Aleksandar Vučić, the President of Serbia, is a politician with a dubious political past and a none too attractive political present.
He is an authoritarian, who claims to be simultaneously pro-European, pro-Russian, and nationalist, but few believe the first.
Most believe he has a blind eye for corruption.
Those in Serbia are concerned that his grip on power and the media threaten the country's democratic future.
And now, the FT has reported that:
Hundreds of thousands of Serbs have defied fears of a violent crackdown to protest against the alleged oppression and corruption of President Aleksandar Vučić.
The population of Serbia is 6.6 million people - about a million more than Scotland. Hundreds of thousands turning out is deeply significant.
The protests began - as so many such movements do - with students unhappy about corruption. Now it has widespread support.
Might popular protests tumble an anti-democratic authoritarian regime in Europe? Sometimes that is the only option available. In Serbia, it might be. The fact that this might happen gives me hope.
But four questions follow.
Where are the students of the USA?
Where are the students in the UK?
Where are the students in Canada?
Where are the students in Denmark, supporting Greenland?
In my day we protested - and it did make a difference.
Why aren't they now?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
In the 1970s even later, there was a belief that the people could make a difference.
And many are even cutting classes to work to get by.
More can work on-line so they don’t get to mix and talk as in the 1970s. Social media is , perhaps, not a substitute for face to face contact.
Just some thoughts
Al Jazeera English published a detailed report on the Serbian student protest yesterday:
“Why are students protesting in Serbia? | The Take”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlMt8Jo19OU
Thanks
I suspect, but do not know, that the students of today do not think or feel that they can make a difference. If this is the case then the next obvious question is why?
Debt
Fear
That’s the answer.
Or ‘authoritarianism’ for short.
Thatcher and her Tory party thought that if people had the responsibility of paying off a mortgage, it would make them more compliant. That is one of the reasons for RTB that did the rounds in various housing text books in the 1990s.
That sort of thinking goes deep into the theory of debt as a form of social management.
Agreed
Plenty of student protests in the USA in support of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, “dissappeared” by US Immigration and Customs enforcement.
https://x.com/BTnewsroom/status/1899581731470188999?t=UiqqkQKRND351mYzd4aZlQ&s=19
Good news.
Just listening to Robert Reich on this.
Students, and the young in general, have been protesting a lot of things over that last decade, only to be ignored, demonised, and to have their protests weaponised against by the Right as a ‘Woke Agenda’. They are exhausted, broke and broken, and demoralised I would imagine. Many young men have been seduced by the Right. I’m sure they will mobilise though. There is a growing focus on inequality growing online. Hopefully that will translate into a protest movement.
Could it be the overall shift to a dominant mindset of the individual. Change tends to require collective pressure
2003 was a turning point, I believe. Millions of people took to the streets across the UK to protest against the country getting involved in another invasion of Iraq. What happened? The government brazened it out, paid zero attention to what the people thought and went ahead with it anyway. Since then, most people don’t see the point in protesting. It was also an inflection point in the disconnect between politicians and people.
Now, it seems even more hopeless, with more and more problems piling up, and there is no visible leadership who are showing a way out of it. People like yourself are showing ways out of it, but you have your reasons why you can’t take an active leadership position.
For now, most people are just head-down, concentrating on survival. Once we reach a point where a significant number of people have lost hope of being able to make ends meet, and have nothing left to lose, then we will see some more visible action. Sorry to seem depressing, but it is difficult to find hope these days.
Nobody has mentioned the effect draconian punishments have had on protest in the UK thanks to Suella Braverman, to the extent that a UN rapporteur expressed concern at the now unprecedented level of suppression here:
https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/uk-court-ruling-on-climate-protestors-sets-dangerous-precedent
Other liberal European countries have enacted similar crackdowns. Macron even outlawed one group who’d been violently assaulted by the police. Certain protestors have always accepted a risk of arrest and mistreatment, but there must be MASSES of protestors for anyone to feel relatively safe when peacefully enacting freedom of expression these days, as in Serbia.
I’m with the youth. What kind of world have we bequeathed to them, in any sense? They will have to live in it. They deserve to be able to mould it to their own ideals, which if memory serves me right, are often far more egalitarian in character than our jaded systems.
Both the government and universities in USA, UK and Europe (esp Germany) have been targetting students with pre-emptive and punitive action to prevent protests or even social media comment, about Israel.
The media have restricted their reporting of the weekly marches in London, which the Met have done their best to prohibit or prevent.
Student protest peaked last May but then there were clampdowns. Even in Essex!
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-pro-palestine-students-face-expulsion-sharing-middle-east-eye-posts
https://news.sky.com/story/new-evidence-shows-how-uk-student-protests-about-gaza-were-handled-by-police-and-universities-13308451
We are living in much more repressive times. The most restrictive, here in the UK, in my lifetime. It’s the one area of governing that Starmer, as an ex-human rights lawyer, excels in – repressive authoritarianism.
Agreed
Not just in Serbia, Richard. Budapest as well yesterday. And to limit how bad they were Orban shut down public transport to stop people from surrounding towns and villages from joining the protests. See Anton’s reports (always good on Eastern Europe) as the three videos show the scale of the demonstrations.
https://bsky.app/profile/antongerashchenko.bsky.social/post/3lkgtycbgls2c
Thanks
As has been pointed out in the comments already fear is playing a big part. Unless you happen to be a farmer you might go to prison for protesting. And not just for 10 days. Additionally some people are not careful about what information they share online. Say, for instance, that the Daily Mail gets a picture of a bunch of students on a march protesting against benefits freezes. It would not take that much effort for the Daily Mail to ‘out’ these students (particularly if they deem them to be middle-class). Once outed future employment prospects might be seriously limited. You get the picture. The threads of our interconnectedness being abused by the malevolent.