Italian
Face to face with the protagonists of this revolt
BELGRADE – Upon arriving in the city of Belgrade, the group of boys and trip leaders of the humanitarian journey meet the tour guide, Miriana, nicknamed “Mimi”, who after the usual greetings to the group, immediately, as if she had an urgency to do so, talks to us about the situation in the city, which is becoming increasingly critical.
Arriving at the first stop of our guided tour, the courtyard of the philosophy university, where the revolt started, tells us that everything that is happening was caused by an accident on January 27th in Novisad, where a group of students was involved in a tragedy: a collapse of a station’s canopy, resulting in 16 people being injured and 17 dead.
Since then, a domino effect has triggered student protests, who attribute this unfortunate event to the lack of maintenance of public works by the government, and even more to the way these works are carried out, with poor materials and improper procedures, all due to the bribes involved in the payments for the works, which divert money from what they should actually serve. Furthermore, the real estate speculation that has distorted Belgrade also brings housing issues for the students.
But not only young people are challenging the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, who, scared, keeps changing location continuously; even farmers, intellectuals, and ordinary citizens have joined the protest.
Today in Serbia, about 60 universities are occupied. For over three months, students have been living barricaded, discussing in collective assemblies to which adults are not allowed to enter, and where every decision is voted by majority – and they organize themselves into working groups, even if the choice they are making will penalize their course of study.
Their movement has neither a name nor a leader, only a symbol: a hand as red as blood. A strong mobilization has been reinforced by effective communication – with social media pages boasting over 200,000 followers – and long marches during which students have crossed the country, village after village, involving students’ relatives and farmers, lawyers, taxi drivers, entertainment workers, journalists, and thousands of ordinary citizens.
Some talk about a new ’68; certainly, students seem to have broken the fear that has kept Aleksandar Vučić’s regime standing for twelve years. And when fear falls, the system trembles. The crisis triggered by the tragedy in Novi Sad has deep roots, reaching all the way to the waters of the Sava River and explaining why today the collapse of a shed is bringing an entire country to the streets.
On February 10th, on the Gazela bridge occupied by protesters during one of the many blockades of these four months, students advance unrolling a banner: “On this side of the river, the city is ours.” On the other side rises Belgrade on the water, the pharaonic project of the Serbian government, financed by Eagle Hills, a construction company from the United Arab Emirates, and carried out without a bidding process. A luxury complex that includes the construction of 10,000 apartments, over 300 shops, and dozens of cafes and restaurants, in a country where the minimum net salary is 350 euros and the average salary is 600.
To build it, in 2016, part of the historic neighborhood of Savamala, also praised by The Guardian for its alternative cultural life, was demolished in a single night by hooded men’s bulldozers. Today, among the Dubai-style skyscrapers, there are still huge piles of rubble from a piece of city erased to make way for private interests.
Who knows how this protest will end. When young people mobilize, things change for sure. Just think about how the protests started in ’64 at the University of Berkeley, and what followed: the Sixty-Eight that changed the world.
Today, our hope lies once again with the young students of American universities, who, due to recent presidential measures, find their fundamental rights to education and the free movement of scholars and researchers being undermined.
