🇷🇸 A lot of people have been wondering what's going on in Serbia, so I thought I could shed some light on Serbian culture, history, and politics. Serbia is one of the South Slavic nations, and genetically its people are approximately half Balkan Hunter-Gatherer and half Slavic. Through the ages, they have mixed with Neolithic Farmers and Slavs, been ruled by the Romans, medieval kingdoms, Ottomans, Austrians, socialism, and over the last 35 years, seen their state dismantled by Western powers. Serbs are Christian, but not in a legalistic Western way. The Orthodox liturgy is mystical and melodic. The trinity of the Heavenly Father, Christ the King, and the Holy Mother is represented by the Serbian three-finger salute, and every family inherits a patron saint. The great feasts are strictly observed, it is usual to see priests among the community, and national heroes are never forgotten, with Serbia probably having more murals and statues than any other nation. Buses in Serbia might feature an effigy of General Mladić next to the driver, and you will more than likely listen to folk songs about the love of one special woman or the love of one's village. Serbia is living and organic. As you can see, Serbia is deeply conservative, to a degree that a young Westerner might be unable to recognise. While that rootedness has enormous advantages, a combination of clannish loyalties, the remnants of socialist governance, and economic limitations has caused Serbia to drift into corruption. Favours for favours turned into cash for public sector jobs and building contracts, creating a one-party state that lined its pockets, exports its young talent to Austria and Germany, quietly gave up on Kosovo, and maintains the system by brainwashing Boomers via state TV channels. The Novi Sad rail disaster was the straw that broke the corrupt camel's back. I was there on the day it happened, due to leave by train the following day. It could've been me killed by the rot of public sector contracts being mishandled, with safety treated as an afterthought. Serbs had previously protested Vučić's party for attempting to give away Serbia's lithium, and real estate to Jared Kushner. As his final act, Vučić's Israeli campaign manager, Israel Einav, brought a team of loud-mouthed and repulsive Zionist influencers to post short videos about "saving Serbia". I take the view that continued SNS rule meant certain death by the slow strangulation of corruption and brain drain. As well as the Republic of Serbia, Serbs live in the United States, Australia, Austria, Germany, and Bosnia, and among them are some of the brightest and most ambitious minds, like Nikola Tesla. The Student List movement is primarily about restoring the rule of law – a term Western liberals like to use for abstract legalism, mass immigration, and German autocracy, but for Serbs, it means the dignity of a solid job and the hope of a better future after historic turmoil. There are a number of policies regarding law, the economy, family, and education, but what stands out is that most of the elected candidates are professors with genuine expertise in a wide range of fields. Educators tend to be on the liberal side of politics, but these are Serbs we're talking about. One senior figure, Radomir Saičić, has a PhD in natural sciences, fought in the Yugoslav war, called for traditionally close relations with Russia and the unity of Serbs in Republika Srpska, also referring to Kosovo as a "temporarily occupied territory". Ursula von der Leyen, a handful of gays, and young women declared victory for social progressivism on their socials, but as far as I can tell, this will be a nation-building project. Any EU referendum is years off and will very likely be voted down if the new government makes any progress at all, because in truth, Serbs are not progressive. They are sceptical of empires, human rights mean the right to smoke indoors, and they aren't desperate to fill their homeland with wage-crushing third-worlders. I don't want to dwell on geopolitics, but Serbs fought for their sovereignty between 1914 and 1918 and lost more than half of their men to German bombardment, Bulgarian liquidations, and forced retreats into winter mountains. The 19th-century idea of uniting the South Slavs against Austrian hegemony failed once more thanks to Croatia's partial alignment with Hitlerism, and the Croatian-born Tito created a situation that would later prove advantageous to Germany and the United States in dismantling Yugoslavia and economically dominating Serbs. The NATO bombing of 1999 deliberately targeted industry at the same time Serbian children were shown German-dubbed shows on state TV channels. Today, South Slavs owe their mortgages to Austro-Hungarian banks, have Deutsche Telekom phone contracts, buy their cosmetics at German "DM" drug stores, and drive German cars. There is little room to create wealth, and 30,000 young Serbs feel forced to leave every year. It's as if the Austrian Empire was never defeated. I remain hopeful that a resurgent Serbia will be not only an integral part of Western civilisation but an example to learn from.