With every kilometre that they walked, the smoke and mirrors of Vučić’s media empire, built on lies and spins, were breaking down in front of people’s eyes
After four and a half months of protests, after they walked for hundreds of kilometres across Serbia and held protests in Novi Sad, Niš and Kragujevac, students called for, what was expected to be, the biggest gathering so far. The protest held in Belgrade on March 15 brought the biggest mass of people this city has seen in its 35 years long history of protests. Estimates go from [hilarious] 107,000 people ‘counted’ by the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), up to [unrealistic] 1,600,000 people from an unknown source, but the most realistic estimation might be between 800,000 and 1,000,000.
Despite the built-up tensions over the last week, a camp of Aleksandar Vučić’s thugs ready to infiltrate the protesters and provoke incidents, strong police forces guarding them in front of the Parliament, and alleged use of a sound weapon during the 15 minutes of silence, the protest remained peaceful.
The sheer number of people that came from all over Serbia to support students in their demands showed that the fear is being replaced with determination, unity [of unlikely groups] and solidarity with ‘our children’. With every kilometre that they walked, with every smile they shared, with every tear of joy we shed, the smoke and mirrors of Vučić’s media empire built on lies and spins were breaking down in front of people’s eyes.
The demands are as follows:
- The publication of the entire documentation related to the reconstruction of the Railway Station in Novi Sad, which is currently unavailable to the public
- The confirmation from the competent authorities regarding the identity of all individuals reasonably suspected of physically assaulting students and professors, as well as the initiation of criminal proceedings against them. We also demand the dismissal of these individuals if it is proven that they are public officials
- The dismissal of criminal charges against the arrested and detained students at the protests, as well as the suspension of any ongoing criminal proceedings
- An increase in the higher education budget by 20%
“Smells like justice”
The visible absence of the opposition parties in the past months was certainly a big factor which created a broad popular front, indeed, ideologically incoherent, around the students. In parallel, students themselves coming from different political and ideological spheres, managed to successfully overcome divisions by organising in plenums, by practicing self-management and approaching the media as one of the many representing the same: their four demands.
As the weeks and months pass, an inevitable question arises: what’s next? Those who are used to the party system are expecting the students to form a party and ran at the next elections, others are talking about a transitional or temporary government – with no clear ideas on how that government would be formed and who would be part of it, while a good portion of people is losing their patience, saying that walks and peaceful protests won’t lead us anywhere and that this regime won’t fall without a fight.
All these ideas, unfortunately, lack any real vision, or programmatic solution, for the [potential] Day After. Students brought us light in the media darkness, the long-forgotten solidarity, compassion and humanity, but we must acknowledge that we cannot expect the students to do all the work. Political parties, at least those which are not Vucic’s Trojan horse projects, civil society, experts, analysts are visibly lacking any fresh or inspiring ideas besides falling into business-as-usual script, sliding into the pre-electoral well-known terrain.
Unfortunately, we can’t expect the democratic process of elections to work for as long as Vucic owns the system. He perfected the art of rigging the elections, media space is his own backyard, his thugs are forcing people to go to his rallies, people living below the poverty line are given a box of dry food for a vote, and the list goes on. Despite the independent observers, plentiful evidence, and complaints from the NGO sector filed to the EU institutions, he managed to get away with it – for 13 long years.
A visibly absent support from both the Western media and the EU institutions made Serbia a ‘political orphan’, as DiEM25’s co-founder Srecko Horvat said, also proved [once again] that – no matter what the students or democracy accomplishes – Vucic will stay in his place until he serves his purpose. While he’s an expert in creating divisions and pointing fingers at ‘domestic traitors and foreign enemies’, nobody has done more in contributing to colonialisation and sell-out of Serbia’s natural resources as he did.
As progressives, as DiEMers, when we ask ourselves ‘What should we do?’ while the EU is sliding into fascism and ‘war for peace’ mindset, my personal wish would be to look at the Serbian students, get inspired by their courage to resist despite the threats and consequences, learn from them how to practice direct democracy in plenary meetings, and how to unite a broader front of people – farmers, teachers, lawyers, artists, veterans, bikers, pensioners… around demands as simple as ‘the system should work equally for all’.
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