World-renowned scientist living in Tivat, Dr. Miodrag Grbić, a geneticist in the field of molecular biology and entomology, returned today, in protest against the policies of the Serbian authorities towards the University of Belgrade, the Order of Karađorđe's Star, second degree, which he was awarded by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on the occasion of Serbian Statehood Day, February 15, last year.
This high decoration is awarded to individuals or institutions for special merits for the Republic of Serbia and its citizens in the areas of representing the state and its citizens.
The Order of Karađorđe's Star has three degrees, was established in October 2009, and was first awarded by decree of the President of the Republic of Serbia in 2012 to the celebrated tennis player Novak Đoković.
Although he was born in Novi Sad, Miodrag Grbić always calls himself a native of Lastva, a resident of the small coastal settlement of the same name near Tivat, where he has had a house in Donja Lastva since 1963, built by his parents, Dr. Vasa and Dr. Olga Grbić.
Tivat is the only place in the former Yugoslavia where Grbić has real estate, because this extremely interesting scientist left this area almost 30 years ago, for doctoral studies in the USA and scientific work in Canada.
Grbić confirmed to "Vijesti" yesterday that he returned the Order of Karađorđe's Star, second degree "as an act of solidarity with professors and students, on the occasion of the decree to reduce scientific work to one hour a day (the famous decree 5-35), which essentially destroys the University as a scientific institution.
"At the end of March, the Serbian government, attempting to 'punish' university professors there for their support for the students in the blockade who are thus expressing dissatisfaction and protesting against the government of Aleksandar Vučić and the Serbian Progressive Party, adopted a new 'Regulation on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget''.
With it, Vučić's regime attempted to drastically reduce the salaries of professors and other teaching staff at universities that have been on lockdown for months by changing the ratio of teaching and research work in the midst of the lockdowns (so far it was 20-20 hours per week, and the Decree changes it to 35-5 hours per week in favor of teaching work that is currently impossible to perform due to student blockades).
More than 450 professors, assistants and teaching associates of the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of Music Arts and Faculty of Applied Arts, immediately thereafter sent an initiative to the Constitutional Court of Serbia to assess the constitutionality and legality of this controversial Decree, the implementation of which would see professors of the blocked faculties receive only about 12,5 percent of their previous monthly salary.
"As a visiting professor for seven years at the University of Belgrade, I am appalled by Regulation 5/35, which drastically reduces the time for scientific research work of professors from 20 to just 5 hours a week. This Regulation passed by the Serbian government is an attack on the essence of the University, the development of knowledge and the scientific and technological future of the country. As someone who received an award precisely for scientific work, I stand in solidarity with my colleagues and have decided to return this award as a sign of protest against the collapse of the university, the reduction in the quality of education and the endangerment of the country's technological development," Miodrag Grbić told "Vijesti" yesterday.
He said that we live in the 21st century, which is "the century of the knowledge economy" and a time that is "marked by techno-feudalism where, if you don't have a technologically developed society, you become technological slaves."
"To illustrate this with an example: when Elon Musk turns off his "Starlink", Ukraine's defenses fall. We are starting to use artificial intelligence intensively, but at any moment whoever controls artificial intelligence can turn it off. However, natural intelligence, strong education, and pioneering scientific work cannot be turned off. However, this regulation does exactly that and represents a step towards the technological slavery that awaits societies without knowledge and science," emphasizes this distinguished scientist.
Miodrag Grbić is an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, where he leads the arthropod genomics and agricultural genomics programs.
Dr. Grbić completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Novi Sad, where he also received his master's degree in Entomology.
As a Fulbright Scholar, he received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA in Developmental Biology and Entomology. After postdoctoral studies at the University of Cambridge (England) at the Wellcome Trust Institute as a Human Frontier in Science Fellow, he established his laboratory at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
Dr. Grbić is the project leader that sequenced the first genome of a helicerate (the second largest group of organisms on Earth), the genome of the agricultural pest Tetranychus urticae through a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Dr. Grbić leads the Genomics in Agriculture program studying pest-plant interactions at the genomic level and developing genomic technologies in crop protection (a program funded by Genome Canada).
Grbić's recent interest is in archaeogenomics, where he has investigated the origins of Balkan peoples through ancient DNA. He has published his work in leading international journals including Nature and Cell and is the recipient of the Premier's Research Excellence Award (Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology of Ontario, Canada), the Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship (EU), the Vanguard Award for Patent Development (Canada), and the Order of the Star of Karađorđe, Second Class, for scientific work in the field of genomics.
Grbić is one of the founders of the biotechnology company Nanomitech. He is also a visiting professor at the University of La Rioja, Spain, and at the University of Belgrade (Serbia) and at the University of Montenegro in Podgorica. Emphasizing that he saw the awarding of the Order of Karađorđe's Star last year as a great recognition for his personal and scientific work by his colleagues from Serbia with whom he collaborated, Grbić said that the results of his research, published in the journal "Cell", "changed the history of the Balkans and showed that our DNA contains ancient Balkan genes from the Bronze Age, with an admixture of Balto-Slavic genes that came with the migrations of Slavic groups from northwestern Europe, so that we are the original inhabitants of this region."
"Also, an analysis of modern residents of the former Yugoslav republics has shown that there are no genetic differences between Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Montenegrins. In other words, genetically we are all the same and the previous wars in the Balkans were literally mindless fratricidal wars," Grbić underlined, adding that he personally did not follow the political situation in Serbia much after the canopy collapsed in Novi Sad last year, killing 15 people, which was the trigger for large student protests against Vučić.
"But as someone who lived in the first building in Novi Sad next to the railway station, I have been under that canopy 1.000 times in my life. When I heard about the terrible tragedy that happened, I started following the events and it soon became clear that it was the result of ignorance, violation of the law (putting the station into operation without a permit) and ultimately all of it as a result of corruption. Of course, ignorance, lack of education and moral principles, as well as purchased diplomas, give birth to fertile ground for corruption." - says this respected world expert who left the former Yugoslavia in 1988-89. "when Slobodan Milošević came to power, introducing turbo-folk nationalism and the cult of personality, our famous "Leader" syndrome."
Grbić admits that whenever it was expected that the former Yugoslavia would finally become democratized, "the opposite happened."
"At that time, talking to my friends, I said that we don't need a leader, but we need strong institutions and a system that works. However, I was a large minority, many told me that without a strong leader there is nothing, so I asked them: 'Do you know who the president of Switzerland is'? Everyone remained silent and my answer was that the system works like a Swiss watch without a leader, but with strong institutions. Now, 36 years after this, I see that a generation of students has matured, educated, cultured, who do not want to leave like I left, but want to create a country in which knowledge, intelligence, education are valued, and freedom and justice function. They are fighting for these very ideas, these ideas that I spoke about so long ago. These free-thinking young people were beaten by the regime with fists, umbrellas, baseball bats, run over by cars and now beaten by the police. They are fighting culturally, democratically, in a Gandhian way and this small act of solidarity of mine is a step of support for their struggle and ideas," Miodrag Grbić explained why Aleksandar Yesterday, he returned to Vučić the medal he had been awarded last year.
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