I go for a walk to the city centre. A concert is held in the Square of the Republic. People wear "target" badges. Every day, the TV screens show people who say they are defending the bridges with their own bodies. There is a heated struggle among various political parties for the affection of the patriotic nation. It is said that Socialist Party (SPS) and Yugoslav United Left (YUL) control the bridges and that the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) controls the squares. It is not clear what has happened to the Radicals. Everything looks like a sad imitation of the famous demonstrations of 1996 and 1997. At that time, the regime was mocked in a spontaneous carnival atmosphere. Today, it is as if an invisible hand has put suicidal masks on those same people.

At the corner of Knez Mihailova street, I meet Slavko Curuvija, the owner and editor-in-chief of the best selling Serbian tabloid Daily Telegraph and the weekly European. A government-controlled daily paper in Belgrade has recently published a commentary in which he was called a “traitor.” State television immediately broadcast the contents of that article.

Slavko says: “My most patriotic gesture is that I have stopped issuing the paper. I don’t want to write for censors”. His wife adds: “What they have published about Slavko is a true call for a lynching.”

After a short conversation, we part. Not an hour later, I see him again at the “Kolarac” restaurant. I wave to him and go home.