The Center for Social Stability, formally a think tank, but essentially the government’s propaganda drive, produces films and campaigns against dissidents with taxpayers’ money. The interlocutors of “Vremen” warn about the model of para-institutions that is characteristic of authoritarian regimes
A web of falsehoods non-governmental organizations – in modern language: GONGO (government-organized non-governmental organization) – follow almost all authoritarian and totalitarian regimes of the modern era. Today, that model, according to the interlocutors of “Vremen”, has its own domestic version.
One of the most striking examples is from Novi Sad Center for Social Stability (CZDS). Formally think tanks organization. In practice, the production and ideological drive of the government.
Her associates have modest careers and biographies, and among them is the current Minister for European Integration, Nemanja Starović, while numerous associates are simultaneously employed as advisors, assistants or deputies in ministries and secretariats. They receive state salaries from the budget, and additional engagements through CZDS.
How much money the Center receives, from whom and on what basis – is not transparent. What is visible are the products it markets and the messages it systematically repeats: the vision of Serbia as an authoritarian, homogenous society in which politics, the church, the media and “the club” are in perfect harmony.
Sowing evil and dehumanization
In the last year, the CZDS workshop produced mini-documentary series such as “Time of Terror”, “(Un)Blockade”, “Vojvodina Files”, “Evil Age” and “Evil Age 2”, broadcast on almost all regime televisions. The content of those films is aimed at dehumanizing students in the blockade, critics of the government, independent media and journalists who insist on professional standards. Last year, the organization also stood behind “anti-blockade“ gatherings throughout Serbia.
The film “Evil Age 2”, whose main target was the one that attracted special attention Veran Matić, president of ANEM and member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists. The film did not remain an isolated incident, but served as a trigger for a wider campaign of attacks.
He believes that the government in Serbia systematically creates para-institutions under the strict control of the ruling party, and that the CZDS acts as their ideological and operational center.
“This organization creates a framework for persecution. It is also a production center for national television under the complete control of the government, with the establishment of additional media units for the distribution of that toxic content and siphoning off money intended for the promotion of professional and responsible journalism. On the one hand, we have the sowing of evil while at the same time using taxpayers’ money for this through breaking the law. We all pay for the poison that we receive in enormous doses,” says Matić for the new issue of “Vremena”, which is on newsstands from Thursday, February 12.
Disinformation chaos in public space
For cultural expert Aleksandra Đurić-Bosnić, there is no dilemma, organizations like CZDS have a clear function in the government system: to introduce disinformation chaos into the public space by producing propaganda and black-propaganda content.
“They amplify the effects of tabloid spins and spread the manipulative haze characteristic of authoritarian regimes. At the same time, they suppress, devalue and make sense of civil, critical and oppositional attitudes, using a wide range of labeling, stigma and false information. Who makes up the ‘creative’ part of the team is less important than their function – which is to destabilize and misinform the public,” she states.
Duško Radosavljević, professor of political science at the Novi Sad Faculty of Legal and Business Studies “Dr. Lazar Vrkatić” makes a similar assessment. In his opinion, the structure of people gathered around the organization “is very motley, significant and does not inspire confidence at all, at any point of view.”
Đurić-Bosnić reminds that the existence of such organizations belongs to the classic repertoire of authoritarian regimes: creating the appearance of an independent civil sector obscures the perception of one’s own authoritarianism.
Source: Vreme
