
Photograph Source: Stefan Miljuš – Public Domain
What kind of times are they, when
A talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?–Brecht
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ) was a state born in the anti-fascist struggle during the Second World War – conceived in 1943, formulated and shaped in 1945, with many changes and improvements in the following decades. This state existed until the last decade of the 20th century.
The People’s Republic of Serbia was one of the six Yugoslav republics. Serbia itself had 2 autonomous provinces, the northern one being the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, and the southern one being the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija. The capital of AP Vojvodina is (to this day) Novi Sad.
Novi Sad’s modern railway station was built in 1964. By October 5, 2000, after the last vestiges of socialism were swept away with the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in a western backed “color revolution,” it was already badly in need of repair. Twenty-four years later, it was finally rebuilt, a major project that took years, ballooning in cost from the original 3 million Euros to over 16 million. Four months after it was completed in July of 2024 it collapsed. On November 1, 2024, an avalanche of concrete buried 17 people under 100 tons of rubble. 15 people, including 2 children aged 10 and 14, died. Two were left critically wounded with fractured skulls and amputated limbs
Spontaneous protests in Novi Sad began that same day. On November 22, students and professors of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) in Belgrade came together to block traffic. During their 15 minute moment of silence, they were physically attacked by a group of individuals identified as functionaries / junior officials of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Vucic’s Party. In response, FDU students extended their protest, blocking classes at Faculty of Dramatic Arts. They were soon joined by all other faculties (or departments) of the University of Belgrade. This protest spread to all the other major cities of Serbia. Currently more than 85 faculties, with the support of management and academic workers, are suspending classes.
These students had a clear set of demands:
+ Publish all of the documents concerning the reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad.
+ Conduct a trial to determine responsibility.
+ Prosecute the political operatives who attacked the initial protests.
+ Dismiss all charges that rose of the original blockade and moment of silence
+ Increase funding for high education by 20%, and reduce fees at all of the colleges and universities by 50%.
The state administration turned a deaf ear to the demands for a long time, and in an address at the beginning of December, the President of the Republic of Serbia emphasized: “I am not Comrade Tito, as some say, so I’m (not) going to say “these are right and these are wrong”, alluding to the student protests in 1968 , which, after several violent clashes between students and the police, ended with Tito’s famous speech about how the students were right.
However, as the protest gained in mass (some of the gatherings had over 100,000 people), it also received new reactions from the state administration and their sympathizers. Private televisions have begun to serve as platforms for revealing the “dark background” of student protests to officials and caring propagandists who speak through them, scaring citizens with foreign interventions in student bodies – i.e. scaring them with a new colored revolution. Bearing in mind that the dramatic consequences for the quality of life and working conditions, as well as the de-industrialization that was a consequence of the color revolution that took place 25 years ago, are still very vivid in the memories of the citizens of Serbia, it is not surprising that the state administration decided to further antagonize the citizens by showing student protests as a new/old variant of the West’s interference in the organization of the RS. Since the (outgoing) US ambassador persistently talks and explains that the Serbian and American administrations are friends, and the President of the Republic of Serbia opens infrastructure projects in his company, and bearing in mind that the Government of the Republic of Serbia is removing protection from cultural monuments (the Yugoslav General Staff building) in order to in that place, Jared Kushner built the Trump Hotel, it didn’t really pay off for our administration to portray the one who normally carries out colored revolutions (the USA) as the meddling West, but the villain from the West (p)remained – Croatia.
Where did the Croats come from in all this and what is the “blockade cookbook”?
Blockade of universities as a type of protest is not unknown in the area of (former) Yugoslavia, where university autonomy survives to this day, which is a necessary (but not sufficient cause) of this type of (self)organization. In addition to the already mentioned protests in 1968, faculties were also blocked during protests in the last decade of the 20th century. From this millennium are the famous blockades against the Bologna regime in 2006, which spilled from the Belgrade University over the political border between Serbia and Croatia, and in 2009 the faculties in Zagreb were blocked, and they demanded “free, i.e. fully publicly funded, education at all levels and accessible to all.” From that big protest in Croatia, “Blockade cookbook” emerged – a small book about organizing the student movement, a kind of instruction for organizing and using the faculty blockade.
Blockades of the University of Belgrade were organized in 2011 and 2014, and the demands of the students were of a social nature – a reduction in tuition fees and other improvements in study conditions.
Cooking blockade 2024/2025
The students revoked their trust in the student parliaments, a manifestation of the Bologna bureaucracy which is “the only legitimate representative body of students”, and based on the principles of direct democracy, they organized student plenums in which each student has the right to participate, the right to propose activities and vote for and against them. There are working groups for specific activities: working group for media, for strategy, for communication with other faculties, for security, for free activities, for communication with cultural institutions, etc. The student plenum rejects the participation of opposition parties and party youth, as well as members of non-governmental organizations. The principles of egalitarianism, organizing “from below” dominate, and the constant changing of personalities who go in front of the cameras and those who moderate the plenum prevents the creation of a “leader”, i.e. prevents any of the participants of the protest from being perceived as a leader. This kind of political organization is not totally alien to the history of political culture in our region, but it has not been on such a massive level for so long that there is often great skepticism among people who support students regarding the lack of a leader.
Undoubtedly, leader/leaders are a part of state apparatus that functions according to the principles of neoliberal democracy. The current student protests were accompanied by a series of violent incidents – several female students were hit by a car and suffered severe head injuries, one had her jaw dislocated and was beaten with baseball bats. As a reaction to the latest act of violence – the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, Miloš Vučević, resigned, so the decision of the President is now awaited – whether the government will be reconstructed or whether new elections will be held. Multi-partyism is present, but mostly only nominally – no parliamentary party offers alternative political ideas. They are all lulled into the death of history and neoliberalism as its highest reach. The state is redundant, the free hand of the market solves all problems, progress is inevitable, regulation is unnecessary, and the individual is rational. And what is rational in neoliberalism? Naturally, the race for profit. And so, from the end of history, we reached the end of the canopy, and a hundred tons of concrete built by socialism, reconstructed by neoliberalism, i.e. a hundred tons of concrete that stood in place for over 60 years, until they were touched by the invisible hand of the market and fell on the heads of passers-by.
Bearing all this in mind, I would view the current student protests in Serbia, which are the largest in the history of this part of the world, primarily as a reaction (perhaps unconscious) of the poor of Paradise to the abolition of the (socialist, safe, stable) state that followed the 5th of October change.
As it often happens in the Yugoslav cultural space, a mass expression of dissatisfaction, and especially a call for a boycott and a large protest on Friday, January 24th in Serbia also triggered reactions in the former Yugoslav republics – in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and finally in Serbia, the people were called to boycott large retail chains due to excessive food prices on 31.1.
Time will tell in what way it will be further articulated and what is the scope of the accelerated course of community that Serbian students are currently attending. It remains for us to watch and learn that a different social organization is not only imaginable, but also possible and effective.