Trends of Radicalization

Serbia/3.2 Research Report July 2021

Abstract

This research is part of the D.Rad project's Work Package "Task 3.2: Radicalization Trends." The report's main goal is to look at unique, key moments – or "hotspots" of radicalization – that reflect a culmination of overall radicalization trends in Serbia and provide valuable insight into their development and progression. Hotspots are typically premeditated, potentially scalable acts of violence, occurring within a wider pattern of comparable acts, and associated with or influenced by a radicalized group, network, or organization. Report’s findings rely on secondary sources, primarily media reports and materials published by actors and organizations on social networks. Two particular "hotspots" have been selected for the purposes of this analysis:
(1) Storming of the Serbian Parliament in Belgrade on 7th July 2020, On Tuesday 7th of July, whereupon a wave of street protests was triggered by an announcement of president Vučić that a new possible Covid-19 related curfew would be imposed, resulting in an immediate pubic call to protest, crowd gathering in front of the Serbian parliament, and escalation into a storming of the building by the small group of protesters, consisting mostly of organized right-wing groups
(2) Microhydro pipeline sabotage in Rakita on 15th August 2020, regarding the direct action of several hundred locals and green activists in the remote village of Rakita, in order to remove the pipeline for the microhydro plant Zvonce, resulting in breaking the pipes and rendering them useless.
The analysis of the hotspots proceeds through discerning three levels. In micro level analysis, personal factors and background of individual actors are identified. In meso level, factors such as groups, networks and communities important for involved individuals, are discussed in wider social setting, incluing Srpski pokret Dveri (Serbian Movement Dveri), Srpska stranka Zavetnici (Serbian party Oathkeepers), “Nema predaje Kosova i Metohije” (No Surrender of Kosovo and Metohija) and “Narodne patrole” (People’s Patrols) movements for the hotspot 1, and “Odbranimo reke Stare planine” movement (Defend the Rivers of Stara Planina) and Ekološki ustanak (Ecological uprising) coalition for the hotspot 2. In macro level, the attention is turned to wider institutional, systemic and structural factors, such as Kosovo issue, election alienation, refugee crises, anti-vaccination movement, Montenegro crises, radicalisation of community organizing, as well as anti–corruption and pollution-critical discourses.
Motivational factors pertaining to individual actors in the hotspots have been analysed and quantified through IGAP Coding, developed as a part of D.Rad project. In the hotspot 1, issues of polarization have been identified as most significant: the actors see themselves as defenders of traditional and national values, unlike the representatives of the government, which they see akin to national traitors. In the hotspot 2, the actors are primarily driven by deep sense of injustice, often framed as injustice toward the nature, in context of econationalism. In conclusion, the types of mobilisation seen in the hotspots are placed in wider social and political dynamics developing to this day. In the Storming of the Serbian Parliament, we have seen that the movements which mobilise primarily through the national question are able to seize an opportunity to present themselves as a major force in the spontaneous protests, while major political questions around which these movements mobilise and organise still remain open ad volatile. The violence which we have witnessed in this hotspot can thus be replicated on a considerably larger scale. Second hotspot also carries the potential for escalation, as a number of other potential ecological critical issues carry great financial interests, both for the government of Serbia and private developers, such as proposed extraction of lithium ore by the Rio Tinto international mining corporation.