Branko Čečen: Attack on Veran – nausea and fear

Author: Branko Čečen, Izvor: Facebook stranica

I made a transcript of the program “Evil Age 2” about Veran Matić. I did not let artificial intelligence do it; I listened, rewound the show, and typed it out myself. It amounts to 3,657 words, 24,434 characters.

I did not do it mechanically because writing may be the only method of structured thinking available to me. When my dad bought me my first computer, the moment I sat down in front of it, an intense, disarming beam of concentration formed on its own between my brain and the machine. I felt as if I had finally arrived home. I had never before experienced such an unusually high level of control over my thoughts and writing.

This time, I paid dearly for it. I paid dearly for a deep understanding of smoldering malice, unrestrained cruelty, and ill intent freed from moral constraints. The colossal spewing of lies, the insults clearly calculated to provoke aggression toward Veran, accusations that are not even true according to what was actually said—all of it is painfully difficult to listen to, and even more painful to write down. I soiled my brain and my computer with this open reworking of what reads like a secret service dossier, mixed with a Kaić-like ease of turning anything into a sick personal narrative, with the obvious intrusion of distorted interpretations of information that only a few people could have possessed, with the pushing of an innocent man before a firing squad for having made a positive contribution to society—described instead as undermining national interests; with the treatment of a social stance as a criminal offense that must be punished; with the unmistakable handwriting of 1948-style agitprop and secret police ahead of someone’s arrest. As I write about writing all this, I feel physical symptoms of deep distress. Nausea. Fear.

I will not write about Veran’s persistent dedication to attacked and endangered journalists and to their rights and freedoms – not because it is unnecessary, but because Ana Martinoli has already written it without omission or excess (link in the first comment). I will only say -repeating Ana’s words – that regardless of one’s views about him, colleagues call him first when they are in trouble, and not only professional trouble. I will add, however, that Veran is physically present within minutes at the scene of every attack; that he accompanies TV crews when they are unprotected at demonstrations; that he pressures the police until they send a team to conduct an investigation, every single time. I will also add that I have not seen many other colleagues at those places – sometimes not even myself. Let me also write that no one pays him, nor twists his arm, to “earn” such a savage attack – one distinguished by its total lack of restraint even among numerous other savage attacks on regime critics, including previous ones against Veran himself. Since I have occasionally worked with him over the past couple of years and therefore have a bit more insight, I will say that behind the scenes he constantly weaves plans, projects, and procedures aimed at protecting journalists; that he works and digs like a miner in that direction. So much so that at the moment he is more engaged in defending and protecting Vuk Cvijić and others than himself. Unfortunately, there is plenty of that work to be done.

I am writing all this because the most deranged aspect of this mad TV attempt at character assassination is the announcement of terror.

I will justify the use of such a dramatic expression by quoting the very end of this outpouring of delinquent-minded rhetoric broadcast on television:

“Today Veran Matić appears as the media guru of the blockade movement. The man who, through dozens of meetings, trained them and connected them into a network aimed at radicalizing society. That network, however, has been dismantled. Instead of a revolution, they got defeat. No drama, no chaos, no images of bloodshed they were waiting for. The blockades have ended, and the dreams of violently seizing power in the streets have gone unrealized. The snowman was knocked down before the first snow. The President of the Republic played the game to the end and left them to explain to themselves why they lost again. And while they try to explain their defeat to themselves, it is up to us to do what they did not expect. To name names, to connect the dots, to show how the evil age came into being and who its real bearers were. This series therefore does not end here. It is only beginning. For many have sinned against the state, its institutions, and their own people, convinced of their own infallibility. And as they themselves liked to say, the time of accountability is coming – just not the kind they imagined. Stories about the other heroes of the evil age follow, and the question that remains hanging in the air is: who is next?”

Just so you can see what is being prepared for those “next” people:

“Veran – or rather, Neveran – [faithful vs unfaitful] was in the mid-2000s, on behalf of ANEM, engaged in providing financial assistance to Albanian media in Kosovo and Metohija, related to the alleged procurement of modern television and radio equipment. By doing so, he directly financed Albanian separatism and undermined the constitutional order of the Republic of Serbia. After the so-called democratic changes, his open actions against the national interests of the Serbian people followed, including hosting Adem Demaçi in Belgrade, then president of a Kosovo parliamentary party and the ideological mentor of Albin Kurti, who is now persecuting the Serbian people in our southern province.”

I will support and defend Veran against this. I will not interfere in attacks on him from “our” side – both because I was not part of the events for which he is criticized, and because at this moment such things simply undermine the overall defense of journalism and any criticism of the regime, without what I would recognize as sound arguments. That is so because the results of Veran’s work – the score on the board – are good for journalists and journalism, but also for this society as a whole. Those who do not remember what he went through and survived, and how he stood up to the monsters of the 1990s, might be better off passing me by. Because I know that – even though we did not know each other at the time – I drew courage and conviction from that to contribute, in my own small way, to the struggle for a reasonable Serbia. These are not matters open to debate, especially if you yourself have never experienced being detained by Milošević’s secret police.

I have no time to waste while they are “taking us out”, one by one, without aim and without humanity.

Veran can count on me.