Exodus, Marcus Lyon

Exodus, Marcus Lyon

Are those Syrians crazy? Don’t they read newspapers, watch TV? Don’t they see the state of the Europe they so naively rush to?

When I say newspapers I naturally mean the Serbian ones; the same goes for TV. What good are all those iphones, ipads and other high-tech weaponry? They can’t just be checking the weather. Our media, both electronic and printed, have internet portals, too. All right, Syrian is not the same as Serbian, although they sound similar, but that content is available in English, too. They should get with the programme.

But, no, they keep running towards Germany. Still. As far away from our (and theirs, i.e. Croatian) fair homeland as possible.

Can’t they see how deviant and rotten that Europe is? That Brussels is the headquarters of hypocrites and deviants and that the European Union is, basically, one gay fraud, unlike our masculine one?

And that the West, America – they are incompetent as hell, all they do wherever they go is make a mess, both central and collateral.

But, now that our Russians brothers started bombing Syria, it’s like the sun is shining in Serbia again. The fact that those bombs seem to fall more on Assad’s opposition than the Islamic state is completely irrelevant. Animosity towards “military solution to international problems” has immediately turned into reverence.

Because, “that’s just the kind of nation we are. We know what it means to suffer, be poor and a refugee. Whatever happens in the future, Serbia will always take care of refugees” – as Aleksandar Vulin, the prime minister’s right hand for emergency situations, put it the other day, on a “Holy Sunday”. And then, in the very next sentence (or maybe it was the other way around, but who cares): “The citizens of Serbia should know that almost everything we give to migrants comes from donations and grants, that we are guarding the Serbian budget. Serbia has it hard enough without this”. So, that’s how sensitive and considerate we are, unlike that horrid Europe, even though it doesn’t actually cost us anything, since everything is paid for by that same Europe. And everybody’s happy.

Somebody may think that Vulin unconsciously made a mistake, but no, he’s saying exactly what the majority of our (elite) public wants to hear. When asked about accommodation for the refugees “the minister of labor, veterans and social issues” said the following: “The nature of those centers depends on the assessment. I can say that we won’t build any permanent accommodation. We can renovate what we already have, find new accommodation if necessary, but there will be no permanent settlements”.

Right until the end of the sentence Vulin was speaking in his manner, decisively, almost military-like, but when he started to realize what he was saying, i.e. the meaning his words started to gain, that they were revealing his true thoughts, he bit his tongue and started lowering his voice, so that his last word was almost a whisper. But the message was clear – there will be no permanent settlements. Just like their name suggests, migrants will simply migrate: first they will immigrate, then emigrate, i.e. they will come and go, without any excessive delay. Whether they want to or not. Otherwise they will end up just like they did in the Bogovadja refugee camp.

Nation, and national elite, you may rest easy.

Translated by Marijana Simic

Peščanik.net, 14.10.2015.


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Mijat Lakićević, rođen 1953. u Zaječaru, završio Pravni fakultet u Beogradu 1975, od 1977. novinar Ekonomske politike (EP). 90-ih saradnik mesečnika Demokratija danas (ur. Zoran Gavrilović). Kada je sredinom 90-ih poništena privatizacija EP, sa delom redakcije stupa u štrajk. Krajem 1998. svi dobijaju otkaz. 1999. sa kolegama osniva Ekonomist magazin (EM), gde je direktor i zam. gl. i odg. ur, a od 2001. gl. i odg. ur. 2003. priređuje knjigu „Prelom 72“ o padu srpskih liberala 1972. 2006. priređuje knjigu „Kolumna Karikatura“ sa kolumnama Vladimira Gligorova i karikaturama Coraxa. Zbog sukoba sa novom upravom 2008. napušta EM (to čine i Vladimir Gligorov, Predrag Koraksić, Srđan Bogosavljević…), prelazi u Blic, gde pokreće dodatak Novac. Krajem 2009. prelazi u NIN na mesto ur. ekonomske rubrike. U aprilu 2011. daje otkaz i sa grupom kolega osniva nedeljnik Novi magazin, gde je zam. gl. ur. Dobitnik nagrade Zlatno pero Kluba privrednih novinara. Bio je član IO NUNS-a. Sa Mišom Brkićem ur. TV serije od 12 debata „Kad kažete…“. Novije knjige: 2011. „Ispred vremena“ o nedeljniku EP i reformskoj deceniji u SFRJ (1963-73); 2013. sa Dimitrijem Boarovim „Kako smo izgubili (Našu) Borbu“; 2020. „Desimir Tošić: Između ekstrema“; 2022. „Zoran Đinđić: prosvet(l)itelj“.

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