Marko Vidojković: When you criticize Vučić, you are blacklisted: the Society

The protagonist of this interesting novel is the controversial businessman Dragiša, and readers can expect crime, corruption, high politics, cocaine, and patrons in some two hundred pages written in a concise, insightful and witty manner. Although it is a work of fiction, “Garbage” irresistibly recalls the horror of the reality in which we live. Marko Vidojković speaks for Danas about this novel, his political commitment, the government of Akesandar Vučić.

* Does our society live in such a dystopia that you had to write a book like this?

– I was in such a creative block that a book like this had to be written. In a way it is an indicator of what society is like. At the same time, I am socially engaged. For several years, I have been trying to influence democracy to return to Serbia as much as I can and can, that task seems to be increasingly difficult. In the end, it necessarily influenced the writing of books. In other words, I realized that I could not write anything new and different until I literally dealt with this regime and this era that has lasted for more than eight years. That was the basic motive for writing this book: my personal liberation, throwing out the garbage that has accumulated both in society – and in me, in these years of political engagement. I calculated that the great shows that I record, the interviews that I give, the columns that I write cannot be compared with the book that I would write about this regime and these years in which we live, and that book is “Trash.”

* The main hero of Dragisa’s book, who is a controversial businessman and who knows what else, is actually the personification of the ruling regime.

– Dragisa is more than that, Dragisa is the personification of Serbia, Dragisa is Serbia in a literary character. This is not Serbia today, Dragisa is the evil that Serbia and the Serbian people suffered in the late eighties with the coming to power of Slobodan Milosevic and the strengthening of nationalism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, territorial claims, wars and all the other horrors. Everything is Dragisa. So that’s why in this novel he is the one who has this, previous and future regimes in his hand. Dragisa is the one who asks about everything, Dragisa is the one who participates in all matters, Dragisa is above all of them in the book. And in real life, it is a symbol of Serbia, in which we are condemned to live for the last 30 years, and we all know very well what it is like. Like Dragiša, she is disgusting, creepy, but in a way we love her because she is ours, because she is our only homeland.

* Why is Serbia fertile ground for such regimes?

– I think the basic problem is that Serbia is not an independent country. It is a colony, that is, a banana state, which when Vučić came to power was under the direct influence of Angela Merkel, the European People’s Party and the European Union at that time, that is, in those years. It is about the regime that was established, in fact it is a punitive expedition, that was established in Serbia, because the Boris Tadic regime could not cope with the demands that Merkel made regarding the integration of northern Kosovo. to the rest of Kosovo. There was someone who was willing to do anything, not only on the issue of Kosovo, but also with regard to privatizations, the trivial sale of everything that was left in Serbia and the unconditional borrowing at huge interest rates of the greens of the world White. That was the case in 2012, when the regime was decreed by the West. Meanwhile, many things have changed in the West as well, and that regime has become a monster that does what it did at the beginning, but with more bosses. So, their bosses today will be the Chinese, tomorrow the Russians, the day after tomorrow Trump, the day after tomorrow Merkel. It is that vicious circle we find ourselves in. We are not in a democratic society, that is our basic problem.

* Does that mean then that a sign of equality can be placed between the Boris Tadic regime and the Aleksandar Vucic regime?

– There is no way to put an equality sign between the past and this regime, no matter how much the previous regime had a share in the emergence of this regime, that is, in the emergence of the Serbian Progressive Party, Aleksandar Vučić as a politician of importance. We cannot deny that the Boris Tadic regime was very involved in all of this, but the key is that the Boris Tadic and Vojislav Kostunica regimes were at their core, strange as they were, they were democratic. So, they took turns in the elections. What we have today is no longer recognized as a democratic regime. So, the assessment that exists from Freedom House that it is an electoral autocracy. On the list published by Freedom House, we are ranked 139 out of 179 places, which is a sign that we are not a democracy. We are an autocratic society in which the winner of the election is known in advance because he manipulated the election and it is not possible to replace him in the election. So it is really thankless to compare the previous regimes from October 5, 2000 to 2012 with the ones we have now.

* This regime does not like those who think differently …

– Here, I can also see on my skin that in the period before Vučić came to the throne, I could criticize the Democratic Party and the Democrats without risking my life. And in the case of Vučić, with the first criticism, you are already risking your life by putting yourself on the blacklist, by not being able to work, by closing all possible doors, to the point that they can pass you. beatings, and even to the point that some of the opponents of the regime were shot: I have Oliver Ivanović above all in mind. And it is not ruled out that in the future, when this regime begins to feel weaker and weaker, and that is the need for every regime, they will show a much more aggressive face than before. Therefore, the Boris Tadic regime or the Vojislav Kostunica regime would never resort to such means. In the end, both Tadic and Kostunica left power peacefully, democratically in elections, and Aleksandar Vucic first transformed the country into an autocracy, a society in which it is impossible to change government in elections, and then converts that autocracy more and more. day to day. and dictatorship.

* The atmosphere of the novel, despite the fact that it deals with Serbia in the 2000s, is irresistibly reminiscent of the atmosphere in Germany in the 1930s …

– The whole world irresistibly reminds me of the world of the 30s. Populists are emerging everywhere, there are more and more primitive and stupid nationalists in societies much more developed than Serbia. Unfortunately, we have one of the worst regimes in Europe, cultivating and undermining many radical right-wing and fascist groups, pretending they have nothing to do with them. But, the team that is harassing the migrants, the team that is dispersing the Somborc exhibition, the right-wingers that are storming the stands, are all sons of Aleksandar Vučić and they are all, in a way, modern detachments of Serbia SA. In my book, the solution came, as I would say, from heaven, that is, a novel of fear and horror, because in it is this mythical struggle of good and evil, in it God and the devil, God as someone in the planet, that is, in Serbia, they face each other. , brings a plague that is resistant to antibiotics, so the Apocalypse begins, and the Devil is my beloved main character, Dragiša. He is a kind of Antichrist and someone reading the book will be amazed at how state officials who may look like those of our old age are, in a way, better and more responsive than they are. This is because Dragisa, like the Antichrist, took his sins, because he is the worst of all. And we really can’t blame everything on Vučić and his team and that band. Simply, the root of our evil is in ourselves and lasts for decades. If not, they would not rule Serbia as they do today.

* Is there any hope for Serbia?

– There is hope. The only hope lies in increased pressure from the West, which so far has not happened. We saw in Washington how Vučić bends very easily when you throw it. I think the same will apply to the European Union. So right now, our biggest enemy is our biggest ally, and that is the European Union, which should not only put pressure on Vučić, but also the Vučić regime is ready for economic and other sanctions. They are ready to block accounts, they are ready for deep money laundering investigations. The European Union is not doing any of that. The EU is just acknowledging that something is wrong here and has not opened new chapters for a year. Our only hope is that our Western allies recognize that Vučić and his regime are a danger to the entire continent and that they are hardening it so much that it must somehow withdraw, that is, give in to the regimes of Gruevski and Đukanović. , again under pressure from the European Union.

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