here’s why the protests in serbia are confusing (& why you shouldn’t try and fit them into a simple narrative)

1) the far right in serbia is very well organized, is built on a history of fascist violence & can mobilize fairly easily. they have a history of infiltrating & co-opting progressive movements.

2) the police have a history of violently suppressing progressive movements, is spying, following, arresting, harassing, beating, threatening, etc. of regime’s political opponents

they’re well trained and armed to their teeth. also just assholes.

3) the left is more organized and more radical than in other ex-you states, but has to deal with the far-right violence & attempts to turn protests into a platform for nationalist politics *and* with police violence

4) the police has been letting the far right become violent and escalate, destroy property, etc. because it works well for them - gives them the images they need to discredit the entire movement, they then after a while just start beating, tear gassing and arresting everyone

5) so some groups participating in these protests are problematic af

attending these protests as a regular citizen or a left-wing activist is super dangerous because you are exposed to violence from two sides (it’s also really brave)

6) could go south in two ways: government successfully quashes the protests (people stop showing up because of fear) or the far right successfully takes over and people stop showing up because they no longer agree with the politics