Society is still in rebellion, and the strength of the rebellion is not diminishing. If this summer has shown anything, it's that rebellion comes in many shapes and forms. Nine months since the beginning of the protest, things have also happened that this rebellious part of society is perhaps not entirely proud of, such as visits to the home addresses of public office holders or the undisguised absence of sympathy towards the Minister of Public Investment Darko Glišić, who had a stroke while a live guest on Pink Television.
Before we value ourselves, it is important to state what happened. And something very bad happened to a high-ranking official. Then there was the all-day, even multi-day reality show of Informer Television, where the video of Darko Glišić's stroke was broadcast continuously. The editorial policy of this television that day went in the direction of trying to somehow blame the demonstrators, the "blockaders", that part of society that has been showing only togetherness, solidarity and fighting spirit for what happened to Glišić.
However, it also happened that Informer broadcasts, in the first few hours after the trouble that befell Glišić, only two tweets from people who, to put it mildly, did not wish him good health and a speedy recovery. Even Informer, proverbially attached to social networks, could not find more than two such posts. Social networks, that day and the following days, went in a different direction: people justified themselves because they do not feel empathy towards Darko Glišić. The lists of reasons that appeared are not only interesting, but also a road map by which we arrived at the fact that there is no sympathy for a minister in the Government of Serbia, but also who guided us along that path and brought us here.
photo: marko dragoslavić / fonet...and Stojanović at the protest after Vučić's pardon
WE DON'T HAVE TO GO FAR INTO THE PAST
Just one day before Glišić had a stroke in front of the cameras, the public learned that the President of Serbia had granted another pardon. Milica Stojanović, who hit and seriously injured student Kristina Vasiljević at a protest in January in Belgrade, was pardoned by the decision of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, KRIK was told in the Third Basic Court. Vučić announced this decision last month and it was the last in a series of good news for Milica Stojanović - as her criminal offense was first mitigated, and then she was released from custody.
So, although she was originally accused of attempted murder, for which she could have received a prison sentence of 10 or more years, the chief prosecutor of the High Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanović, reduced her crime to - a serious crime against general security.
We all saw the footage of Kristina Vasiljević being trampled. And on the very day when Glišić had a stroke, Kristina spoke at a protest in front of her Faculty of Agriculture in Zemun.
"Today, I am not here to ask for pity, to talk about personal empathy, but to point out something much bigger. The systemic injustice that humiliates us. It is not a matter of me, but of the message we send as a society if pardoning those who threaten another person's life becomes a matter of political will, not justice," said Kristina.
Later that evening, the rebellious citizens were pelted with eggs by supporters of the SNS from the premises of the Municipal Board of this party in New Belgrade, and then they were joined by another hundred thugs and officials of the ruling party, so the Gendarmerie suppressed the citizens and practically chased them away.
Kristina had head injuries, just like Sonja Ponjavić, who was run over in Rooseveltova street, just like Ana, a student from Novi Sad, whose jaw was broken by SNS beaters who were also pardoned. Kristina, Sonja and Ana were not injured by accident, they were injured by people who have names and surnames, people for whom this regime has more mercy and compassion than for the three of them, completely innocent. Well, that might be the answer to the question of why there is no empathy for Darko Glišić. He was hurt by an accident, something happened to him that happens relatively often. Something happened to these girls that we all would have said was impossible just a year ago.
ENDLESS CALLLESSNESS
After all, all that we live today started because there was no compassion. Yes, that canopy that collapsed and killed 16 people, fell because of corruption and laziness. But a corrupt, arrogant and insufferable system is also ruthless. The selfishness of the corrupt makes them incapable of empathy, even when, due to their actions and inactions, the canopy falls and 16 lives remain under tons of concrete. But the callousness does not end there.
The government's merciless attitude towards the citizens continues when TV Prva goes to the house of the family whose three members died under the canopy: Valentina (9), Sara (5) and Đorđe (53). And when the mother of two girls, a woman who has every right to be angry with the whole world, is put in front of the camera to speak about the protests and say what she thinks about the government.
The cruelty goes even further: the regime, which seeks compassion for one of its own, sent thugs and savages to attack Diana Hrka, the mother of Stefan, who also died under the canopy, while she was standing with students at the RTS blockade. Supporters of the government (or the government itself, who knows if they have more supporters) led Diana Hrka to leave the country. There is no peace even where he is. They manage to find her, throw insults at her, write disgusting messages to her on social networks.
PUSHING THE MIDDLE FINGER INTO THE EYE
If the regime is still wondering where the empathy for Glišić has disappeared, it is possible that they crushed it themselves, and with one finger. To the middle, bloody ones, who posted on social networks in response to the protest slogan "Your hands are bloody".
The ability of citizens to sympathize with anyone who has anything to do with the ruling regime has collapsed even before the words of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. For example, before what he said about Milomir Janićijević, a truck driver who supported students and who was pushed over the edge by the government. And maybe the compassion disappeared when they expelled the children from the kindergarten in Odžaci because their parents support the opposition.
Their hands are bloody and with those bloody hands they have been showing the middle finger to the citizens for a long time, longer than the people have been on the streets demanding justice. And those bloody middle fingers they hung up on social media may seem like a distant past, under the onslaught of too many events in a day, let alone a lifetime. However, they are not forgotten, they are stored in the memory of everyone who has been angry, rebellious and angry for months. After all, those middle fingers got an extension in the form of a police baton.
So, where was the regime's empathy towards Luka Mihajlović, the student who was beaten after the protest on June 28? Let's remind you, Luka was beaten, arrested, beaten in the hospital, they inflicted such severe injuries on him that the police had to take him to the Zemun Clinical and Hospital Center. And only then does he enter the twilight zone. Because there was a prosecutor who couldn't listen to him, of course, because the guy is in the hospital and is awaiting a series of operations. But where was the empathy of the prosecutor who issued the order to issue a warrant for Luke?
Only ten days later they "found" him where they left him, in KBC Zemun and the guy who was beaten, broken, operated on and waiting for more operations - they handcuffed him, that is, tied him to the bed with handcuffs. Well, it didn't end there either, the police came out with a statement in which they claim that Luka's family is lying. And then the Administration for the Execution of Criminal Sanctions is announced to say that Luka was handcuffed, but only for a short time, as if that was the point, and not to feel sorry for the guy who is now at large.
WHEREVER YOU TURN CRUELTY
The problem with determining all the circumstances under which the citizens of Serbia were removed from the possibility of sympathizing with a man who suffered a stroke in front of the cameras is that you can go very far back, all the way to the very beginnings of Aleksandar Vučić's reign. And it can go even further, in the previous era and the radical past. In the end, it all boils down to the undeniable fact that we live in repression and that we cannot escape it. Everyone is squeezed from all sides: students in the blockade, rebellious citizens, opposition politicians, media, universities, high school and elementary school teachers, truckers, farmers, majority people, national minorities... No one is free, but everyone is aware that they are not free and are resisting.
At the beginning of this month, Serbia was again on the list of countries with a sharp deterioration in civil liberties by CIVICUS Monitor, a platform that monitors the latest developments in the field of civil liberties, including freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in 198 countries and territories. Serbia was assessed as an "obstructed area", which means a medium level of restrictions on freedoms. This assessment refers to an environment in which the government disrupts the work of civil society organizations, protesters are exposed to excessive force, and independent media and editorial freedom are severely limited. In order to quell the student protests, the Serbian authorities launched a wave of violence by the police and groups associated with the ruling party, with mass arrests, surveillance and intimidation, according to the CIVICUS Monitor assessment.
Serbia came under the scrutiny of CIVICUS because of the arrest of six activists before the protest on March 15, and then six people who are not really related to each other, before the protest on June 28. And of course, we return to the issue of empathy. Because there was no empathy for the people who ate bedbugs in prison, for the guy who was arrested and whose nose was broken in prison, there was no empathy for the arrested Marija Vasić who went on a hunger and thirst strike in prison... There is no empathy now for the families of Ivan Matović and Novica Antić, who are in custody under completely insane charges of subverting the constitutional order.
Asking where the Informer's empathy was when it broadcast the insane audio recordings that got both of these groups arrested is stupid. Because Informer has no empathy for Darko Glišić either. If he had, he wouldn't have replayed the footage of his stroke countless times. Not even Pink did that, and it happened on their show.
However, is this society incapable of compassion? It will be that it is not, it will be that this ability is still preserved in the rebellious citizens. If it wasn't, they wouldn't have gone to Novi Pazar to defend the attacked students, they wouldn't have gone through the thickets, fields, and the Danube-Tisa-Danube canal in boats to Bački Petrovac as a sign of solidarity with the Slovaks there who were attacked by SNS beaters. Neighbors in congregations would not protect and watch out for each other in these days when thugs vandalize the entrances of buildings where representatives of congregations live.
After all, if there was no compassion, people would not have been on the streets for nine months. And this with Glišić, it's just a signal that this society has partially removed compassion from itself as an act of self-defense against aggression, evil and senselessness, because that's the only way to survive all this. Because the regime is asking for mercy, but it would not give it to you.
