/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2188245
>nationalist serbians chimping out
Keep me posted if albanian terrorists do terror attack to get rid of this scum.

>>2359503
There was a shitton of people, I don't think I have ever seen a protest with so many people in my life. It's pretty noisy but rather peaceful otherwise.
But basically everyone went to Slavija, it seems almost impossible to go there at this point, I only managed to get in front of an uni building where they did the 16 minutes of silence, then played the anthem, and now there is a speech I can't understand because I'm a dumb tourist so I'm chilling in the park. A lot of people seem to be leaving slowly but surely. Might still try to look how many people are still on Slavija before 9 P.M.

In parallel, there are the Vidovdan celebrations in front of the parliament by the pro-government people, from what I saw earlier in the afternoon there are much less people there. I wanted to see how it goes an hour ago, but some students block the way and there are also cops with anti-riot equipment so I didn't bother. They don't want any confrontation it seems.

Tbh I don't think if I can give you any information that N1 hasn't covered already: https://n1info.rs/vesti/blog-protest-na-slaviji-od-18h-studenti-objavili-plan-i-program/
I don't think you have missed much so far, and I think I will be a good boy tonight because I don't want to be deported to the border or some shit like this. But I'm not sure if I will able to go back to my place easily yet and it seems so peaceful compared to some other protests I've seen but it's still impressive so I might still hang around some more and get deafened by the sound cannon.

So basically, it's still impossible to go to Slavija proper even after trying to take some side streets but I'm not far from it. I see some smoke in the air but it's probably just roman candles, the atmosphere is a bit wilder here, let see how it goes.

There was a lot of people in Slavija, then I noticed a riot was boiling so I'm a good boy like I said, watch N1 for more details like I suggested earlier, it's getting hardcore

Live stream link for riot porn: https://n1nova.live/n1-uzivo.html

>>2359741
impressive levels of nothing happening right now

>>2359755
Well when I got near the parliament at first, there were masked angry people, I ran away and went to a safe place, then explosions happened and the protesters got REKT pretty quickly, and the N1 reporters were shitting themselves on TV.
Now the protesters are playing songs and shouting somewhere and got pushed far away, so I can understand why you say that, but if protestors did an attack not just on the main avenue with that hard ass slope, but also on all the side streets, it could have been…a bloodbath for protestors probably because anti-riot cops are much more well equiped than proles and students, tho Milosevic got BTFO by such proles.
I still hear police sirens, explosions and vuvuzelas but I have no idea where they are headed.

>>2359875
i think it has to be noted despite being an obvious liberal and bourgeoisie movement which failed at basically any real critique at the current system, it still started as a spontaneous reaction against the current system, as well as creating zbors

>>2359884
I agree, I wouldn't call this a color revolution. Not only because it's not organized by outside, but also because the West actually likes Vučić. They want to plunder Serbian lithium and they need someone who's willing to crack heads.

>>2359891
i agree, however i think that communists dont stand to gain anything from supporting this movement (in its current form and essence)

Guys, it's over. Farcical version of French '68 protests. At least those had workers striking and ultimately led to the fall of de Gaulle a year later. "First as a tragedy, then as a farce."
I really picked the worst moment to go to college. Wasted a year because of this and I'm getting old.

street fights have errupted and people are barricading crossroads and institutions since last night

EU would get Lithium either way so why keep supporting the goverment?
Or do protestors want to nationalize Lithium?

>>2362064
Current government:
>pros: not completely subordinated to Western interests geopolitically, works with Russia and China as well, basically "multivector" compradors
<cons: does not care as much about popular opposition to projects like selling off lithium to foreign capital and ruining the environment, uses harsher means to get what it wants

New centrist/liberal government:
>pros: would maybe be more resistant to ruining country's environment because they care more about the veneer of democracy and ecological standards
<cons: would turn Serbia into another completely Western-aligned country (EU, NATO) and sever ties to Russia and China because of their personal interests but also "democratic West/authoritarian East" brainworms shared by most protestors

I'm not from Serbia, just been observing their country for a few years. IMO the protests are completely justified, however I'm afraid the new government would actually be worse in terms of future potential for independent and leftist politics because the country would become caged by Western institutions like EU, Euro or NATO.
I'm speaking from the standpoint of my own post-socialist country where we would have to exit EU and NATO first to even be able to have our own foreign policy, monetary policy, nationalize the economy, regulate capital, etc.

>>2362082
>I'm speaking from the standpoint of my own post-socialist country where we would have to exit EU and NATO first to even be able to have our own foreign policy, monetary policy, nationalize the economy, regulate capital, etc.
Balt?
>t. Balt

>>2362092
Ex-Yugoslavia. Almost all countries in eastern Europe share a lot of common conditions though.

>>2362082
>pros: not completely subordinated to Western interests geopolitically
<cons: does not care as much about popular opposition to projects
these are contradictory because the projects in question are EU projects

>>2362111
Not all of them, far from it. China also has a very big presence in Serbia (BRI, factories, mining, infrastructure, energy…). There's even possibility that China might mine lithium instead of EU.
This would change with the new government.

>>2359896
>i agree, however i think that communists dont stand to gain anything from supporting this movement
Bitch ass behaviour

>>2362130
yes but those are not because Vučić is le geopolitical genius multipolarista but a bourgeois opportunist living on Tito's glory and Yugoslavian connections to the third world

>>2362315 (me)
the important projects (to Serbian sovereignty) are exactly those ones that Vučić is pushing for as well - jadar etc
you're blinded by ideology

>>2362315
>>2362317
I'm not saying otherwise, I don't think Vučić is good for Serbia at all. I just think a more pro-Western government that would go further in "european integrations" would make conditions for a potential future leftist government substantially worse.

>>2360123
I was inclined to agree with you yesterday afternoon, but the protesters got so pissed off at the police brutality of Saturday that they started blocking the bridges linking Novi Beograd and the center all night yesterday, which is a pretty big deal, and the blockade spread to 40 cities.
I mean look at what I saw earlier on N1:
>The citizens of Zemun have figured out how to block the road without the police interfering with them. They walk in circles across pedestrian crossings without stopping.

>There are no traffic lights at the intersection, so they have the right to cross the street whenever they want, respecting traffic safety rules. The police stand on the sidelines, watching this performance.
You Serbians are absolute madlads.

>>2362082
That's a rather good summary from what I understand. It's true that pro-EU actors try to take advantage of the situation, and there is the whole cringe about "running to Brussels".

However I don't think pro-EU actors can truly gain the upper hand. The movement is too disparate, and I doubt the war veterans participating to the protests are pro-EU, for example. Even if they get elected by chance, the mafia will probably reserve them the same fate as Zoran Đinđić.

And since you are ex-Yugo and in the EU, it also means you are part of the Eurozone, and basically, you have surrendered the ways of controlling your public debt to the Germans. This means even the mildest socialist reform is now impossible and you can expect incoming privatizations on the urging of Brussels to promote "competitivity". Good luck, it's the same shit in my country, and it's tough out there.

That said, talking with Serbians a bit, it seems like Vučić doesn't need the EU to do the same thing either. It's not just lithium, it's also water reserves and education from what I've heard. They also sold weapons to Ukraine recently. I'm inclined to agree with >>2359891 about Vučić being willing to crack heads.

And it's definitely not a color revolution. In Tbilissi, there were EU flags everywhere, people were protesting again the "Russian law" and there are a lot of NGOs operating there. In Beograd, during Vidovdan, there wasn't a single EU flag, but Serbian flags? Oh boy, of all sorts and of all sizes, it was endless.
It was nothing like a liberal protest where people negate their national identity, on the contrary, the vibe was "we are protesting because we love our country and it's going to shit".

>>2362143
Look, I can totally understand why Serbians are protesting, but I can also understand why a communist would be jaded by the situation. The protests are apolitical, kinda like the Yellow Vests in France, which mean you have everyone from ultra-nationalists to pro-EU liberals.
The protests are popular for this reason, but the people partaking in them are extremely limited when it comes to formulating a political program. If they do formulate one, whatever it is, I'm sure some people will inevitably accuse them of betraying the movement.
Branko Milanovic wrote a good article about this in March: https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-break-down-of-the-representative

>>2362315
This, Vučić is trying to play a delicate balance between maintaining good relationships with the West and the East, which is IMHO a good geopolitical strategy, but ultimately he is a corrupt bourgeois ruler who sell the resources of his country to foreign capital while not being able to take care of the infrastructure of his own country. That's why people are pissed off really.

>>2362082
Vucic is still more cucked to the vest than to Russia and China. He's not as cucked as EU members, but the Serb military does exercises with NATO, he bought Rafales from Macron (that deal is shady because there's no real reason for Serbia to buy brand new Rafales, Croatia got used ones for much cheaper right after, so there was some kind of corruption there), they sell shells to Ukraine and they sell ammo to Israel. Meanwhile for Russia and China, they didn't sanction Russia and they're in the BRI which is somewhat related to the canopy collapse, since the station renewal was part of the BRI, which western coverage of the protests always mentions, but it's not talked about here, because the whole thing is the fault of SNS, not the Chinese firms which probably didn't even do anything on the station renewal project (besides taking some money in some corruption scheme) anyway. There are also some Chinese-owned mines and factories. There are plenty of western-owned factories though, and the lithium mining project is western. Russia doesn't really own much in Serbia, the most important thing is a majority stake in NIS (translates to Petrol Industries of Serbia, or something like that) which they were forced to sell due to western sanctions.
Regarding entering the EU, the issue is that it doesn't look like the EU wants Serbia to join, Serbia would already be in the EU for years if they really did. Earlier pro-EU people were a slight majority in polls I've seen but at some point (I think the 2022 Russian invasion, not sure) the anti-EU people became a slight majority. All governments post-2000 are pro-EU, and SNS was created as a pro-EU spinoff of the SRS (and also less chetnik, at least publicly, but they still are, for example the current major of Belgrade wanted to move Tito's grave out of the city center but SPS complained) and back when the EU accession was going smoother they would brag about it.

>>2362420
>That's a rather good summary from what I understand. It's true that pro-EU actors try to take advantage of the situation, and there is the whole cringe about "running to Brussels".
I think that wasn't actually plenum-approved, the participants just organized it themselves.
>Even if they get elected by chance, the mafia will probably reserve them the same fate as Zoran Đinđić.
Not sure that's would happen. Things are pretty different now, the mafia is much more in the shadows, and it's basically owned by SNS. Though the state security apparatus was probably involved in the Đinđić assassination. They're a criminal syndicate themselves, and that dates way back to Yugoslav times. Some even say they were involved with the rise of SNS. But I don't know if I believe that, it was probably just a bad time for DS and Vucic used it competently. Serbs love talking about political conspiracy theories like they're facts.
>They also sold weapons to Ukraine recently.
Not just recently, they have been selling to Ukraine all the time, even before the invasion.
>I'm inclined to agree with >>2359891 about Vučić being willing to crack heads.
These protests has shown that Vucic is less willing to crackdown on protests than western countries (like France, German pro-Palestine protests and activism, Canadian anti-COVID trucker protests, the recent anti-Trump riots in the USA, etc.), Russia and China (Hong Kong protests).
>Look, I can totally understand why Serbians are protesting, but I can also understand why a communist would be jaded by the situation. The protests are apolitical, kinda like the Yellow Vests in France, which mean you have everyone from ultra-nationalists to pro-EU liberals.
Communists can support thing which aren't communist. Leftists in general should be anti-SNS, for example because of the Rio Tinto lithium stuff and because of the privatization of education SNS seems to really want to do.
>The protests are popular for this reason, but the people partaking in them are extremely limited when it comes to formulating a political program. If they do formulate one, whatever it is, I'm sure some people will inevitably accuse them of betraying the movement.
Some student plenum (or multiple? not sure) in Belgrade actually did make and distributed a political program for the student list, but I don't think it's official (final and approved by all plenums) and it wasn't talked about that much. It's not really a surprising thing and it's pretty weak, basically anti-corruption stuff, fulfillment of the protest demands and such. I think there was something about lithium too I think. The most leftist thing in that program was saying that the labor law needs reform and that the rules for strikes should be laxer, but it was pretty vague, without specific changes mentioned.

>>2363278
>These protests has shown that Vucic is less willing to crackdown on protests than western countries (like France, German pro-Palestine protests and activism, Canadian anti-COVID trucker protests, the recent anti-Trump riots in the USA, etc.), Russia and China (Hong Kong protests).
You realize that's because he can't do shit besides intimidate and arrest individuals (which has been happening). The protests are too massive. Evidence? In spite of the fact that we have the most cops in Europe per capita next to Montenegro (!!!), we saw today that the police are incapable of dealing with groups of people blocking parts of the city simultaneously, we saw thugs with fake badges presenting themselves as "police". Too many people.

>>2363278
> they didn't sanction Russia and they're in the BRI which is somewhat related to the canopy collapse, since the station renewal was part of the BRI, which western coverage of the protests always mentions, but it's not talked about here, because the whole thing is the fault of SNS, not the Chinese firms which probably didn't even do anything on the station renewal project
a chinese firm probably did some work, but it's still because the serbian government took up a law formulated by NALED (no, i'm not joking) to hasten construction work and cut corners everywhere.
>When amending the Law on Planning and Construction and according to the classic neoliberal formula, Vesić's ministry relaxed and deregulated supervision and accelerated procedures in the field of construction. In a similar direction, and also with the lobbying of NALED, deregulation began in the amendments to this law from 2014.
https://prl.org.rs/ko-je-sve-kriv-za-tragicne-smrti-u-novom-sadu/

The street blockades are still going on, they block several intersections in Belgrade and some other cities for like an hour or so, often the police comes to disperse them. This has been happening every day for almost a week, and there are rumors that morale is low in the police because of the constant work, especially since it's in hot weather. I don't know if these rumors are true or just cope.

There have been a few articles by Bosnian, Croatian and German news outlets in the past week where they talk about how the protest were "captured by Greater Serbia ideology" or some bullshit like that. It kinds feels like a coordinated effort, not sure if Vucic is paying them or if it's some German psyop.

>>2372311
>they talk about how the protest were "captured by Greater Serbia ideology" or some bullshit like that
I've noticed that but coming from some "public intellectuals" in Serbia.
There really are some cringe elements of nostalgic nationalism but there's also equally cringe pro-EU elements. Because the movement has no coherent ideology or program and is actively resistant to it.

The whole situation seems like a stalemate to me, neither Vučić nor the movement can do anything. Time is not on Vučić's side, however the beneficiary of that won't be the movement but some opportunists.

Today, over 450,000 people gathered at Zagreb’s Hippodrome for a concert by Marko Perković Thompson, marking the largest ticketed concert in Croatia’s history. Thompson, known for his nationalist themes and associations with Croatia's World War II-era Ustaše regime, has been a polarizing figure, with his concerts banned in several European countries due to concerns over fascist symbolism and rhetoric.

Marko Perković Thompson isn’t just a singer — he’s a symbol of Croatia’s refusal to reckon with its fascist past.

From glorifying the Ustaše to performing at nationalist rallies, his music fuels hate under the guise of patriotism. There’s nothing cultural about fascist nostalgia.

Last image: Entrance to Zagrebački Zbor camp, 1942

“Za dom spremni” (“For the homeland – ready”) above a transit camp used by the Ustaše to deport Jews. The slogan is frequently chanted by Thompson and his fans.

>>2372545
>>2372554
I wanted to talk about this in the other thread about Yugoslavia because I saw this thread on reddit today: https://old.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1lt0kf4/croatian_rightwing_singer_marko_perkovic_and_fans/
I've heard 20%-30% of the audience was diaspora, but what the fuck is wrong with Croats? Some of them seem really unapologetic about their past of Nazi collaboration.
Say what you want about Serbian war crimes and nationalism, actual Serbs are rather chill, don't really hate other nations after you talk a bit and most boomers seem to feel bad about what they did during the wars. Say what you want about Slovenes being smug and money obsessed, but there are anti-fascist graffitis everywhere in Ljubljana. Meanwhile in Croatia you get this. WTF. Next time I come to the region, I will skip everything and go straight to Bosnia I guess. Montenegro has nice coasts too. And a Croat girl locked me outside on a balcony a few days ago, I honestly don't have a good opinion of them.

>>2374401
croatia is the ukraine of balkans

>>2374401
The ideology of the independence war of the 90s in Croatia was founded upon the myth of Serbs as eternal Balkan villains. Hence anything anti-Serb, including literal Nazis, became cool.
>>2374407
It's worse than Ukraine. Ukrainians weren't frothing about Russia until Putin did his oopsie. Ukrainians commonly spoke Russian outside school, even those that weren't ethnically Ukrainian. Fucking Zelensky spoke Russian when he was doing comedy. 2022 changed sentiments but it's a recent development. Croatia has been in the chauvinist shitter long before. Also, unironically, huge numbers of Croatian diaspora are descendants of Ustaše.

>>2374424
>Ukrainians weren't frothing about Russia until Putin did his oopsie
Lol.
>Also, unironically, huge numbers of Croatian diaspora are descendants of Ustaše
I wonder where the Canadian Ukrainians came from.
Still, this Ukrainian population was only a small part of Ukraine. It still is, even Google analytics shows this. Most people from there are just chill.

>>2374489
>Lol.
Continue to "lol" at reality. Russian was commonly spoken in Ukraine until 2022.

belgrade in retrograde

>>2374401
>Some of them seem really unapologetic about their past of Nazi collaboration.

why should they it keeps working out for them,every "goal" they had they won and they keep getting away with it

>>2374497
Only because Ukraine was occupying Russian lands. This is like saying, Poland wasn't frothing at the Ukrainians and Belarusians, their languages were widely spoken in the Kresy!

>>2376884
Ethnic Ukrainians commonly spoke Russian. Are you literate? Are you able to grasp the text?

https://n1info.rs/english/news/vucic-has-lost-legitimacy-moscow-sends-unfriendly-signals-to-serbian-leader/
>Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, known as an ally of President Vladimir Putin, declared that Vucic has lost all legitimacy among Serbs. “Serbs want Vucic to go — that’s certain. He has the state but zero support,” Dugin said, adding that protests aim to remove him without compromise.

>The Russian foreign intelligence service recently issued a harsh message accusing Serbia’s arms industry of “shooting Russia in the back,” claiming Serbian missiles are killing Russian soldiers and civilians in Ukraine for profit.

>Observers are now debating whether these signals point to a shift in Moscow’s stance or just a warning. Former Belarus ambassador Srecko Djukic argued that Vucic’s foreign policy is “unprincipled and deceptive,” while political researcher Miljan Mladenovic noted that unofficial voices like Dugin’s could be “opening doors to an alternative” to Vucic’s rule.

>Despite the tensions, Russia has extended its gas deal with Serbia for only a few more months, suggesting Moscow may be waiting to see Serbia’s next moves.
хуй, wtf is going on

Also blockades are continuing across the country, 18 people got arrested, one guy got beaten up on the ground then got handcuffed to an hospital bed, some people have attacked gendarmerie officers which lead the Minister of the Interior to issue a statement about how cops are nice and there just to make sure everything is orderly, one private security car tried to run over protesters blocking a road yesterday in Belgrade, cops dismantled all the blockades so far apparently, but another one is planned in Novi Sad tomorrow.
I'm not in Serbia anymore, but from afar it seems like the situation can be summarized with the usual Mao quote:
>Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent.

>>2377618
nobody fucking cares what dugin think

>>2377618
"zero support" is hyperbole. Vučić controls a big share of MSM (public and private) and his party also built a clientelistic network across the country. His party would likely still come first in elections but it and its satellites wouldn't have enough sits to form a coalition.
Meanwhile the opposition as a whole doesn't have any other common denominator than being anti-Vučić.
Theoretically the best way out would be the movement creating their own party, but they suffer from the same problem as opposition and even worse they staked their appeal on anti-politics.

>>2378431
Yeah they're fucked. They're going to run out of energy in a few years at most, unless the manage to make an anti-party party like the M5S we have here, but even that has a pretty limited lifespan.

>>2188291
I just don't want to receive a "fell for it" award. If the new government is Russophobic, what will the Russians think of us leftists? They will think that we betrayed them after so many years. We cannot let that happen

Serbia must stay pro Russian.

>>2188468
The west should be banned from the Internet.

>>2381330
There is literally 0 universe where Serbs will be anti russian
Its like expecting Japanese ppl to hate America its just impossible

>>2381330
We just think Chud looks funny tbh

>>2378431
>Meanwhile the opposition as a whole doesn't have any other common denominator than being anti-Vučić.
That the definition of opposition. Aside from that, a lot of pro-opposition political analysts have for years suggested that the opposition should unite under a single anti-Vucic list on parliamentary elections. They say that polling suggests that a united opposition would receive more votes than going as separate lists. The trouble with that is what happens in the event of their victory. This "single opposition column" idea was already tried in the elections Milosevic lost, but all political sides agree that the post-October 5th parliament/government was pretty shitty. For those who supported their policies, they were a political mess. For others, they had a various faults depending on who you ask, such as neoliberal policies (for leftists), privatizations (even many pro-privatization libs agree that they were done wrong, though the privatizations got propagandized for really well and most people nowadays see them as something that should've happened), Kosovo stuff and deporting Milosevic to the Hague (for the right wingers). There's also the whole prime minister getting murdered thing.
Previous attempts at creating an unified opposition list were undermined by the conservative side of the opposition. Even DOS in 2000 elections was undermined by the chetnik-glorifying SPO. For the previous elections, there was supposed to be a "two opposition column" strategy with the libs uniting under one list as usual while the conservatives would form their own unified list, but that is rumored to have been torpedoed by the Zavetnici, who ended up joining the Vucic coalition later.

>Theoretically the best way out would be the movement creating their own party, but they suffer from the same problem as opposition and even worse they staked their appeal on anti-politics.
I don't know if you're not aware of the "student list" idea which is the current plan. The plan is that they ask Vucic for parliamentary elections and then they form a list (of non-students nominated by student plenums) and request that the opposition does not submit any lists. Except that they keep asking and Vucic is not giving elections. This means that SNS thinks that there is a real chance they fall from power if parliamentary elections are held in this political climate. Though there is a sign that there might be elections soon, that sign being the founding of (another) pro-SNS anti-blockade group of "students" (however they don't actually seem to exist, they're just an Instagram page for now) which in their list of demands include parliamentary elections for some reason.
As for a new party which would wait for the scheduled 2027 parliamentary elections, I don't know if the student movement is going to survive getting wrecked by professors (which is happening right now, almost all faculties have some form of online classes right now) and the disbanding of the faculty blockades, which might voluntarily happen in October for the beginning of the academic year.

>>2381339
>Its like expecting Japanese ppl to hate America its just impossible
<hate the countries you genocided
<don't hate the country that nuked you twice
Someone explain this