"In our liberation war, one of the essential conditions for success is to know the enemy's situation and his intentions on the one hand, and on the other hand not to let the enemy know our situation and our intentions. That is the task of our intelligence service. The intelligence service represents the most powerful weapon of command…” Josip Broz Tito,
I realized that the devil had played the joke again in the late summer of 2014, after the first extraordinary elections, that is, when PPV (the first deputy prime minister) became the prime minister of Serbia and appointed new ministers. At the moment when I realized that, the director Janko Baljak was sitting next to me and was listening attentively to the same thing as me. And who, how and why sat across from us, goes beyond the scope of this text. And, to some extent, my sanity. Janko's presence meant a lot to me for two reasons: in a way, I had a witness that I hadn't gone completely crazy, and he could also hold me in case I passed out.
Not even 100 days of the new government had passed, and the first hints of a future totalitarian regime appeared through a seemingly ridiculous phenomenon: in private conversations with the prime minister, they no longer called the prime minister, Vučić, Aleksandar, or Aca. Just like this: "We'll see what the State says", "We'll ask the State", said his associates quietly. The state, that's Him, of course. Almost at the same time, the famous text of the young philosopher Kaić, the so-called a list of internal enemies, which included us Twitterers; "Impression of the Week" and other programs disappeared from the small screens; fear was gently creeping into Serbia, while slowly but surely a new leader was being born.
I don't know how it is in Montenegro, but our Leader likes quotes a lot. He did not quote this Titov from the introduction, at least not publicly, but he would certainly be blown away when he read it, because he is also the head of the Bureau for the Coordination of Security Services. He promised to resign from this position, but how, how? Well, that's the most fun part of the game! And that game has been played in Serbia for decades, listen decades - more than a century! By the way, I didn't faint at the moment described in the first paragraph, but I did realize the level this game has reached.
In addition to unlimited propaganda, Vođa soon mastered cyberspace - for the purpose of the same propaganda, among other things. Of course, he had to introduce censorship beforehand, because how would we have the illusion of "free space" and "unlimited freedom of speech"? The freedom we have on social networks is increasingly in favor of censorship, as a relief in the general control of our Leader's intelligence services. The stronger the control of the mainstream media became - the greater the "freedom" on social networks became. Almost all dissenters in one place. The job is much easier.
In recent weeks, we have reached the pre-election "bonus" level of the aforementioned game: data, opinions, attitudes, intolerance, contacts, agreements or conflicts; plans or dilemmas of the voters or the opposition... All the information that used to take months and even years of hard work for services can now be accessed in a few minutes.
And the Leader does not intend to lose this presidential election even in his nightmares. How, in general, can a man who has under his control the media, money, state administration, hooligans, all the secret services and more of us lose the elections?
If the internet is the only thing "left" for us, then it would be good if, at least until the election, the quarrels, incitements, accusations of stealing slogans, fights and fights of various kinds should stop; it would be good to stop "spreading" misinformation, destructive content and all the nonsense that they plant on us. It should be understood that hope can only exist when we ourselves make the act of hope possible. That's the only way people will be encouraged to go to the polls en masse.
(Bojana Maljević is an actress and producer, "Twitter, scumbag, foreign mercenary" in her free time)
Bonus video:
