Student protests in Serbia can lead to political changes, but it is necessary for the resistance movement to spread to other layers of society. The West openly supports President Aleksandar Vučić, but if the conditions for widespread civil disobedience are created, the government will no longer control the situation and will not be a reliable partner, that is, it will not be of great use to the West, Dr. Ognjen Radonjić, full professor, said in an interview with "Vijesti" at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.
He said that a president who is separated from the youth by a police cordon cannot have legitimacy and that Vučić has secured his place in the dustbin of history.
Asked if the students, who have been blocking the faculties of the University of Belgrade for weeks demanding responsibility for the tragedy in Novi Sad, have broken the barrier of fear in Serbia, Radonjić says that in the dictatorships of the 21st century, fear is less important.
"He plays a role, but the role of corruption and opportunism is more significant, that is, the majority of those who are with the regime did not make that decision because they are afraid, but because they have some material benefits from it. I think the key is in apathy and that it is slowly breaking down".
Radonjić points out that the occupation of the media with aggressive propaganda is not exclusively aimed at winning over and retaining voters, but also at convincing the voting body that is not in favor of the government that everyone is the same, that nothing can change and that therefore it is not worth fighting for.
"The information we are bombarded with aims to confuse and saturate us with the result that we can no longer distinguish whether the information is false or true and whether it is relevant or not. The outcome of this saturation is that we cannot think, reason properly and, based on that, we cannot act and take action. So, for now, students are very successfully breaking apathy, that stone around the neck that has kept us at the bottom for more than a decade".
Tens of thousands of people gathered on Slavija Square in Belgrade on Sunday, in one of the biggest protests in recent years. The student protest, which was joined by farmers and numerous citizens, began by chanting "Go to Vučić" and "Your hands are bloody". Demonstrators are demanding responsibility for the collapse of the canopy at the train station in Novi Sad on November 1, when 15 people died.
Many in Serbia blame this tragedy on widespread corruption and poor quality work at the station, which has been renovated twice in the last few years as part of a project implemented with Chinese companies, the details of which have remained secret.
Prosecutors arrested 13 people in connection with the tragedy, including former construction minister Goran Vesić, whose later release raised public doubts about the sincerity of the investigation.
Vučić accused the students of protesting for money, but at the same time he is trying to calm the protesters down. The government began publishing documents on the reconstruction of the railway station and offered an affordable housing loan scheme for young people.
When asked who is actually most afraid of Vučić, Professor Radonjić answered:
“His companions. In that mafia-corrupt octopus there are people who know a lot about others. As long as the omerta is not violated, the system works. The moment it turns out that someone should be held accountable, the omerta is no longer valid and the game of shifting responsibility begins. Apparently, that's why smaller fish were arrested for the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, and that's why Vesić got out of prison quickly, because, I assume, he threatened to start talking. Although, that process probably already started as soon as the former acting director of the Railway Infrastructure declared that Vesić was responsible with the blessing of the president. Only five days after that statement to the prosecution, the court released Vesić, which was the trigger for the student rebellion".
According to his opinion, the government does not publish the entire project and financial documentation of the reconstruction of the Railway Station in Novi Sad, which is one of the demands of the students, because that documentation would lead to the very top of the state.
"Students know this very well, and awareness of it is slowly spreading among ordinary citizens, and this represents a huge problem for the authorities".
Citizens do not trust the opposition
Radonjić says that these protests differ from the previous ones in that the previous ones were mostly led by a "non-unified, poorly organized and often contradictory opposition".
“As such, most opponents of the regime vote for them because they have no other choice, but they do not have the power to bring people to the streets because people do not trust them. It is quite trivial that progressive phalanxes regularly show up at meetings organized by the opposition and create disturbances, which then results in police attacks and arrests of citizens. If they have not found a way, after so many years, to prevent this coordinated scenario, then the question arises, what are they thinking about other than their self-promotion through bombastic statements in the assembly or available media", says Radonjić and adds that this is not adequate political action and that that's why until now the regime has been quite stable and undamaged.
"In contrast, the student demonstrations are not burdened by the baggage of the past, the youth traditionally enjoys great trust in Serbia and parents, grandparents do not like anyone to mistreat their children. High school students who have shown an extremely high level of intelligence and organization, as well as solidarity with their professors, are also very important."
He answered in the affirmative to the question whether the government is in a panic.
“He's seriously rocking. This can be seen from their reactions, where on one day the president calls students foreign mercenaries, on the second day he offers subsidized loans for apartments to foreign mercenaries, on the third day he threatens the students with Cobras (special military units that guard the president) and on the fourth day he calls for unity in sync with Patriarch Porfiry. And his assailants say all sorts of things, such as the lawyer Vladimir Đukanović, who stated that children up to 18 are the property of the state or the prime minister, that the state cannot collapse due to either 15 or 1.555 dead. They are not the state, they are the party, and the citizens make up the state. The problem is that the party in power is against its citizens, and therefore the state. Therefore, if anyone is overthrowing the state, it is them".
The political activity of the opposition is not adequate and that is why the regime has been quite stable and undamaged until now
Radonjić assumes that Vučić will wait for the holidays to weaken the protests, but he thinks that this will not happen.
Asked whether the protests can lead to political changes in Serbia and whether changes are possible without pressure from the West, whose reaction has so far been restrained, he said:
"The reaction of the West is not restrained, but openly supports him (Vučić), starting with the American ambassador who kept him company while they opened a section of the highway while more than 100.000 citizens in Slavija mourned those killed in Novi Sad. Political changes are certainly possible, but they require that this resistance movement be extended to other layers of society. We already have significant elements of civil disobedience - students blocked classes and professors supported them. Classes are blocked in some secondary schools. And in order to disperse the students, the Government makes a decision to end the school year a week earlier. Many schools responded by deciding to continue classes, which is a form of civil disobedience. If this movement spreads enough to farmers, health workers, trade unions, professional associations and the conditions for widespread civil disobedience are created, it means that the government is no longer in control of the situation and is not a reliable partner. When you are not a reliable partner, then you are not of much use to the West".
Commenting on the behavior of the opposition in the current situation, Radonjić says that he does not notice them, which is good at the moment, although it raises concerns about how capable they are, if that happens, to carry out the transition of power.
"They certainly have their place on the political scene, but I also think it would be useful to form a large political movement, with or without opposition, made up of students, public figures, trade unions, professional associations, etc."
SPC is more like a corporation
Speaking about how realistic it is to expect institutions such as the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), the police and the army, to rebel against the regime, Radonjić points out that SANU is, in principle, an organization made up of individuals with different opinions and that they almost never come forward with a unique attitude. The Board of Higher Education SANU has already supported the student protests.
As for the other mentioned actors, they act opportunistically, says the professor.
"If they feel that the government is no longer in control of the situation, which is conditioned by the extent of the spread of civil disobedience, they will change sides. That's how it was on October 5, 2000, when everything started with the miners' strike in Kolubara and ended with the excavators in front of the Assembly. No one could defend that government and the apparatus of power changed sides. Also, unlike in the nineties, Patriarch Pavle stood by the people without calculating. Today, the SPC in Serbia resembles a corporation more than a religious community".
In his sermon on Sunday, Patriarch Porfirije stated, among other things, that "growing divisions objectively threaten the dignity and freedom of the human person, as well as the unity of our people." He said that the church is following "a growing atmosphere of confrontation and antagonism, along with daily incidents which, we fear, God forbid, may spread so much that there will actually be a large number of victims".
On Monday, the daily "Danas" wrote about a kind of phenomenon that despite mass protests, blockade of institutions, beating of students and the opposition by mercenaries of the regime, public opinion polls that are released to the public show that the rating of the President of Serbia is not falling.
Radonjić says that manipulating ratings also belongs to propaganda.
“Anyway, when you have dynamic social turmoil, everything can fall apart overnight. In the parliamentary elections of September 2000, Slobodan Milošević won the majority. No one, not even in their wildest dreams, thought that he would fall from power in less than a month. When you have a government that functions according to the principle of a Ponzi scheme, a pyramidal financial structure that survives as long as there are new depositors, it means that it is rotten from the inside and that unpredictable events that collapse the pyramid at its foundation are always possible. In any case, I think we have reached a point of no return where more and more citizens realize that the Tsar is gone. A president who is separated from the youth by a police cordon cannot have legitimacy. With his behavior, he secured a place for himself in the dustbin of history, because in about ten years, young people who rose up against his tyranny will remember him that way," concluded Radonjić.
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