Marcello: My country hasn't been this beautiful in a long time

From the protest in Zagreb, a comment could be made with the news that Marcelo and his band will hold a concert in Zagreb's Vintage Industrial Bar on February 20. It will be an introduction to the twentieth year that he has been on stage and heard throughout the region.

"A little more than a year has passed since the last concert in Zagreb," he says, adding that "it was great, as always."

He says that his band and he had a concert in Zagreb every year "until the corona virus, only then did the continuity break".

Breaking the ice

"Already on the first album (2003) I had songs with friends from Croatia and Bosnia, they were the first recorded post-war collaborations in the genre. We actually met by getting together in the studio to make something together, before that we only corresponded through emails, only hearing about each other through music. And these are friendships that continue to this day. At the time, that association was shocking to some, but over time it stopped being so, such collaborations became common and we are glad if we contributed to that by breaking the ice. But it is important to say: even then, most of the listeners met our collaboration not only with approval, but with joy."

This time he is going to Zagreb at the time of accusations by the local government that the student protests were instructed from Croatia. And yet:

"We never worried about the reception of the Zagreb audience, because as I said, we are frequent guests there, it is not unprecedented. Previously, that concert was planned to take place in February, but now it has one more topic just because of the situation. Our colleagues and we have always restored bridges, some new generation bridges we built ourselves, while the political elites demolished those bridges in the 1990s, and since then they have been shaking and undermining them."

A radical's worst nightmare

He says that "in that sense, these latest regime moves are actually just a poor renaissance of radicalism: the century has changed, and after all, they still essentially have only one thing to offer - Seselj." Therefore, what my generation was sick of twenty-two years ago would, if they were allowed, be a program for the 22nd century as well: servile nationalism that serves to poison the masses and so poison them to steal a lot, all in the name of supposed love for the people."

"This regional unity, this massive support for students, united humanity that says NO to hatred - that is the biggest radical nightmare. We may not have been able to afford them that nightmare to the end, but it seems that this generation will."

Marcelo will be on stage with his collaborators: Nevena Glibetić Nancy (vocals), Rade Sklopić Raid Kyu (turntable, keyboards), Aleksandar Jovanović Šljuka (keyboards, vocals), Filip Krumes (violin), Aleksandar Cvetković Drama (drums), Marko Cvetković Cvele (bass) and Miloš "Minister of Linguists" Borovnjak (MC).

Their guest appearance in Zagreb will, in addition to warming interstate relations - which is the role of cultural diplomacy, be an opportunity to convey the atmosphere of the protest to the audience there firsthand.

Photo: FoNet

"And we want to, although the neighbors pretty much follow Belgrade's events." And even if they didn't follow at first, the local regime involved them in it with the ease of its stupidity and malice, with its humiliating assessment that the same fore should be burned forever," says Marcelo, and then:

"On the day when the student was hit by a car near Pravni, shortly before that incident (if we will call it an attempted murder), I was giving an interview to a journalist from Croatia. As I ran to Nemanjina, to the court, where people gathered an hour later, he already informed me that Sešelj was publishing his personal information at Marić's, his passport on the full screen, accusing him of being here on that cook-mission, just like everyone who travels from Croatia to Belgrade on any business since this has been going on. The only thing worse than the radicals are the radicals in a panic, that's where you can clearly see how far they are ready to go in their villainy and rascality. If they could, they would start a new war, if only they would not step down from power."

This garden is overfertilized.

Musician and writer Marko Šelić is indispensable at protests and blockades, as an ordinary citizen. He believes that it is clear where, from which planet, the students came to us:

"Well, from this microcosm here, although almost no one hoped for it, and even we who harbored such hopes did not believe too much in its coming true." But this is how it happens in botany: in order for the plants to succeed better, the soil is fertilized; this garden has over-fertilized, and that seems to be the explanation."

He announces that for the Zagreb concert they have chosen songs about the ideals behind which they stand. Judging by current events, there are much more ideals in his songs than in society.

"I am extremely glad to say that it does not sound at all like a statement from this year. Ideals are alive, people are awake, madness has finally become madness - and I think there is no going back now. But many stood on the side of ideals even in the darkest times. "When an unequivocal evil dominates society, one must take the side which is unequivocally opposed to that evil," said our good Teofil. We read that quote in full before the concert in Novi Sad last week. Unfortunately, he did not see what we are all fighting for, and we will have to get there without him, but certainly for him."

Love and togetherness

Does he believe in the happy ending of the protest?

"Absolutely." In popular culture, in all but its most depressing regions, evil ultimately stands no chance against love and togetherness. It sounds corny to say, but hey, it's stories like that that we got our moral compass from as kids. As I wrote in a column, these new kids are, among other things, not pathetically touching. They melt the glaciers of apathy, they remind people that they are people, not slaves. It can no longer be stopped, and it will be good to remember the lesson when this fight ends one day, because we tend to regress."

After the concert in Zagreb, preparations for the new album will begin.

Students, their struggle, says Marcello, influence his new songs "but it is incomparably more important that they influence life. On mood, will, energy."

"We are with them all the time, at the faculties through stands, on the streets, in actions. And although this is some kind of undeclared state of emergency, the general feeling is that we have all really passed out. Towards the end of last year, one of your colleagues told me at the end of the interview: 'I've known you for 15 years, and you've never sounded more positive to me'. And indeed, it is inestimably valuable to be a contemporary of this moment, to be here, among people who are ready to fight for freedom. Despite the blackness determined to crush us, my country has not been this beautiful in a long time."