Selaković as Vučić: Instagram slogans with the noise of whistles

The "Culture in Blockade" initiative called on Monday to the blockade of the building of the Ministry of Culture. A large number of individuals, guild artistic groups such as film workers, ballet dancers, visual artists, musicians, then artists of the Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia, institutions such as the Terazije Theater and the Belgrade Philharmonic, students led by those from the Faculty of Dramatic Artists and a large number of citizens responded.

While they were protesting, the Minister of Culture Nikola Selaković addressed them. But not live, he did not come in front of them and talk to them who came to his door, as any Serbian host would do, but he sent them a message - via Instagram, a video, the way Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić does every day.

How wonderful it is to live now!

He filmed himself in his office in front of two national flags so that those watching him would always remember who and what he is.

The minister's office overlooks Vlajkovićeva Street, and the windows are obviously not resistant to whistles, so the noise is in the background from the beginning to the end of the minister's video. Like those that were the background sound of the President's address from the Presidency. If he didn't want to experience the same thing as the president, Selaković could have taken refuge in a room without noise.

From the quavering voice, he seemed uncomfortable doing what he was doing. It wasn't because of nervousness, Selaković has a lot of experience in public performances. And especially not because of anxiety about whether he will be able to say everything he wants, because he has long known by heart what and how he should say it.

For example, that life in Serbia has never been better, at this very moment, while people are protesting, so he reminded them how they supposedly had it bad before, until the Serbian Progressive Party came to power. The other day, Vučić also convinced a disabled person who receives a pension of 8000 dinars that he has never been better off than now.

Let them just remember, said Selaković, how it was for them when culture was led by "Đilas, Šolak, Marinika, Ješić and other separatists in an attempt from the north of our homeland", and how they are now, when this year's culture budget is 17 percent lower higher than last year.

Deception and false promises

If he had made it possible for them, people in the culture would have told him that it was not true. Despite this increase, due to inflation and who knows what else, this year the state allocated less as a percentage of its entire budget than last year: now it is 0.67 percent, and it was 0,68 percent. And that's not more, it's less.

If Instagram hadn't protected him, they would have told him that his arguments were actually just promises.

Now he has announced that he will opening of the Nadežda and Rastka Petrović Memorial Museum to be in a month, although he said in December that it would be this February, and although before that he stated some other deadlines. After that, he promised, the restoration of the Gallery of Frescoes, the Milena Pavlović Barili Gallery in Požarevac, the Museum of Glassmaking in Paraćin, and the Mihajlo Pupin Center in Idvor will begin.

As if all this was not already promised who knows how many times, only with deadlines that have already passed by now. Same as the president.

He also said that "continuing investment in culture is only possible if we have serious people like President Vučić at the head of the state, if we have a serious and stable government, a Serbian government, a government that will also lead Serbian cultural policy."

The emphasis is on the words "only if". So, the message is that otherwise the culture will not get as much as it is getting now.

As if it is not the culture of his native country, but someone he considers an enemy, for example the culture of the opposition.

Selakovic was aware of the whistle. Just as the cultists in the blockade of his Ministry saw that people were greeting them from the window of that same Ministry. They seemed united, that they were on the same side. Selakovic was alone.