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The Absurdity of Reality

Amid the unfolding upheaval surrounding Trump’s return to the White House, mass Student-led protests have erupted in Serbia. The trigger was a tragedy at the Novi Sad railway station last November that claimed 15 lives and left two people severely injured

Donald Trump’s inauguration at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. was saturated with Christianity— there was a reference to Saint John, while a rabbi was present, but there were no Islamic clerics. There was glamour and evidence that the U.S. system is sometimes a veiled form of monarchy—America and the world both have their own Trumps. The ceremony paid homage to Johnny Cash and Martin Luther King Jr., but, on the whole, it was a clear response to the “liberal” opening of the Paris Olympics.

The majority of Serbia, which has supported Trump more than any other country in the region, naturally feels closer to the inauguration in Washington than to the performance in Paris. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is putting his hopes in the new American administration. Amid the unfolding upheaval surrounding Trump’s return to the White House, mass student- led protests have erupted in Serbia. The trigger was a tragedy at the Novi Sad railway station last November, which claimed 15 lives and left two people severely injured.

Vučić has sent a message to the “centres of power” in Zagreb, Sarajevo and Priština, saying that their hopes of changing the government in Serbia are in vain. But are these “centres of power” really stronger than Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping, Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, Donald Tusk, Giorgia Meloni… all of whom are claimed backers of the Serbian regime? So, which West is supposedly trying to overthrow Vučić’s government? Would it be the same West that would bring to power a government that would annul the deals Vučić made with the “collective West”?

Authoritarian regimes worldwide undeniably have the sympathies of Vučić’s loyalists, but are they also on the EU accession path? Yet, absurdity is the Serbian reality – even when propaganda-induced and coated with hypocrisy

And yet, Vučić insists that the West is conducting a “colour revolution” against Serbia. The so-called colour revolutions of the early 21st century led to regime changes in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine. This phenomenon is exclusive to the post-Soviet space, symbolising an attempt at pro-Western emancipation from Putin’s Russia. However, despite Putin’s popularity in Serbia and Vulin’s Stalinist tribute, Serbia is officially on the path to EU accession, making the notion of a colour revolution in Serbia nothing short of absurd.

The absurdity continues: Lukashenko, the newly re-elected president of Belarus, claims that the protests against the governments of Belarus, Slovakia and Serbia are being coordinated and financed by the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s own Richard Grenell publicly expresses support for Vučić’s regime. Serbia has not yet established a “strategic partnership” with the U.S., but Vučić has certainly built one with Grenell. If not for Germany, Vučić and Hashim Thaçi might have divided Kosovo under Grenell’s mediation.

Trump’s biggest Serbian supporters had hoped Grenell would become Secretary of State, but Trump instead appointed him as his special envoy for strategic missions and policies towards hostile states, including Venezuela, whose president, Maduro, supports Vučić. Authoritarian regimes worldwide undeniably have the sympathies of Vučić’s loyalists, but are they also on the EU accession path? Yet, absurdity is the Serbian reality – even when propaganda-induced and coated with hypocrisy. There are EU leaders similar to Vučić, such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia, but there is one key difference: unlike Vučić, their countries are both in the EU and NATO, and have no intention of withdrawing from them. They have also relinquished power and subsequently returned—just like Trump.

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