Kind of a rant since I’m trying to get people’s attention here on what’s going on in my country atm. So prepare for a long one lol.
In case you all aren’t informed since I don’t see It’s being talked a lot unfortunately, a front part of a communist era train station that was reconstructed collapsed killing 15 people last November. The ruling neoliberal government (Serbian “Progressive” Party) that had a role in overseeing the project tried to lie and say that It had nothing to do with It even though it did. Making a lot of people angry. Mind you said party I mentioned is basically a slightly more liberal offshoot of the much older far-right ultra nationalist “Serbian Radical Party” that’s been around since the 90s.
This led to a lot of universities and colleges to shut down and are basically now run by self organized students since last December. They basically use large auditorium’s to vote on stuff, old school Soviet style. Though very recently a lot of unions, including workplaces in which some of my family members work, have proclaimed a general strike. And school’s plan to shut down too (originally winter break is supposed to end on January 20th).
Unfortunately a lot of violence is happening. From undercover government goons breaking into people’s home and threatening them to students getting run over by government goons as well and beaten by cops. Before you go “Oh this is a western coop!”, It is not. The students themselves proclaimed to not have an ideology and are not aligned with any political party (for better or worse I know, kinda annoying).
So yeah I hope something like this, that’s about It.
Also I know It’s fedipedia but It kinda explained what’s happening here in short so here.
If it was a colour revolution it would get a lot more coverage in the west. Power to the students!
Yeah, the fact that this is the first I’m seeing someone talk about this here tells me this is happening organically.
yugopnik talked about the situation around a month ago, that’s how I’ve heard of it
Fair enough!
The students themselves proclaimed to not have an ideology and are not aligned with any political party
Isn’t this also how every US coup starts though?
Just watch out for vague platitudes about freedom I guess 🤷♂️
Some guy actually got beat up for waving an EU flag. Also some neonazi too got beat up for waving a SS Waffen flag of all things.
Good 👍
We’ll know when they send up signs in English and wave foreign flags
Besides that, I think a gov’t that can’t handle this protest doesn’t deserve to rule.
First diplomacy, then if things get rough
They don’t start that way, but they do look for those environments in which to start.
Hoping this anger gets directed correctly by whatever communist parties you have over there, power to the students and strikers
I’ve heard literally nothing about this in my country’s media, thank you for informing us comrade!
I’m so glad people over there care enough about people dying like this to get in the streets and demand change. If this happened in my country, we’d have a candlelight vigil and that would be it, everything would proceed as before.
Don’t know where you live, but people in Serbia aren’t protesting only because of this singular canopy, but because of a series of corruption scandals and overall malpractice that spans as far back as the collapse of Yugoslavia. From aflatoxin levels in the milk being 10x than what is allowed in most countries to the weapons being sold to literal fucking ISIS, this situation is simply the straw that broke the camels back. If I were to start listing all the affairs committed by the government, it would literally take me a year to finish. And don’t even get me started on Vucic straight-up being a EU/US vassal, installed as a puppet to completely erase Serbian influence and institutions from Kosovo, leaving Serbs still living there to the mercy of the ethno-nationalist Kosovo “government”.
Don’t know where you live
the land where we call corruption “campaign finance” and we call malpractice “a good economy”.Hey, at least take some solace that you at least have some traditional media that shits on the other side. Here, in traditional media at least, there is pretty much only one side lol.
How accurate is Yugopnik’s summary of the student protests and Serbian politics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjO3K7jjMjs
Pretty accurate, yeah.
As I’m listening to this, I’m thinking that this sounds a lot like the US situation would be down the road. And I can’t find it, but I swear I saw an article recently that was something like, “situation in Serbia is America’s future” or some shit, an opinion piece, probably. I didn’t read it because I didn’t feel like learning going into the doomerism pit at that moment. In any case, a lot of the same factors are there, they’re just farther along.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Stay strong brother! Sending my best wishes 🖖🏾
gives you his energyHopefully, this leads to brighter days ahead, thinking of you comrade!
Before you go “Oh this is a western coop!”, It is not. The students themselves proclaimed to not have an ideology and are not aligned with any political party (for better or worse I know, kinda annoying).
You do realize a lot of color revolutions don’t start out necessarily run entirely by CIA-brained, CIA-trained people? It’s that those people are taught and given the resources to seize control of existing protests, to steer them, to set an ideology because they are the ones with pre-existing networks, with resources, with access to funds, to methods, with training on running these things, etc.
Any protest full of people with empty heads as you describe is just waiting for someone to come along and fill them with some ideology and what is the most common ideology but that of the dominant global hegemon which has invested VAST, vast resources in compromising human assets to pre-prepare for using things like this in countries all over the world and has more than half a century experience doing it?
I’m not going to jump to condemn but at the same time I’ve heard people sing this exact tune (on lemmy) about other events that turned into attempted color revolutions so we will see.
I’ll just say anti-corruption is good in theory in a vacuum but in practice let’s remember the fascist Navalny Russian opposition activist and US/NATO asset ran an anti-corruption foundation. Anti-corruption often turns into taking out the local oligarchs and creating a vacuum which allows plundering and power seizing by the global Atlantacist capitalists and their comprador pawns.
In realpolitik terms eastern European western-skeptical capitalists who are not subservient to the US/NATO/EU led order and want to carve out their own fiefdom are often by necessity somewhat anti-imperialist and provide a bulwark to even more states becoming pawns and fodder of the US/NATO/EU order.
One of the most commonly repeated attacks on anti-western capitalists who are not compradors of the west is corruption, this is well tread as a road and an in for the western narrative of the west as some corruption free utopia city on a hill when in reality you’re trading local corruption and gangsterism by people with local addresses for international corruption and gangsterism and strengthening the single biggest gangster empire instead of propping up smaller rivals who while not great for people living under them, in the big picture tend to be important for stymieing western influence and are really all we and China have in light of the abysmal state of class consciousness and socialist movements in a part of the world that has had the earth salted against its growth with the fall of the USSR.
So while I do hope for the best and I’m not going to automatically condemn or decry until it becomes clear, I’m pessimistic about who this benefits.
Your concern is appreciated, but you must realize Serbia already had a color revolution, in fact the first in the world which could be classified as such. Ever since then, the government supported by the US/EU has not done shit to even improve peoples lives whatsoever, privatizing many industries which is regarded as a universally bad move. This current government is only in place because it is thought that that last government at least had somewhat of a spine and didn’t want to give up Kosovo, whereas this one has given the west everything and more than it wanted. I mean fuck me, we don’t even have 5G because there was an agreement signed that strictly prohibited us from buying the infrastructure from China! Not only that, but these same students and people collectively rose up when the filthy capitalist war criminals in Rio Tinto wanted to mine lithium, all with full fledged support from the US and EU, but particularly the EU because they have a vested interest in being energy independent from China. Also, considering the EU and collective west response to the Georgian color revolution when compared to this, are you really convinced there isn’t a massive difference? Especially given the fact you are probably hearing about this for the first time ever. Could probably write more, but it’s a little late here, but here’s my comment from some time ago
It’s a rough situation. Glad my friends in the area have been able to keep me filled in - I really hope things take a turn for the better.
