Lazar Džamić speaks for "Vreme" about the kind of messages students should send in the certainty of the upcoming elections. lecturer at several business schools and colleges in Britain, Europe and Serbia, writer, communication strategist and former head of the brand strategy team at Google's creative think-tank The ZOO in London.
"Elections are won and lost by two things: organization and communication. Parties have organization, students have communication. It is important to constantly remind the key elements of the vision, without blurring and confusing", says Džamić.
"WEATHER" How do you see the current political situation in Serbia from the point of view of a communication specialist? Is the hysteria of the government an indication that these are its last days, as a good part of the public believes?
LAZAR DZAMIC: Yes and no. The regime is less and less able to control social reality - that is true. Currently, it is financed mainly by foreign loans taken from very problematic sources, under conditions that are secret and with the very certain immediate result of introducing the country into even deeper debt slavery - which we have been in, by the way, for years. Europe has finally started to turn on the taps, which is already being felt.
The regime's propaganda bubble has also been punctured and is leaking in all directions, a large part of the population has now 'seen through', many captured institutions are fundamentally either not functioning or the quality of their service to citizens is in free fall, which creates even greater anger among the people. The fear of the regime is much less now, although the majority of the people are still not ready to turn it into political action in practice, for example, through mass strikes.
On the other hand, the regime is still firmly - and increasingly firmly - under control of all the apparatuses of force, which speaks of how it sees its next steps and actions. The same applies to prosecutors' offices and other judicial authorities, as well as the education system, public enterprises and other centers of power - or large sources of employment - in the country.
Just a few suspensions of work - as a warning to announce elections as soon as possible - in large systems such as "Kolubara" or "Zastava" would seriously shake the regime. But still, a significant number of socially risky or party-related citizens - and that's a good part of Serbia - are safer with an increasingly thin sparrow in their hand than a white dove on a branch. The regime's grip is getting tighter... At the same time, student challenges to the government have declined. Unlike the early days of the protests, there are no more eggs or red paint - who still remembers the 'red hand'? - the regime has managed to reduce fear among its supporters and to partially consolidate its ranks as the pressure of protests has subsided. There are still protests and performances, they are important for motivation, but the connection between them and the achievement of the proclaimed goals is weakening. For now, nothing is stopping or slowing down the regime's tyranny.
Essentially, the regime showed its soft underbelly over the past year, the students gave it several hard blows that started it reeling, but now it has tightened those abdominal muscles and started building its institutional blockades. He is still dazed, it is difficult for him to recover, he no longer has dominance in the ring, but he is slowly preparing for his last defense: a frantic barrage of punches below the belt, biting and spitting and waiting for the opportunity to make that decisive blow.
Students and people should be aware of it.
The previous year was marked by large-scale police brutality, beating and arresting students and citizens, attempt to shut down the university and the judiciary. To whom the message was sent by that action, that is, what was intended to be achieved?
I'm not sure it's just about 'messaging'. The regime in Serbia - as well as in Iran, Belarus and similar despotisms - has no other option but to respond to every challenge with force. Neither can nor must he negotiate, because in their world it is a sign of weakness, and nothing would be solved by those negotiations, because there are two radically opposite concepts of social reality: fire and water, air and vacuum - one cancels the other. Unfortunately, everything we have seen so far - unless there are some spectacular 'black swans' such as foreign intervention or a heart attack - is just the beginning of an even blacker story. I'm sorry if I sound like a pessimist, but regimes like this don't leave power peacefully. It is a mafia organization and it is ruled by the principles of submission and force, compromise is weakness, hesitation is betrayal. To that should be added the actual ideological radicalization of a part of the power apparatus and regime loyalists.
Violence is in the DNA of this regime, let's not forget that these are the same (and the same kind of) people who emasculated us (both as flesh and as ideology) through the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia. They first beat and shoot, and only then talk, but if they really have to...
What kind of campaign should the Student List be running considering that only a part of the program has been published now - the law on the origin of property and the law on lustration? Is it a positive or negative campaign, what should be emphasized?
It is important to constantly remind the key elements of the vision, without blurring and confusing. Constant inspiration with the vision of that better society. Also, in the same way, an indirect suggestion of action after the fall of the regime instead of threats, because threats will consolidate the mass of those who will be afraid that they will also be attacked even though they are not ideological soldiers of the regime: opportunists, mufflers, employees through connections and the like. If in the elections they would have hesitated to vote for students, now they may be afraid that they would vote for their own downfall.
Personally, I not only agree with lustration, but without it it will be impossible to change institutions and life in practice, not to mention showing a new moral code! But I think the focus on 'punishment' is now less productive than strong and inspiring ways to show a positive vision for change. Let us feel 'in the soul' what it means. This requires a focused, emotional and coordinated communication strategy and a team that will implement it, with a large number of activists who will reinforce it in the digital and physical space.
Whether, in your opinion, it's good that the Student List does not publish the entire program of the future party and candidates, or it should act more transparently and silence nervous voices?
The program already exists and these are several declarations that the students have already shared with the people. We know in principle what is the vision of society for which the students stand, and it is essentially a progressive democratic vision. What we don't know is how they will do it and whether the practices will match the vision. So, the operational plan. The main unknowns are the relationship with Europe, Kosovo and military independence.
If the students want to go to Europe, accept the invitation to NATO and be realistic about Kosovo, it is better not to say it now, because the continuous propaganda of the regime during the past few decades has poisoned our minds to such an extent that even a significant part of the "civilian" option would not accept this. If that's not their direction, then it's better they don't say it either, because that would disappoint many progressive supporters, and it wouldn't pave the way for solving many of our problems. "Strategic ambiguity" is good here now, although I think that sincere work on creating the conditions for the fastest possible entry into the EU would reduce the disruptive potential of NATO and the Kosovo issue. An honest sprint towards Europe would knock one big weapon out of the hands of the Albanian politicians in Kosovo: currently in the eyes of Europe, as much as we know the more nuanced truth, due to the behavior of the Serbian regimes in the last few decades, they have a moral advantage.
And the BIA has long known who is on the student list, I'm sure of that, and is preparing lines of attack against them when the time comes. I hope that the students also know this and are preparing.
How do you rate the students' social media campaign?? Can these messages reach undecided voters and, eventually, disappointed and betrayed supporters of the government?
My main problem right now is that it's decentralized, which means no agreed communication strategy and focus, which again means it's often confusing. Fences and retreats, conflicting narratives and sometimes just plain unclear messages diminish the effect. On the other hand, creativity, humor, playfulness, authenticity and emotionality are great, extremely important for the motivation of voters. Social networks, along with rallies and marches, are one of the best ways to break through the official media blockade and the regime's propaganda eco-system, especially since the number of student and popular activists - 'angels' - is far greater than the number of regime 'bots', if they were better coordinated.
photo: ruud jonkers photography...
Are the protests that marked the previous year, student walks from town to town, from village to village, were enough to initiate a change in society or is, as many believe, already 15. should have called for elections in March?
Protests and marches did initiate change by inspiring many more citizens to enter the political process, primarily through collective protests, participation in choirs, and personal acts of sacrifice. As I said, the fear has subsided. In the media blockade of the country, walks and pilgrimages were a 'walking public service' which in the strongest possible way - through direct experience - began to remove the veil from the eyes of citizens outside large urban centers. That was the catalyst that caused the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad and the beating of FDU students.
However, the initial naivety of the students - an amorphous demand to enable the 'work of institutions' - as if this kind of regime could accept it - led to a waste of time because the demand for elections, and now any elections, appeared quite late. And I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't any or if they will be such that it might be the last straw for the people's anger, which the regime knows very well. That is why he builds the armor of repressive institutions around himself.
How do you understand the student's departure from the opposition?, because the fact is that both of them want a change of government. Actually, do they essentially want the same?
A solid part of the opposition wants the same as the students: democracy and independent, functional institutions. It is not just about a change of government. Without that ultimate goal, everything is futile and leads to chaos. Unfortunately, the entire opposition does not want the same, and it is good for me to have a break from those who do not like democracy much. Don't be fooled.
The problem is that the student movement does not want any cooperation even with that part that completely shares their values. They put everything in the same basket, which could be for two reasons: that they really think they are all the same, which is a big mistake, or because the propaganda strategy gives them the right that the collective perception of the 'opposition' among the people is very bad and that connecting with it would 'contaminate' the response, while cooperating with some and rejecting others would lead to a split in the broader coalition they managed to build. So they decided to ignore everything, hoping - I hope too - that those who share their values will certainly help, secretly, 'below the grain', if not publicly like the Democratic Party.
There, I think, is their big challenge. The current state of the world dissolves individual party affiliations and brings a new way of thinking and voting behavior based on ideological blocs, on overall belonging to worldviews; the fight is less and less between this or that party, but between this or that civilizational option: the one that favors democracy and the one that prefers authoritarianism or even fascism, an open mind against a closed one, justice against force, an open society against tribes. Politics is divided into two big block-options, two diametric views of society (and for the big ones, the world). In this Gramsciian time, we have come again to the struggle of great paradigms, further away from the technocratic optimizations of the existing situation... And there, I think, is the challenge with the student protest because it consciously, but I think carelessly, narrows its own progressive coalition, at least publicly. I'm sure there are ways to cooperate that wouldn't be so propaganda vulnerable.
Elections are won and lost by two things: organization and communication. Parties have organization, students have communication. I don't know enough about the goings-on within the student movement to judge where they stand with the election organization, but I sincerely hope that useful lessons have been learned from the few local elections so far.
At this moment, we can only guess whether the opposition will unite or it will go back to the old way. Is it a good solution to have two lists - united opposition and student list?
I do not have access to analyzes and figures to be able to answer that question, but as far as I know, according to our electoral system, the votes of parties that do not pass the census go to the regime. Since the next election will be a referendum, the concentration of votes for the anti-regime student bloc will be crucial. That puts a historical burden on the opposition.
Based on past experience, I do not believe that they will unite, except in some smaller coalitions. The example of the upcoming elections in Hungary is extremely interesting: in order to avoid the above scenario, many parties decided not to participate in the elections, but to "spill" their votes to Hungarian Tisza. Thus, tactical self-sacrifice due to identification with the civilizational and ideological 'bloc' to which they obviously belong. I am not sure that it will be the same here. Citizens should understand that now all opposition voices must be put in the same basket.
What needs to happen for high European officials to stop hugging Vučić? Is it an investigation into embezzled European funds...?
As for Europe, we have no space here for a realistic analysis because the truth is much, much more complex. I recommend Željko Pantelić's podcasts on this topic, it's really eye-opening. Europe is not what we think, neither in a good nor in a bad sense. It is massive, a huge body, with hundreds of particular interests and with - for my taste still too much - immersed in the neoliberal story. But compared to all the other realistic options around us, it is still the least bad choice. Europe, in order to survive, must transform itself. Like us. Tactically, yes, I think that coordinated pressure - which I don't think exists now - for an investigation into the misuse of EU funds would be a good move; we need a new survey commission that would do it on our side...
Can you explain President Vučić's change of heart towards the students?, from understanding the youth who want to change the world to calling those same youth the worst possible derogatory names? Is it in order to consolidate his approval rating with his voters who are less educated and generally not interested in concepts like education, justice, morality?
As he did with others, he does not know and cannot do anything else: first flattery, then bribery, then slander and finally force. It is his/their mental formula. He was shocked when he realized that the first three - so successful with others and a large part of the opposition - do not work here, especially bribery. That pissed him off. Nothing else but insults and force. It has little to do with the consolidation of his supporters, he must not show that the 'droolers' are a serious challenge to him. The same goes for the use of force. They like that, but when your child is also on the barricades, then it gets a little messy. It is much more important for them that money continues to arrive: for the poor - pensions and social assistance, as well as salaries; to the richer ones – 'deals', tenders and access to budgets.
The question is whether a student movement would be organized, blockades and everything else happened that on that day in December, in front of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, SNS beaters and their officials did not attack the students who were paying their respects to the victims under the canopy in Novi Sad 16-a minute's silence...
It has happened many times that protests or revolutions have been triggered by individual highly emotional events. In Tunisia, it was the self-immolation of a street vendor when their equivalent of the communal police arrogantly confiscated his goods. In Bangladesh, when the Supreme Court re-introduced the quota that at least 30% of government jobs are awarded based on family ties, just like here, only without a court decision. In Serbia, the canopy and then the beating of students... But that's the nature of such regimes, at some point they always cross the limits of tolerance, they get carried away in their arrogance. It seems that Tito was one of the few who knew how to read those borders.
Where exactly are the problems in Serbia on the map of problems in the world, that is, how geopolitical turmoil affects our country?
We are not a lonely island, but we are not a major crossroads either. Much bigger things than us are happening in the world: Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, the Arctic, Taiwan... The circus that is now America... The thread on which the democracies in Germany and France hang is getting thinner...
We are a small irritation, a pawn in the new colonial and geopolitical game. The question is not whether we can hide from the world, we can't, but where is the least damage to us as a society, who will allow us to rise and improve our quality of life, instead of treating us only as an asteroid colony for mining, money laundering, waste disposal and slave labor. I know that this is not a very popular opinion among many, but the record shows that our progress - political, economic and security - is realistic only within Europe. To everyone else we are just slaves or useful idiots.
As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently said in Davos: "If you're not at the table, then you're on the menu."
