Protests in Serbia, the energy of youth

The protest, initiated by students, has been spreading like wildfire throughout Serbia thanks to the energy and intelligence of young people, triggering changes. Fear has changed sides and this is the greatest achievement of the student movement so far. A comment

“History repeats itself”, I have often heard my peers say over the past three months. We - former students, now middle-aged people - who for more than three months had protested against electoral fraud and the regime of Slobodan Milošević, are in many ways reliving our youth.

Conflicting feelings alternate daily. Joy, nostalgia, anger, disappointment, sadness for having left young people a country where they cannot breathe freely, torment because they must remedy our mistakes.

For years now we have been hearing that young people are apathetic, disenchanted with social and political events, disappointed, self-centred and selfish, that they want to leave their country as soon as possible, that their role models are tycoons and celebrities, that they are time wasters and spend their lives playing video games.

We look at analyses and data according to which young people do not vote and are not interested in politics. We have been underestimating them for years, convinced that we do not deserve better because we have failed them. And then... the bubble of fear bursts, the energy of young people is set in motion, making their wisdom and tenacity erupt. Then slowly the stream turns into a river, the river into the sea, the sea into the ocean.

As exaggerated as these words may seem, this is exactly what is happening in Serbia.

To be clear: these are our children. The children of those who were twenty-year-olds in the 90s. The young people who grew up with our stories of student protests and how that (how ironic) was one of the best times of our lives, our children who saw us disillusioned and tired of a struggle that seemed pointless.

They are the same young people whom we could not look in the eye and answer their questions about why study and learn, about why be honest in a country corrupt to the core.

These young people have never known anything better, their lives are spent under the regime of the Serbian Progressive Party and the omnipotent president, they are growing up and becoming adults with the knowledge that they will find a job only if they keep quiet or if they join the ruling party.

Many of us, their parents, have given in. Disappointed by the failure of the struggle in which we had invested our youth, destroyed after a short period of decent life, marked by a certain freedom and democracy from 2000 to 2012, offended by the behaviour and absence of the opposition, we have mostly remained silent.

We have closed ourselves in our “little worlds”, with those who thought like us, trying to remain normal in the madness that surrounded us. It seemed that the regime had achieved the goal it had set itself, working for more than ten years with dedication and meticulousness to achieve it; every criticism was stifled, every attempt at revolt repressed.

And then, seemingly out of the blue, the Novi Sad tragedy showed us that we didn't know our children.

The protest, started by the students, spread like wildfire throughout Serbia thanks to their energy and intelligence, triggering changes. Fear has changed sides, and this is the greatest achievement of the new student movement so far.

They are well organised, they make clear demands, they understand the essence of the issue: widespread corruption, criminality and arrogance. They don't accept the game in which one man decides everything. And they answer the president clearly: these are not matters for him.

For the first time, Vučić is ignored and doesn't know how to react.

They don't let politicians disrupt their plans. They have distanced themselves and keep away from the opposition parties and all those who would like to "benefit" from their struggle.

They are seeking the support of citizens, of all social groups, and they are getting it, slowly conquering the sections of society that until yesterday were completely impenetrable. They are determined, they have no intention of stopping.

It is not possible, even if the regime tried, to accuse them of being mercenaries in the pay of foreigners. The argument that it was a coloured revolution does not hold up either. In Serbia, fewer and fewer people believe it.

When the regime tried to stifle the protests by shortening the school year, in the hope that students would return home for the New Year and Christmas holidays to rest, eat and celebrate, this decision backfired on the leadership in power.

The students brought the flame of discontent to the small towns, telling their parents, friends and neighbours what was happening in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš and other university towns.

Thus, even those cities that had never protested, not even during the great mobilisations of the 1990s, woke up. The regime does not know how to respond to this eruption of energy.

Young people have organised themselves into popular assemblies in all faculties, connected horizontally and vertically, making decisions democratically and defining their actions themselves. They are tenacious and smarter than us.

Some of their actions are reminiscent of those I witnessed or participated in as students during those three months spent on the streets of Belgrade in the winter of 1996. I think for example of the student march in December 1996, when a group of students from Novi Sad walked to Belgrade.

I remember, as if it were today, the joy with which they were welcomed. Almost three decades later, students from Belgrade faculties took a freedom march to express solidarity and support for their colleagues from Novi Sad and to join the blockade of the three bridges in the capital of Vojvodina.

My goddaughter also walked to Novi Sad. A beautiful blonde girl, a brilliant student with top marks, born into a wealthy family, walked 84 kilometres step by step with her colleagues, while her parents and all of us who love her cried with pride.

A young woman who recognises and accurately points out the problems of society, perceives them organically and legitimately demands justice and an orderly state. She, like all the students who have opened our eyes and awakened hope, enjoys our unconditional support. And more than that. Students enjoy growing support from citizens, regardless of political orientation.

I will stop here, I will not make any more comparisons. It is a bit offensive to draw parallels between our protests and those of today's youth. It is on the latter that all attention should be focused in Serbia, but also elsewhere.

Today's youth are smarter than us. And they deserve to live in an orderly country, or rather to make their country orderly, because we have not been able to do so.

Forgive us, young people, for the burden we have left you.