Student demonstrations have been going on for months and are awakening the dormant Serbian society from lethargy, apathy and powerlessness. The students are joined by numerous social groups, professions, institutions… it is difficult to even count who has stood by the rebellious youth and supported their demands. Educators, farmers, lawyers, doctors, artists, judges, university professors, broad circles of citizens, all have shown solidarity with the students, delighted with their rebellion against the authoritarian regime.
Protest rallies were held in at least 150 places in Serbia, even where demonstrations had never taken place or had not occurred since the struggle against the regime of Slobodan Milošević in the XNUMXs.
The extent to which citizens are enthusiastic about academics was evident during the student march from Belgrade to Novi Sad. At every step, the walkers were greeted by massive crowds of locals, offering them food, drinks, teas, vitamins, medicine, everything they needed – and in huge quantities.
Our mountains are weeds
People passing by the students bowed to the column, there were moving moments, many tears were shed. During the years of regime violence and humiliation, so much anger, sadness, dissatisfaction had accumulated in the citizens... and all of it was now poured out in one giant sigh of relief. The scenes from the students' welcome have not been seen in this region for a long time, they are most reminiscent of the enthusiastic welcome of the partisans, the liberators, at the end of World War II. No wonder, we have been under occupation for too long, only this time the occupier did not come from outside, but was of domestic origin, a weed of our own.
In the changed social and political atmosphere, when hundreds of thousands of Serbian citizens are freed from fear and waking up from the progressive nightmare, it is quite logical that various groups are trying to latch onto the ongoing rebellion and use it for their own purposes. Changes are in sight, there is a feeling in the air the smell of spring, the fall of the regime is in sight, we should also think about the day after, in what direction to take Serbia, what kind of society to build when a criminal clique once smoothAll of this is expected and natural, it's just a bit bizarre when support for students comes from ideological circles whose worldview led to the social disintegration that students are rebelling against.
In the first weeks after the canopy fell, the whole country was in shock, everyone reacted instinctively, sympathizing with the victims and their families, demanding the arrest of those responsible and the resignation of those in charge. Only the prominent Serbian professional patriots remained silent, as if nothing extraordinary was happening. They did not feel the need to speak out, to cry out for justice, to speak a word of comfort and encouragement. This is not illogical either, they love the people more abstractly, as a whole and an idea, and do not care much about specific individuals and their banal lives. If citizens did not die in the fight for Serbianness and the homeland, if they did not fall at the hands of foreigners, such victims are simply useless for patriots, they do not fit into their ideological concept.
Principles of sovereign politics
However, when the demonstrations became massive, when the social environment changed, the on-duty defenders of the nation, the holy Serbian land and the even more holy Mother Russia, emerged from their hiding places. Groups regularly appear at protests with a flag visibly displayed on which the words “No surrender” are written over a map of Kosovo. This visual motif is a favorite among to the non-givers Kosovo, a T-shirt with the same image was worn by the son of President Aleksandar Vučić at the time, and he had some problems with the Kosovo authorities. Professional fans, guards of the Mladić mural, and other drug dealers also like to adorn themselves with this insignia.
There is a group at the protests non-giver Kosovo is essentially marginalized, their influence is small, unlike the prominent intellectuals, writers, university professors, academics, public figures who profess a similar worldview. One such group rushed to ostensibly support the students, using official support as a cover for their true intentions and the promotion of ideas that are diametrically opposed to the students' demands.
The false support was published under the thunderous title “Principles of Sovereign Policy”, which the unscrupulous media reported as news that “a group of professors and public figures supported the students and announced that they were advocating a new sovereign policy”. Everything is wrong in the media perception of this announcement. At the very beginning of the text, the sovereignists stated that the tragedy in Novi Sad showed that “the basic physical security of the individual and the fight against corruption and partocracy cannot be ensured in the conditions of collective lack of freedom of the semi-colonial status of Serbia”.
The injustice of a lawless country
And whose semi-colony is Serbia? The European Union, of course. What does the EU have to do with the canopy? Was it a European or Chinese company that worked on the reconstruction? The Chinese, of course. So why don't the sovereignists accuse China? It doesn't fit into their concept. In the European Union, corruption is incomparably less prevalent than in non-democratic states, but for some reason the sovereignists believe that Serbia's alliance with this community hinders the indigenous domestic fight against corruption, for which we have been known for at least two centuries.
Sovereignists advocate “the principle of the primacy of national law over international law,” which, they say, “is fully in line with the demands of the emerging multipolar world.” What kind of emerging multipolar world is this? One in which an aggressor Russia controls at least half of humanity, denying the international order and any supranational institutions.
In such an order, war criminals from Serbia would never be tried before any courts, they would not be extradited to The Hague, but would be considered national heroes, without having been forced to do so beforehand. serve a sentence for horrific atrocities. In such a world, Serbian citizens would not be able to file lawsuits with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, seeking justice they cannot obtain in their own country, but would have to endure the terror of domestic patriots. Sovereignists do not recognize international courts, they only recognize the injustice of their own lawless country, where the judiciary is traditionally loyal to the party, not the law.
New Greater Serbian politics
Sovereignists, of course, advocate for “preserving national and state unity”, which is the exact opposite of democratic principles and plurality. We have had national unity for decades, since the Eighth Session, and we have reached a catastrophic state of widespread corruption and the symbiosis of government and crime, as a logical consequence of this general nationalism. Sovereignists put the “principle of defending the territorial integrity of the state” first, meaning by that the famous refusal to give Kosovo away. These smart people would rather erase the past, the mass crimes against Albanians, the persecutions, the cold storages and mass graves, forget why Kosovo is no longer part of Serbia, and then re-implement the policy that led to secession. A wise plan, no assembly.
In the name of Kosovo, which they have driven out of Serbia through violence and crimes, the sovereignists propose the “immediate suspension of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) between the European Union and the Republic of Serbia”. Aside from the fact that Serbia survives economically precisely thanks to European integration, aside from the fact that the return of Kosovo is impossible, so this is a matter of political fantasy, aside from the fact that the sovereignists even want a Kosovo without Albanians – it remains unclear how stopping European integration will stop corruption. It is more likely that such a radical move would increase corrupt practices to unimaginable limits, so that the demolition of the canopy would become an almost everyday occurrence.
The sovereignists have an adequate substitute for European integration – that is why they advocate the “principle of the primacy of Serbian integration”. There is no need to interpret this principle much. It is clear that behind this formulation lies an old, hegemonic program known under names such as “Greater Serbia”, “homogeneous Serbia” or “Serbian world”. A truly ingenious idea, as the independent media would say – “new politics”. Radicals in disguise are in power, people who have made careers on the idea of territorial expansion, and our downfall occurred because of hegemonic pretensions that led us into four wars and unheard-of crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. At the end of that process, we got the progressive Vučić regime, as a natural consequence of persisting in the same Greater Serbia ideology as punishment for not facing the past and changing the political and ideological paradigm.
To make the whole sovereigntist thing even more comical, towards the end of the proclamation our virtuous right-wing intellectuals state: “The majority will of the students, whose five demands we fully support, has clearly shown that Serbia needs a change of system, and not just a change of people in power”. And then you decided to change the system by keeping the ideology and politics that created it? Did you come up with that yourself or did someone help you?
Right-wing absurdity
The sovereignists are not alone in their plans, mainly due to the fact that the nationalists, otherwise passionate opponents of Serbian divisions, are divided into warring factions. The sovereignist proclamation was signed by veterans of the fight for failed ideas: Slobodan Antonić, Miloš Ković, Slobodan Vladušić, Vladimir Dimitrijević, Časlav Koprivica, Dušan Proroković and the like. They are mainly present in right-wing media, as well as in Kremlin branches, Sputnik i RT Balkans, since they essentially advocate Russian interests anyway.
However, independent media also have their favorites with similar worldviews, among whom Prof. Dr. Milo Lompar, a former member of the Dveri Political Council, stands out. He too advocates for similar ideas as the sovereignists, only under the guise of a “Serbian standpoint”. Lompar also protects Kosovo, rushes to meet Putin’s Russia, opposes European integration, denies the genocide in Srebrenica and advocates for the cultural unity of the Serbian people, until the conditions are met for the unification of all Serbs into one state. Of course, Lompar also supports students and fights against the regime with which he shares views on most political issues. He too would like us to take the same path to the abyss again, for the umpteenth time, hoping that this time we will miraculously end up somewhere else. Wise, no problem.
The mentioned groups and individuals are not alone in their ideological blindness; there are many people who share some of their ideas, if not all, many. non-giver Kosovo, nationalists and similar misguided figures throughout the Serbian political, social and intellectual scene. The students' demands are clear - they demand that institutions do their job, that those responsible be brought to justice, that prosecutors' offices and courts function... in short - they demand a rule of law. Where nationalism, hegemonic aspirations, anti-Europeanism, Putinophilia, loyalty to someone else's autocratic regime reign - there is no rule of law.
Right-winging is not only an ideological dead end, but also the most ordinary stupidity. What is the point of overthrowing an autocrat in one's own country in order to then submit to an autocrat from another, much more powerful state? It is simply absurd. While students are fighting for the elementary functioning of the Republic, for institutions and the law, our virtuous intellectuals are telling us that after Vučić's fall, we should remain on the same ideological course that created Vučić and destroyed Serbia.
In a country deeply poisoned by nationalism, we can only hope for a miracle – that citizens will manage to draw logical conclusions from the student demands they support, and that after the departure of the progressives, Serbia will move in a slightly different direction. Stranger things have happened on worldly life, and the future is open and depends only on us.
Bonus video:
