I Am Sick of Simulation

Four students, sentenced on November 3 to a ten-day prison sentence for drawing graffiti, were released on Friday, November 13. Since then, the most defiant among them, twenty year-old Teodora Tabacki, has appeared in most of the remaining independent media in Serbia. ‘Vreme’ asked her a number of questions which others did not.

Vreme: What happened that night?

Teodora Tabacki: They caught us after literally ten minutes. We laughed the whole time, even at the Stari Grad police station, thinking: ‘They will let us go soon. They will realize that there are more important things for police to do, like fight crime, for example.’ However, they surprised us. In fact, I am awfully sorry I stopped. Had I known that I would end up in prison, I would have ran through the streets of Dorcol, they would never have caught me’

In fact you got involved in this famous action somewhat accidentally. What is your opinion of the ‘Resistance’?

I am sick of ‘collective’ types of action. No one wants to listen to someone bull-shitting in front of a monument. I feel sick when, after three days, various academics and priests start appearing, the same ones who had their photographs taken with cartridge belts around their necks, and who gave medals to Arkan.  We too held meetings and then decided: who ever likes collective action can organize a meeting, while we fundamentalists will seek other, guerrilla-like types of action. We want to exercise pressure, attract attention, poke a finger in their eye. Maybe the most important thing is the direct contact with people, rather than one thing which we are all sick of: simulation. This fit nicely with ‘Resistance’ purely by chance. I support ‘Resistance’, in the same way in which I supported the coalition ‘Together’: with an intimate sense of disgust.

Don’t you think that, with the attitudes that you have, it is a little bit absurd for you to support these ‘modes of action’?

The protest was, in itself, an explosion of positive energy. I do not regret in the least the four months I spent strolling around the city. There I saw many nice people whom I haven’t seen for ages. There was also a sense of victory, triumph and joy. However, there was always the possibility that this other side might infiltrate the student movement. Last time round there was a balance between the clerico-fascist stream and the civil, syndicate one. However, one can always create a minimum amount of common interest.

Was anything achieved by the protest?

Formally, yes. In essence however, the only change is that the golden eagle replaced the star.

You are a member of the Social-democratic union’s youth organization, which can be seen as falling within the odious category: the left. What is the difference between ‘the left’ and the left.

If we exclude the ‘brotherly’ countries such as China, the left primarily expresses an interest in social needs, it attempts to correct the model of liberal capitalism by looking after those who are worse off. The left advocates peaceful options and integration. What we call ‘the left’ in this country are a group of people who have destroyed the middle class, who own companies which exploit the workforce and who have started bloody wars. It is interesting that we are being recognized, and that our acceptance in the International Socialist Youth movement is under way. When Rastovic, leader of the SPS youth organization applied for membership, and was recommended by the Greek party PASOK, the movement’s general secretary replied that it is a disgrace for the world movement that Rastovic’s organization call itself socialist. The only continuity they have with the old regime is in the ruling apparatus, which is Stalinist in nature, otherwise they are much closer to the fascist right. It is a perverse mixture.

Do you hope that things will change?

I am not sure. Sometimes I have the impression that things are getting better, that these are the last twitches, that Milosevic must be very weak if he feels the need to attack the press which only 30% of the population reads and can understands. On the other hand, I often feel as if I am banging my head against the wall, as if we are sinking deeper and deeper. The minute I feel that staying here is nothing but masochism, I will leave. I am not that strongly attached to my fatherland. I hope at least that I will stay here until I am thirty.