We also welcomed the long-announced multi-day meeting of the Government of Serbia in Niš, plus accompanying activities. According to everything that is happening there, something strange is happening with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. For example, he has no idea how much the Government of Serbia allocates for social benefits, so in the middle of the press conference he had to be corrected by the responsible minister, Aleksandar Vulin. So far, if nothing else, Vučić has been waving numbers around, putting them in a context where they sound nicer and fit into "his" view of progress. Now we are dealing with inflated amounts, incorrect data and concentration problems.
Scandals started to break out on the first day of the government's stay in Nis. After the meeting with the heads of the districts, the Prime Minister caused public indignation because of the statement that "some people can pull a horse's tail", but they will not work, but make and give birth to children in order not to live at their children's expense: "For the first child, 4500, for another 11.000 dinars and that's the minimum," said Vučić. Again, a mistake in the numbers: you can get 15.500 dinars for two children, and the minimum wage in Serbia is 21.050 dinars. Apart from that mistake, there is another one: you don't say to pull the tail off the horse, but the ox. But how would a man know that, who only realized the importance of work for survival in life and the world after reaching 40 years of age?
LABORATORY WHEEL: But when it comes to folk sayings, it was not the mother who scolded her son for gambling, but the one who got out. On Monday, October 17, Vučić made a statement to Television Prva that his statement was taken out of context. It's not true, there is a video, please. And it's not the first time he's targeted vulnerable social groups: at the beginning of October, he targeted disabled pensioners, because for God's sake they're 40-50 years old. It is as if a person can choose when and at what age the disease will make him unable to work. If someone, in this case Vučić, really thinks that it is so easy to bribe or bypass the commission that decides on disability pensions, they only need to look at social networks, from which, judging by what he comments, the prime minister obviously does not leave. These days, a photo of a saleswoman of a large retail chain in Serbia is circulating on Facebook. That woman cannot walk without a cane, and the job requires unloading and packing goods, sorting through shelves, etc. Her request for a disability pension was rejected.
Let's go back to Vučić's "extraction". He said, and stayed alive: "We will increase the rights of women in childbirth, and agricultural pensioners who have not been included in the program until now." Wait, stop, excuse me - women in labor or agricultural pensioners? His concentration faltered again. To clarify: a new Law on financing families with children is being prepared. The novelty it brings is a maternity benefit for women owners of agricultural holdings. And women who are registered as employees on farms already have the right to maternity leave and benefits. The measure, in itself, is commendable. There is no social group more neglected than rural women. But there is one catch, actually - two. First, of the total number of registered farms, only 17 percent are owned by women. Their age structure is such that most of them are not in the reproductive phase for a long time. Which means, whatever the law says, the amount that will realistically be set aside for rural women is miserable. It is also nice that women who are employed on agricultural farms are already entitled to maternity benefits, however, there are also very few of them, because the owners of the farms usually report only themselves, since they have nothing to pay contributions for other employees. So, all in all, women giving birth, especially those who live and work in rural farms, will receive - mućak.
Let's go further: "I said, when you have someone like me - with 100 and who knows how many kilos, who can pull off a horse's tail, but he won't work, we ask him if we already give you 8000, 9000, 10.000 or 11.000 dinars and we tell him once a month, if we have problems with the snow, help us clean up that snow, and you say you won't do it, so no It makes no sense because the state helps you," explained the Prime Minister and asked for whom that statement was an insult. Well, here is the answer: for all those who cannot find a job due to the ruined economy, so they are forced to seek social assistance. For those for whom those 8000, 9000, 10.000 or 11.000 cannot provide the most basic necessities. And I can't because it's impossible to buy food, firewood and pay utilities for a month with that money.
The prime minister knows that, he just pretends that it didn't exist before 2012, when he came to power. Namely, in April 2004, while Aleksandar Vučić was a deputy of the Serbian Radical Party, the deputies conducted an experiment: they tried to live on the then minimum wage, which amounted to 12.700 dinars. Guess which MP quit first! After only ten days, the then-radical Vučić stopped the experiment with the explanation that two small children can live with that amount for only 10 days, unless you don't want your children to starve. That was 12 years ago, when the euro was cheaper and prices were lower. In 2004, Vučić could not make ends meet with 12.700 dinars, and in 2016, he tells us about people who can, but will not work because they get 10 dinars a month from the state for two children (those who have to starve after 15.500 days). . Or about those who milk 8000 dinars of social assistance, but won't clear the snow. Well, they won't, because that same country is threatening them with confiscation of that paltry sum if they don't go out and shovel. And that is called forced labor. After all, why utility services, if the poor are going to scrape ice and collect leaves?
HIT THE POOR: On the day when this text was written, the prime minister and his humble entourage were still hanging around the south of Serbia, so they stopped by the controversial "Jura" in Leskovac. Vučić said that he had not seen "those diapers that everyone is talking about" anywhere. It is about the claims of former workers of this factory that their employer forces them to use adult diapers so that they do not waste time going to the toilet. The prime minister did not see those diapers. True, their existence was never proven because only former, but not current, workers dared to speak about "Jura". Assuming the claims are true, how exactly could the Prime Minister see them? Dear God, you wouldn't ask the workers to take off their underpants, would you? No, dear readers, it's not funny. Humiliating statements and demands of this government towards citizens have multiplied so much that this is not unimaginable.
He did not see diapers, but the Prime Minister says he is satisfied with what he did see in "Jura". He also asked the workers if their work was tiring, and they said it was not. Of course they said that, because not even God would save some unfortunate person who accidentally complained. As we said, it was never proven with the diapers, but it was proven that "Jura" gave two cars to the labor inspection, which leaves room for a well-founded suspicion that something is wrong. That didn't stop Vučić from mocking: "It's that horrible factory that everyone talks about in Serbia, I'm proud of how that factory looks," said the prime minister.
When there is already a well-founded suspicion, and we have established that there is, the prime minister's joke about the "terrible factory" is inappropriate to say the least, and in any case - humiliating. Which leads us to the question, is the government's excursion to Niš a turning point where, instead of marketing, making up numbers, mantras about progress and constant self-praise, the government changes its strategy and starts openly insulting and humiliating citizens. It's no news that it's a very successful subjugation mechanism. Admittedly, only in the short term, but let those who apply this strategy think about it.
HUMILIATION AT ALL LEVELS: Ultimately, it was expected that Vučić would sooner or later intensify the verbal humiliation of citizens. We have been living through and experiencing those specific humiliations for decades, no matter who is in power. However, this could have been predicted from the treatment received by ministers in the Government of Serbia. No one asked them if they wanted to spend seven days in Niš, if they wanted to sleep in military beds, bathe in communal bathrooms and eat beans and pickles. On the eve of the government's departure to Niš, the daily press widely entertained the people with stories about iron beds and "communal bathing". It is a shared bathroom, which does not mean that the ministers bathe together, but let's make fun of each other, although, as Vučić would say, nothing is funny. Once there, the entertainment for the masses continued with photos from the "soldier rooms" which are double, polished and relatively comfortable.
That is to say, don't smear our eyes, it is clear that the "Mija Stanimirović" barracks in Niš are properly polished and additionally equipped for the stay of the entire government. The fetishism of the media is further reflected through detailed reports on what each of the ministers ate. In all that uproar, the hook and the hoe was raised against the minister Zoran Mihajlović, who stayed in a hotel at her own expense. The spoiled one, the one like this, the other... It won't happen. As announced, there are no adequate conditions in the barracks for women members of the Government.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?: The mother of all questions regarding the seven-day stay of members of the Government of Serbia in Nis is: why all this? First, why go to Nis? If the goal is to show that the country is not only Belgrade, or that the government is equally interested in every corner of Serbia, then the project has failed. No alley in this country will be saddened by ministers with the prime minister at the head parading through it. If the goal is the famous decentralization, it is not done like this either, but by moving certain institutions of the state apparatus to larger administrative centers. Touring factories that are working, those that are about to start working, laying foundation stones and other protocol matters are part of the government's regular activities, so they didn't have to travel to Nis for a week to do it.
There is one beautiful word in Orthodoxy - asceticism. The verb derived from it is to venture. That's what you get when someone tests his faith by throwing himself into various torments, not eating, not drinking water, sleeping on a cold rock, walking barefoot in the snow, and so on. There are people who actually do that. But there are also heavy foils. What are they doing? They beat the citizens by going to Nis for a week, to sleep in the barracks, that symbol of torture and discomfort; to eat clotted beans and cold cuts, also symbols of poor food; to wash under rusty military showers on cold tiles, as if Aleksandar Vulin's photos from the spa center had never been leaked to the public. The foiling is that the barracks have been decorated and decorated for this occasion. To be honest, it's not exactly a five-star hotel, but still, it's far from what the average barracks in Serbia really looks like. But the barracks carries with it a strong symbolic meaning. Who cares that new itisons and beds have been brought into it when the ministers and, hey, the prime minister are sleeping, imagine where - in the barracks. They struggle and strive. They humiliate themselves, which is expected of us citizens. Don't be fooled…
