Policemen saw Belgrade on Saturday, soldiers saw it. Members of the Serbian Progressive Party saw Belgrade. Ivica Dacic also saw him. And nothing is the same anymore
It cannot be said otherwise: Tomorrow has already happened..
Tomorrow, it seems, will be the same day as any day before. But it will only look like that because tomorrow will dawn a day that has never dawned before. On Sunday, March 16, the autocrat will wake up - if he sleeps at all - reduced to his own measure. And that's not much.
People will return to their homes, students to their blocked faculties, the regime's propaganda will continue in its own way, half the world will continue to pretend to be students in that little park (maybe they won't, but it doesn't matter), the president will continue to lie, and students and citizens will continue to walk through Serbia, to pump and undermine his government. All right. And what has changed?
Everything has changed.
Well, the way Serbian citizens saw Belgrade today has changed. All day Vučić, to his horror, watched hundreds of thousands of citizens of this country who did not gather because of their love for him (on the contrary).
Policemen saw Belgrade on Saturday, soldiers saw it. Members of the Serbian Progressive Party saw Belgrade. Ivica Dacic also saw him. (Branko Ružić saw it too.) We all saw and they all saw what cannot be ignored - hundreds of thousands of people who will resist the regime everywhere, in every place - even though the regime will pretend that nothing happened.
On the one hand, therefore, now we have a man who is not able to fill a cultural center in a small Serbian town without "spontaneously" bringing people who will listen to him and, of course, love him; on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of people who, at their own expense and with their own feet, come to dislike him.
On the one hand, we have a man who recklessly threatens completely peaceful citizens and announces the apocalypse, then organizes a terrible (and shameful, in the middle of the commemorative silence) provocation at the end of the day, brings out the gendarmerie and - nothing; on the other hand, we have people who do not accept violence.
On the one hand, we have a man whose lies no longer pass (because they are so raw), like the one with the plainclothes policeman in front of RTS who claimed that "someone" had injured him with a boxer, even though he was knocked out by a heavily armored colleague; on the other, some decent world that seems very determined.
On the one hand, half a world in the park in front of the palace (paid to protect the supreme being); on the other hand citizens.
On the one hand, we have the party machinery, which is probably falling apart - does anyone think that after several waves of arrests of the lower party echelons, anyone among them feels safe (therefore, the contract between the party members and the leader has been broken: we do what we want, you don't touch us and protect us, and we support you unreservedly); on the other hand, people who want justice.
The biggest dilemma was whether the regime would have the strength to respond to the rally in Belgrade with violence. He didn't dare. It was broken. The students immediately interrupted the meeting and slapped him, as it were.
Another big dilemma is whether the regime will have the strength to take revenge - if the protests die down?
It's really hard to believe now. First of all, the protests will not die down, and now it is quite certain that the regime does not have the strength for serious repression. Maybe, in desperation, he will have to try, and what will be the response of the police and (ahem...) he will see when he tries.
Anyone who condemns the regime's targeting of people from the media, the non-governmental sector, the opposition and universities, must not agree to this targeting of RTS editors and journalists either.
The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Depriving Dejan Ilić, an intellectual with an impeccable life and work biography, of his freedom, without the slightest meaningful reason, is just one of the brutal indicators that the regime has turned against its own citizens and is entering a phase of terror
Where Seselj left off, Vucic continues. Why did Ana Grozdanović, a member of the SPS Main Board, deserve the position of Minister of Justice in Dr. Macuta's government? And what the regime wants to achieve with the Stalinist campaign of intimidation
These are the last days when there is a chance that the great rebellion in Serbia will not pass in vain and without a political result. If it goes that way, the regime will launch an even stronger retaliation
Anyone who condemns the regime's targeting of people from the media, the non-governmental sector, the opposition and universities, must not agree to this targeting of RTS editors and journalists either.
The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Depriving Dejan Ilić, an intellectual with an impeccable life and work biography, of his freedom, without the slightest meaningful reason, is just one of the brutal indicators that the regime has turned against its own citizens and is entering a phase of terror
Vučić and Šešelj: Where I stopped, you continue
The return of radical violence subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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