I know you might be confused, but today is Monday.
Don't look at the calendar. Do not check your phone. Trust me - it's Monday, even though you may have been led to believe that today is Wednesday. It's Monday, that's what it says here at my place and that's how it has to be.
Because if the president of the country can read a child's letter and skip it Novak Djokovic, how Russian reports come with Serbian "lj", and the drop in GDP has nothing to do with global events but with a few blocked streets - what's a Monday in the middle of a Wednesday?
Little white lies
Let's start from the beginning.
The regime has soared to new heights of twisting the truth and outright lies since Novak Djokovic's skipping over the boy's letter that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić read in the live program. The banal distortion of the truth would probably never have been discovered if one of the cameramen on duty had not decided to point the camera directly at the paper at that very moment. There, written in a child's unskilled handwriting, the word "Rookie" could be discerned, for the president of the country so terrible that he could not put it on his lips, because the best tennis player of all time had previously supported the students.
It continued with the questionable report of the Russian FSB, published on the BIA website without a stamp or signature, where it is determined that no sonic weapons owned by the Serbian police were used against the demonstrators at the March 15 protest. Maybe it would have ended there, if whoever wrote the report in Russian had not missed the Serbian letter "lj" - which does not exist in Russian. Thus, the authenticity of this document is called into question.
The wrapping of government representatives in kitchens did not stop there, and the latest actor is the Minister of Finance Sinish Mali.
Who is to blame for the reduction in economic growth
After the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published tables of global projections of economic growth, according to which the projection of economic growth for Serbia was reduced from 4,2 to 3,5 percent, Minister Mali assessed that it was a direct consequence of "blockades and violence".
However, how well-founded is the minister's claim that blockades and protests are to blame for Serbia's slower economic growth? There is no such data in the IMF report, it only states that there is a problem at the global level.
"According to the benchmark forecast, which includes data up to April 4, global growth is forecast to fall to 2,8 percent in 2025 and 3 percent in 2026 – down from the 3,3 percent projected in January."
As the main reason for the drop in projected GDP rates at the global level, the IMF cites the customs measures announced and implemented by the USA in January, as well as the countermeasures of its trading partners.
"This in itself represents a strong negative shock to economic growth. The unpredictability with which these measures are implemented also negatively affects economic activity and prospects, and at the same time makes it difficult to make assumptions that could serve as a basis for an internally consistent and timely set of projections," the IMF said.
Nikezić: Don't mislead the citizens
The People's Representative of the Party of Freedom and Justice pointed out that Sinisa Mali's claim is questionable Dusan Nikezic. He said that Mali "plagiarized" the report of the International Monetary Fund by claiming that the IMF reduced the projected growth rates of Serbia's GDP from 4,2 percent to 3,5 percent due to "blockades and violence", while the real reason for the reduction, he says, is the war on customs rates.
According to him, the best confirmation that the decrease in the projected GDP growth of Serbia in 2025 has nothing to do with the blockades and the popular revolt is the fact that the IMF first reduced the GDP growth projection for 2025 from the planned 4,5 percent back in October of last year, before the blockades began.
"That's why, if you already have nothing to brag about, since you've been running the finances of a country that has the highest inflation on the continent, increased public debt from 15 to 40 billion euros, has the highest growth in corruption, sells off the most valuable resources and is fourth in Europe in terms of poverty, at least don't mislead the citizens of Serbia and falsely accuse them of your bad results," said Nikezić.
However, the words of Siniša Malog cannot be seen as an isolated event - they came from the same kitchen that decided to skip Novak Djokovic's name in a child's letter. For months, the truth is twisted, changed, shaped according to the will of the ruling party, and then transmitted through all available communication channels.
Viewers of television with a national frequency have no other truth, except that according to the will of the progressives.
Although this, to a greater or lesser extent, has been valid for 13 years, it seems that in the past few weeks the rate of untruths spoken in the public space has increased drastically, and that it is directly proportional to the increase in pressure on rebellious citizens.
Day is night, night is day.
The guests on duty in the well-known studios of "Pink", "Informer" and other well-known and unknown regime newspapers have a difficult task in this crazy time - it is no longer enough just to twist the truth, which the public has become accustomed to in the past 13 years. The stakes have increased, the authority of the authorities is seriously threatened, so it is time to invent some fresher, newer lies, the edge of which has not yet dulled.
The ability to freely interpret the truth depends on the speaker himself. For example, if it is the president of the country, he can simply "cross" Novak Djokovic to Nikola Jokic - both are world-class athletes, but one of them publicly supported the student blockades, and the other Vučić. In that case, the choice is simple, and, after all, why does it even matter whether it's Jokic or Djokovic?
There are many more examples.
When a car runs over a girl who was standing on the sidewalk during the protest, the president of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, says that she "tumbled around the car like a real gymnast."
When a gendarme accidentally hits a colleague in front of RTS, the president of Serbia takes a picture for Instagram and writes that the gendarme was injured by students.
If the councilor of the Start-Change movement is attacked in Pionirski Park by a group of people, among whom is student Miloš Pavlović, a regular visitor to progressive meetings and a guest on regime television, Health Minister Zlatibor Lončar will urgently announce that Pavlović is the one who is seriously injured.
To make matters worse, each of the previous three incidents was recorded. The footage is publicly available, and has probably been seen by anyone with internet access.
There is also a "cucumber knife" with which the rector of the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, Natalija Jovanović, was charged.
Despite all this, the regime's henchmen still continue with the same story, in accordance with the well-known famous saying that "a lie repeated a hundred times becomes the truth".
In such a country, where the truth is remade every day, it is perhaps logical that today is Monday. Even though we all know it's Wednesday.
