Serbia’s silent civil war: A self-destructive version of extreme Serbian nationalism

It has been raging in Serbia since Vidovdan. On that day, students organised a protest entitled “See you at Vidovdan”, where Milo Lompar, professor at the Department of Serbian Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, addressed the gathering, those who, they claim, would change Serbia for the better. Among other things, he spoke about freedom, which “has two branches – the freedom of the Serbian people outside Serbia and the freedom of our country in relation to others”.

Lompar, known for his right-wing views, recently attracted attention as a participant in the promotion of the book “The Black Fable” by convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic at the Serbian Literary Cooperative.

In his speech at the student assembly at Vidovdan, he said that in the Constitution of Serbia “Kosovo and Metohija are ‘inalienable’ parts of Serbia”, and he also mentioned the defence of the sovereignty of the Republic of Serbia, of the Serbian nation in Montenegro, and of Serbian national rights in Croatia and North Macedonia.

Lompar said that the students’ demands for the institutions to function are “the most sincere struggle for Kosovo”.

During his speech, chants of “Kosovo is the heart of Serbia” could be heard from those gathered in front of the stage. The protest was dominated by Serbian flags, several of which bore the words “No surrender” painted in the colours of the Serbian flag across Kosovo.

On the same day that the protest was held at the call of the students in the blockade, a literary evening was held in front of the Parliament at the call of “students who want to learn” and who have the support of the authorities, as they announced.

The President of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and former Prime Minister Milos Vucevic posted on Instagram a photo with representatives of military and police veterans in front of the Serbian Assembly.

“Proud of the Serbian veterans who defended the homeland where it was necessary and when it was the hardest,” wrote Vucevic, posing in a T-shirt with the image of Milos Obilic.

Standing right next to him, as seen in the photo, is former Gendarmerie Commander Goran Radosavljevic Guri, who is linked to the murder of the Bytyqi brothers in Kosovo, which led the State Department to ban him from entering the United States.

The Vidovdan protest divided the bloc opposed to the government into those who have “abandoned” the students, disillusioned by nationalist speeches, and others for whom the students are still “our sacred children” who are supposed to lead Serbia to a better future.

Since Vidovdan, a silent civil war has ensued in Serbia – clashes between students and citizens with the police are a daily occurrence, as are mass arrests. The government suspects them of terrorism and of threatening the constitutional order.

Students have declared the current government illegitimate and called for early elections.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic, a disciple of Milosevic who has sovereignly ruled Serbia for three decades, condemned the attacks on the police in the strongest terms and announced arrests and the use of all powers. After eight months, the repressive regime in Serbia has finally shown its true, old and genuine face. Naked force.

On the other hand, there are sad messages from students and citizens who, during the clashes with the police in Belgrade, shouted ‘Go to Kosovo’ to the police.

Serbia, or rather that part of society which, instead of tidying up its own backyard, would like to replace this authoritarian government, to embark on a path of catharsis and, in this year 2025, to live in the year 1389.

The current situation in Serbia is well summarised in a commentary on the X by Branko Milanovic, Visiting Professor at the Center for Graduate Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY), Professor at the London School of Economics and one of the world’s leading contemporary economists: “The Western media, which only belatedly began to pay attention to the seven-month protests against Aleksandar Vucic’s authoritarian rule in Serbia, failed to notice that the main driver of this ‘civic protest’ has since become a self-destructive version of extreme Serbian nationalism. ”

You supposedly want to change the system, but recycling nationalist myths that we have been hearing for decades is unlikely to achieve this. How and why did the fight against corruption and crime lead again to Kosovo and Kosare, myths that have been staggering and destroying these areas for decades? Vucic, who in the 1990s earned a doctorate in nationalist ideology, is unlikely to be defeated by the same ideology.

Eight months after the collapse of the Novi Sad bus shelter, which killed 16 people, and the student blockade protests, Serbia is still at an impasse. President Vucic has repeatedly declared victory, given the final whistle to the ‘colour revolution’, about which a book is still being published, threatened and insulted, but the levers of power are still firmly in his hands, even though his support and popularity seem to be waning. So far, nothing of the changes. /The Geopost/