{"id":80830,"date":"2025-03-15T17:25:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T17:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=80830"},"modified":"2025-03-15T17:25:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T17:25:35","slug":"where-are-the-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/03\/15\/where-are-the-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the students?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, the President of Serbia<\/span>, is a politician with a dubious political past and a none too attractive political present.<\/p>\n

He is an authoritarian<\/span>, who claims to be simultaneously pro-European<\/span>, pro-Russian<\/span>, and nationalist, but few believe the first.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most believe he has a blind eye for corruption.<\/p>\n

Those in Serbia are concerned that his grip on power and the media threaten the country's\u00a0democratic future.<\/p>\n

And now, the FT has reported<\/a> that:<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of Serbs have defied fears of a violent crackdown to protest against the alleged oppression and corruption of President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The population of Serbia is 6.6 million people - about a million more than Scotland. Hundreds of thousands turning out is deeply significant.<\/p>\n

The protests began - as so many such movements do - with students unhappy about corruption. Now it has widespread support.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But four questions follow.<\/p>\n

Where are the students of the USA?<\/p>\n

Where are the students in the UK?<\/p>\n

Where are the students in Canada?<\/p>\n

Where are the students in Denmark, supporting Greenland?<\/p>\n

In my day we protested - and it did make a difference.<\/p>\n

Why aren't they now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, the President of Serbia, is a politician with a dubious political past and a none too attractive political present. He is an authoritarian,
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,14,16,203,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-age-of-aggression","category-corruption","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80831,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80830\/revisions\/80831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}