“Do not trust the Danaans, even when they bring gifts,” the ancient Greeks used to say. In the spirit of the current political moment in Serbia, this could easily be rephrased as: “Do not trust Vučić, even when he offers dialogue and a truce!”
Indeed, quite surprisingly, just a few hours after threatening the “blockaders” that the state would come for them with some unexpected action to resolve the matter, Aleksandar Vučić, who has for so many years talked exclusively to himself, decided to invite the very same people—the “blockaders,” Ustashas, and terrorists—to negotiations and media debates.
It is difficult to believe that Vučić, being who he is and whom we have come to know well over his 30-plus-year political career and especially during these 13 years of autocratic rule, made this peaceful invitation because he changed overnight, became a democrat open to dialogue, and is ready to hear and heed other people’s opinions.
A wolf may change its coat, but never its nature. This is especially true in Vučić’s case.
When you know that just a few days ago, he was ready to send the police and gendarmerie to brutally beat, detain, and intimidate minors, children, and women with methods that even the Gestapo could learn from, to expose female students to rape threats, and to arm and incite his cohorts to use pyrotechnics and sticks to break up peaceful demonstrations—then it is clear that neither the character nor the pathological need to preserve power at any cost has changed for Serbia’s president.
This leaves a simple question: Who or what forced Vučić into this sudden act?
The Two Possible Scenarios
Did his call for dialogue come as a result of the first serious warnings from his Western mentors, who have largely been allies in the abuse he has carried out against the people of Serbia in recent years?
Or has he, in the manner of a fox, decided to feign being a democrat in the run-up to future elections and a campaign, in order to unearth what the students—as the leaders of what is now a nationwide rebellion against the arrogant and corrupt (and many would say, treacherous) government—have so far successfully hidden: the leaders of the rebellion.
And then, if they fall for his offer and appear on camera, to expose them to a public lynching and discredit them with the foul media power he still controls.
And we have seen from the case of FPN student Nikolina Sinđelić that he will stop at nothing, even publishing nude photos of minors, whom his media outlets then declare as porn stars.
However, while this second option should not be ignored at all, it seems the first one is more realistic…
Faced with the fact that their protégé—arguably the only statesman in the civilized world who, for the sake of staying in his armchair, was willing to sell them the sky and the earth, the water and the air, factories, minerals, infrastructure, literally everything, including his own people—his partners from the West, primarily from EU countries, have for the first time raised a finger and warned Vučić that he has gone too far and needs to calm down.
It is difficult to assess to what extent this warning is a consequence of their need to protect their investments versus a concern that, if he continues like this, Vučić could create a flashpoint in the middle of Europe, a flood that could spill beyond Serbia’s borders. But it is very likely that this “kicking him in the shin under the blue table with stars” contains a bit of both.
In this regard, there are increasingly negative comments in the European press, especially the German one, and politicians from their ruling parties have also spoken out, asking, after nine months of protests: “For God’s sake, what is happening in Serbia?”
If journalists from Western media, whose conspicuous absence all these months was more than enough proof that Europe and the West were ready to sacrifice a European nation for the profit of their companies, appear on Serbian streets soon, then we will know that something has truly changed.
But even if it has, we should not be naive enough to believe that the Western establishments are doing this because they want better days for the long-suffering and abused Serbian people.
At best, it could only mean that they have decided to get rid of an inconvenient witness, whose psychopathic character traits have begun to threaten their plans, and to find new faces in the ranks of some upcoming elite—one that would be a little wiser and more sophisticated, but equally ready to take the process started with Vučić to its very end.
Our end.
Written by: Antonije Kovačević Photo: ATA Images