At the beginning of February this year, N1 reported that \u201cpeople from the Serbian diaspora launched an initiative to sign a declaration of support for students in Serbia, as well as the idea of founding an Assembly in Exile to further monitor the situation in our country\u201d ([source<\/a>]). At that time, members of this initiative, composed of Serbian expatriates in Western countries, informed the public that \u201calmost all of them graduated from the Universities of Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Pri\u0161tina,\u201d and had \u201cproven themselves professionally while living abroad.\u201d They emphasized that their knowledge and experience\u2014as well as their love for their homeland\u2014\u201ccan and must be one more source of pressure on the ruling regime, and a contribution to democratic changes in Serbia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The very first activity of these diaspora members clearly demonstrated the political goals around which the founders of this initiative have united. Namely, Serbian expatriates were offered the chance to participate in an online \u201csymbolic\u201d vote on four proposed points, as a form of joining the voice of the diaspora to the \u201cgeneral social pressure\u201d aimed at showing \u201csupport for democratic efforts in Serbia\u201d and influencing \u201cpublic opinion and participants in political life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n These four points were as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Numerous pieces of evidence suggest that the network of individuals gathered around the Assembly in Exile<\/em> may have played a decisive role as external advisors in the decision by Students in Blockade<\/em> to issue a demand for snap parliamentary elections and to form the so-called student electoral list<\/em>. In this regard, the author of these lines received an offer to participate on the so-called student list on April 28, while the student blockers made such a political demand publicly only on May 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to influence over the student protest, the experts from the diaspora, united under the Assembly in Exile<\/em>, have apparently taken on the role that was initially assigned to the pro-Western experts in Serbia associated with the ProGlas<\/em> initiative. A careful observer would notice that the takeover of the coordinating role in the student protest\u2014shifting from the Croato-Latin ProGlas<\/em> to the Serbo-Cyrillic Assembly in Exile<\/em>\u2014coincided with a shift in the visual symbolism of the student protest, which, since the Sretenje protest in Kragujevac, has become strikingly national in character. Meanwhile, domestic “independent” experts from ProGlas<\/em> were tactically moved into the second echelon of external coordinators and exploiters of protest energy\u2014seemingly due to the premature exposure of their true political intentions and their subsequent failure to gain dominance over the student protest movement. In contrast, politically and party-wise “neutral” experts from the diaspora came to the forefront. It appears that ProGlas<\/em> members have been assigned a new role in this phase: to shift from unsuccessful coordinators of the student protests to potential front-runners of the so-called student electoral list<\/em> (though not all ProGlas<\/em> members), or at least to act as public endorsers of such a list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guiding principle behind all these activities by \u201cindependent\u201d experts\u2014whether they come from the ranks of ProGlas<\/em> or the Assembly in Exile<\/em>\u2014is summed up in a January statement by Ivanka Popovi\u0107, former rector of the University of Belgrade and a member of ProGlas<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe students have done something tremendous\u2014they\u2019ve freed us from fear and given us hope. And now, the only decent thing is to say thank you for doing that; those who have the strength can stay, but we are taking over now.\u201d ([source<\/a>])<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That the \u201cindependent\u201d experts from both within the country and the diaspora are politically aligned is evident in Popovi\u0107\u2019s prompt support for the so-called student list and snap parliamentary elections on May 6 ([source<\/a>])\u2014even though she and other ProGlas<\/em> members had previously advocated for a transitional government as the only acceptable political solution to the current social crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the experts from the diaspora, gathered around the Assembly in Exile<\/em>, indeed play\u2014as Bo\u017eo Prelevi\u0107 claims, and as confirmed by the personal knowledge of the author of these lines\u2014a key role in composing the so-called student electoral list, then it is of great importance that the public becomes familiar with the political and ideological positions of the initiators of this diaspora gathering. This is particularly important given that the political beliefs of the members of the Founding Committee of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> remain largely unknown to the broader Serbian public\u2014setting them apart in significant ways from the members of the ProGlas<\/em> initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the brief text outlining the mission and vision of the Assembly in Exile<\/em>, little can be discerned about the political and ideological profile of its founders. The document<\/a> consists of a series of easily digestible general statements envisioning Serbia as a law-based state with \u201cfunctional and independent institutions,\u201d \u201cfree media,\u201d a society \u201cwhere life governs politics, not the other way around,\u201d where \u201csocial trust, understanding, dialogue, and tolerance prevail,\u201d and which will, therefore, \u201cserve as a model for all\u201d . The founders of this initiative present themselves as people who \u201cbelieve in democracy and the rule of law.\u201d By invoking the meta-legal concept of the \u201crule of law\u201d\u2014a notion rooted in Anglo-Saxon political culture and different from the German concept of Rechtsstaat<\/em> (legal state)\u2014the founders ideologically position themselves as liberals. More can be inferred about their political stances from their announced areas of activity. Among other things, they state that they will focus on \u201capplying pressure on the EU and the USA to support democratic forces in the country\u201d and \u201cproviding legal assistance and advice to democratic forces in the country.\u201d From this, it becomes clear that the initiators of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> are firm advocates of a strictly Euro-Atlantic foreign policy orientation for Serbia, and that they oppose the politics of sovereignism, as they openly support the interference of the European Union and the United States in Serbia\u2019s internal political affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much more, however, can be learned about the political views of the key figures behind this Serbian diaspora initiative from their individual statements. According to information published on the initiative\u2019s own website, the members of the Founding Committee of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> are: In an interview with Radar<\/em> ([source<\/a>]), one of the committee members, Nikola Ili\u0107\u2014who lives in the United States and identifies professionally as a \u201cleadership development expert, social entrepreneur, and activist\u201d\u2014said that he joined the initiative at the invitation of \u201cmy comrade\u201d Veljko \u017di\u017ei\u0107. Interestingly, Bo\u017eo Prelevi\u0107 also mentions \u017di\u017ei\u0107, a man from London, as his only contact with the Assembly in Exile<\/em> in the previously referenced N1 interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ili\u0107, a professor of Democratic and Ethical Leadership at Georgetown University, expressed enthusiasm for his comrades in the Assembly in Exile<\/em>\u2014a sentiment that clearly reflects shared political and ideological views. He sees the struggle against Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 as a continuation of the fight against Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, which he began as a high school student. For Ili\u0107, the key political problem in Serbia is a deeply rooted political culture that breeds autocracy and must be transformed after Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s fall:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe must ask ourselves: after everything Milo\u0161evi\u0107 and his crew put us through, how did we\u2014as a society\u2014once again choose an autocrat? Even if Vu\u010di\u0107 were to fall tomorrow, the people who elected him would still remain. The same patterns of thought, the same systemic weaknesses. If nothing changes in our culture and political consciousness, in ten or fifteen years we\u2019ll have another Vu\u010di\u0107.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n According to him, Serbia must change to such an extent that supporters of what he calls \u201cautocracy\u201d would never again be able to cross the electoral threshold. Achieving that, Ili\u0107 argues, requires profound \u201ccultural changes.\u201d There is no doubt that this founder of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> looks to Western states and societies as the ideal model for how Serbia should be transformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nikola Ili\u0107\u2019s belief that Milo\u0161evi\u0107 was a dictator and that Serbia must undergo cultural transformation to prevent the re-establishment of \u201cautocracy\u201d is shared by political scientist Dr. Aleksandar Novakovi\u0107 from Switzerland. For him as well, the ideal is represented by the states of the Collective West, and in that context, he sees a special role for the diaspora in Serbia\u2019s political life:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we want Serbia to become like the developed countries we live in, then the experience of living and working in such environments is invaluable for future reforms in the country.\u201d ([source<\/a>])<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Stressing that he did not leave Serbia for financial reasons but because of a lack of democracy, Novakovi\u0107 openly rejects contemporary Russia as a model of governance in which he would never live under any circumstances:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would always choose a poorer life in an orderly and fair country over living in luxury in, say, Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n That this founder of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> is a pronounced Russophobe is clearly evident in his article Who Provoked Whom and Why \u2013 The War in Ukraine and the Redefinition of Realism<\/em> ([source<\/a>]). Novakovi\u0107 shares the view of well-known American neoconservative Robert Kagan, arguing that Russia was provoked in Ukraine not by an aggressive Western policy seeking to place NATO missiles on its borders, but by a \u201csuperior philosophy of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this context, Novakovi\u0107 quotes Kagan\u2019s conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMoscow failed to offer its neighbors any ideology, security, prosperity, or independence. It could only offer Russian nationalism and ambition, and it\u2019s understandable that the peoples of Eastern Europe didn\u2019t want to sacrifice themselves on that altar.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n At the same time, Novakovi\u0107 claims that \u201cKagan may not be right when it comes to Russian soft power, which has spread quite successfully\u2014and is still spreading\u2014through the Western world.\u201d On the other hand, Novakovi\u0107 agrees with Kagan that American indecisiveness in confronting Russia \u201cproduced a beast\u201d in the form of Putin. This founder of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> is a staunch supporter not only of liberal ideology but also of the necessity of American global hegemony (he compares the position of the U.S. in international relations to the position of the Sun in relation to other celestial bodies in the heliocentric system), as well as active U.S. involvement in European affairs\u2014since only in this way can the position of liberalism as the sole global ideology be defended. Novakovi\u0107 criticizes Europeans for the compromising stance they took toward Putin in the past: \u201cLet us recall Macron\u2019s rather early proposal to help Putin save face, as well as Germany\u2019s delaying tactics (until the very last moment) both in terms of implementing sanctions against Russia and in sending more serious weaponry to Ukraine.\u201d He simultaneously praises the sabotage of Nord Stream, noting that \u201cmalicious tongues say that cutting Nord Stream was a serious warning to Europe to realign itself where it should.\u201d As a proponent of the view that the West is \u201cthe most successful and attractive civilization in human history,\u201d Novakovi\u0107 is an opponent of any kind of civilizational multipolar world order, even claiming that \u201cirreconcilable lifestyles cannot cohabit in the long run, especially when there is clear superiority on one side.\u201d As an opponent of multipolarism in foreign policy, Novakovi\u0107 classifies today\u2019s Hungary and Serbia as \u201ccountries without productive aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his article The Day After Regime Change<\/a><\/em>, Aleksandar Novakovi\u0107 clearly defines his political and ideological stance as that of a Serb Euro-Atlanticist and radical libertarian, openly criticizing the entire current political elite in Serbia for their inconsistency in implementing a neoliberal political and economic model. Starting from the position that only Western-style conservatism is authentic, Novakovi\u0107 sees contemporary Serbian conservatism as \u201cmerely a byproduct of instinctive Russophilia and anti-Westernism\u2014a juvenile reaction to the challenges brought by Serbia\u2019s transition period.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A particular target of this influential founder of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> is the patriotic Serbian intelligentsia, whose advocacy of a \u201cthird way\u201d (in Novakovi\u0107\u2019s words, \u201cneither socialism nor capitalism\u201d) he denounces as neo-Bolshevism. Thus, according to him, \u201cKovi\u0107, as a \u2018right-winger\u2019 and \u2018nationalist\u2019, blames \u2018anti-communism\u2019 (sic!) for the sale of successful communist-era enterprises, the dismantling of the Yugoslav People\u2019s Army and the security services.\u201d As Novakovi\u0107 puts it, \u201ceveryone\u2014both patriots and non-patriots\u2014has one main target: neoliberalism. And yet, interestingly enough, Serbia is not even a neoliberal country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The foreign policy views of the Assembly in Exile<\/em>\u2019s founders are further illustrated by a tweet from cybersecurity expert Vladimir Radunovi\u0107, in which he expresses support for anti-war activists in Saint Petersburg immediately following the launch of the Russian Special Military Operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the probably financially most powerful members of the Founding Committee of the Assembly in Exile<\/em> is former head of planning at Google\u2019s European headquarters, Lazar D\u017eami\u0107 (here). He is, by all indications, also one of the most fanatical Euro-unionists, \u201cSecond-Serbia\u201d advocates, and anti-sovereignists among the initiators of this initiative. This is vividly illustrated by the following lines from D\u017eami\u0107, which\u2014being paradigmatic\u2014are quoted in extenso<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen the regime goes, there will still be hooligans, paramilitaries, drug dealers, skulls and crossbones on flags, processions, conspiracy theories, corruption and the construction mafia, schemers and political turncoats, and swarms of ass-kissing flies in a panicked search for a new master, anti-Europeans, anti-gays, anti-feminists, anti-intellectuals, anti-modernists, isolationists, mythomaniacs, and war criminals. There will still be Kosovo, lithium, the terrifying debt of the country, three fingers, turbo-folk, arrogance, violence and pollution, unfriendly clerks and predatory enforcers, stubborn priests and, again, corruption\u2026 Our relationship with Europe is paradoxical. On the one hand, sovereignist foam comes out of our mouths every time someone \u2018dares\u2019 to \u2018interfere in our internal affairs\u2019; on the other, we want Europe to treat us like a colony and to actively take a side\u2014to actually interfere in our internal affairs\u2014by choosing whom they\u2019d like to support as president or prime minister, and whom they wouldn\u2019t. D\u017eami\u0107 does not hide his alienation from, and contempt toward, his own people: \u201cThe term \u2018homeland\u2019 is also in circulation, used to describe those remote, backward regions that exist in the darkness of social and spiritual poverty, mass media blackout, and nationalist myths\u2014from which some of the most fervent supporters of the Serbian regime come.\u201d Ecstatically calling on Serbs to make a choice\u2014democracy versus authoritarianism; Europe versus nationalism\u2014D\u017eami\u0107 simultaneously warns students: \u201cIf we now turn the target of our anger and our historical sense of frustration, which the regime has been very effectively exploiting for decades to crush our spirit, toward Europe, then that\u2019s yet another own goal that will show we, as a people, are simply incapable of thinking rationally, and that we will best defend our interests from within Europe. The modern geopolitical situation demands a very clear choice: America, Russia, China, or Europe. We can\u2019t go it alone, and when we sit on too many chairs, it becomes ever clearer\u2014our balls are caught in the vise.\u201d (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
FROM CROATO-LATIN PROGLAS<\/em> TO SERBO-CYRILLIC ASSEMBLY IN EXILE<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
A JANUARY MESSAGE FROM THE FORMER RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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OPPONENTS OF SOVEREIGNIST POLITICS<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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ENTHUSIASM OF A FORMER OTPOR MEMBER<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Jelena Ivi\u0107, Veljko \u017di\u017ei\u0107, Lazar D\u017eami\u0107, Sanja Jovi\u0107, Sne\u017eana \u0106ur\u010di\u0107, Dr. Jovana Dikovi\u0107, Dr. Milo\u0161 Stefanovi\u0107, Dr. Aleksandar Novakovi\u0107, Branko Milo\u0161evi\u0107, Nikola Ili\u0107, Dr. Aleksandra Zdravkovi\u0107, Radmila Stanojevi\u0107-van Os, Branimir Mihajlovi\u0107, Dr. Daniel Balo\u0161, Sever D\u017eigurski, Vladimir Radunovi\u0107, Dr. Sne\u017eana Peji\u0107, Dragana \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107, Danijela \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107, and Milan Nikoli\u0107. Notably, from the very beginning, they were given open media space on Radar<\/em>, a portal owned by the pro-Western United Media<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
THE IDEAL OF THE COLLECTIVE WEST<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cTHE BEAST\u201d IN THE FORM OF PUTIN<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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A SERB EURO-ATLANTICIST AND RADICAL LIBERTARIAN<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
BALLS IN THE VISE \u2013 BETWEEN DIGNITY AND SLAVERY<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
They can\u2019t do that, for many diplomatic and legal reasons\u2014not even with Orb\u00e1n, who is already in the EU, let alone with us. We want Laura K\u00f6vesi to prosecute the regime, but we don\u2019t want EU flags at the protest; we want justice and equality, but we get angry at the only place that currently realistically offers that; we want institutions that work\u2014the whole protest is about that!\u2014but we don\u2019t allow symbols of Europe at the protest, which are practically the only ones that still have such institutions\u2014not perfect, not as they once were, but realistically better than anywhere else.
Even distant countries like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia (the CANZA bloc) are now moving closer to Europe.
As before in our history, many want something new\u2014but for it to be like the old; many want change without change; belonging without a clear position; to sit on the kibitzfenster<\/em> while the world around us falls apart.
Some want a choice without making a choice. Serbia cannot survive with dignity without Europe\u2014everything else is slavery.\u201d (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\nSERBIA AS A HOMELAND<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
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THE HAGUE LIE OF KATARINA KOSTI\u0106<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n