Serbian Citizens Do Not Want to Accept Societal Collapse

Aleksandar Baucal(Photo:Prt.Scr YouTube)

The civil protests of the past few months in Serbia had shown that a large number of citizens is unhappy with the status quo and that they will not stand by anymore as their society collapses, said Aleksandar Baucal, a psychology professor from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, on July 27.

“The chasm between the indifferent citizens and the opposition parties has been somewhat lessened, although there is still work to be done for it to be fully bridged. We, the citizens, don’t have a better partner to help us change the society than the opposition parties, and they, likewise, have no one but the discontent citizens whom they should be representing,” Baucal said in an interview for the Vreme weekly.

Commenting on the dismissal of the National Assembly’s Inquiry Committee which had been established to investigate the circumstances around the mass shootings in Belgrade and Mladenovac, the psychology professor said that the safety of the judicial process could have been ensured instead by canceling the tabloids as they have a greater effect on the trial than the committee.

Baucal also expressed his belief that the “power pyramid built by the ruling party” has begun to crumble.

“All these people who have sold their hides to the government are now seeing the immense dissatisfaction of their compatriots and neighbors, and are now surely weighing their options, trying to decide if they want to stay on the ship that has been breached. The appetites of those who have profited from the regime are growing and the ruling party won’t be able to satisfy them. This is how their power will gradually be eroded,” Baucal concluded.