About civil ingenuity

Going to protests, I saw a lot of people in cafes, I would shoot them all with a look that they must have thought was directed at them through the black windows of the presidential car, although the president and I look at them reproachfully, each from our own, completely different motives; then I would observe the passers-by walking in the wrong direction: a pozhiloi citizen in sneakers, easy-going and self-satisfied, goes further and further away from the Assembly, everything is dark for you, you are tanned, maybe you play golf, or your development path is stopped in tennis; behind him, an even more satisfied passer-by, aggressively chewing gum (like Sir Alex Ferguson), you are in the condition that the Americans say you are walking and chewing gum at the same time, but you are not old enough to think about the community of which you are a proud member, a girl is following him with her face all sunken in mobile, it's extra life, you have twitter, you receive and send all kinds of nonsense, and while it's free, there's no need for anything to disturb or make waves in the universe, and a citizen of my age comes by, walking focused and cheerful, with two bags full of new Necessities and non-necessities, and those on the wrong side, where, my generation, are you in a hurry to watch "Puzzle"? Go ahead, keep doing it until another year passes, the Assyrians and Babylonians watched the "Puzzle" too. 1

Isn't there perhaps a need for a catalog of excuses that my brothers in Christ unfailingly resort to whenever someone asks them why they never go to a protest and why they won't go out to vote?

1. I walked as much against Milosevic, so what did I get?! Let it be even worse than under Slobo! Let someone who is new to it walk, I walked mine, thank you very much! How many mistakes are there in this seemingly prudent, albeit overly shaken and final, irrevocable, apparently repeated position? a) The fight against the perversity of self-states does not end with the overthrow of a self-ruled person, opposition to tyranny is not a work action after which one gets a striker's badge, and the train on the Brcko-Banovići railway can safely transport passengers and cargo to the end of the world: concern for the well-being and future of the community follows homo sapiens until the last, as Godard said, breath. b) What you got, and what you are getting today - in your nose, in your pocket, in your dignity - did not result from your protests of the last century, but, behold, it was precisely the subsequent and persistent neglect of the population that allowed all power to be seized by a pest even bigger than the previous despot !

2. They are all the same! This is the favorite excuse, the mother and father of all excuses, whenever someone tries not to go out to vote, or to protest against a corrupt and crime-ridden state. The mind, of course, at least in my case, constantly strives for laziness, continuously, what was said in the army, crooks, avoids doing what it is obliged to do, a cliché that has rubbed off who knows when, the mind looks to sell as its own product that is still under with a guarantee, and that very sentence is proof that reasoning is suspended and that instead of thinking, a ready-made pattern is pushed, which has never been honestly reexamined. The sameness, as well as the difference, can only be spoken of as something concrete and limited, the emperor and his retinue can be similar (so let them be the same) in something definite, in something sayable: in shamelessness, selfishness, insincerity, greed, thuggery and half-brotherhood. They are the same in many other ways, they are the same because they are a list of beings of the hierarchy, merciless towards those below, and humble and too accommodating towards those above, but the statement "they are all the same" means that we are in a haunted world where those who they oppose the regime with the same emphasis as a proven pest association that has made sure to be unchangeable as long as there is sun and as long as there is a moon. And people are both the same and not the same, it depends on which of the innumerable multitude of their attributes we observe: I claim that there are still members of the human race in Serbia, who would contribute to building a system instead of autocracy in which politicians will be constantly accountable to those who elected them, and where all politicians, even if they had good results, will be replaceable and will be replaced by others, who will take care of society with even more zeal and with new soul-beneficial visions and plans.

3. Who should I vote for? For the yellow ones, for those who sent our president, our generals, our poet and psychiatrist to The Hague? For those who sold Kosovo, who ruined such an army, melted tanks into scrap metal... Buckle up, brothers! The "yellow" label, which was invented by a journalist, or perhaps the youngest doctor of science in the SFRY (the creator of the word "dosmanlije"), proved to be so effective that even the former voters of the Democratic Party are against the yellow ones, even though (1.) the yellow ones are also changing, secondly, the yellows are not the only ones in the modern resistance movement, i.e. in the People's Front (later it will bear the name of Queen Natalija) oppose the autocracy. Thirdly, each of these patriotic pathetic assertions could be called into question, eventually, or first: whatever happened, even those who erred, erred less than those who err now, and we must, side by side with the imperfect , with the opposition, perhaps in their organization, to save what can be saved.

4. I am not a member of any party, I am not interested in politics, I mind my own business and have a clean face! Whoever says that he is not a member of any party, points it out as something extremely classy and noble, and that is in the same level as what his wife says to the drunkard Joca Rnjak ("Tutori", B. Čosić) when he returns home drunk at a bad time to where the roof is leaking and some children are coughing: it's still a good thing that he's not in prison for slaughtering a priest or a judge, but, well, he just ate the little money they had for a short time... So: someone not being a member of the party is the same as he didn't slaughter the pope or the judge, but what about that!? Doesn't minding your own business also mean going to the polling station? Voting, in my opinion, is very much part of your business.

5. Should I vote for Djilas?! For that Boško?! Or for that Sorbonne who is dumber than any illiterate person?! This apparently concrete and practical thinking also does no honor to the thinkers: you don't have to vote for those who first come to your mind in terms of hatred, there are so many younger people, but you don't mention them, and why, because you wouldn't be able to explain what you resent them so bitterly. Go to the polls determined not to vote for the ruling party, then ignore the beings who get on your nerves or whom you don't trust, then vote for someone who is acceptable to you among those who remain after your triage.

6. Who am I to change something! Those who decided to reduce the population on the planet are also deciding on us, they are taking Kosovo from us, they are sending us new viruses, new diseases, you don't even know how many members the world government has, or where its seat is... When I hear that I don't have three days of happiness, reducing myself (myself, and even Serbia) to nothing, and giving so much power to "them" is a favorite way for a lazy or conceited citizen to ignore worries about everyday life and what is local, and what is therefore feasible. They, well they... Who are "they"!? It's like you only know the pronoun "they"! What about the pronoun "we", what about the pronoun "I"?! Az is the first letter of the alphabet and the first person singular: "There az pojdu!" - says Vuk Isaković. Other letters come from the Self, from the Self comes the language itself in its unfathomable comprehensiveness and diversity, the Self must be at the center of the choice, it depends on each Self, as perhaps for Saint Nicholas it will be for all of us!

(Peščanik.net)

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* On the city lake, they drive a boat for hours,/ I really just look at it with disgust./ Driving a boat when we are in debt up to our throats, and in a rut,/ In a country like this - how can you put up with it!

I just smoke, I just observe,/ And I think what I think, I think: Just go ahead,/ Here they even play the harmonica - it's a sin,/ To play the harmonica, and the earth groans under black shame!

I'm thinking coldly, just play, just drive your own way./ I spit on it, it doesn't really concern me anymore./ I've been watching it silently for several years/ And I can clearly see where we're going.

On the Orkney Islands - we read that in the book "Half to Half" -/ The inhabitants lived by doing their own laundry./ Go ahead, do it like that until another year passes,/ Assyrians and Babylonians drove the churn too.

B. Brecht: "Political Considerations"