Exactly one year ago I wrote a blog criticizing Serbian authorities for not allowing Gay Pride to take place and, voilà, one year after the same scenario is being played out! This is not to say I truly believed that Serbian authorities would actually allow LGBT community to organize its parade on streets of Belgrade, but I at least expected that Serbian politicians would think of a far better excuse than the last year’s one, spelled out by PM Dačić, that banning the aforementioned manifestation was/is really a victory of Serbia.

If I did not know better, I might have believed in this silly ‘concerned with safety’ discourse. It is, however, awfully hard for me to stop wondering whose ‘victory’ is this and over what. Is it a ‘victory’ of Serbian citizens, who, by the way, silently continue to agree with being deprived of basic human rights, or is it a ‘victory’ of ‘comrades-in-arms,’ ultra-nationalist organizations and organized hooligan groups, whose political connections seem to be so extensive that authorities in Belgrade obviously fear opposing them? Well, regardless of how odd it may sound, it is actually a ‘victory’ of both Serbian citizens and the ‘comrades-in-arms,’ and I can tell you why!

Well, on the one hand, you have this rather unfortunately silent citizenry in Serbia. These people obviously have no issue with the Gay Pride Parade being cancelled chiefly because, all thing being equal, they believe that there are far bigger problems to worry about. Take any Serbian newspapers with internet edition and you will find scores of comments of people expressing their worries mostly over making ends meet each month, rather than some, in their opinion unimportant and unnecessary, Gay Parade being cancelled. This is due to the fact that Serbian citizenry is overall still in process of maturation in democratic terms, and it will certainly take more than a while for these people to understand that cancellation of the Gay Pride Parade has actually much less to do with homosexuals than with exercise of basic human rights of freedom of expression in a democratic society. Therefore, although the cancellation of the Parade is yet another display of the state weakness and another example of how simply human rights may be treaded upon when public safety concerns are cited, Serbian citizens have expressed very little concern over it because they simply believe it is not their problem. Well, dear ladies and gents, if you want to live in a democratic country, it is, or at least it will have to be, your problem!

On the other hand, you have the so-called ‘patriotic bunch’: ultra-nationalists and various hooligan gangs, often silently supported by and in many different ways connected to the political elites! They have again scored a victory, third year in a row, and they are obviously so powerful as to have the state in permanent state of withdrawal. Serbian state institutions have again failed to advance rule of law and these groups and organizations threatening with violence, obviously known to police but somehow still out of their reach, have again been ‘invited’ to continue with their ‘patriotic’ doing. There are obviously very few Serbian politicians in power ready and willing to confront these violent groups and start putting them where they actually belong: behind bars! Only when the political support given to these groups is finally removed, and one needs an elite unwilling to compromise over these issues, will Serbia finally be able to move forward in a democratic direction. Empty promises that “it will be better/different tomorrow,” as expressed by First Deputy Prime Minister Vučić, solve nothing, and only keep the country in that vicious circle where violent organized groups are still unfortunately ‘judge and jury’ of what is and what is not (to be) allowed in Serbia.