We are all used to standing calmly in front of him, that his commandments are obeyed without question, that his word is stronger than the law. We are also used to everyone falling silent when Aleksandar Vučić says “silence there, I’m speaking”. What we are not used to is someone warning him about order and protocol.
Similar treatment experienced by progressives, journalists and all dissidents, Vučić experienced himself, but at the regular session of the UN Security Council in New York. Admittedly, “silence over there” was not heard, but banging on the table was.
For a change, that pounding did not come from President Vučić, but the chairperson of the UN Security Council session pounded her fist on the table Vanessa Fraser from Malta, irritated by the Serbian president’s claims that it was not agreed that he could only speak for three minutes. What the Serbian opposition did not succeed in, nor the protests in the streets, did the Maltese Frazer. She silenced Vučić. At least for a while.
What everyone saw with their own eyes, some on social networks, some in direct broadcast, the progressives, but also the pro-regime tabloids, nevertheless, tried to present as Vučić’s victory. For the domestic public, he bravely and reasonedly fights for the interests of Sbia, while the whole world attacks our country and wants to take away our sovereignty.
It is clear to the pro-regime media and progressives who defend their undisputed leader, as well as to Vučić himself, that the humiliation he experienced in the UN Security Council was obvious, unpleasant and in direct broadcast.
But Vučić is ready to swallow that unpleasant dumpling from New York, just so that his supporters in the country do not understand it. That is why, instead of Fraser, he apologized to the citizens of Serbia for the mistake he may have made in the UN Security Council.
“It took courage to interrupt the chairperson. But it is up to us to fight for our country, because we don’t have a spare homeland,” Vučić told the citizens of Serbia from New York, forgetting that until now he always emphasized that he is the bravest in the country and that he is not afraid of anything, except that someone accidentally kills him. “Silence there,” he called out.
Unfortunately, everything that Vučić said in the UN Security Council about the situation and the position of the Serbs at the KIM remained in the shadow of pounding the fist on the table.
It is clear that Serbia is not in an enviable situation, neither as regards the vote on the Resolution in Srebrenica, nor as regards the position of the Serbs in Kosovo, but this predicament in which we have all found ourselves, and for which there is no easy solution, confronts us with political arrogance which caused us a lot of damage.
Its matrix is that at the beginning of a problem, you think that you are much stronger and that you can impose solutions on others, and then – too late – you sober up and accept the worse outcome.
Because you can’t always say to everyone – “silence over there, I’m talking”. Someone will retort – silence, I preside.
The views of the authors in the Dialog column do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Danas.
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