Changing of Roles as a Goal

The opposition in Serbia is inferior.  Relatively so.  The conditions we live in, and the regime that imposes these conditions on us, do not leave much maneuvering space for an organized and productive activity of the opposition.  It is enough to say that the communication channels of the opposition in relation to the public are cut off and extremely narrow.

The regime in Serbia is inferior.  Absolutely so.  Whatever be the way you evaluate its results, they prove to be disastrous.  The list of what we do not have and we should have is quite long: the future, security, democracy, flag, coat of arms, precise borders, state holidays, pensions, salaries, efficient education, honest and good-quality healthcare, joyful young people, passport, green card, police that protect us from evildoers and regulates the traffic, information, hotels full of guests, friends, job, stable dinar... The regime should provide all these things.  The results would be disastrous if we did not get used to this situation.  So, under these circumstances they are only shameful.

The oligarchy that holds the power is quite content with this situation.  The ruling organizations, parties and institutions have fulfilled their goals.  They satisfied the oligarchy, which sometimes does and sometimes does not hold conspicuous administrative positions.  The necessity to change this situation is in collision with the current relation of forces.  The oligarchy has a powerful media, repressive power, the central bank, and the administrative power, the courts, bullies and business arrangements.  The opposition has the people's dissatisfaction, problems with financing the political parties, problems with its own survival, a bit of local power, some media with low circulation figures, and probably one or two hibernated members of the oligarchy infiltrated in it only to help in making rifts in the inter-opposition relations, already burdened with vanity and different interests.   

The people are confused.  They have realized that something is unbearably tormenting them.  The oligarchy's supporting wall of power is systematically losing popularity in spite of the powerful media support, in spite of the fear of some people and traditional submissiveness to the regime of the others.  In that downfall trend, the only thing the regime is doing is spreading lies, half-truths, and sometimes even true stories about the opposition, trying to discredit them in front of the voters.  An ideal scenario for a political change is the election victory of the opposition and the defeat of SPS, which would enable the creation of a transient administration, the role of which should be the changing of the system rather than just taking over the roles that have already existed.  In this ideal scenario the oligarchy would disappear, and that would be enough.  For us and for our country it is irrelevant what is going to happen to the protagonists of the current oligarchy, i.e. whether they will retire, go to the West, to the East, to the Far-East or to some secluded summer houses of theirs.  The fact that this is not possible or that this will be a very difficult thing to do does not acquit anybody of the responsibility to work toward it.  Also, the fact that this might not be the idea of the international community should not obligate us at all. There is not much evidence that the international community is capable of anything else but the administrating and bureaucracy.  It would have been the best if they never remembered us at all.  So the prime task of the future administration is precisely that -- to make us an inconspicuous part of the international community rather than its constant entertainment.

Finally, it is more or less known how to make a peaceful exchange of roles between the opposition and the ruling coalition: through elections and the opposition's joint action, persistent and creative communication with the public, and a guarantee to the members and supporters of SPS and other parties (who are supposed to turn into oppositionists) that they would be defeated only politically, and that they would be able to try to regain power in the future if they feel like it.  This naturally means the use of a rhetoric without any false promises, offering hope that we are going towards the reconstruction of a state that would be neither a party nor a regime state, and would not depend on the will, incapability or weakness of either one man or of a group of people.  One thing must be added to all this, and that is patience.  It rarely occurs that power is given away to others without any resistance, and particularly by this regime.  That is why we should not time-limit the goal to reinstate the state, in which we will feel well, whose borders, symbols and important dates we will know, instead of having the regime and the territories it controls and throws away.  So, no matter how much we might be taken away from it by uncontrollable developments, this idea must not be altered or forgotten.