From Saša Savanovic
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 Vucic 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.
However, what has been happening in Serbia is much more than citizens venting frustration with their government or demanding resignations. In the past three months, a new model of governing institutions and society has been taking shape.
This is a historic development worth paying attention to, given that it comes against the backdrop of Europe-wide backsliding on democracy and a crisis of the political establishment.
The protests in Novi Sad began soon after the disaster struck, with local residents and students carrying out 15-minute road blockades to commemorate in silence the 15 lives lost. This form of protest spread across the country in a highly decentralised manner, with more than 200 cities, towns and villages holding such vigils. On November 22, a group of students from Belgrade University’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts attempted to hold a small 15-minute vigil when they were physically assaulted by a group of people.
In response to this and other similar attacks and in the absence of any reaction from the authorities, the students decided to occupy their facilities three days later. This inspired other students to take similar actions.
In the following weeks, six major public universities were occupied, which has practically paralysed higher education in the whole country, as all academic activity in these institutions has been suspended.
On February 13, the students went a step further, occupying the Student Cultural Center in Belgrade, once a thriving cultural and student life hub, which under the administration of the Ministry of Education became run-down and was largely used for commercial purposes.
With the universities occupied, the students decided to take their mobilisation to the streets. On January 28, they organised a 24-hour occupation of a main traffic junction in Belgrade. This was followed by a similar occupation in Novi Sad on February 1 and in the city of Kragujevac on February 15.
Groups of students walked 100km (60 miles) to support their colleagues in Novi Sad and Kragujevac. Along the way, they were greeted by masses of people who provided meals, refreshments, medical aid and accommodation.
At the end of the mass rally in Novi Sad, hundreds of taxi drivers showed up to drive the students back to Belgrade. The residents of Kragujevac accommodated in their homes around 700 protesters from out of town. Citizens’ solidarity with the students has been spectacular.
Throughout these occupations and marches, the students’ demands have remained the same: the release of all documents pertaining to the train station’s reconstruction, the prosecution of those attacking protesters, the dismissal of charges against protesters, and an increase in the higher education budget.
They are not demanding the government’s resignation, snap elections, or that the opposition take over.
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.
The university occupations function without a discernable leadership, alternating the representatives who speak to the public. They are adamant about their autonomy, vocally distancing themselves from all political parties and party politics, as well as from established civil society organisations and even informal groups. In doing so, they are creating a new political space and new means for the political to be enacted, breaking through the confines of ossified institutionalised politics and representative democracy.
Students have effectively created what might be called a “disobedient institution”, partly within the system and partly outside of it, which proclaims its own political sovereignty, recognises and formulates its own needs, defines its own rules, and pursues its own agendas. –FP
