BIA: Drowned Souls Service

It was somewhere around the time when I was preparing to enroll in journalism studies in Novi Sad. A few years after the famous year 2000 (which, they say, seemed to promise something) and only a little after the pompous establishment of the Security and Information Agency BIA in 2002, i.e. the transformation of the Department of State Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I was too young then to understand any of it. Although, I admit, even today I still don't understand anything. Because if it was supposed to be better, why is it worse than ever?

By chance, therefore, I found myself in Novi Sad's Radio-Cafe on Svetozara Miletića Street, in that no-man's time when influential people of the time gathered there. I don't know if they are still influential today. Maybe they don't even know anymore. Coincidentally, there was a man there who turned out to be a member of the BIA. It was then that he received an offer for a serious position in the Agency, and it was then that he hesitated whether to accept the position or not. It happened that I had with me my graduation thesis "The Metaphysics of Death in the Poetry of Vladislav Petković Dis" and in it a poem that I wrote. By chance, that man read my poem.

"No one understands my eternal pain,
From a distance some that rush to me terribly,
And he embraces my tender, dead soul with his cold breath.
No one understands my eternal pain."

I don't think he even looked at me. He was deeply engrossed in those verses and just said, barely audible: "I used to write like that..." I looked at him in astonishment. He was a member of the BIA, and he used to write songs.

I don't remember his name or his face, and I am grateful to life for that. I don't even know if he accepted the position, and I'm sure he did, because some offers are so hard to refuse. (And once they are accepted, there is no way out from there.) I only remember the immense sadness that appeared on that face. That painful wavering and questioning of himself and the paths that led him to that sorrow. I would feel sorry for him and wish that I would never, ever become like that man with the lost verses.

BIA has gone through various transformations of questionable quality during its existence. Whose it is and what it really serves, an honest citizen is better off never finding out - it's healthier. She changed various bosses, including two pearls: Bratislav Gašić (that's the one who told the journalist how he likes when they kneel so easily) and Aleksandar Vulin (the pride and joy of the Ministry of Defense and the Serbian Army).

BIA, as a kind of neman, probably swallowed many drowned souls, similar to the one that I remember fondly even today. Many silenced romantics, unfulfilled artists, disappointed children and alienated people fell there, who today find their holy purpose in the persecution of students and their parents.

How do you get from an institution, which should gather people who are characterized by determination, integrity, high intellectual abilities, reliability, responsibility, awareness and courage (all of which are required as a prerequisite to become a member of the BIA), a failed cake that sadly drips table and messy surroundings? The only requirement for employment in the Agency is loyalty, but not in the service of the security of the state, and therefore of its citizens, but in the service of the regime. In December 2024, the Radar portal published the text "Party police without control" in which it is stated that in the past months several managers left the BIA, including some of the best and most experienced operatives. At the same time, the criminalization of the service, which also accepts convicted people, is taking place.

And it's like we fell into an American thriller All the president's people from 1976, where as part of the "Watergate" affair, the cabinet of President Richard Nixon with the help of the CIA eavesdrops on opposition leaders. What President Aleksandar Vučić's cabinet and his loyal BIA guard lead in is eavesdropping on investigative journalists and activists, as well as monitoring students and inviting them and their parents to a friendly meeting. (Nobody eavesdrops on opposition leaders in our country because they do not pose a threat.)

The "Watergate" affair ended honorably with the resignation of American President Nixon. The only question is whether the domestic "Belgradewatergate", where you have espionage and the demolition of buildings that take the lives of citizens with them, will have the same purposeful outcome.

Be that as it may, the student protests are not abating, no one is afraid of the barking keros, those people with lost verses and their crazy boss. The students invited members of the BIA for coffee and a friendly conversation. Maybe soon they will be invited to a poetry evening with Dis's collection of poems Drowned souls.