• 2025-02-06

Transfer of Power

Natasa Vuckovic, columnist of Novi magazine (Serbian weekly), 6th Feb. 2025

Autokomanda felt like the culmination of student actions, but Novi Sad surpassed it, leaving a deep mark on everyone who participated, listened, and watched. Images of young people marching persistently, devotedly, and unwaveringly through Serbia flooded the world, winning the hearts and souls of villagers and city dwellers alike, who welcomed them almost as liberators. Students as liberators—washing away layers of fear, hesitation, civic apathy, and resignation to a reality that once seemed to have no alternative.

An amalgam of students, professors, and parents, joined by high school graduates and teachers, quickly and effectively captivated both young and old across the country. Every parent supports their child and wants this country to be a better place for them, a place they won't have to leave. And parents belong to various professions, through which the civic protest extends into education system, farmers, healthcare workers, judges, attorneys, actors, artists... Around the same time as Novi Sad, protests erupted in Grocka, Surdulica, Knić, Vranje, Lapovo, and Odžaci—places that had rarely seen civic demonstrations.

Images from Slavija, Autokomanda, and Novi Sad traveled across the former Yugoslavia, sparking support from students in Zagreb, Split, Osijek, and Banja Luka. Friends from Zagreb told me they stayed up late on Saturday night watching the broadcast from Novi Sad, as did the Slovenians. The image of the student uprising and civic support is slowly but surely breaking through the cautious Western media. Even Serbian Broadcasting Service (RTS) is changing—at the very beginning of its second news broadcast, it reported on the student march from Belgrade to Novi Sad. Madonna’s support arrived via Instagram.

The students’ self-discipline in organization, movement, and speech is fascinating. Everyone follows the message box without deviation—demanding justice, responsible institutions, and laws that apply equally to all, while responding to government attempts at pacification, intimidation, or division with quick, witty, and striking retorts. They reject both the government and the opposition, as well as civic activists. They refuse flags, slogans, and speakers who could divide them or blunt the edge of their struggle. They demand fundamental systemic change, freedom from corruption and manipulation, and, above all, accountability for the deaths of 15 people.

A kind of rebranding of Serbia is underway. For three decades, Serbia has had a negative image in the international community. So vilified by foreign media in the 1990s, with only a brief moment of international support on October 5, 2000, Serbia has struggled to break free from the inertia of its negative perception among many opinion-makers worldwide. Despite the president and government’s claims over the past decade that Serbia is respected and seen as a serious partner, foreign media continue to speak about Serbia with great caution. The suppression of freedoms—especially freedom of expression—selective enforcement of laws, and corruption are cited as key reasons for Serbia’s slow progress in European integration.

The absence of resistance to such undemocratic practices has led much of the international public to conclude that our people are not particularly committed to the rule of law, responsible governance, and freedoms, as they seem to accept a government devoid of democratic impulse, personified by a single individual, with a party ruling over the state and its institutions. The student uprising is awakening in citizens the forgotten or suppressed values of justice, democracy, and the rule of law, serving as a rebellion against the polarization that has been deliberately created in society by the politicians. This civic protest, spanning both major cities and small towns, unites urban and rural Serbia, young and old, citizens of different educational and social backgrounds, proving that justice, decency, and solidarity hold the same meaning and value for everyone.

After the announcement of a major government reshuffle and the prime minister’s sudden

resignation, the ruling authorities have spent the past few days in Jagodina, Varvarin, Ćićevac, and Aleksandrovac. In Jagodina, there was a visible lack of enthusiasm and energy among the gathered crowd. While students from Belgrade and Novi Sad were merging their marching processions on Novi Sad’s boulevards and bridges, Vučić was meeting with citizens in municipal halls and cultural centers—presumably carefully selected and prepared for discussions with the president. Even there, however, it became clear that fear had loosened its grip, as even these pre- selected interlocutors were no longer uncritical followers. They, too, spoke of corruption, poverty, and a life which is far from the idealized image of progress and prosperity that the government relentlessly promotes through its media.

When comparing these two images—the image of a vast number of young, convincing, optimistic, and confident individuals versus events devoid of energy and conviction—it becomes clear that a major transfer of power has occurred in society. Power is shifting day by day from the ruling authorities to society itself. Society is growing stronger and stepping more confidently toward achieving its goals—both student and civic—demanding that the long-neglected public interest and common good prevail over the interests of protected groups and that corruption be eradicated.

Many are surprised, as it once seemed that citizens were content, passive, and navigating the labyrinth of power with varying degrees of success. It now appears that dissatisfaction had been simmering across the country, even in the smallest communities, and that all it took was this student-led spark for it to erupt in solidarity with the students.

The question remains: how can this transfer of power to society be transformed into political energy, into a politically articulated force capable of securing victory in elections—whenever they may take place? Whatever happens next, nothing will ever be the same after this student uprising.

Author: Nataša Vučković

Source: Novi magazin

Photo: NM / Đurađ Šimić