When the word "thundered into our language forever and ever"parents" - almost no one needed lexicologists and analysts to explain what it actually means, even though that meaning is not simple. The author of the blunt graffiti, written on January 22 on the fence of Novi Sad's Zmaj Jovina gymnasium ("Students at school!"), tasked not only local linguists but also sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, ethnologists and psychologists. The phenomenon has existed for a long time, everyone has encountered it in real life, they just needed a name for it.
The term goes far beyond political-party frameworks and is by no means a mere synonym for people who support Social Media and related parties and organizations. It is more than that: it defines the "unexpected man" (the term of Novi Sad poet Vojislav Despotov) produced by the age of dehumanization, moral relativism, mind-numbing, total propaganda and the rule of authoritarian and ignorant kleptocrats-shalabizers. The word has crossed borders Of Serbia - we can see that it is now also used in Croatia to define the Ustashas who roam the city streets in search of enemies, and who, both in appearance and worldview, resemble the local defenders of the tragicomic Vučić regime, in relation to which even nuclear waste acts like vitamin C.
ALL DILEMMAS REMOVED
photo: marija janković...
If in the first months of the minting of the new coin, all levels of its meaning were still unclear to someone, over time all dilemmas have been resolved. The regime itself took care of that - by forming an unsanitary tent settlement in front Assembly of Serbia, which was promptly and logically named Ćaciland. Vučić's government, by bringing a variety of selected people to that unusual settlement, made an impressive casting for the role of ćaci in modern society. How did the regime (self) define the term, in which cases can it be used?
First of all, it is about those who represent the key pyramid of power of the regime, those with thick criminal records. That these are the key "tent men" has already been well proven and documented. In fact, the regime no longer hides that it has the most confidence in them. We do not have time to go into the details of the relations of the ruling class symbolized by the brothers Vucic and criminal groups that send their emissaries to Ćaciland, but it is clear that it is at least partly a complex story.
photo: marko dragoslavić / fonetĆACILENDSKE VEDETA: Tents of all shapes,…
In any case, this type of hat is a symbol of a perverted reality: those who should wear bukagi are presented as defenders of the constitutional order, and those who stand for respect for the constitution and the law are terrorists. Now it is completely institutionalized: those who belong in closed institutions are appointed to the most sensitive positions in the security system, and those who at least somewhat adhere to the law and good taste are replaced.
photo: marija janković…portable toilets,…
We said that the regime does not hide that it has the most confidence in criminals. As for Ćaciland, in a way it suits it to present to the public who are its most important residents. The main function of Ćaciland is intimidation: we have people with us who would shoot their own family if they were paid well, so you see who you are dealing with! Let's remember that they are March 15 in the morning, on the day of the big anti-regime rally in Belgrade, criminals towards Ćaciland walked through the streets of Belgrade from several directions, publicly demonstrating force and determination. Dressed in black, like fascist hordes. It is also clear that they are well paid for their existence in Ćaciland, either through quality daily wages, or through lucrative jobs that their employers' companies receive from the state.
We also saw in Ćaciland the heads of criminal groups who are "reputable investors" in Serbia today, I guess they came to visit the herd.
photo: marija janković...
THE OTHERS ARE LESS IMPORTANT
Other frequent or occasional residents of tent cities are less important and serve as propaganda decor. There are those - it is difficult to find the correct adjective - poor, socially disadvantaged people. The abuse of those people speaks of the inhumanity of Vučić's regime, but it is still hard to pity them. They receive daily allowances, food, heartily defend the regime that took away their dignity and brought them to the brink of existence. Let's not talk about how some of them were living over Diana Hrka - while, let's emphasize, she was on hunger strike because no one was responsible for her son's death - lustfully singing the "famous" "aria" with the line "the mother went to look for her son!"
There are other personalities coming to Ćaciland who are also paid transport fans of Serbia and Vučić regime. For years, the same information has been coming from various sources, from public companies and institutions, and even from private companies connected to the government, only it gets hotter over time. If you want to get and keep a job or advance, you have to travel a bit, and even spend a few days in Ćaciland when necessary. There is at least one person who keeps precise Excel tables in companies and institutions (doesn't deal with anything else): who went where to support the ruler, whether he ran away from class, whether he stammered or squealed with happiness when he "all-seeing" appeared on stage.
Those who got the job thanks to the party and loyalty, not competence, are especially active in transport. But all that is commonplace. So, you can be uncles and if it is clear to you that Vučić will leave a scorched earth for your children, even if you circle a number other than unity in the elections, but damn it - as if for the sake of the children - you "have" to participate in the masquerade. All these have long been commonplaces.
photo: marko dragoslavić / fonet...police protection of towns,...
Both the criminals and the latter are not defending Vučić but themselves, above all. It won't be this good for them if he slips up. Maybe, God forbid, someone will deal with the origin of their property or they will lose a job that they didn't deserve. However, they are not the worst inhabitants/visitors of Ćaciland. The worst are those who come to support them: former and current officials, various public figures, famous singers, actors, artists, some former athletes, security guards, ethnic workers and all. Some blackmailed, some paid, most often both. Those who buy cream from the ruins of a state and society.
Yes, there are also "students who want to learn", who originally founded the camp. They don't matter to anyone anymore. The regime, let's remember, tried to gather some students who would represent a counterweight to the student movement, so it only found a few freaks. Among his clientele, he failed to find those who at least resembled students. Everything was as comical as the main character himself, once the "King of Ćaciland" Milos Pavlovic. And the regime realized that he was a propaganda failure, so they removed him from the stage. Even the most devoted ćaci had to extract something from their heels that would turn into sympathy for this young gentleman.
photo: vladimir sporčić / tanjug...monuments used to be in Pionirski Park,...
MULTIPLE PURPOSE
The interlocutors of "Vremen" say that at the time of its foundation, ten days before the great March 15 civil and student protest, Ćaciland had a multiple purpose, which became perfectly clear over time. The first is to occupy the area between the parliament buildings and the presidency, in order to prevent citizens from protesting there. The second is to be some kind of defensive garrison, because there is a possibility that the regime was really afraid that the protesters could occupy these two buildings, as Predrag Petrović from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy says. Vučić probably never got over the trauma of October 5th.
The third is to be a place from which continuous provocations will be sent to the citizens, in the hope of provoking a reaction. This is a propaganda request, because it was and still is necessary to portray peaceful students and citizens as thugs and terrorists, not only for internal but also external needs. When we talk about propaganda for external use, for Western ears, regime leaders say that the overthrowers of the government were trained from Russia, and when they are in Moscow - they say the opposite.
There is also that less important detail, also related to "students who want to learn", which was overcome a long time ago: to show that there are students who want to learn, who are great for Vučić's time, and even that they are the majority compared to the "blockade" students. They failed to sell that story to anyone.
PARAMILIARY CAMP
Over time, says Petrović, Ćaciland has been turned into a classic paramilitary camp, which "guards" the space that is the most logical place for protests against the government and is ready to use force against critics of the regime, which now happens sporadically. Accumulating evidence shows that he is right: Çatsiland is a closed, organized, militarized structure that has a command headquarters, a clear hierarchy, security, control of space, entrances and exits, with the presence of uniformed and semi-uniformed people. Journalists testified that groups within the camp are deployed as a kind of military detachments.
It is likely that Ćaciland was created in imitation of the Sešeljevo and other paramilitary camps during the nineties in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Ćaciland, as a "registered assembly", is protected by the police. Otherwise, it would be difficult to defend, at least externally, the fact that strong security forces are in front of the institutions. Here is another reason for its existence.
The European Parliament recognized this problem in a resolution on increased repression in Serbia, in which it condemned the actions of members of the ruling party in "organizing an illegal camp" in front of the parliament. He expressed serious concern that people with a criminal past are involved in the Ćaciland project, who attack demonstrators with pyrotechnics and other means, thereby further fueling violence and polarization of society.
When it comes to the polarization of society, it has reached a fever pitch in recent months thanks to the regime's propaganda and abuse of institutions. It is only a matter of days when the consequences will be - lost human lives! And that's where the story about the Ćaci people and Ćaciland will lose every comic note.
photo: sofija vukajlović / fonet...and now in an unsanitary camp
BRIEF CHRONOLOGY
We do not have space to deal with all the tragic and comical details of the events that took place in and around Ćaciland from March 6, 2025, when the first tents appeared in the Pioneer Camp, until today. But let's run through some. Let's start from the fact that citizens have on several occasions noticed and filmed serious conflicts and physical confrontations inside Ćaciland, which is normal for paramilitary camps that gather various bashibozuk. By the way, millions and millions of euros of our money were probably spent on the implementation of this long-term project.
photo: sava radovanović / tanjugWHERE IT HAPPENED: Miloš Pavlović, who wants to study
The park very quickly turns into a real camp, metal fences are put up, tents multiply, and real paramilitaries with kilometers of crimes behind them arrive in the camp. There are also tractors placed around the camp, mostly expired ones. Many of them were destroyed on the night of March 15, in order to show that students and citizens are violent savages and criminals. Most of the perpetrators, as in other similar situations, were never found, and allegedly the state paid compensation to the owners of the tractors. Parallel to the use of the sound cannon, oysters, bricks and other objects were thrown at the citizens from Ćaciland. They wanted to provoke them so that the police - as we've seen on many occasions - would retaliate with "excessive use of force", which is a hypocrisy for brutal police violence. The idea didn't quite work out for them, at least not completely.
photo: Rade Prelić / TanjugPARA MILITARY PARADE: Veterans of the Red Berets...
Later, Ćaciland changes its appearance, personalities change in it, "cultural" events are organized, sometimes it is half-empty, sometimes full, but it continuously represents at least a potential garrison in the center of Belgrade, which steals the space for demonstrations and protects the president. It is a "forbidden city" for non-regime journalists, which is again symptomatic of paramilitary camps. Numerous attacks on journalists and ordinary citizens were recorded in and around Ćaciland.
Two incidents marked the period of Ćacilanda 2.0, as citizens called the latest incarnation of the tent settlement on social networks. We never found out what exactly happened on October 22, when one man was wounded in this camp, and another was promptly arrested. A fire also broke out. What is certain is that the regime used that event, breaking all the rules that could be violated, in order to show that its opponents are terrorists. Vučić briefly commented on the incident in a live broadcast, just as the Nazis would have commented on the burning of the Reichstag if there had been technical possibilities at the time.
The second incident is clearer, it makes a person's stomach turn several times in a second. Diana Hrka is on hunger strike, cannon shots, bottles, poles and torches started flying at her and the people who gathered to support her from Ćaciland. This was followed by a song with the line "the mother went to look for her son", as well as other music from the public address system. Here is another level of meaning of the word "boys".
photo: marko dragoslavić / fonet...and the security guard
RESAV SCHOOL
Of course, Vučić and the other banal minds he surrounds himself with did not invent Ćaciland. Something similar was done by authoritarian leaders and dictators whom he also copies and admires. Paramilitary regime "counter-camps", according to a similar model, were set up, for example, in Hungary in the middle of the last decade. Erdogan also set up controlled pro-government camps, and on several occasions, we also saw them in Kazakhstan. They had their own Ćatsilenda and Lukashenko Putin, but they don't need them anymore, because they killed, expelled, scared their opponents.
More or less, they all have in common that they were located in a strategic protest location, that they served as a barrier, that they were headed by criminals, that there was an internal hierarchy, that they were guarded by the police and that they presented themselves as
"spontaneous".
Popadić: a metaphor for the regime
Dragan Popadić, professor of psychology at the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, tells "Vreme" that Ćacilend without a doubt serves as a protective ring around the Presidency and the Assembly, populated above all by people with criminal records, those in whom Vučić currently has the most confidence. The police, he says, are there to protect and serve this group. It was planned that this camp would last until the danger of what Vučić calls the colored revolution passes, but the danger does not pass, so this settlement has been surviving for months.
"The maintenance of this paramilitary camp has its considerable economic cost (construction and maintenance of the settlement itself and its infrastructure, payment of daily wages to the residents, payment of the police who secure the camp, traffic changes, etc.), but these economic costs, no matter how large they are, are not of much concern to the government, the price is paid by the citizens of Serbia anyway. The regime is more troubled by another type of everyday costs, those on the propaganda level. First of all, it is an obvious mockery, everything with tents and toilets placed in the center of the city, a mockery that thousands of Belgraders pass by every day, and whose image is increasingly spreading around the world as an image and image of the regime in Serbia. And the sinister purpose of this park is becoming more and more obvious, although it is not publicly announced, so the criminal milieu gathered in Ćaciland is increasingly becoming a metaphor for the regime itself," says Popadić.
Đurić: ignoring as a cure
Political scientist Milorad Đurić calls Ćaciland an "operational-tactical enterprise" of occupying the space between the National Assembly and the Presidency. Many, he says for "Vreme", rushed to characterize him as a political oddity, but over time it became clear that he has clear goals, which are a response to mass civil protests. The first goal is the physical occupation of the space, that is, the preventive occupation of the space in order to prevent protests there. This, at the same time, sends the message that "the October 5 scenario will not be repeated."
"Also, the introduction of a permanent 'state of emergency' is at issue. Based on the assumption that the sovereign is the one who decides on the state of emergency, the regime consciously suspended the legal system in one part of the territory of the capital, creating a kind of 'black box', a space of unknown internal structure and inexplicable functioning mechanism, in which legal norms obviously do not apply. This created the source of a permanent 'state of emergency', which practically normalizes and legitimizes other violations of the law by supporters regime", says Đurić.
He says that, paradoxically, this area exempted from the legal order is vigilantly guarded by police forces in full gear to break up demonstrations, under the pretext of securing a "legally registered assembly". However, the main message is that the center of state power is surrounded by a multiple security ring and represents a "fortress that will never be conquered".
"Also, it is a matter of continuously provoking citizens, which sends a message of authoritarian arbitrariness and omnipotence. Ćaciland should be a constant irritation for opponents of the regime, a kind of "hook" that provokes aggressive reactions from students and citizens, which then legitimizes police interventions," says Đurić.
According to him, Ćaciland succeeds only to the extent that it provokes the expected reactions. What completely deconstructs and renders this mechanism meaningless is indifference and ignoring. In this way, it is emptied of its political and symbolic significance and reduced to what it really is - a few tents and a few mobile toilets.
They told "Vreme" about Ćaciland
Biljana Stojković, professor at the Faculty of Biology in Belgrade: Ćaciland is a vividly summarized history of the rule of radicals and Aleksandar Vučić. All the radical values are there - primitivism, aggression and hatred. Financial transactions also come to the fore, i.e. small or big charm in everything they do, both the residents of Ćaciland (through daily wages) and the creators of that settlement involved in big corruption. The aesthetics of Ćaciland clearly speaks of its ethics: everything is incredibly dirty and polluted. Finally, the temporary nature of the tent "buildings" shows the basic idea behind the horrible creation, well described in the verse - "take the money and run."
Dubravka Valić Nedeljković, media expert: It is, to use a quote, a "twilight saga". In the center of the capital, the "neighborhood" that is a symbol of violence speaks of a violent political elite that thinks that everything is allowed to them, and behaves that way. What would Đorđe Balašević say - "we are to blame".
Goran Markovic, director: Ćaciland is a psychiatric diagnosis, and its symptom will remain recorded as unique in the history of medicine. An exhaustive investigation of the occurrence of this disease and long-term, and uncertain, treatment is necessary.
Vladimir Marović, political scientist: I maintain that the name Ćaciland does not provide a sufficient conceptual definition of this meeting place of wickedness at this moment, because Ćaci-culture will only be studied in detail with all the deviations it brings with it. It is certainly recognizable that this creation has for its content the emptiness of self-satisfying tyranny, the forms of which are organized crime, voluntary slavery, connected interests, propaganda barbarism, blackmailing potential and street simpletons. And all these forms are present in "Ćaciland", that opposite of every kind of normality, honesty and common sense.
Viktor Stamenkovic, political scientist: Ćaciland represents a stronghold of the government that she herself raised to such a high symbolic level that now any giving up/removal of that stronghold would represent a defeat. The fate of the government is perceived as the fate of Ćaciland. For us ordinary citizens, Ćaciland is a phenomenon that historians will write about, and as we read today in the works of Slobodan Jovanović about the facts from the political life of Serbia from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, I am sure that in a few decades we will also read about Ćaciland as a symbol of Serbia during the AV.
Ladislav Tomicic, journalist: Ćaciland is a showcase of Vučić's regime, a mirror image of Vučić's Serbia.
