This is election year. In that direction, the public will see all sorts of things - violence, revenge to individuals like the professor Jelena Kleut, media tyranny, brutal trampling of the constitution and laws...
As before, there will be bribery poorer, uneducated and marginalized strata. For their votes, the regime will offer boxes of sugar, flour and oil, minor medical assistance over the line, perhaps used white goods and up to fifty euros in cash. Many will accept. And they will not only sell their vote but also thank Vučić "who was the only one who gave them something in their life".
Ordinary people
It is easy to judge that world. It is even easier in a moral climate to rant about how there is no help for Serbia as long as its people sell their backbone and dignity for a box of the cheapest detergent.
And yet - said Jarvis of Palp - these are people watching their own lives pass them by. They were not and will never go to sea. Any extraordinary expenditure for them is a monetary blow. They save on everything - food, shoes, clothes, hygiene products. The dentist is a mental noun for them, heroin is cheaper than drugs, the media is irrelevant and meaningless.
They live miserably like their parents, and there is every chance that their children will live like that too. So - in satire on the roughest casual jobs. What do the concepts of democracy, parliamentarism, division of power, civil rights represent to anyone in this exploitation? Nothing at all.
Yes, the police beat them - and when they don't? There is no justice for them in the courts. They hear that education is the path to social advancement, even though those who tell them this know that these are fairy tales in a party and mafia state.
Fuck that world for the Expo, the European Union, media freedom, the Belgrade-Subotica railway, the National Stadium and, in general, almost everything that politicians say. They have none of that. If somewhere I can earn a small fortune from all this - good. If it turns out the opposite - again, good, they didn't even count.
And something else. These ordinary people are often the prey of demagogues and autocrats. This is their only chance to at least show their teeth to someone - usually another nation - and be a part of the national community for a while.
Back to life
There is no pride when there is a threat of power outages, bailiffs, loss of miserable social assistance. Although the progressive package and a few reds in the cache will not solve any problems, it will make it easier to get through the month or at least the week. It is not a great philosophy.
Together with the entire society, the regime is dragging the poor into the abyss in particular. The only way to get out of it is a change of government. And in order to win over at least part of those people whose lives pass by them, it is necessary to listen to them without patronizing, promoting and making cheap promises. And, above all, show solidarity with them by personal example, help wherever possible and ask them for nothing in return.
Sometimes it will pass, sometimes it won't. However, there is no other way to break the dependence on the packages and reds that the regime takes away future, hope and self-respect.
