The columnist for Vreme weekly, Teofil Pancic said that, regardless of the fact that Yugoslavia did not exist as a country anymore, there is a space that has been and will remain common to people living in the territory of the former state, as they share a common language and common culture.
“And this is incomparably more important than all these pseudo-identities that we have assumed. We (former Yugoslav countries) are too small and insignificant individually,” Pancic said.
Speaking at a panel discussion organized in honour of the Tanja Petrovic Foundation’s awards, of which Pancic is one of the recipients, he also spoke about the state of the media in Serbia.
Pancic said that those media that had serious cultural content were so severely marginalized in Serbia.
“We have a repressive mentality and the need to mark our territory, which, for example, is seen in the frequent change of names of the streets. The brutality of collectivism has always been terribly strong in us, and it only changes ideological frameworks. We have always nurtured an anti-Western element us, in addition to being anti-liberal, small-minded, provincial and admiring tyrants and demagogues. Authorities often preach that lack of freedom will lead us to the fulfilment of a higher purpose,” Pancic added.
Speaking about the current protests in Serbia, he said that he was participating in them, just like he participated in previous ones.
“I wrote in my articles what I think of these protests, and regardless of the fact that I might be critical of them, I will not stop participating in them. I always have to protest against authoritarian, verminous governments, and the government that we have now is the most authoritarian and the most harmful ever,” he added.
He also criticized the president of the Free Citizens Movement, Sergej Trifunovic for his “vulgar appearance at the protest in Novi Sad two weeks ago” and added that it was “inadmissible” for him to talk about things such as the situation in Vojvodina because he “doesn’t have elementary knowledge about it”.
“Sergej Trifunovic is a showman. At the moment, he is the most successful politician in Serbia, although he does not have a party. Many people have come to power riding a similar anti-political wave, including Trump and the populists in Italy. Sergej’s party can grow like a balloon, but I don’t think that it will bring anything good”, Pancic concluded.
(Novi Magazin, 14.03.2019)