FLASH
Shkruar nga Alexey Kisjukhas
Political degradation rarely happens suddenly...
What is happening in our Republic? Justice laws are being changed so that the remnants of an independent judiciary fall under the regime's boot. A similar fate awaits the electoral law, warning of electoral fraud on an unprecedented scale. At the head of the most powerful police units come violent figures who are ultra-loyal to the regime. Just like at the head of a public media service. On the other hand, the " reorganization " (that is, the closure) of the few remaining independent media is at its peak. And pro-regime, "stabilist" organizations of quasi-scientific experts, when they are not sucking money from the budget, publish lists of journalists unsuitable for public appeal. University professors are dismissed and students are beaten. Their executioners are released. And 190 years after the adoption of the democratic and liberal Constitution of Sretenya, the current Constitution is being violated every day.
Even 16 months after the deaths of 16 people under the Novi Sad tent, there is no accountability for this crime. The moment for change has passed and the regime has moved from defense to vengeful offensive. Stripped of radicalism, critics of the government are called " Ustasha " and traitors to " the people and the state ". The process of Serbia's accession to the European Union has been halted. Bitef and Fest have been canceled. Cities are destroyed by construction. The cultural hegemony of loose, superficial and discontented ethno-nationalism is absolute. Deep in power is a well-organized group composed of war criminals, not just corrupt plunderers of our future and well-being.
The cruelty of the regime is chilling, while the insensitive and incompetent institution is filming for TikTok and chewing Novi Sad index sandwiches. As Vesna Mališić rightly noted in a recent editorial for the weekly "Radar": "Aleksandar Vučić has shown the direction in which he is leading the country. The end of that path is clearly a dictatorship ." Indeed, the abolition of the independent judiciary has been done, and the abolition of the autonomy of universities and free media is on the horizon. Maybe they have cut off the internet and the signal on the mobile phone, who knows. Welcome to Belarus, you don't have to take off your shoes.
Is this diagnosis exaggerated? It would be if it were not. That is, it is necessary to return to the classics as a kind of “ factory environment ” of the mind. In our era of brutal erosion of democratic norms, Hannah Arendt’s 1951 study “ The Origins of Totalitarianism ” is also a disturbingly current political analysis. That is, this seminal work has remained prophetic in its diagnosis of the roots of mass terror and its understanding of the ways in which the political order can be distorted into a system of domination. Although the bulk of the study is devoted to the analysis of Nazism and Stalinism, Arendt also deals with European colonial imperialism and the functioning of totalitarian and populist movements in general. She speaks of the evil transformation of social classes into “ the masses ” or “ the people ”, of the important role of media propaganda, but also of human apathy, alienation, fragmentation and dissatisfaction as prerequisites for the emergence of totalitarianism.
Fifty years after Hannah Arendt's death in December 1975, Serbia faces the brutal dominance of one party and the consolidation of power under the strong hand of Aleksandar Vučić. Returning to her views helps illuminate not only the formal democratic backwardness, but also the deeper erosion of pluralism and the public sphere in our society.
One of Arendt's central arguments is that totalitarian movements arise as a result of the breakdown of traditional political structures and the atomization of society. In "The Origins of Totalitarianism" she describes how mass movements "for the people and the state" fuel social discontent, offering simple narratives that divide society and the world into friends and enemies, and then mobilize these emotions to consolidate power. Totalitarian movements tend to destroy all other organizations and associations and replace them with the all-encompassing solidarity of one group. The dominance of one political force, the Serbian Progressive Party, shows similar patterns of mobilization of public space and social resources. Yes, elections are held, opposition parties exist, formal freedoms have not been abolished, etc., but the space for real political competition has been drastically reduced. Also, media pluralism has been seriously damaged as most of the media is under the political control of the government, and independent journalism is exposed to great pressures. In systems that slide towards dictatorship, the media becomes a channel for the affirmation of political power, something that Arendt particularly warned against.
Sipas Arendt, degradimi politik rrallë ndodh papritur. Ai mbin në erozionin e institucioneve përfaqësuese dhe të pavarura. Pastaj, në dobësimin e besimit civil, si dhe në transformimin e politikës nga sfera e konkurrencës publike në sferën e dominimit. Totalitarizmi, për Arendt, nuk është vetëm një çështje terrori masiv, por një ndryshim cilësor në vetë natyrën e jetës politike, ngushtimi i hapësirës publike dhe nënshtrimi i saj ndaj një force hegjemonike. Dhe nuk është se terrori masiv nuk ekziston, ne thjesht po mësohemi ngadalë me të. Njerëzit tashmë po humbasin vendet e tyre të punës, dyqanet dhe baret "opozitare" po vandalizohen, gazetarët po marrin kërcënime me vdekje, oficerët e policisë dhe prokurorët që zbulojnë keqbërje po fshihen, po zhvillohen gjyqe të manipuluara politikisht, përgjimet janë të kudondodhura dhe qytetarë të panumërt janë rrahur tashmë pas protestave paqësore. Tingëllon mjaft totalitariste, apo jo?
Në Serbinë e sotme, shohim disa elementë që justifikojnë zbatimin e kornizës analitike të Hannah Arendt: marrja nën kontroll e institucioneve shtetërore nga partia në pushtet, dobësimi i medias së pavarur, zbehja e kufijve midis partisë dhe shtetit, privatizimi i burimeve publike, presioni mbi organizatat e shoqërisë civile dhe autonomia e universiteteve, zgjedhjet që bëhen një fasadë, si dhe shkatërrimi i pavarësisë së gjyqësorit.
Efekti kumulativ nuk është vetëm dominimi zgjedhor, por një minim gradual i kushteve që e bëjnë të mundur demokracinë. Pushteti është absolut ose nuk do të jetë. Ekziston një harmoni e politikës, kishës, medias, krimit dhe, rrahjeve në veprim. Në këtë kuptim, Serbia bashkëkohore tregon modelet e njohura nga Arendt në njohuritë e tij rreth nënshtrimit politik. Prandaj, zbatimi i kornizës së saj teorike dhe kërkimore në Serbinë bashkëkohore nuk do të thotë barazimi i së tashmes me nazizmin dhe stalinizmin si kapitujt më të errët të shekullit të 20-të, por përkundrazi njohja e modeleve të konsolidimit autoritar ndërsa ato janë ende subjekt i kritikave dhe ndryshimit. Nëse gjithçka nuk ka shkuar tashmë në ferr.
"Nëse doni një pamje të së ardhmes, imagjinoni një çizme që shkel mbi një fytyrë njerëzore, përgjithmonë. Gjithmonë do të ketë atë fytyrë për të shkelur. Heretiku, armiku i shoqërisë, do të ekzistojë gjithmonë në mënyrë që ne ta mposhtim dhe poshtërojmë përsëri. Spiunazh, tradhti, arrestime, tortura, ekzekutime, zhdukje nuk do të ndalen kurrë. Sa më e fortë të jetë Partia, aq më e pamëshirshme do të jetë; sa më e dobët të jetë rezistenca, aq më i fortë do të jetë despotizmi", shkroi George Orwell për totalitarizmin në "1984" (1948).
"Oh horror... oh horror... " said the dying Colonel Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) and Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). It was the context of a total war in which Kurtz asserts himself as a godlike lord in the Cambodian jungle, ruling through violence, terror, and charisma. Kurtz consciously rejects modern civilization and embraces isolation and "savage " as the absence of all moral restraint. For him, war reveals a profound truth about human nature and its (banal) capacity for evil. The criminal Kurtz is not "mad" in the standard sense of the word, but someone who has shed all illusions and has come face to face with something unbearably terrible, the abyss of the human soul. Sound familiar? We live in the heart of darkness or apocalypse today. What is happening, then, in our Republic? "The worst have lost their fear, and the best have lost their hope ," Arendt wrote./ Adapted from "Pamphlet" by " Danas "
Lini një Përgjigje