Wounded souls on the edge of Ćaciland

On Monday morning, the phone rang for Dijana Hrka, the mother of the deceased Stefan, who is on hunger strike near the House of National Assembly. On the other side was the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. It was not a phone call, but an abyss that broke between Vučić's promises and Diana's reality. After speaking with Vučić on the phone, Hrka confirmed that the conversation did take place, but that she was not the one who initiated it. "I'm not stepping on anyone's feet," she said, tired but determined. According to her, the conversation was more like a protocol gesture than a sincere attempt to understand the pain of a mother who has been on hunger strike in front of the Assembly for days. The same morning, she says, she heard the explosion of a cannon shot that echoed from the direction of Ćaciland and hit the area around her tent. That was more important to her than the phone call.

"The president said he heard from me, but he didn't say anything about what happened next to me in the morning," she said. At that moment, Hrka was on the ninth day of her hunger strike, visibly exhausted but unwavering.

"I'm not feeling well, but I'm not giving up," she said. In her voice, you can still hear the same tone that guided her from the beginning - a mixture of pain, dignity and the conviction that the truth will have to be told by those who are now singing to her in order to humiliate and hurt her.

GOOD DAY, HOW ARE YOU??

photo: marija janković

There was a cannon fire near Dijana, and in a large part of the citizens who understand and support her struggle, something else broke out: people were overwhelmed by hatred towards Ćaciland, towards the SNS supporters who for 3000 dinars come in buses to provoke and terrorize Dijana, towards the police, towards everything that is neutral in this year. Or is it about something else, another emotion?

"Yes, for many of us it could be said at first glance that we felt hatred towards the people who are on the inside of the fence in front of the National Assembly", psychologist Goran Tomin tells "Vreme": "However, such a feeling comes from another place, and it is an active and life-giving rebellion against the helplessness, injustice, humiliation and torture that we feel."

Tomin adds that such a feeling is completely reactive because not only do we not have institutions that are supposed to protect us and react, but now it goes into a new dimension: "In institutions that actively act against the citizens they work for. If cannon shots are fired a few meters from the police cordon that is on duty there day and night, that is direct complicity."

Predrag Voštinić, an activist of the Local Front, tells "Vreme" that it is not good to reject hatred as an emotion because it comes as a result of great hurt and as a sign that we no longer want to be hurt.

"That platitude 'I am not capable of hating' comes from a self-loving image of ourselves, that is, pride, because in this way we reject an entire part of human nature from our identity. Pride is a trait that we should be ashamed of, unlike the ability to feel hatred," says Voštinić and adds: "If hatred, therefore, indicates to us that we no longer want to suffer, then its occurrence is also a sign that we need to know when we need to act." against what hurts us and in that sense it is a useful emotion.” He explains that with this kind of interpretation of the emotion that we are all prone to in self-protective actions, in addition to noticing hatred, it is also necessary to notice what has hurt us and what has been activated in us.

HORRIBLE REALIZATIONS

Jelena Riznić, a sociologist and activist of Women's Solidarity, believes that the current phase of the protest and everything that is happening with Dijana Hrk is an important and turning point because we collectively became aware of several things during it. "One is the range of emotions that we have felt in just a few days, because the current scenes in front of the assembly touch us in something archetypal in the same way that the scenes of the Novi Pazar students on the walk did," Riznić told "Vreme": "That archetypal can be hatred, but I believe that behind it is fear and disbelief that we are all part of this same society together and that, in the event of an elementary disaster, for example, one of us would depend on those people. It is a terrible realization and that's a realization that stays with all of us, because life will continue once all this is over and we'll have to continue it with those people as well."

Behind Diana Hrka, whose struggle has become symbolic in the country due to her hunger strike and message that she will not budge until her demands are met, stand students, citizens and everyone who feels connected to her loss. At one end of the plateau there is a camp known as Ćaciland, which has long since been transformed into its own world - tents, loudspeakers, government supporters. On the other side, Hrka and her supporters gathered next to the fence clearly point to what they consider injustice and corruption. During the big gathering on Wednesday, November 7, the music came from Ćaciland again, the public address system blared, and the support for Hrka grew - with whistles, whistles and shouts. All this is happening against the background of wider discontent: young people, students and citizens are demanding not only justice for the dead, but also a change in the system which, according to many, has been protecting irresponsibility for too long.

photo: printscreen

And in the meantime, truck driver Milomir Jaćimović also started a hunger strike. This carrier, who has been supporting students for months and transporting them to protests, started a hunger strike with his son because his buses were taken away and numerous fines were cut.

He said that no one from the government has contacted him since he announced that he would go on a hunger strike, that he does not expect anything from them because "the country has been hijacked." Jaćimović pointed out that he had previously filed complaints about what was happening to him, but that he no longer had anyone to turn to. His sixteen-year-old son went on hunger strike with Milomir. The father says that he tried to answer him, but that his son has been with him his whole life because he raised him alone since birth.

MORAL VIOLATION AND MORAL VICTORY

Photo: M. Janković

Dijana Hrka and Milomir Jaćimović are not just individuals on hunger strike - they are a symbol of a deeper social tension. Their experience shows how ordinary people experience moral injury when the government ignores responsibility or covers up mistakes. The telephone conversation with the president, although formally significant, was not a sincere meeting for Hrka, but another reminder that the system that should protect citizens often functions in such a way that they are left to fend for themselves.

In a psychological sense, this situation creates a collective moral injury: citizens who follow their struggle feel betrayed by their basic values ​​- honesty, compassion and responsibility. The anger and contempt that appear in these reactions is not a mere emotion but a defensive response to the violation of the moral order. People do not hate the government only because of political differences, but because they recognize in its actions the ignoring of suffering and injustice that affects each of us. In this context, their strike and public struggle become a mirror of social tensions: they show how moral injury can grow into a feeling of collective guilt, anger and dissatisfaction with the system, but also into the need to seek truth and justice, without compromise. Her determination and steadfastness send a clear message that people will not simply accept the betrayal of their core values.

And how did they morally hurt us? It all started - with music. For days, unbearably loud music was coming from Ćaciland, from the concert sound system. But that was not the main problem. Permanent injuries to her and the souls of all who were with her were caused by the songs "A small boat sails by the sea" (in which there is a line "the mother went to look for her son") and "Pkni zoro (wake up the old mother, so she can see who is coming to her)". "I think this moment is important also because of facing the fact that they all individually have responsibility, human and political, and maybe that's why for the first time I'm not ashamed of the feelings I have," says Jelena Riznić: "Until now, I admit, shame existed and it came from understanding the material position of many people, but the whole misfortune with fascism is that it slowly sets in when complete moral relativism replaces all judgment and when practically everything is allowed. It is not and must not be."

SOMETIMES HATE IS LEGITIM

Looking back at the music from Ćaciland and specific songs, Predrag Voštinić says that elementary dignity is violated in pain: "Moreover, what hurts is the absence of humanity, which means that each of us could feel threatened. A special segment of human rights that deals with acts against humanity basically has this very need to sanction inhumane behavior. By not sanctioning, it gives another reason to develop hatred, which is injustice as systemic injury.”

When we look at moral injury in a political context, it becomes clearer why otherwise reasonable and decent people can feel strong anger or hatred towards those who behave cynically and without an iota of empathy. When someone, for example, publicly mocks someone else's suffering or tragedy, the reaction of the onlookers is not only emotional - it is moral. At that moment, we don't just feel that someone has been rude, but that something basic in us has been hurt, a feeling that the world should have at least minimal rules of decency and compassion.

Then what we could call a collective moral injury arises. People who believe in empathy and solidarity feel as if someone has pulled out the foundation of their common life from under their feet. Their anger or contempt is then not only a reaction to an insult but also an instinctive defense of the moral order. In this sense, political hatred often springs from a sense of moral betrayal - we do not hate "others" because they are different, but because we see in their behavior a denial of what we consider human.

"The feeling of hatred is completely natural, like all other feelings", says Goran Tomin: "Psychoanalysts know that the opposite of the feeling of love is not hatred, but indifference, and that sometimes hatred can only be the other side of love. It manifests itself in frustration and is not necessarily destructive. Therefore, it is important that we also validate the feeling of hatred, which can arise due to objective circumstances, and not because of someone's inner world. It is very possible that someone or something makes us feel hatred." Voštinić also notes that an additional danger comes from the fact that inhumanity is applied and promoted from the highest positions in society and is protected by all management mechanisms, the media, and even force: "Well, that's when a person feels completely powerless, and despair is also a corner in the ring from which hatred is created. We cannot just sit in that corner and gnash our teeth, we must deal with that hatred thoughtfully. We must face evil, return to ring with one motive - hatred of evil. Because 'indulging evil is evil in itself'."

In the end, the story of Dijana Hrka and Milomir Jaćimović is not just a story about one mother, one father, or one accident at the train station. Well, it's not even a story about protests that have been going on for a year. It is a mirror of the state of society, which is still looking for a balance between justice and power, between responsibility and ignoring. This struggle shows how deeply we feel injustice and how moral injury can awaken a collective consciousness of what is right and what is wrong. Even if they named that injury as hatred.

Child on hunger strike

A tent was set up in front of the Provincial Government in Novi Sad (Banovina building) where Jaćimović and his son (16) will stay during the strike. The security of the building briefly approached Jaćimović asking him to move, which he refused. This is the first time that a minor has participated in a hunger strike in Serbia. However, Jaćimović's son went through a lot with his father, and was even arrested. "I expected pressure, but I'm not quite like this. I didn't expect them to allow a 16-year-old child to be arrested from his bus in front of me, to threaten me. There were thugs coming into the school to look for my child. He says 'report to the police,' who cares about the police when they're all criminals?" Milomir Jaćimović told reporters.

Students in the blockade of the University of Novi Sad supported Jaćimović and called on citizens to gather near Banovina. "We are sorry that the father and son felt that a hunger strike was the only way to draw attention to their problem. We understand their decision and deeply sympathize with the situation they found themselves in," state the Novi Sad students, adding that Jaćimović has always been with them and that now it is their turn to be with him.

Hate as a call to morality

Moral injury is a concept that was introduced into the psychological and ethical literature by military psychiatrist Jonathan Shay and theologian Brett Litz and colleagues. Shay first used it in the early 1990s, describing the experiences of American veterans from the Vietnam War. In his book Achilles in Vietnam (Achilles in Vietnam) from 1994, moral injury is defined as a mental wound caused when a person experiences the betrayal of someone he trusted in a situation of moral importance. Litz et al. (2009) expand the term to include situations in which an individual himself participates in an action that contradicts his deep moral convictions, whether he did it under pressure, out of powerlessness, or because of bad judgment. Therefore, moral injury differs from classical trauma in that it does not originate primarily from fear, but from feelings of guilt, shame, betrayal and moral breakdown. It can also arise when someone experiences injustice or witnesses something that violates his sense of good and justice. The consequences are profound: loss of trust in others, in the system or in one's own moral compass, as well as the feeling that we are no longer the same person as before. In modern psychology, moral injury is associated with post-traumatic stress, but also with phenomena such as long-term anger and hatred towards the one who committed the injustice. This is where the question begins: is hatred in such cases a symptom of injury or an attempt to restore a sense of moral order?