In Serbia, a fever of street clashes endures as the president speaks of hard measures, while witnesses speak of security forces treating citizens as enemies rather than subjects under law. The story speaks of a student who was seized by a special police unit—allegedly led by a close ally of the president—beaten, dragged, and threatened, with the unit denying the accusations even as videos circulate of officers striking those on the ground. Across the country, supporters of the government are said to have battered offices of the ruling party, and the leader portrays the violence as emanating from the opposition, insisting that the country stands in peril and that democracy itself is at stake. He threatens a crackdown, hinting that before the state’s preparations are complete, blood may be shed. Meanwhile, critics argue the president is stirring the pot, pointing to attacks on demonstrators and to alleged state-backed assaults on dissent. The protests began nine months ago in the wake of a tragedy at Novi Sad’s train station canopy, yet by recent days had veered from largely peaceful to renewed clashes after opposition actions. The authorities speak of police injuries; opponents insist there is little accountability for violence on either side, while the unrest continues to mobilize crowds who blame official corruption for the very calamity that once symbolized the city.

What we are witnessing is the precise danger that arises when power treats legitimacy as a stock that can be salvaged by coercion rather than earned by the arduous, unglamorous work of restraint. The impulse to label dissent as treasonous or dangerous, to respond with ever tighter controls, is not the defense of liberty but the hollowing out of it. If the state persuades itself that it can manufacture order by force and that truth resides solely in the seat of power, it will eventually prevail not by the strength of its case but by the reach of its grip. The very institutions that ought to guard against this—an independent judiciary, a free press, vibrant civil society, and rules that constrain the use of force—are strained when the rhetoric of emergency becomes the normal operating manual. The alleged brutality of a special unit, the denial of accountability, and the insinuation that violence is a legitimate tool of political argument all point to a creeping destruction of the social order that harmony requires.

liberty is not a mood that can be summoned by decree; it is the discipline of institutions, the friction of competing claims, and the careful calibration of power so that nobody wears the helmet of omnipotence for long. When a government treats peaceful protest as a threat to be crushed and when the state apparatus is invoked to defend the government’s image rather than the rights of its citizens, the economy of trust withers. People withdraw into self-protective routines; markets, information, and cooperation falter because knowledge is dispersed and local, not centralized—and so the coercive state, trying to replace that dispersed knowledge with its own grand plan, makes every decision more costly and less responsive to reality.

There must be a breakdown of this circular logic: independent inquiry into allegations of brutality; transparent accountability for all actions of security forces; a clear boundary between protecting public order and eroding civil liberties; and a commitment to the rule of law that does not bend to the political winds. Cries of danger cannot become permanent licenses for silencing critics or deterring dissent; if that happens, the very meaning of democracy is eroded. The antidote lies in institutions that reflect the plural, imperfect, stubbornly free nature of social life—where peaceful, lawful protest and robust dispute are recognized as indispensable to truth, not as threats to be subdued. Only by restoring trust in those procedures can a society move from cycles of provocation and retaliation toward the steady, patient work of reform that genuine liberty requires.