Serbian writer and prominent critic of nationalism Svetislav Basara has delivered a scathing assessment of Serbia’s political and social condition, arguing that the country’s current crisis cannot be attributed solely to President Aleksandar Vučić or former leader Slobodan Milošević.
In an interview with the independent Serbian magazine Radar, Basara said Serbia’s present political reality is the result of problems and crimes that successive regimes have concealed for more than a century and a half.
“Vučić did not make Serbia what it is; he simply took off the gloves and removed the last veil from its ugly face,” Basara said. He compared Serbia’s unresolved past to a rotten carpet under which successive governments had hidden their “crimes and dirty deeds,” adding that the “stench” had now reached the surface.
Basara also addressed Kosovo, rejecting the argument that Vučić is currently erasing the final remnants of Serbia’s state presence there. According to him, those remnants effectively disappeared with the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement in 1999.
He argued that the structures Belgrade subsequently presented as Serbian institutions in Kosovo were largely political constructs designed for domestic consumption, similar, in his view, to the broader institutional system that had developed inside Serbia itself.
Basara said Serbia’s current political trajectory reflects a much deeper and longer-standing ideological continuity, including what he described as an “epic struggle” over Kosovo, xenophobia, hostility toward the West and clericalism influenced by nationalist and far-right intellectual traditions.
The writer was also highly critical of the political legacy surrounding the assassination of former Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić in 2003.
Basara argued that Đinđić had attempted to break with Serbia’s entrenched nationalist political structures and pursue deeper institutional reforms, making him a threat to powerful interests within the existing system.
He claimed that Đinđić had already been considering withdrawing from politics and pursuing an academic career abroad because of the obstacles he faced.
According to Basara, the political environment following Đinđić’s assassination enabled Vojislav Koštunica and Boris Tadić to consolidate power, while ultimately creating conditions for the return of more radical political forces.
Basara specifically accused Koštunica of maintaining institutional continuity with structures inherited from the Milošević era and of using state institutions and clerical influence to obstruct reforms.
He was similarly critical of the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church, citing what he described as instances of political and judicial interference, including alleged political intervention in investigations involving Bishop Pahomije.
Turning to Vučić’s rule, Basara argued that the Serbian president was able to consolidate control over state institutions, security services and the media largely because of the failures of Tadić and the broader weakness of Serbia’s self-described democratic elites.
He also claimed that the distinction between the state and organized crime has become increasingly blurred, arguing that such links are not a new phenomenon in Serbia and pointing to allegations surrounding the involvement of senior police and security officials in the circumstances surrounding Đinđić’s assassination.
Basara was equally skeptical about Serbia’s student and civic protests and the possibility of future elections producing meaningful political change.
He criticized the opposition and sections of Serbia’s intellectual elite for failing to build a genuinely liberal-democratic political alternative and instead returning to nationalist rhetoric.
He described the potential electoral choice as one between Aleksandar Vulin’s concept of the “Serbian world” and the nationalist ideas associated with literary critic Milo Lompar, who has been close to the student protest movement.
“Neither of them is my choice,” Basara said, comparing the situation to the premise of the film Alien vs. Predator: “Whoever wins, we lose.”
Basara ultimately argued that Serbia requires a fundamental conceptual and political transformation if it is to escape what he described as a long-standing dead end.
