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>Does the population of Serbia actually buy into that sort of rhetoric?

By and large, yes. Serbia has an aging population and especially older people (who constitute a large part of the current regime's voter base) are susceptible to this narrative of foreign powers trying to keep Serbia down. It's a tried and true authoritarian spin, persisting for decades in these areas. It doesn't help that historically, foreign powers were prone to aggressing against Serbia.

Younger people obviously don't fall for this (better informed, Internet-native), but they're more apathetic than anything. One cause for this is a lack of good alternative political options; the opposition is mainly people who've been in power before and were just not much better than what we have now.

If you could rally people behind an uncompromised, clean-slate political option you'd break the apathy, a critical mass of voters would emerge quickly and I believe Vucic and his cronies would fall in a heartbeat. But sadly nothing of the sort exists.

It uses the old trick that good propaganda should have at least some truth to it. The reasons you listed are likely why it is finding fertile ground.

>> Does the population of Serbia actually buy into that sort of rhetoric?

> By and large, yes. Serbia has an aging population and especially older people

You mean those who remember Clinton bombing passenger trains to make up for the mistakes of US/NATO/EU in dealing with Bosnia?

It's not a stretch once you've been through that. Besides, a lot of people in the US still thinking Putin changed actual votes in the 2016 election. So, yeah, people are susceptible to this kind of stuff and it's not new.

Serbia isn't too important in terms of GDP, population, or military power. But a significant amount of EU trade passes through Serbia, and migrants from the Middle East use Serbia as a route to reach the EU. Since the EU has blocked Serbian accession largely over the Kosovo issue, both Russia and China are now trying to pull Serbia into their spheres of influence in order to gain more leverage over Europe.

The population of Serbia is generally pretty cynical about their government and doesn't believe the rhetoric. But they do believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories about manipulation by shadowy foreign powers.

Pretty much. I didn't copy and paste the quote, but those are the words used.

You and I understand what you just wrote about GDP in relation to Hong Kong and London, but a vast majority of the population is severely limited in the way they consume information. Internet is widespread, but it is severely underutilized for any useful purpose, and the Serbian web scene is also flooded with pro-government portals. Also, a great deal of population (I can't say how much, but just empirically) has little exposure to any kind of western lifestyle, the only foreign countries they might visited would be Bulgaria or Greece on holidays. It's easy to convince people that life is good in Serbia. Especially because the government doesn't use Hong Kong or Austria to compare, but Croatia or Albania.

Wouldn't Serbia lag on every single indicator behind Croatia?

If you're creative enough, you can always pull out an indicator, even artificial, to show progress. For example GDP increase during a period in absolute values. That doesn't make any sense without considering size/population of Serbia and Croatia and what's that in relative terms. Or the average salary in Serbia and Bulgaria. Yes, they're comparable, but key items are cheaper in Bulgaria, as well as taxes. The average salary in Sofia is also much higher then in Belgrade, and the lowest pension is higher than in Serbia. You get the picture, you can always dig up a metric and declare a glorious victory of our people led by our fearless leader.

Not to mention the government has some genuinely skilled professionals, beside sheer lunatics like Vulin, the minister of interior. By professionals I mean manipulators like the minister of finance. He's a skilled manipulator, even tied to Panama Papers, domestic violence, illegal demolition and a boat load of concealed wealth. If I had the need to produce some good quality smoke and mirrors, he would be the first guy I would call.

Yes, as carefully orchestrated by the Croatian government, who got its EU/Nato friends to make everything maximally hard for the Serbian people and economy.

Or, at least, that's how I assume the narrative goes?

At least younger generation doesn't seem to fall for that. Croatia is packed full with seasonal workers from Serbia.. and croatian workers left for other countries. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

Considering large portions of Belgrade are still in ruins to this day due to NATO bombings, it's hard to escape the constant reminders of what "foreign powers" have already done to them.

Not true. Pretty much the only thing that is in "ruin" is the old defense ministry building which is kept that way for the current governments propaganda purposes.

What you just described is the biggest damage done by the '99 bombing. I dare to say larger than any material damage. That's the thing that pushed Serbs on the other side of the "west/east dichotomy" and any kind of marketing campaign will hardly paint Western countries as friends or allies. That's valuable ammunition put into hands of local populists. Not that some European leaders mind them ruling Serbia. Would you believe that there is a considerable number of people not willing to get vaccinated by Pfizer or Astra Zeneca Covid vaccines because "those people first bombed us, they're trying to poison us now"?

Yes.

I'd believe the same reaction in Afghanistan, too.

Probably not an apt comparison. Serbia actually is a unified state of sorts, Afghanistan is not and never really has been. How unified states and collections of tribes and warlords react to such things are quite different.

No I've been to Belgrade recently and there are no more bombing ruins to speak of. All of that was cleared years ago. In fact there's a lot of new construction happening in the waterfront area.

Ah, I stand corrected. Been a few years since I visited. At the time, everyone I met seemed to be feeling like a victim of the bombings and harboring some resentment at the west.

Many Serbians do still feel like victims and harbor some resentment at the west. But the 1999 NATO bombings were just one incident in a long litany of complaints (both real and imagined) going back centuries.

They also resent being used as a geopolitical pawn by Russia and China.

I can confirm there were some people who resented Americans/West when I went there. Luckily my Serbian coworkers would shut them up.

At least I wasn’t Turkish. They definitely resent 500 years of Turkish rule.

The younger generation is much more forward thinking.

>As such, my guess is that Serbia isn't very important to "foreign powers" at all. Certainly not enough for a "blood bath" or even harsh words. And certainly not as a result of proposed internal surveillance laws. Such a statement is ridiculous on its face.

Most people who live in Serbia remember being bombed by the NATO...

>Most people who live in Serbia remember being bombed by the NATO...

That's as may be. And not something someone soon forgets.

But it doesn't obviate my point that "foreign powers" generally don't care what happens in Serbia.

They don't until they do, and when they do it is too late to do something about it.

That strategy has been used throughout the decades after WW2, including in various parts of Croatia to help instigate secession. Maybe it has to do something with the mentality of the region? There is a fantastic movie [1] by Emir Kusturica that absolutely nails the way of thinking, where a protagonist lives in a bunker believing the war never ended.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_(1995_film)

It's rhetoric used back in Yugoslavia, and probably other dictatorships as well. It's always "foreign enemy" to keep the current agenda going. Serbia still has characters from ex-yu wars in high politics. It's sad actually. I hope Serbia gets rid of that and let people prosper.

Two world wars started there. Strategically its more valuable land than Israel.

Which is the second?

Geopolitically, the region of former Yugoslavia is extremely valuable, historically as well as in the present. Sadly, I expect renewed trouble here in the upcomming decade