System error

The death of a child is always at the top of the psychological scale of stress in all cultures. These days, a large number of children and young people died in Serbia in two cases of mass shooting. Whether it is an elementary school in the center of Belgrade or young people in the villages of Malo Orašje and Dubona near Mladenovac, the loss of these lives has completely paralyzed Serbia.

Such tragedies have their roots in the social climate, the family and the psychological profile and condition of the perpetrators of the crime. As we look for the causes at different levels, from society to the individual, we can also observe the consequences, with the hope that we will start the long and painful healing process as soon as possible. That is exactly why I chose the message from the banner, one of the few, from the protest walk in Belgrade, which was held under the slogan "Stop the violence!", as the title of this text. I'm afraid we're in a state of systemic error, one that doesn't happen by chance and is repeated because of the system's inability to change.

For days, watching the endless television reports and speculation, I tried to recognize this sense of loss that goes beyond the simple grief of someone's death. Many people have spoken about the state of numbness in the face of loss, after which not only our individual lives, but also society as a whole, are irrevocably changed. In recent history, unfortunately, we have already experienced such a tragedy once when Zoran Đinđić was killed. In one moment I recognized that spasm, the paralysis of society, the necrophilia of the media and the need for people to share the feeling of tragedy in complete silence, in one walk. This is what the walks in the streets of Belgrade and Novi Sad looked like this week, just like the endless columns of young and old who lit candles and left flowers at the scene of the crime.

Such events in the history of a country represent benchmarks against which time and social processes are measured. They are moments of the most terrible crisis, the darkest hours, which are crossroads with at least two roads. One is getting used to evil, accepting a new, dark reality, with cosmetic, ceremonial days of mourning in a directed reality without responsibility and consequences, until the next opportunity and another systemic failure. This is the path in which the politics of self-preservation wins, it is the path of those who survived, buried the victims and want to return to the time before the tragedy.

The second, much more difficult path, requires rising from daily politics, with a deep look into oneself and a look into the mirror of individuals and society. I'm not talking here about a mere change of government, a change of politicians, but a change in the system that leads to tragedy. This requires social consensus, but even more it requires statesmen, not politicians. This was, for example, Churchill when he addressed the parliament before the German invasion. It has been felt these days in Serbia that citizens are waiting for words of comfort, words of hope, especially those who watched TV programs for hours thinking they would hear them from political or religious leaders. Unfortunately, they didn't hear them.

MEDIA DOWNTURN

Instead, television stations were given the opportunity to drive citizens completely crazy with non-stop coverage of killers and their victims. Although there are clear and simple recommendations on reporting on violence, the majority of television stations have completely rejected the rules of professional work. This especially applies to commercial television, which, in addition to the need to attract viewers, had the obvious task of taking care of political propaganda of the most banal type.

This double role of the media in the previous days was very noticeable, perhaps most noticeable in the work of the public service. While they were engaged in journalistic reporting on the murders at the "Vladislav Ribnikar" school or in Mladenovac, everything was mostly professional, if we except Professor Simeunović's ramblings about autism. However, as soon as politics appeared, either at the press conferences of the President, members of the Government, the President's guest appearances announcing the show on Happy TV, or the 49-second coverage of the protest marches in Belgrade and Novi Sad, instead of journalism, propaganda appeared. RTS is unable to resist the political demands of daily politics, consciously working to its own detriment, which is tragic.

We saw that moment of disbelief when, at the first conference, a colleague asked the President a question about the display of photographs of corpses that he had taken while talking about the Belivuk and Miljković clans. Even if we believe that the intention was to sensitize the public to gruesome scenes, along the lines of, say, traffic safety campaigns where you show pictures of gruesome accidents but no dead bodies, it turns out that the effect was not achieved. Instead of people being disgusted by violence, it (which is quite logical and what the experts warned against) escalated and we got new corpses. In such a situation, you can admit a mistake, but it would also mean that REM was also wrong, because it explained the display of violence and corpses by "public interest".

Televisions broadcast statements about "Western values", broadcast images of lists of children made by the killer, published the identity of minors, details of health records, descriptions of family relationships, speculations of the most diverse kind with constant additional victimization of the victims, their families and survivors. The only important thing was to have as much as possible of increasingly shocking news without selection, verification and ethics. For the umpteenth time, we started with a story about wonderful guys, for example, who killed powerful people for unknown reasons. Within a few hours, the sad fact is confirmed that every act of this kind of violence has its own history and signals that no one reacted to.

HYSTERICAL DEFENSE

It quickly became apparent that citizens persistently mentioned television, especially Pink and Happy, as creators of an atmosphere of acceptance of violence in the public media space. On these two televisions, a campaign for unhindered broadcasting of reality programs of all kinds and dissuading citizens from spontaneous or organized gatherings on the occasion of tragic events began almost immediately. We could recognize the importance of this topic when President Vučić joined the campaign, very reluctantly, relativizing the influence of these media, especially on young people. In the reports from the protests on those televisions, a video of the editor of the "Tabloid", a marginal character who, after love, became a hater of Vučić, a man whom every decent person can only be ashamed of, was deliberately taken out.

B92 was also mentioned as the progenitor of reality TV, all in the desire to preserve the basic media tools of the regime, Pink and Happy television. Despite the shameful fact that members of the Government could not be seen among citizens, neither at the scene of the accident nor on walks, we heard on several occasions crazy statements by some analysts about the safety of citizens at spontaneous or organized gatherings. The President broadcast a bizarre broadcast on Happy TV snuff video that the juvenile killer allegedly watched in preparation for the crime. The citizens were ridiculed when they lit candles at the scene of the tragedy, because candles are lit in the church, for God's sake, scaring people that some new madman might appear at the gatherings and shoot them. In short, political propaganda has reached its lowest level since TV Bastille, in hysterical fear of losing ratings.

In the meantime, three days of mourning were declared in Serbia, which was a logical decision, but it turned out that the day before the official start, as well as in the days after the end, in the majority of media, an extraordinary program remained in effect, with less music and entertainment. Even the semi-final evenings of the Eurovision Song Contest were transferred to RTS 3, because it was not possible to limit this period of acute state of mourning. It must be admitted that among the Government's decisions there were also several rational measures, such as a moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for firearms, revisions of existing licenses and tightening of measures for the possession of illegal weapons. There will also be an increased number of police officers who will be on duty in all schools. Police officers are certainly needed, but it seems to me that at least as many psychologists, psychiatrists and other experts in the field of mental health will be needed. So far no one has mentioned them, and they will have to, sooner or later. Otherwise, all these victims will be part of a major system error or system error.

Finally, in the days of greatest sadness, when we hit the darkest bottom, our dear colleague and friend left us Peđa Obradović. He fought the disease for years, winning, and the reward was additional time in this world, with his family and with colleagues at work in the role of a top professional, journalist and editor. He left suddenly, quietly, while we all stared paralyzed at the TV screens for the previous days. Like many times, since the time of B92, at the end of the shift, he would throw his backpack over his shoulder and leave with a wave of his hand and a smile. I want to believe that he sailed somewhere on the thick sea of ​​his Boka.