistence. It turned out that the decision of young people to spart Serbia was exceptional. Rebellion descended even to the smallest places, and fear was defeated even where nothing but fear existed.

Propaganda was then somewhat modified, suddenly the government began to understand students and high school students, and to some extent agree with them. Suddenly there was a call for dialogue, as if their demands were met. However, the students freaked out the "institution", as it were, they passed by it like, if you're sorry, by a prostitute on Kaćka petlja. They knew about the eater.

The main target - in addition to constant enemies - became professors and teachers who showed solidarity with young people. "Idle people with dishonorable intentions." In parallel, the campaign against them, primitive, because the progressive cannot be different, and the accompanying wage humiliation. Because incomes of a few thousand dinars are nothing but humiliation, it would be less sadistic if they didn't even give them a nail.

Humiliation is actually part of the "counter-revolution" that Vučić announced some time ago, and when he realized that the passage of time was not really in his favor, that the energy of the rebellion was not waning, that it was constantly being renewed. They decided on a "total war", in which everything that can be used from weapons and tools is used.

Project 2.0 is also a part of the "total war", although not overly successful, because the students knew about Jadac and avoided the violent scenario that the president was preparing with his "cats" in Belgrade on March 15. He didn't even manage to divide the students. The marching of black-clad "caci" through Belgrade on Saturday morning to meet the rally - they were uniformed in this way according to the instructions, in order to resemble fascist phalanxes, that is, to appear as intimidating as possible - and the use of acoustic weapons - are also part of the "counter-revolution". And so on. The message is - we are ready for anything!

Part of the "total war" is the harsh rhetoric of the government and its media. There is no longer any difference between the statements of Vojislav Šešelj, Aleksandar Vučić and Ana Brnabić. A new wave of violence against protesters, too. Arrest and custodial abuse of activists from Novi Sad, of course. Strong attempts to create divisions in the resistance movement, certainly. With an additional letter - and we will only congratulate you all when all this is over!

photo: Aleksandar Mijajlovic / Fonet

"VAJB" IN POLITICS

A few days ago, the "Washington Post" used the word "vibe" in its political analysis, talking about the scope of Donald Trump's almost three-month rule. Around the beginning of the year, the "vibe", that difficult to define collective feeling, was very bad. The atmosphere was such that the citizens collectively felt that it was impossible to resist the tsunami of political primitivism, that Trump's excavator was trampling everything in front of it, that they were helpless. But things have changed in the meantime. His jerk moves awakened hope, the "vibe" suddenly became positive. And that positive "vibe", Trump is afraid of, to paraphrase the conclusion. Like all authoritarian rulers, after all. Thanks to him, resistance is possible. And it will probably happen soon in the most powerful country in the world. Serbia was the vanguard of bad things in the world, maybe now it will also become the forerunner of something good, the rebellion of young people against the old, overgrown, exclusively petty-proprietary-oriented crud.

The positive "vibe" is what makes the civil rebellion in Serbia so powerful and long-lasting. Not anger and despair. Such a "vibe" is accompanied by creative energy, disarming smiles on the faces of young people, humor and irony. The key here is the belief of young people that it is possible to change society, regardless of the fact that they are aware that it is fundamentally broken. They will not agree to the fact that we are forever condemned to hopelessness, primitivism, rawness and cruelty, injustice, rule by the worst scum...

About twenty days after the protest "peak", the Belgrade rally, from which many had unrealistic expectations, now that many schools, after the failure to organize a more serious general strike, have started regular work (which, by the way, in no way diminishes the heroism of the educational workers in the blockade), in fact the main - political or social, whatever you want - battle is being fought precisely at the "vibe" level. Will the collective feeling slide from positive to negative? That is the goal of "total war": how to turn optimism and hope into hopelessness and frustration.

Until now, the progressives have ruled with the help of a phenomenon known in political theory as "learned helplessness", i.e. by producing the "vibe" that changes are impossible or too risky. All politicians are the same, whoever comes to power will be the same. Why risk it when you will be disappointed? You can see that we can do it. You see, you've tried, you've done your best, and nothing has changed, nor will it. Look what happened to Novi Sad activists, who are illegally in custody and being eaten by bedbugs! What will it do in your life? Only "fools" fight for changes, and "wise" keep silent and adapt. Do you want some "psychologist" to stab you with a knife? And yes, we are ready for anything, we don't think of hiding without blood! These are the key messages that the ruling propaganda has been sending very intensively to rebellious citizens, opportunists, and their subscribers in recent days.

The question is whether behind all this is real power or, on the contrary, weakness. Maybe the progressives have nothing else left? The ball is not in their court, but the students are throwing it. For the progressives, so far, their techniques of suppressing the rebellion have not borne fruit. Neither will this one, probably. But you have to be careful.

photo: katarina stevanović

PROGRESS AND SUCCESS

The thing from psychology is: if you set a high goal that needs to be achieved in a short period of time, then it is a sure way to dissatisfaction and depression. And in giving up. Before that big goal, smaller intermediate goals should be set, and even small advances should be noticed and respected. Every movement gives pleasure and adds energy. This general point may be useful to repeat, now and here.

And when one makes even a superficial specification of the achievements so far, that is, the political and social developments during the five-month struggle of citizens for a normal Serbia, things are not bad. This is not empty optimism. Let's try to sort things out with some logic.

First of all, the citizens woke up from a deep sleep, their dignity and self-respect were awakened, and their fear was defeated. It can simply be breathed. It is especially important that this also happened in small communities, those that have been numbed and excluded all these years, left at the mercy of local kabadahs and mind-numbing media. The courage of the students and the positive "vibe" awakened hope among these people, who until recently did not even in their wildest dreams believe that it was possible to get out of the nightmare, one in which there is no difference between crime, the executive power, the police and the judiciary. They were just waiting for the "law of the first wedding night" to be introduced in their places.

Now they have hope, they believe that it makes sense to fight for a more humane society. The awakening of small towns, including villages, is a matter of enormous importance, bearing in mind that through strict control and intimidation, the progressive regime achieved great political advantages in them. The big cities woke up earlier, and it turned out that - regardless of the disappointments, pauses and loss of energy - this is an irreversible process. In fact, each subsequent protest against the government was more numerous and powerful. That's how things are when there is hope.

photo: marija janković

SPONTANEOUS REBELLION

The current protests are not centralized, that is, they are not managed from one or more centers. It is a spontaneous and sincere popular rebellion, and therein lies its great strength. It makes the job of the regime very difficult. It's leaking everywhere, you patch one hole, three more appear.

Protests are also a useful experience, which implies various levels of connecting citizens, which created an extremely complex and powerful organism, in terms of all parameters. The connection of citizens also implies the exchange of information, which, with the help of the relatively few independent media, punctured the regime's propaganda. There is not a single citizen of Serbia who has not been convinced by a personal example and based on his own experience that the regime's media lie like Baron Munchausen's uneducated, ill-mannered and uneducated twin of alcohol and cocaine.

The dramatic drop in trust in the regime's media is directly proportional to the drop in the rating of the ruling parties, all with the "objective institution" as a whole. This is an extremely important benefit of rebellion. A large rock was moved, which began to roll down the hill on its own. Public opinion surveys also speak of this, as well as an unprecedented increase in readership and viewership of independent media, which is exact and easily verifiable data.

Vučić himself acknowledged the powerlessness of his media when he decided to reveal "his truth" in front of TV Insider's cameras, trying to address the audience he had already lost. The President of Serbia also admitted that the SNS rating is in free fall, with a tendency to collapse. By promoting the Movement for this and that, he is trying to distance himself from his own party.

The benefit of the protest is that the archetypal myth of a great and honest leader who would prevent his people from doing bad things, if only he knew about them, was destroyed. It became clear to people where the key to the problem was.

WITH YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR

If there had been no protests, the Socialist Party of Serbia would never have begun to fence itself off from SNS and Vučić, building an exit strategy, in its own way. They will not be on a ship that is sinking, even slightly. Branko Ružić is not the only socialist who supported the student protests, local officials have been pushing the "exit" button for a long time.

Turbulent processes are also taking place within the parties of national minorities that are in coalition with the progressives. It is not peaceful even in the nest of a faithful partner, the Association of Vojvodina Hungarians, with which the progressives are tied by the umbilical cord of the highly corrupt Orban-Vučić pact. Turbulence is growing in proportion to the unrestrained desire of the top progressives to overtake even Vojislav Šešelj with their idiotic statements.

In the meantime, numerous government subscribers have become fierce oppositionists. Those who, until recently, were led around the regime's studios to spit on the opposition and talk nonsense for the sake of the appearance of political pluralism. Those who all this time had the role of shouting that Serbia is the bottom of the bottom, and that it deserved to be led by Vučić, fell silent. That, when all is said and done, it is practically the best of all other options.

Progressives can no longer hide divisions in their ranks, although they are nothing new. They accuse each other on social networks. It boils inside like a beehive, we will see all kinds of whites. And it is an irreversible process. For a long time, they strongly hate each other, they screwed each other up so many times, they didn't share the loot as agreed. They only needed students!

A big benefit of the protest is certainly the fall of the government, that is, the resignation of Miloš Vučević and the gentleman whose name we can hardly remember, and who had the unpleasant obligation to hold the position of mayor of Novi Sad. They resigned after the progressive activists, some kind of young degenerates, brutally beat the students, seriously injuring one girl.

And now, Vucevic's fate itself speaks vividly about the state of the SNS. They didn't accept him in Belgrade, he tried to do big jobs in the capital with his companies, but he got through like a thorn in the side. And when he returned to Novi Sad, some other players had already taken over the management of the city's resources. What will happen to this man, it's hard for him!

Progressives have an additional problem. We already know that some of their members were strongly against lithium exploitation in Jadro, and now an even larger percentage supports the students.

UNSEEN AGREEMENT AND PROBLEM WITH ELECTIONS

All of the above makes it difficult to organize the "biggest gathering ever", which was supposed to take place on March 28, but it turned out that such a thing needs much more time and much more money. And that is a small victory. The progressives realized that in this situation - when the Vučić family, as rich as Baja Patak, and the crew are shaking the ground under their feet - a good deal can be made. No one will take a risk without good money. It can also be packaged, they think. Maybe it won't be like before, ten to one. The two-day "Caciland" will be another big progressive debacle, no matter how much it is masked by propaganda. There is no doubt about that, even if all the straws have been emptied.

Vučić cannot even use his strongest weapon - elections. We have already confirmed several times: the progressives are not experts in anything, but to win elections - by God, they are. Their "boss" could really write a world bestseller, but in which he would explain the mechanisms of how to not have the support of the citizens and easily win the elections. Using all possible and impossible slander since the beginning of the century, that is, since the first known elections were held on the territory of present India, when the villagers elected the village board with the help of palm leaves, in 920 BC. SNS can forget about the elections as they were until recently.

First of all, the opposition will boycott them unless there is a transitional or expert or whatever government that will significantly change the electoral conditions and search the voter lists. Even if an opposition party were ready to participate in the elections under the same or similar conditions, it would immediately end its career, and citizens and students would drink its blood from a straw.

Besides, with awakened citizens it is difficult to organize scams. Not only will there be conscientious guardians of boxes and procedures everywhere, but fraud will be prevented in an organized manner. The question is how far the progressives from the bottom of the ladder will be ready to participate in the violations of the law, now that it is clear that "nobody was burning until dawn".

The fact that Vučić, along with the fierce rhetoric he uses in Serbia, little by little runs to Brussels clarifying some things and offering trade-offs, speaks of weakness. As well as the fact that he is looking for a new prime minister abroad. Within his own party, and even among those in his interest zone, he cannot find a single person who could be the new prime minister without causing another wave of anger. Not even close.

SOLIDARITY EXISTS

Let's go back to social benefits. Authoritarian governments flourish where there is no solidarity, and where there is no solidarity, there is absolutely nothing, grass does not grow there. It is, to use that difficult word, "Caciland". The students awakened solidarity, pulled her out of the basement like the Count of Monte Cristo. Professors - many of whom were very silent until recently, independent journalists know best - showed solidarity with students, then lawyers, then farmers, of course also educators, doctors, cultural workers, and even some small craftsmen who took a lot of business risks.

Ideological divisions were overcome, which is also a benefit of the protest. The regime rode on them for a long time, with the help of right and left partners. In addition, exclusivity and "championship" in the fight against the regime was also abandoned. There is an awareness that something like this, which is hanging on Serbia's neck, can only be changed with the help of those who previously stood aside, including those who were on the other side.

The protests were supported by almost all the public figures they care about. Even the always restrained Novak Djokovic and his wife did it, and found themselves the target of the tabloids. Madonna, Bob Geldof, and Marina Abramović supported the students... In fact, the students managed to change the image of Serbia abroad. We are no longer a wretched werewolf burdened by an inglorious past, but a country for which there is indeed hope. Students are supported not only by Serbs living abroad, but also by many politically active citizens, not only in the region. One cannot grasp where everything was "pumped" around the world.

The protests shook the project of stabilocracy, intended for this part of Europe. It is no longer very easy for Western politicians who admire Vučić, in the Western media there are a lot of critical texts about Vučić's rule, and positive ones about the student "movements".

Even the citizens' assemblies, no matter how ineffective they are, testify that a turnaround has taken place. The citizens also show them that they want to take their lives back into their own hands. It is a very important stage of political development, say political scientists.

But perhaps most important of all, people let out the anger that had been building up for a long time. The smile returned to their faces, hope returned. Less benzedine will be wasted. And this power, and everything it symbolizes, also rests on the Bensedins.

By emancipating themselves, they emancipated Serbia

Zagreb journalist Ladislav Tomičić in an interview for "Vreme" says that the biggest benefit of the protest is that a generation of young people interested in politics and society arrived, matured and expressed themselves.

"As far as I know Serbia, until the beginning of the student protests, society was ruled by apathy and hopelessness, while at the same time the regime of Aleksandar Vučić believed that he was untouchable and that he could do whatever he wanted in Serbia with impunity. I have in mind Jovanjica, Velja Nevolja and politically directed criminal clans, omnipresent corruption and bragging of the authorities, public insult and disparagement of all those who do not think as the rulers want, political control of everything and everything. Today, that is no longer the case. "Those young people have shown that they will not suffer forever, so by emancipating themselves, they have emancipated Serbia. Of course, the fight for Serbia will be long and exhausting, and I am not only referring to the fight against Vučić's regime, but a fight that will crystallize a political option that would be less authoritarian, that would have a calming effect on society, that would see its neighbors as possible allies, not eternal enemies," says Tomičić.