Amid accusations that the police have sided with the ruling party and its supporters, protests erupted across Serbia, leading to an escalation of violence, clashes between demonstrators and the police, numerous arrests, and cases of police brutality.
While citizens have been taking to the streets daily to express anger and dissatisfaction, and the authorities respond with violence and threats, the media increasingly reach for the term “civil war.”
This term, which has been used so casually in the media and on social networks over the past week, has become a popular buzzword and a generator of sensation. Who is provoking it, who is threatening it, who will prevent it – these are the questions posed in order to drive higher traffic to websites, television channels, and newsstands.
Yet experts caution that the label does more harm than good. Not only does it fail to capture the reality on the ground, they argue, but it also deepens divisions, fuels further conflict, and signals the government’s refusal to resolve the crisis democratically.
An Asymmetrical Conflict
Dr. Milan Igrutinović, research associate at the Institute for European Studies, stresses that he would avoid using the term “civil war,” for both formal and conceptual reasons.
“The level of conflict is asymmetrical, between groups of citizens, protesters, on the one hand, and more or less organized party-affiliated, privately hired, and in some sense paid groups, which are increasingly, and more evidently, supported by the police. On that other side, there isn’t really a comparable ‘group of citizens’ – not that they aren’t citizens, but rather that the SNS [ruling Serbian Progressive Party] cannot or does not manage to mobilize its broader membership and sympathizers, who would be an adequate opposing side,” Dr. Igrutinović told Mašina.
According to him, the ruling party relies on part of the repressive apparatus and relatively small groups of young men (compared to the citizen protests), likely drawn, as he believes, from a criminal milieu.
“Despite growing clashes and increasingly arrogant and illegal behaviour by the police, I believe that the level of violence does not reach the level of war, and I hope it never will,” Dr. Igrutinović concludes.
Dr. Marina Kostić Šulejić, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Politics and Economics, makes the same point:
“A civil war would require organized armed groups fighting each other for control of the state. That is not the case here.”
Political scientist Aleksandar Ivković agrees. “Unfortunately, our region has lived through civil wars. And in countries like Syria and Libya we see what they look like today. What is happening in Serbia is not comparable.”
What We’re Really Seeing
According to Dr. Igrutinović, we are currently witnessing an almost complete mutualism between the actions of the police and private groups linked to the ruling party’s leadership.
“The latest wave of clashes began when it became blatantly clear that the police were protecting such groups, located in SNS party offices, who attacked previously peaceful protesters with fireworks,” he points out.
The first such incident, as Mašina reported, was recorded in Vrbas.
“What we are seeing is the expression of public dissatisfaction with the state of the country, the rule of a narrow circle of corrupt individuals, widespread corruption and institutional collapse, unprofessionalism, but also a weak and compromised opposition,” says Dr. Kostić Šulejić.
Ivković also argues that these are manifestations of social unrest, adding that the violence by protesters was intended to express anger and put pressure on the authorities.
“In essence, these are individuals expressing anger at the behaviour of the police and ‘loyalists’ by causing property damage. We have seen such scenes in France, Greece, and other European countries – so this is not a phenomenon unfamiliar to the rest of the continent. For this to escalate into civil war, there would need to be an armed group whose goal is to overthrow the government by force or secede part of the territory – that does not exist, and it will not exist. The violence we’ve seen was intended to express anger and possibly exert pressure on the authorities, but that’s all,” Ivković concludes.
Behind the Police Crackdown
Nearly a week of violent protests has been marked by vandalized SNS and SRS party offices in several Serbian cities, but also by the beating of demonstrators – some of the most brutal incidents recorded in Valjevo – as well as arrests, and even an alleged threat of rape against a female student by a JZO commander, as Mašina previously reported.
Police brutality and widespread violations of the law have become an everyday occurrence, emphasizes Dr. Igrutinović.
“I believe that behind this lies the government’s understanding that polls show it risks losing power in potential parliamentary elections, and the unravelling of a network built over ten years between state administration, private influence, money flows, and systematic law-breaking. To avoid this, the government resorts to increasingly violent means, buys time, and hopes for new, more favourable circumstances. The heavier the repression, the heavier the authoritarianism,” he stresses.
“Civil war”: between fear, sensationalism, and polarization
According to Ivković, the term “civil war” is now most often deployed by pro-government media to paint demonstrators as dangerous instigators.
“Anyone using that term is trying to polarize their side against the other,” he says. “Sadly, the spiral of polarization will likely continue, because neither side is backing down. But the government bears the greatest responsibility, since it refuses democratic solutions such as elections, which the opposition has already proposed.”
Dr. Milan Igrutinović reminds us that Serbia’s society is now in a dramatic moment: in it that it has not had a comparable experience since the final years of Milošević’s rule – not even during several waves of protests (“1 of 5 million,” “Serbia Without Violence”).
“If we set aside the term ‘civil war’ as partly media sensationalism, partly genuine concern and shock at the violence, and partly the mobilizing power of such words spoken by political actors – and especially by an irresponsible government – its frequent use is not surprising. But when used by those in formal positions of power, it signals their unwillingness to open space for, first, a judicial resolution of the ‘Canopy’ case and related high-level corruption, and second, for a democratic resolution to the political crisis. Let us not forget, their decade-long rule has dramatically narrowed that space,” Dr. Igrutinović emphasizes.
A.G.A; Translated from Serbian by M.J.
