Does anyone think about how he is the first among us? The one who works for Serbia as a drug dealer, on television during the day, and at night in the sweat of his brow reading thousands of pages of documents? The one who doesn't sleep a wink, doesn't eat, and dresses from a fund in which evil stylists plant a jacket worth five average Serbian salaries? He can no longer stage unity with the people, even in the town's cultural centers.
For the first among us, there are basically two ways – either he will sit on a throne of flaming swords at all costs, with naked violence, restless, with rebellion and contempt, and Serbia will pay the price. Or he will sit on the dock, perhaps in Zabela. There is also an intermediate solution – escape in a trunk via Kelebija.
Maybe these are the fantasies of a columnist, but if not – there is a long way to go before all these scenarios. What does that road look like?
When they led the popular uprising, students took on the burden that the old people have been avoiding for years. I don't think that young people in their twenties have absorbed all the wisdom in the world, nor that some of their moves should not be criticized in order to preserve "conciliarity" - that's also what the government calls for conciliarity and silencing criticism.
But for a long time I didn't have anything to criticize. Now it seems like I do, but let's take it one by one.
What do these students want? To have their four demands met. Who decides whether the demands are met? Well, the students. And if they judge that the demands are met? The plenums will end the blockades. If they are not met? Let's move on.
That sounds simple and clear, but it has a serious catch 22. Because what are the students' demands, really? That the institutions do their job.
Ultimately, this means that the first among us and hundreds of others will go to the dock. This means that the "authorities" - actually a group of usurpers with a clear leader - cannot possibly fulfill the students' demands because they would then abolish themselves, and few things in the universe are as strong as the instinct for self-preservation of those in power who have long since crossed over to the other side of the law.
The students, of course, know this fact too. For now, they are tactically ingeniously playing crazy.
The statement by the students of the blocked Faculty of Law is brilliant, in which they ask the Rector's Collegium not to speak to the president of the country because "the institution that sent the invitation has a limited number of, mostly ceremonial, competencies, none of which have any points of contact with either education or the demands of the students."
In the following text, the leader of the usurping government is referred to as the "subject institution," which must make the first among us very angry. He is used to ruling satraps and receiving supplicants like a sultan, often in front of cameras, and now someone would like to reduce him to the powers of the British Queen, that is, within the framework of the Constitution.
The phrase “subject institution” strikes at a deeper level – in fact, the first among us is the subject of rebellion. But how long can the game last? There is no doubt that the “subject institution” has decided to waste time, like a lower league team that in the 85th minute is still somehow holding 0:0 on the field of the favorite, even though it is squeezed into its own penalty area and is raining down on the crossbar and goalposts.
Do students really think they can stay on the streets and blockades until the regime implodes? Another year, two, three?
Now, of course, prompters are coming from all sides. This or that should be done, this or that should be spoken at the protests or not. The innate pessimist in me smells the seeds of discord in the popular movement led by students – and that's how all previous protests have failed.
At the risk of being a prompter myself, I am convinced that the protests should become more “political.” That is, they should contemplate an end to this painful state in which one party with one leader has usurped the state, the people's money, and institutions.
Of course, not about the end that the "institution in question" wants, about the hypocritically offered "dialogue", but actually about going to the Sultan's palace where the rebellion will end, and the government will continue to do what it has been doing for the past thirteen unfortunate years.
Despite the somewhat childish distancing from opposition parties, I did not get the impression that there is a mood among students for an armed revolution, which implies that changes can only come through the oh-so-boring and despised method of representative democracy. That is, through elections.
Elections that deserve their name can only be organized by a transitional government with the support of a student army of controllers. It may not be rock and roll anymore, it is not a walk to Novi Sad with ingenious slogans, it is not an epic drone shot or a night at the university with a guitar. But elections are – an institution.
The prompter in me will only allow himself this much longer – it would be fatal if such a political and "final" demand did not come with the support of students, whether proposed by ProGlas or someone else.
The "subject institution" is only afraid of this explicitly political demand of the students. It is the only thing that can spoil the game of time in which pawns are sacrificed in turn, thugs are mobilized, the people are bribed, and even the students' demands are formally "fulfilled" just so that everything remains the same.
And only in this way can the "subject institution" be brought to a fait accompli in which it will have those two times left. Or a third, in the trunk via Kelebija. And only in this way would the student cry for institutions truly be gilded.
Bonus video:
