Student protests and the Vučić regime

By: Adriana Zaharijević / The Guardian (headline: Serbia's students are showing the world how to restore democratic hope)
Translation: Telegrafi.com

When a building collapses due to its age, as happened in Dresden a few months ago, people naturally react with distrust and resentment towards the authorities. But it is a completely different story when new buildings collapse and kill people. The collapse on November 1, 2024, of the concrete cover of a railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia – the restoration of which had been completed only a few months earlier, accompanied by government pomp – killed 15 people and caused ongoing anger and indignation across the country. Mass protests forced the prime minister to resign and put the president under increasing pressure.

Initially, those in power downplayed the collapse and the 15 victims, relying on the usual dismissive phrases that, despite the tragedy, “Serbia cannot be stopped.” There was no time for mourning, no need for questions, as in so many previous cases. For this relentless and unstoppable “progress,” much has been sacrificed. The rule of law and democracy have been the main victims, creating a culture of impunity, violence, incompetence, and widespread corruption. National institutions, such as the judiciary, long captured by the regime, turned a blind eye to the unconstitutional and usurping actions of the ruling oligarchy. It seemed that this would be another case where the public would receive no satisfactory explanation and no one would be held accountable.

But then came the students. Last month, their peaceful protest in memory of the 15 victims, held in front of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, was violently interrupted by a group of hooligans posing as impatient drivers. It was later alleged that they had close ties to the ruling party, some of whom were even members of it, and the Serbian president went on national television to defend the provocateurs. It was revealed that people close to the regime had received instructions to sabotage the moments of silence. To protect the interests of the oligarchy, the violence was not only tolerated, but also dictated.

In response, students at public universities in Serbia went on strike, suspending classes. By the end of December, they had been joined by a large number of high school students. Others joined in as well: farmers – dissatisfied for years with their treatment by the government – ​​supported the students’ demands. The Chamber of Advocates of Serbia followed suit. Theater performances ended with actors holding banners reading: “Students have risen. What about the rest of us?” The public was not indifferent: some 100 people gathered on December 22 in Belgrade’s Slavija Square, standing in silence for 15 minutes. Last weekend, in the quarter-hour since the train station accident, unprecedented crowds took to the streets of Novi Sad, and a growing movement spread across the country now includes school teachers, cultural workers, motorcyclists defending the protests, engineers, and taxi drivers. Peaceful demonstrations were held in over 200 towns and villages. The faces of the protesters reflected a unique mixture of solemnity, indignation, pride and hope. This mixture has become a symbol of the current moment in Serbia.

The students’ demands may seem simple. They have asked that institutions demonstrate that they can perform their duties without being influenced by the regime and in the interest of the public whose lives are threatened by the state’s capture. Thus, the main demand, the most difficult to fulfill, relates to the publication of all documentation on the restoration of the Novi Sad railway station. The other two demands – the identification of those responsible for the attacks on students and professors during peaceful protests, the initiation of criminal proceedings against them, as well as the withdrawal of criminal charges against arrested or detained students and the suspension of prosecutions against them – are calls for justice; a justice that does not distinguish between ordinary people and the oligarchy. The fourth demand, a 20 percent increase in the budget for higher education, aims to restore the dignity of knowledge and academic creativity.

But it is not the demands themselves, simple and bold, that most concern the regime. What is truly new and shocking is the students’ assertion that none of these demands are within the jurisdiction of the president, Aleksandar Vučić – the most powerful figure in Serbian politics, supported by both East and West as a supposed guarantor of stability in an ever-volatile Balkans. Vučić is not the state, the protesters argue; institutions, like society itself, must be freed from political capture.

The students have not fallen into the trap of imitating the president's authoritarianism: they act as a multitude, without a single leader, without a specific representative. They are numerous, with different faces that appear in the few independent media that give them space. They make decisions collectively in plenary meetings through practices of direct democracy, harmonizing their decision-making bodies at the university level and between universities. Through their actions, they oppose the distortion of the democratic spirit and procedures.

In the last decade in Serbia, opposition parties have been suppressed and neutralized: trade unions are weak, while the ruling party machinery seemed untouchable. The regime has managed to silence and discredit independent voices – from intellectuals to whistleblowers – through campaigns of intimidation and deceptive propaganda by the state-controlled media. Fear, apathy and surrender had long gripped the country. And yet, now, perhaps for the first time in decades, students – who themselves have no formal representation – have begun to represent all those silenced voices. Their intelligent use of social media has begun to challenge the regime’s media dominance. Despite the president's invitations for meetings during his daily media appearances (accompanied by threats, false concessions, accusations and covert calls for violence), the students have remained steadfast: their demands are clear and direct, and none of them are addressed to the president. There is no room for negotiations. In this stance, they are supported by professors and university rectors.

The students have managed to shake up a government that for years has either bought people's dignity, or silenced and despised those who dared to speak truth to power. Now, suddenly, there is no “leader” to be bought, slandered, or discredited with some vague allusion as a “foreign agent.” Most importantly, the students' response to the violence is entirely peaceful, something that has profoundly destabilized the entire system of values ​​cultivated in Serbia for more than a decade. They have already been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Their determination should rouse sluggish institutions and force them to act. Their persistence has inspired public courage, and many have responded with courage. What Serbian students are doing is nothing less than restoring democratic hope to a country that has seen very little of it – and at a time when democracy is shrinking around the world. /Telegraph/