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/132/ Partial to Slavs ft. Lily Lynch (Patreon)

Published:
2020-06-30 09:16:05
Imported:
2024-07
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Aleksandar Vučić's coalition won the recent (21 June) Serbian parliamentary elections amidst a mass boycott. We talk to Balkanist editor Lily Lynch about what Vučić represents - violent ultranationalist or technocratic centrist? We also take time to discuss geopolitical rivalries over Kosovo. 

Plus: cigar socialism, Yugoboomers and the enduring appeal of Balkan orientalism. According to Julian Assange, the future always comes to Serbia first - what does this mean? 

Intro clip: Vučić's very creepy virtual rally | Outro clip: The Big Z 

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Comments

Daniel Petrovic

Nothing against Lynch, but no non-Californians from Serbia capable of talking about Serbia?

Sensible Captain

Thanks for this episode. Needless to say, I've been a fan of both this podcast and the individual work of the three of you for a while now, and I'm really looking forward to working with George on The Conformist Rebellion collection. Philip's interventions however, and particularly his comments on the recent shows about BLM and the Corey Robin-interview have been particularly close to my own view of things, if not converging with them. Funnily enough, I have been a little reluctant to listen to a Serbia-themed episode, because, well - I have just had a little more than enough 'coverage' and political activism on that front to fill a lifetime, especially during the NATO bombing of 1999, and Germany's hyper-bizarre whitewashing of Auschwitz through its Green foreign secretary. Fun times to be living in Germany as an Adornian Marxist indeed. In any case, I was wondering what my Brexiteer Bolshevik friends from England (and that dude who never drinks bad rum) had to say about Serbia today, so I gave it a try. So when Philip said at the beginning of the show that his mother was from Serbia, I jumped in my seat and thought that we were separated at birth: because my mum is from Serbia, too (which prompted my political friend and co-editor Joshua to say that "the Serbian diaspora is very overrepresented among sane and thoughtful Marxist intellectuals", but let's not get over our heads here). That being said, Lily Lynch's work was new to me, because I have tried to keep my distance from the political scene in Serbia for a while, after I saw the what would later become the 'neoliberal turn', and which started with the Western NGO's you've mentioned even during Milosevic's time, around 2000 (the war was over, let policy makers rush in). Her estimation of Vucic, the role and reception of the EU, and the fake liberal-leftism of the young and urban middle class however resonated very much with my impression from the past times I spent in Belgrade. What was *maybe* just a little missed out on was the problem of a re-emerging tribalist nationalism that only became a phenomenon in the last 10-15 years or so, after the factual end of Yugoslavia. Until the early noughties, you could still hear a lot of 'bratstvo i jedinstvo' even among younger people, which was soon killed off through neoliberal re-structuring and the lack of any meaningful political representation. Serbia *has* become a neo-nationalist and -liberal country with only some lacklustre intellectuals/artists trying to appease to a Guardian-style political rhetoric (and yes, I'd count Marina Abramovic among them). So how do we incorporate Assange's estimation of Serbia showing "the rest of the world an image of its own future", to paraphrase Marx? I would have liked to hear a little more about that. In any case, congrats to the three of you, and thanks to Lily for her interesting insights. And sorry if this message was too long - I'll keep it brief next time!