Plus tri

— Day 50 plus 6 —

Dear Nenad,

We will take your advice to heart and postpone a visit to Serbia for the time being. The situation is indeed not developing in the right way. Today we talked with a friend of ours who had been to visit her parents in Novi Sad, having taken the first flight from Amsterdam to Belgrade. Being used to the situation here she was amazed by the strange choice of measures. Shops, apart from supermarkets, are still closed, but on the other hand massive events are allowed and as she says, almost no one is keeping distance from other persons.

What happened ? From one of the strictest countries in Europe, Serbia has moved to one of the least strict countries. And the result is that there is a new wave of virus cases. Was it the speed to reduce measures because of the elections ? The outcome of the elections themselves is also worrying, as with an absolute majority no checks and balances exist anymore in the system.

Here the situation with the virus seems to be relatively under control. Testing is now widely implemented and I had the test myself last Wednesday. I felt some allergy symptoms and wanted to be sure. On Friday morning they called me with the result, which was luckily negative, so it really was allergy.

We do have demonstrations now against the restrictions, unfortunately abused by football hooligans to provoke some riots. But in general people seem to be following the rules in a disciplined way. According to the figures now only in 10.000 Dutchmen have the virus, in other words a small chance of getting infected, so keeping this discipline intact in the coming months will be increasingly difficult.

A demonstration in The Hague against the ‘virus madness’ was prohibited by authorities. Although I do not agree with the demonstrators that it is a non-dangerous virus (just look at the amount of deaths world-wide), I do ask myself why this demonstration is forbidden and other demonstrations are not. I have already talked to lots of people who are extremely critical on government measures, because they feel that their basic rights are crushed. If the virus is being used as an excuse to block out opinions which are not shared by government politicians, the danger in my view is that at the end suppressing these opinions breeds populism. And we already see a rise in populist parties in Europe and of course in the Americas. The danger is all the larger with a deteriorating economic situation. On Curacao in the Caribbean looting has already started and with the coming economic downturn this might easily happen in Europe as well.

But worrying alone does not help, so like you I am trying to focus on my activities. Trying to help the economy, work on the Athos book, study some Greek, read some books, and try to live my life in the best way possible. As I read in one story on your website, you need to reach the age of 50 to be able to control your life in the right way. With more ‘turbulency’ ahead in the coming period in the outside world, let’s hope that we will keep the inner peace to continue with doing that.

Stay healthy! Robert

—

Dear Robert,

At least two controversial things.

When we are speaking about the problems in Serbia, the EU put only Serbia and Montenegro on the list of countries that could freely visit Europe. At the same time, Montenegro doesn’t allow Serbian citizens to travel to Montenegro, as well as Croatia. Simple, they understand that we fix the statistics. In general, we set everything why we would not fix Covid positive per hundred thousand. It is so easy. At the same time families are jeopardized in Sandzak, people are dying. In one moment, I looked at the possibilities to support them personally somehow. In the same time city of Kragujevac (close to Novi Pazar) is under the state of the emergency. The hospital is full, and some events scheduled for next week are canceled. I should have to go to the promotion of new Ph.D. doctors with my student and associate.

Second, you said that when you reach the age of 50, you can control your life. Even if I agree with that, you need a proper environment. As we falsified the statistics, we misrepresented everything. Bad students are around me, and they believe that we are equal. But we are not, and we would never be. Somehow we are under pressure. So both sides know what the truth is, but somehow, they pretend that situation is normal. Dissent and normal people don’t know how to react. Pure disregarding arrogance and ignorance it is not enough. Maybe it is in Holland, but here we need resistance.

What bothers me except the people who are dying in Novi Pazar is the economic situation. Not only because of Covid but because of floods. I still have in my mind a grandma from Serbian village who is apologizing to TV reports since she didn’t welcome them properly at the moment when everything, house, livestock, and fields with fruits and vegetables are under the water. Except she doesn’t know how she will continue the life we didn’t do anything to comfort and help her. As I wrote so many times before, there is no empathy.

And empathy should have come from medical doctors, and they showed up as the weakest link as one of our greatest journalist Olja Beckovic said when you realized that what you have as a stronghold. Simple, our epidemiologist sold us for nothing, and many people died because of them false narration. What do they expect in the future? To live happily and healthy life. I doubt so.

So no control of the virus. So many close people to me are in the hospital—some of them in critical condition. So many doctors closed to me doing their best to save them. But they are exhausting, underpaid, depressed, and nobody knows how it will be finished. Everything is manipulated, people, sport, measures, and care for the people. Just see what’s happening with Novak Djokovic.

So for the time being, let’s follow the situation and decide in the last moment about your coming here. Luckily we are 50, and we know how to protect ourselves.

See you soon,

Nenad