The police are busy all over Serbia. They’re arresting students, war veterans, and anyone who happens to cross their path. People found with a toy crossbow or a sharpened hawthorn stake. In hiding places, one can still find bows and arrows, spears, and war hammers. In woodsheds there are axes, in basements — long plumbing pipes, pry bars, and rusty iron rods.

There are also logs and various clubs, hoes, pickaxes, mattocks, and unused stones. Rotten fence posts and shepherd’s staffs scattered across the hills.

I don’t know exactly what Ivica Dačić, the police errand boy from Žitorađa, is doing, but whatever it is, he’s doing it non-stop. He’s full of poetic imagination, an entertainer, a turbo-folk singer, a rascal, and the harlequin of the gang. He can identify and imagine all manner of things which don’t look dangerous but could, somehow, overthrow the constitutional order armed with artillery. If he’s out of ideas, someone points him toward a new task.

Novica Antić, former head of the military union, has also been arrested. No serious operation can go forward without Antić being arrested — even the lucid Miloš Vučević previously identified him as a threat to the military and the state. He was identified as being part of a “color revolution” in progress. He was caught trying to head to Belgrade on Saturday. And that can only mean one thing.

More arrests will follow before Saturday evening. Anyone found with any of the above-mentioned items or similarly dangerous tools — and caught in casual conversation about how to get rid of, well, you-know-who and you-know-what — will be arrested and presented with a choice: sign a confession, or be forgotten in solitary confinement.

This way, the protectors of the constitutional order will have evidence that there were serious attempts to overthrow it. That the revolution, already defeated many times, is still alive.

Every step into the street can now be considered an attempt to overthrow the order.

What exactly is being overthrown? Nothing! The regime is prone to collapse, but it hides behind the shadow of a constitutional order that no longer exists. The regime has already fallen; only the stage props remain.

It seems people are taking to the streets to look for an explanation: what is this force that claims to be the constitutional order, having, itself, destroyed that order? Especially prosecutor Stefanović, who no longer operates according to the constitution and the law — since both have been completely negated by the one giving him orders.

If we look around, everyone has some dangerous object close at hand, besides the ones already listed: scissors, crochet needles, tongs, meat tenderizing hammers. Nail clippers, pens, keys.

We all engage in inevitable, late-night conversations:
Did you hear what that madman said last night? Is there a limit to this?
There isn’t, bro, there isn’t. I used to think there was, but no. Which madman are you talking about? Just asking in case we’re being bugged.

This is unbearable.

Exactly! I’m ashamed to live like this anymore — let them listen if they want!

Such a conversation could mark the beginning of a conspiracy, an attempt to bring down the regime. Endless suffering that’s been going on for who knows how long, and can no longer be endured. That’s the final Aesopian signal for those eavesdropping: Arrest him — he’s scaring the monster! A whole chorus of trained professional mourners has been lamenting for years the sad life of a mutant constantly wailing over his own fate.

This Saturday at Slavija, another large citizen gathering is planned. Everyone is already suspected of trying to destroy the state — a state already devastated and choking under a humiliating tyranny.

Civil disobedience follows, say the students — far more significant than anything we’ve seen before.

Under the white tents in Pionirski Park and in front of the parliament lies all that remains of the so-called order. An unaccountable tent city born from delusional ghostly inspirations — a mirage of existence. Serbia is abuzz with angry delirium, and the uprising may be gaining decisive strength.

Translated by Marijana Simić

Peščanik.net, 28.06.2025.


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Ljubodrag Stojadinović (1947, Niš), gde se školovao do velike mature u gimnaziji „Svetozar Marković“. Studirao u Skoplju, i magistrirao na Institutu za sociološka i političko pravna istraživanja, odsek za masovne komunikacije i informisanje u globalnom društvu (Univerzitet Kiril i Metodi 1987). Završio visoke vojne škole i službovao u mnogim garnizonima bivše Jugoslavije, kao profesionalni oficir. Zbog javnog sukoba sa političkim i vojnim vrhom tadašnjeg oblika Jugoslavije, i radikalskim liderima i zbog delikta mišljenja – odlukom vojnodisciplinskog suda od 1. marta 1995. kažnjen gubitkom službe u činu pukovnika. Bio je komentator i urednik u Narodnoj Armiji, Ošišanom ježu, Glasu javnosti, NIN-u i Politici. Objavljivao priče i književne eseje u Beogradskom književnom časopisu, Poljima i Gradini. Dobitnik više novinarskih nagrada, i nagrada za književno stvaralaštvo, i učesnik u više književnih projekata. Nosilac je najvišeg srpskog odlikovanja za satiru, Zlatni jež. Zastupljen u više domaćih i stranih antologija kratkih i satiričnih priča. Prevođen na više jezika. Objavio: Klavir pun čvaraka, Nojev izbor, Više od igre (zbirke satiričnih priča); Muzej starih cokula (zbirka vojničkih priča); Film, Krivolak i Lakši oblik smrti (romani); Ratko Mladić: Između mita i Haga, Život posle kraja, General sunce (publicističke knjige); Jana na Zvezdari (priče za decu); Masovno komuniciranje, izvori i recipijenti dezinformacije u globalnom sistemu (zbirka tekstova o komunikacijama). Zastupljen u Enciklopediji Niša, tom za kulturu (književnost). Za Peščanik piše od 2016. godine. U decembru 2021. izbor tih tekstova je objavljen u knjizi „Oči slepog vođe“.

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