Two years ago, Serbian students started their protests, endorsed by many citizens, in an honest, almost naive way. They declared that they wanted the end of corruption, press freedom, prosecution of the culprits behind the collapse of the Novi Sad rail station canopy, and, ultimately, another Serbia altogether. Students persistently claimed that entering politics was not their aim. But given all the issues they called in question, politics remained the name of the game. Nevertheless, they managed to stick with their grassroots methods of organization, and their influence spread.

For the last two years, students continued to act without leaders, and all decisions have been made in plenary meetings, a horizontal, non-hierarchical form of decision-making. This has been direct democracy at its best. It also represents an authentic form of political expression that transcends the impotence of the outdated options available within the existing system.

The ”Student List“ that appeared on the ballot in the recent Serbian elections emerged from the massive protests known as “Students in Blockade,” founded on September 9 with the slogan Students Are Winning. It became No. 3 on the ballot for the parliamentary election. Its program, the 11-point “Student Plan,” centers on the fight against corruption and organized crime and endorses new social measures in education, housing, and healthcare. It has been written in cooperation with experts from various fields, including farmers, doctors, teachers, social and cultural workers. According to its statute:

it is a voluntary, non-governmental, non-partisan, and non-profit association established for a fixed period to raise civic awareness of the importance of democracy and free and fair elections. Its goals include greater youth participation in democratic processes, monitoring elections and referendums, promoting the rule of law and freedom of speech, and holding those who break the law accountable.

The Student List consists not of students but of 250 academics, professionals, and public figures selected by student plenums, and is headed by cardiologist Ilija Srdanović. However, he is not, in the words of the students, the leader. In his own words, he is the first name on the Student List—though not its lead candidate. As he put it:

I don’t think that the invitation to the Student List was an invitation to be a candidate for deputy in front of a political option, but literally an invitation to get involved in the endeavour of Serbia’s victory over the mafia. The mafia stole our country, drove tens and hundreds of thousands of young people abroad, and ravaged the budget, eventually causing a tragedy in which 16 of my fellow citizens died.

In the last month, however, some actions and proclamations of the students gave pause to sympathetic observers from Serbia and neighboring countries. Such commentators are asking about students’ positions toward Russia, the EU, Kosovo, and war criminal Ratko Mladić. In an excellent article published in the Serbian independent media, Dejan Ilić describes how the younger generations are infected by their upbringing in Serbia, which has been prone to selective memory and to a victim mentality. But he continues:

There is little that can be done about that overnight. All we can do is marvel at how courageously those children stood up and confronted an arrogant, heartless regime with an excessive propensity for violence. Now that they have risen, all we can do is stand beside them and try to protect them from excessive repression… We have elections ahead of us. And in those elections, there is one, and only one, important, shared objective: to be freed from the regime headed by Vučić… These are elections for liberation… we should fight for the chance to create a normal and decent Serbia… There is a well-known rallying cry of militant democracy: no democracy for the enemies of democracy. Something similar should apply to Vučić during this campaign: no polite conversation with an enemy of all conversation and all decency.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić was by no means sitting around idle during the grassroots mobilization. Over the years, he seriously damaged independent media. He placed supporters with murky, often criminal background in tents known as Ćaciland, in Pionirski park in front of the Parliament in Belgrade as an intimidation tactic, and he used all known propaganda mechanisms to label students dangerous foreign agents ready to destroy Serbia. He recently stepped down as president of Serbia with the intention of becoming prime minister.

He continued a danse macabre that has ruined all the values of a democratic, civilized country, achieving everything which he has accused students of wanting to accomplish. He sucked up to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, flattered US President Donald Trump, cozied up to China as a partner, and lied to the EU.

For good measure, he manipulated his own supporters mercilessly. Vučić told them that WWIII was inevitable. He warned that Croatians were intervening in the Serbian elections, together with unnamed foreign powers. Following Trump’s recipe, he bragged about his enormous achievements and the bright future that would soon come under his leadership At the last pre-election rally of his party, he roared: “Let us never forget how they tried to bring down our state. Let us always protect and defend it… Let us go out and defeat them! Defeat them........

© Common Dreams