Today, Pavle Grbović is one of the most recognizable faces of the opposition. He is the leader of the Movement of Free Citizens and a member of parliament, and together with his colleagues from other opposition parties, he is one of the organizers of the "Against Violence" gathering.
"The uprising of the citizens arouses more hope now than four weeks ago, when it all started," says Pavle Grbović for "Vreme". "It's not just about the number of citizens at the protests, but also about their energy, readiness and determination to fight for what they took to the streets for - and that's normalcy. They are hungry for normalcy. It is understandable that there is impatience among some, but we must be realistic: this evil has taken root for more than ten years and will not go away overnight. Apart from that, the only thing the government believes in is that we will not last and that the energy will be exhausted after a few protests. It seems to me, however, that this will not happen."
"WEATHER" Can it be said that these protests have already had positive effects??
PAVLE GRBOVIĆ: Absolutely yes. I'm not talking about some small request that the government fulfilled, but about the fact that the unstoppable energy of freedom has awakened, which brings together an increasing number of citizens from week to week, who, despite different political views and ideologies, share basic human values and are ready to fight for those wrinkle values. The extraordinary success of the protest is also the fact that normality, or the fight for normality, has become a trend. It is an organic reaction of society - not the opposition scene - which identified their causes immediately after two related massacres.
The tragedies that were the immediate reason for the protests actually led to the bursting of a social ulcer that had been festering for more than a decade.. Can you say something like that??
Citizens in Serbia do not suffer from a lack of information, but from the barrage of bad news that we are bombarded with every day. Events have overtaken us, and everyday accidents and injustices around us have made us develop immunity to tragedies and injustices. For decades, we pushed things under the carpet and then it all awaited us and hit us in the most painful way possible. Probably the only tragedy greater than the mass killing of children is that the killer is a child. Then an unconvinced and multi-problematic young man, whose idols are reality stars and whose father is a military man with an arsenal of weapons at home, kills other young people. A society cannot receive a bigger slap, and he woke us up and sobered us up. That is why the slogan that says "everything must stop" was born. Everything has to stop, we must no longer allow ourselves to be overtaken by events and to say: it happened, let's move on. This must stop, the causes of what we are living in must be precisely identified and we must start building society on new, more humane and civilized foundations. Sobering was excruciatingly painful, but it seemed necessary.
Did these tragedies send a message that no one is actually safe in this kind of environment?
In Serbia, there are people who are relatively well-off, so they can, for example, pay for private school for their children. If they are sick, they can be treated by private doctors. However, the legal system is one. Whether you have money or not, you will go to the same judicial institutions which, unfortunately, are the source of injustice, not justice. Whether you have money or not, your child will go out tomorrow, and you will be afraid that someone will attack, beat or even kill him just because he is different or because, as it happened, he looked at someone. Those who should ensure his safety are members of criminal clans, they deal drugs in those places and are the main generators of insecurity. That "babble" that you can move out of reality simply burst. This system necessarily produces injustice, and it comes to each of us. It's just a matter of order.
To what extent are the protests different compared to before when it comes to the relationship between citizens and the opposition? Citizenship, it seems, for the first time, the fact that the rallies were initiated and that they are technically organized by the opposition is not a problem. How did it come about??
This is definitely a supra-political and supra-party issue, this is a question of the survival of society. As parliamentary opposition parties, we have taken on the formal responsibility to sign as organizers of the meeting, so that tomorrow - if there are any legal consequences - we will bear those consequences. In essence, we service the needs and demands of citizens. None of us pushed ourselves into the front rows, none gave speeches, none tried to capitalize on the gatherings politically. Such an attempt would be a disastrous mistake. For now, it shows that everyone in the opposition has political awareness and maturity. It is certain that there is also the desire of some to show themselves as bigger, better, stronger and more important, but before everyone there is a simple choice: either we will accept a role that may be smaller than the one we think belongs to us and thus contribute to the common success, or someone runs out to be a bigger leader than he can objectively handle and thus ruin everything. I repeat that everyone is showing maturity. It is about a generation of politicians that matured together and that managed to mutually establish the level of trust that is necessary for working together. And with that joint action, we managed to regain a certain level of citizens' trust. And now, we have a serious task and a huge responsibility in front of us not to break that trust. It is a question of political skill and moral standards.
You believe that you will be able to keep this trust of the citizens, that is, that it will grow?
I believe we will, although many things are against us. Let's say, there are even some from other opposition circles who, so to speak, poke and prod us non-stop. But we treat all these as external effects that will not deserve our serious attention, because we do not want to divert the focus from what is happening now in any way. All actors understand that this is the phase in which we are fighting for normality in society and the media. And when we fight for it, we will have time to compete with each other. Then someone will naturally grow into a leader. Now is not the time for that.
Do you think that at this moment the citizens are also sending a message that they expect the civil opposition to the elections, whenever they are, go out together?
In January, I stated that the unification of the opposition would not happen. I explicitly said that it is impossible to expect PSG, Dveri and DSS to be on the same electoral list. But I also added that we have reached the paradoxical situation that it is the most difficult to agree on those who are the most similar. And now something opposite is happening, the most complex are the ones that are the most similar, and I would like something more to come out of it. But let me clarify right away: these protests are not and should not be the beginning of a new opposition column, they are the beginning of a different social order, in which those who are left, right or in the center can walk together, those who disagree with each other but they have a common content in elementary human and civilizational values. And who are fighting for a society in which disagreements and differences will be overcome in a civilized way, without dehumanizing political opponents, without usurping the media for the sake of psychologically murdering opponents - as is happening today.
Everyone is curious about what's next.. What on Friday?, at the next rally? What after that?? Are there any plans?? It is clear that citizens do not expect precise plans in public, because the government will do everything to disavow them, but still everyone fears that this enormous energy will not have the expected effects in the end. Especially since summer is upon us, vacations.
It is realistic to expect that due to annual vacations, there will be a decrease in the number of citizens at protests. But we sincerely hope that the request will be fulfilled before then. Every subsequent gathering and every refusal of them to fulfill the demands, and every public appearance of theirs, further increases the pressure on them. Sometimes I think we make a mistake by putting pressure on ourselves. Nervousness is on their side. They are in a subordinate position. They are the ones who spend a month planning and organizing the gathering, in which they invest tens of millions of euros, so that there will be fewer of them than there were at any of the four meetings so far. We just need to be persistent and persistent. We have a plan for this Friday. The moment this interview comes out, people will already know about it. Let's go step by step. No pressure, no money, with very modest logistics, the day after something that was supposed to be "the biggest rally in history", but turned out to be the biggest fiasco in history. Under the same meteorological conditions, we proved that decent Serbia is in the majority. And that broke a serious psychological barrier.
The government's response to mass protests is inadequate, to say the least, even irrational. They are wandering around looking for damage control. They accuse "foreign services", provocateurs and thugs were activated again, media spins work in three shifts, but all to no avail. Actually, does the government even have an answer to "citizens' event"?
16-10...
Already from May 3rd and the tragedy at the school, it was clear that the government had lost its way. Propaganda as a tool to solve problems - no longer works. Patching holes with money and bribery - also no longer works. We are returning to the terrain of serious politics, that is, to the terrain of values where they do not know their way around at all. Their first, instinctive reaction after the tragedies was the assertion that "the system did not fail". Underlying that sentence was a refusal to question any or anyone's responsibility. They knew that if they started digging into whether the system failed and whether someone was responsible for it, they would come across all kinds of things. The statements they made were shockingly bad. We are not used to having an opponent who is not adapted to the situation to that extent. In fact, their entire strategy was a debacle.
Serbia cannot be led into Europe with Milošević's cadres and his policies without making civil, democratic Serbia an enemy. You cannot forever use engineering in which the only criteria for social mobility are loyalty to the ruling party and unscrupulous accumulation of capital and power without destroying all segments of society. All the problems began, unstoppably, to come out from under the carpet.
If the requirements are not met, is it logical that the responsibility is addressed to the man who decides on everything and is asked about everything, Aleksandar Vučić? That is, to demand his resignation? This request is also heard at rallies.
We did not want to go to the protests with a request for his removal, because we did not want to trivialize a serious social problem by competing with anyone, not even with Vučić. However, he portrays himself as someone who is most responsible for everything that happened. People have realized what are the immediate sources of social evil: television with national coverage, REM, RTS, ministers and the director of the BIA who are doing their job badly. And the only address that prevents the requests from being fulfilled is Aleksandar Vučić. Therefore, he puts himself in the position of the most responsible.
Vučić would like us to enter into negotiations with him, to bid on when the elections will be held, but we do not want that. If we went to rallies under the same meteorological conditions, we want to go to the elections under the same conditions. And for that to happen, it is necessary that the requirements are fulfilled, and that a certain amount of time passes in a normal atmosphere, so that we can then compete. Not only because the election results will be different, but because it is completely abnormal to organize elections in such a social crisis, with such strong tensions.
The unique position of the opposition is not to negotiate with Vučić on anything, not even about the elections, if the requirements are not met beforehand?
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Yet, he has mechanisms to call elections independent of your will. How will you react to that??
They have the mechanisms to do whatever they want. We will not be the ones to initiate elections to be called in these circumstances. If it does happen, we will make a decision on how to respond to it. However, I'm pretty sure that won't happen. If elections are called, it will be a sure way to keep rivers of people on the streets. I do not think that calling elections at this moment would bring fewer votes to the opposition, but I believe that elections now would not be good for society. And we must show responsibility for society, not concern for our election results.
Are they, in your opinion, protests accelerated change at the top of the Serbian Progressive Party? And what does that change even mean?
It is clear that Vučić, as the most popular politician, is dealing with the most unpopular party in Serbia, SNS. That is, that he will try to "rebrand" his political idea by creating a new movement and enter new victories refreshed. We have said many times that something is "the beginning of its end", but I think that everything that happened, and especially their reactions to catastrophic events, represents a turning point after which their fall is inevitable. The only question is how long it will last, but they cannot go back to the state they were in before May 3rd. There are some crisis situations that expose everything, including the fact that this government is completely incapable of running the country. The entire media machinery that is harnessed to disavow the citizens' protests and to glorify the "gathering of hope" that they made is no longer effective. Every citizen of this country knows, regardless of the media, what happened at the rally, how many people were there and what the energy was like after every "Serbia against violence" rally. On the other hand, the people who attended the "meeting of hopelessness" certainly did not return home motivated. They saw that the reality is much different than what Pink and Happy say. This is the beginning of the dismantling of the government, and it is our responsibility to make that dismantling as fast as possible. And let's not allow them, as they sink to the bottom, to drag the whole of Serbia down with them. And it happens that some authoritarian rulers say: well, if I sink, then everything with me will sink, so you will see how it is without me.
This is a thesis that Vučić will be ready to use when he realizes that the end of his reign is approaching "all available resources".
We already had that experience with Milosevic, we know how it ended. As we had experience with unfulfilled expectations after the Fifth of October. I don't think experiences are there to stop us from doing something new. Let's take, for example, the two last big gatherings: the "gathering of hopelessness", where there were many blackmailed, scared, misinformed, psychologically kidnapped people, and the gathering where people came voluntarily, convinced that they were doing something good, to send positive messages. Everyone in Serbia sees that only one of those two groups has the chance and strength to establish a new social structure and to bridge the gap between the opposing parties in society.
It is visible to the public that the pyramid of power is collapsing, people leave the ruling party, the progressives are arguing with each other... Are some people from the government structures trying to establish contact with you from the opposition?, buying a ticket to the political future? As happened before the fall of Slobodan Milošević...
There are lateral attempts, that is, such signals that there is serious turbulence in the government. Just as we must not be led by the ambition that one of us from the opposition should try to express and demonstrate in these circumstances, so we must not fall for this bait to think that in a few seconds or minutes we will speed up the disintegration of the government if in healthy tissue we are implementing people who have been the bearers of the wrong policy for more than ten years. That's what I said to Dragan Šormaz publicly, on the show, and that also applies to Zoran Mihajlović and everyone else. In the last ten years, there has been so much misfortune and injustice, so many chances for someone to show not only their political but above all their human differences in relation to the wrong system, and they kept silent. And somehow it coincided that their exit from the story coincides with the loss of functions and the evident beginning of the truncation of power. We cannot be easily permeable to those people. I understand that there are citizens who gave SNS some kind of a chance, who wanted to believe that Serbia is truly a leader in the region and were victims of media propaganda, so we should have understanding for them. But we must not be so soft-hearted for those who were the protagonists of the pernicious policy.
Vučić constantly repeats that "there will be no transitional government". When it's, except perhaps Boško Obradović, asked him to do it, Did I miss something??
A transitional government is not, as you know, a demand of these protests. It may be a way out of the political crisis at some point, sometime in the future. But when we talk about the acute symptoms of a chronic social crisis, the way out is to meet the demands. Citizens took to the streets because of this. I don't think they are interested in whether we will join a technical government, an expert government, a coalition government, a concentration government... And at the moment, we are concentrating exclusively on the fulfillment of these requirements. Transitional government is not a topic.
When it comes to requirements, especially this media work, some say that these requests are not well founded because of the complicated procedures for, let's say, dismissal of the REM Council a, revocation of broadcasters' licenses and so on. The authorities even say that you are proposing to break the law...
The demands are both legally and politically grounded. There are clear procedures for how requests can be met, there are even different legal avenues. But the form is not important, the key is the political will, whether or not someone recognizes that serious mistakes have been made and that we have a serious problem. Taking away the licenses of Pink and Happy is not our intimate desire nor is it a confrontation with anyone from those televisions. This is precisely the question of compliance with legal norms. Let us remind you that Happy was licensed as a television channel with children's content, and every day it carries out such pro-Russian war propaganda that even Rasha would be ashamed.
It's television whose editor-in-chief is brandishing a gun on the show. And so on. Therefore, all the legal requirements to revoke the broadcasting license of those two television stations have long been fulfilled. As for the REM Council, that problem can be solved in two ways. One is for members of the Council to resign, and the other is the adoption of a new law on electronic media, which would expire the mandate of the current composition of the Council. Basically, it is a serious manipulation: the government wants to show that our demands are in conflict with the freedom of the media. And this is not about freedom, but about serious abuse of the media. And it is about denying freedom of speech to all those who have a different attitude than the government's.
At the end, whether all this happening can in a paradoxical way benefit Vučić in his relations with the West? Let's say, to say: evo, you see, I have a serious political crisis, I cannot impose sanctions on Russia, I cannot do anything about the Kosovo issue, and so on.
The international community has long had no understanding of our ambivalent attitude towards the war in Ukraine. The room for maneuver for Serbia is getting smaller and smaller, and the consequences we suffer every day are getting more and more serious. We are already under some kind of indirect diplomatic sanctions, and this can be seen from how our delegations are doing in numerous international forums. We are ranked right next to the Russian delegation, both in terms of treatment and in terms of how much our word is listened to. It is clear that by announcing elections, Vučić could try to postpone the making of major decisions or the implementation of those already made, but all that has been read a long time ago.
