Al Jazeera 23-02-2025, por Saša Savanović - novelist, essayist and non-fiction author.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/2/23/the-protests-in-serbia-are-historic-the-world-shouldnt-ignore-them
For four months now, Serbia has been gripped by unprecedented protests. The upheaval was sparked by the collapse of a roof at a newly renovated train station in Serbia’s second biggest city, Novi Sad, which killed 15 people and critically injured two on November 1. Despite various strategies by the government to try to suppress the demonstrations, they have only gained momentum. Universities have been occupied and large demonstrations and strikes have been held across the country. Foreign observers and the international media have either ignored this mass mobilisation or reduced it to “anti-corruption” protests. Russia and China have stood by President Aleksandar Vučić and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), while the United States and the European Union, which usually flaunt their democracy promotion credential, have expressed no support for the protests. (..)
The occupations have challenged not only the status quo within Serbian universities, but also outside. Students have developed effective self-governance through student plenums or assemblies, where each student has the right to speak and all decisions are voted on. Ad hoc working groups are put in place to deal with various issues, from security and logistics to PR and legal questions. (..)
Unlike student protesters recently demonstrating in support of Gaza in the West, students in Serbia are fully controlling the institutions they have occupied while enjoying an overwhelming support of the public: around 80 percent of Serbian citizens support their demands. Moreover, the universities are publicly funded and not yet transformed into money-making factories, as is the case in the US, which gives the students’ demands that much more weight. (..)
While opposition parties and civil society groups close to them have proposed to resolve the crisis by forming an “interim government” made up of technocrats or party representatives, students are calling for “systemic change” and fundamental, bottom-up democratisation. These ideas have made it to the street. During the mass rally in Novi Sad, which I attended, students organised the first citizens’ plenum. People were asked to vote by raising their hands if they wanted to extend the blockade for another three hours. Raising my hand among thousands of others was thrilling.
The students have repeatedly stressed the need for other groups to organise and act within their own institutions, making their own demands. Some have heeded their call. On January 24, Serbia got the closest it could to a general strike given that the SNS regime practically controls all public institutions, including the unions, and was able to put pressure on them not to join. Workers from various institutions, businesses and a number of professional associations still joined the strike. While education unions withdrew from the general strike, individual schools and even individual teachers suspended classes.
Left without the protection of their professional associations, the teachers subsequently formed a new, informal institution, “Association of schools on strike”, which apart from backing the students’ demands, put forward their own. They are continuing to strike despite facing incredible pressure, including the threat of pay cuts.
Other sectors have also responded with various protest actions. The Serbian Bar Association suspended the work of its lawyers for a month. Belgrade’s public transportation company workers and public pharmacies union protested against the privatisation of their respective sectors. Workers in the cultural sector created an informal “Culture in blockade” initiative. After holding several protests and plenums of their own, on February 18, they occupied the Belgrade Cultural Center, one of the city’s most important cultural institutions. Meanwhile, many theatres have also gone on strike. (..)
Unlike socialist “self-management”, which was pursued as state policy by the communist regime of the Yugoslav Federation and implemented from the top down, the self-governance of students, and increasingly other social actors, comes from the ground up. The students have seized an institution, recreated and democratised it, thereby redefining the very meaning of democracy. (..)
2025-02-26
