Tamara Kamatović – a researcher at the CEU – explains what drives the ongoing protests in Serbia and how students managed to unite a country in its struggle for a better future.
A Personal Background and Connection to the Protests
I have a strange background. My mother is from Novi Sad. My dad is half Serbian and half German from Chicago. Like that’s the second biggest Serbian city in the world after Belgrade, I think. And then I grew up basically as part of diaspora, but I spent a lot of time in Vojvodina in Serbia and I’m there all the time. And it’s not far from Vienna. So my whole family is on the, I can say these things. My whole family is on the blockades right now. My aunt is a professor of agronomy in Zaman. I think she’s never worked so hard in her life. She’s over 60 years old. My 70-year-old uncle is on the streets, my cousins. So I feel very emotional about this, as I think many of us who are from this region do, because there’s a real hope that comes with this kind of energy and this kind of solidarity. And I hope that I’m going to try and speak to that today.
But yeah, my academic background is that I studied German literature of the 19th century. There will be one reference in my talk to that. It might surprise you. And I work now in education, primarily actually thinking about the relationship between democracy and education. And I’m working right now on a book that thinks about how we can teach in a more democratic way, how educational institutions can support democracy. So in many ways, I feel like this is also aligned with what’s happening right now in Serbia.
Introduction to the Serbian Student Protests
As I said, I’m really honored to be here today to discuss these protests, which I think are a historic moment, not just for Serbia, but for the entire world. They represent a really powerful stand against corruption and a right-wing capture of government. And they have been bringing hundreds of thousands of people from all demographics, all ages, onto the streets. The success of these students so far has been really surprising, I think, for some reasons that I will be outlining in the talk.
For all of those here who need a summary, a chronology of what’s been happening, students in Serbia beginning around late November, mid to late November, and now across more than 85 universities, including staff and faculty, are protesting. They have been escalating a movement and drawing in other people from the professional arts, from primary schools. What they are demanding is full transparency and accountability for a deadly collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad. That is Serbia’s second largest city, and that happened on November 1st. It claimed 15 lives, including that of a six-year-old girl. And the justice for these attacks, I’m sorry, they are demanding justice for this event. They’re also demanding justice for attacks that have happened on protesters. What in Serbian is batinace, like these are the, in English, I guess you could call them spankers, the thugs, the hooligans that the Vucic’s party, the SNS, has been setting on protesters. They are demanding justice for those attacks. And they are also asking for the dismissal of charges against arrested individuals during protests.
The party and officials have been claiming that all the students’ demands have been met, and there have been arrests. I’m going to talk about that a little bit, too, of some party leaders for corruption and money laundering, etc. But the students say no, their demands are not met, and the protesters are steadfast. I also want to point out that they are calling for higher allocations, I’m sorry, increased budget allocations for higher education as well, which is an incredibly important thing at a moment. When I think higher education is in crisis, in Serbia especially, where you have a brain drain, all of the brightest, smartest, most talented people are leaving that country for a reason. And so this call for increased allocations for higher education means something in that context.
Historical Context: Student Movements in Serbia
Historically, you might know, students in Serbia and throughout the former Yugoslavia are those who have been really leading movements for change in the region. I’m going to talk a little bit about the 1968 protests, which is a long time ago under Tito, to the 1998-2000 protests that happened against Milosevic, what was called Otpor or resistance. So there is a kind of genealogy, a legacy.
But despite these precedents, the success for these students now is far from guaranteed. Students and their supporters face immense obstacles. including a political class that is both criminally incompetent and also just criminal. This is a class backed by both the East and the West, which is really important to stress. So that means China, Russia, the EU in many cases, and the United States. And I’ll talk about that as well. That poses a huge challenge to the success of these protesters.
When you think about that, when you’re given this backing, what you’ll realize is that there is a consistent under-reporting, okay, of events, of the protests in Western media. And in fact, our mutual friend, Kristina, got me. She lit a fire under my ass a couple of weeks ago because she’s so upset about the way that this story has been framed in Western media. And she’s just complained about it so much that I said, I will write it. I’ll write the article about what’s happening in Serbia. And I published something like, you know, I think I wrote it in like a fever dream for Jacobin magazine. If you’re familiar with that, you can find it. It was published like right when the big march was happening from Belgrade to Novi Sad. So really good timing. But it really, when you look at what’s being published right now in The Guardian, even here in Austria and Der Standard. In major sort of outlets, it’s very weak, very tepid. There’s coverage. There’s some storytelling. There was a canopy collapse in Novi Sad, hundreds of thousands on the street. When Vucevic resigned and when there were these sort of big changes in the government, they reported on that. But there hasn’t been much support for these students in the way that you might expect it when the world is facing a crisis of democracy. And that, to me, is a serious challenge to what’s happening right now in Serbia.
The Nature of the Current Movement
And the cumulative effect of this underreporting, of the fact that there is backing from west and east of this government, of this party, is exhausting. OK, it’s been four months now that students and their supporters are on the streets, the diaspora, you know, also trying to support them. But it’s time it’s doing revolution is a lot of work and being being organized, being being constantly alert, knowing that there’s always also danger, threats that can really tire a person or a tire, a group of people. What we need now, I think, and that’s what I’m going to explain, is some kind of acceleration. As far as I understand, what’s coming next is a big action and niche, and then Belgrade. And there is potential here for a general strike. And that’s what’s something that the students have been calling for. I’ll explain why that’s important. And that might be the path forward to finally ending this regime. But the road is difficult, and I’m going to explain why.
I want to also explain what this movement is before I talk about, you know, what it’s not and where it comes from. I understand this movement as a response to and a blueprint for resisting a state that is hollowed out by corruption and forces of late capitalism. Even though these protesters aren’t really framing it in the language of anti-capitalism or socialism, that is what they’re talking about. And myself, I see this also through the lens of what a theorist, his name was Frederick Jameson. He died last November. He called it dual power. So what he said was when the state fails, as it has globally, and he was talking specifically about the United States, where I grew up, when the state has failed completely, you have to have some other structure, some other kind of transitional body. that provides these basic services, alternative structures for people. He has a wild idea there about that being the army, but we won’t get into that. Anyway, the point is, is that when the state fails, when it can’t even ensure the basic safety for people, when train station canopies are collapsing and killing six-year-olds, what organization, what do you rely on anymore for everything that you need, from your pension fund to school to education? That’s one way to think about it.
These students are out there. They’re kind of organizing in new ways. They’re finding new relationships of solidarity. You know, you’ve probably seen pictures of these kitchens, people coming out and feeding the students. There’s a kind of spontaneous growth of new organizational structures that I think is very promising. But you can also think about this as a kind of seeking to reform the state, seeking to replace institutions that have been corrupted and hollowed out, seeking to re-legitimize them, make the state something that functions for people again.
Confronting the Foundations of Serbia’s Political System
So these are two kind of ways that you can think about, I think, what at the core is happening, which is really a confrontation which is really a confrontation with the foundations of Serbia’s political system right now. That’s its governance, its judiciary, and systemic failures. And these are reflective of broader global crises, okay? Serbia is a kind of unique case because of this East-West Balkan crossroads, you know, long, long story, history, geopolitical history. But at the same time, I think that what the students are pointing to, this delegitimization of the state, is something that we can apply to different global contexts or different national contexts. And what students are calling for is not just reform, they’re really demanding a fundamental transformation in how Serbia is being governed.
So from Belgrade to Russia to the United States, this struggle is really part of a larger call for justice and transparency and accountability. And what we will explore today is how Serbian students aim to achieve these goals, what they have accomplished so far. And I’ve already spoken about this, but some of the challenges that lie ahead. Specifically, we will discuss the origins and the connections between the Yugoslav legacy and solidarity, as I mentioned. We will talk about how activists are navigating and reshaping political repression while sustaining momentum. We’ll talk about the media blackout that I referenced already, some false narratives, including Russia’s role in these protests, and finally, what I consider to be the greatest threat to this movement.
The Historical Roots of Student Activism: 1848 to the Present
So let’s go back in time. What’s the connection between Yugoslavia and the solidarity shown during these protests now? And I’m going to start even earlier. We’re here in Vienna. Since at least the 19th century, students across the world have always been at the forefront of social change. And not far from where we are, you might know this if you know something about 19th century Vienna, but in 1848. There were students leading big, big blockades, protests, barricading. They were pushing for a nationalist revival and disrupting the Habsburg monarchy. And one of the great profound tremors that Europe experienced in the 19th century was led by students. So just a little historical fact that I had to include there.
Now we have protests across the globe in the United States also supporting Palestine. to the mass mobilizations that are occurring now in Serbia. Many of you may have heard of what happened in Bangladesh in the summer, also massive protests that ended the political regime there, currently having some difficulties. So student-led protests against a very, very corrupt regime that ended her tenure. Student movements really demonstrate a potential for intergenerational solidarity, new forms of cultural expression, and also regime change. And like many young people who are caught between failing states and exploitative industries, Serbian students have been repeatedly building powerful movements that challenge entrenched, powerful structures.
Echoes of the Past: 1968 and the Otpor Movement
So the current movement now in Serbia draws really on, I think, two significant movements of student activism in the region that I referenced. The 1968 protests. that shook Europe from Paris to Belgrade, and the 1998-2000 Otpor movement, which succeeded in overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic. So in 1968, the student protests, if you’re not familiar with them in Belgrade, were challenging Tito’s Communist Party, or Socialist Party, and they were seeking reforms that he reluctantly, but in the end, significantly accepted. It had become clear at that point in time that communist parties in Europe had to either adapt to some changes, some cultural reforms, or resort to brutal crackdowns, as happened in Prague. Tito employed a mixture of both. I think in many ways, he’s now being praised for coming out. There are some videos, you can see them on Instagram, of Tito coming out and saying the students are right. What kind of a society doesn’t listen to students? But there was also some repression of those student protests that were happening that shouldn’t be forgotten. The point is, is that at that point in time, it was clear that reform was something that was happening in Central and Eastern and Southeastern Europe. And it became alive and important for Belgrade. And in Belgrade at that time, what students were demanding was a radically different socialism. So they wanted… a different kind of organization of socialism. They extended their grievances beyond education to include broad and social and economic concerns. For example, they wanted the abolition of social inequalities. There’s a great film, and now I’m blanking on the name of the director, but if you’re familiar with what is called the Black Wave Movement in Yugoslav. Film art. There’s a great film by a Novi Sad director about homelessness in Yugoslavia. Can someone help me out? I can’t remember his name. It was very revolutionary because it showed that there was homelessness in Yugoslavia where nobody should be homeless. It’ll come to me at some point. So something like that. So there was social inequality under socialism, and the students were trying to point that out. They wanted to dismantle the so-called red bourgeoisie. which is, I think you hopefully intuitively understand what that is, but a kind of, you know, an elite class within socialism, a protected class. They also wanted to establish genuine self-management. And this is a very specific for the Yugoslav case. I’m sure you could speak much more about it. It’s a kind of theory of economics and political governance that was unique to Yugoslavia. The idea of self-management as a kind of… Do you know about it? The movement for socialism, Yugoslav-style theory of socialism. The students didn’t believe that they were actually doing that, that Tito’s party was actually implementing that. And if you look at the group Praxis, there’s a very interesting group of Yugoslav intellectuals, Croatian and Serbian, who were publishing quite a lot of really, really great stuff at that time to support their theories. So very, very exciting intellectual movement, actually. They were also the students advocating for free media. And they wanted those who were responsible for violence against students, some resonances with today, to be punished. They also wanted to improve university conditions, something that we also see happening now. And they wanted greater access to higher education for working class children. It’s also something that I think resonates with 2025, 2024, 2025.
The protests at that time really faced some significant challenges. They faced police repression, suppression of dissent, and as I said, Tito really conceded to some of these grievances, but the response was largely repressive, and some student leaders were imprisoned, and some professors were removed from their positions as well. Okay, so there were some consequences from this movement.
A Mixed Legacy: Successes and Unfulfilled Change
I want to quote a person, Dragomir Olujic, who was a participant in the protests. The quote is, from a short-term perspective, we won. We conquered culture, science, and art. We significantly influenced changes in everyday life, not just individually but culturally. We delegitimized the system ideologically and opened up space for new social and art practices, feminism, ecology, even conceptualism. Nothing was the same after 1968. However, looking at it from a longer term perspective, he notes everything we fought against and everything we warned would happen if politics didn’t change is today a reality. And that is a new reason for struggle. I think it’s a very powerful statement because it’s true that 1968, when we look at it, we can kind of glory in the new artistic, aesthetic, political organization. But for many, many of those. who led that movement in 1968, they went on to live through the wars of Yugoslav accession and Milosevic’s regime. And for them, what happened, what came after was connected in some way to the failure to actually implement change in the 1960s. So I think we can consider that movement a mixed success, okay? It was successful in some ways, but… It didn’t ultimately yield big change, the kind of transformational change that the students were looking for.
The Shifting Landscape of International Support
So let’s go to 1998-2000 and the Otpor movement, which overthrew Milosevic. That, I think in many ways, when we see it from the perspective of regime change, could be considered a success. They succeeded in toppling Milosevic. One key factor that unites these two student movements and that is absent now, however, is some form of international support. So in 1968, the support for the student movement was cultural. It was really reflective of those broader trends that were reshaping Europe and transforming socialist and capitalist societies. In 1998 to 2000, there was explicit endorsement for students from the West. That movement followed on sanctions. NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was trying to implement regime change. And it led civil society to a tipping point that ultimately contributed to Milosevic’s downfall. I am by no means saying that we should delegitimize or we should take away the honor of those who were involved in 1998 and 2000. Many of my friends, that was their first experience with protesting was during that time. Very powerful, very emotional, overthrowing Milosevic. But at the same time, there’s a significant difference between then and now, being that at that time, everybody, especially in the West was against Milosevic. So not the case now, unfortunately. That West now, who supported his ouster, supports Aleksandr Vucic. who often styles himself as a non-aligned successor to Tito. He likes to think of himself as Tito too.
But he has so far failed to contain the momentum of the current protests. So whether he succeeds, whether he succeeds in defeating these protests depends on many factors, including, for example, whether he can actually be as adaptive as Tito was to the protests in 1968. And so far, he’s actually shown that he can’t do this. He’s kind of weak. He’s been using the protests as a mean to entrench himself. But he’s also been sort of finger pointing, laying the blame at the footstep of the doorstep, for example, of Croatian agitators or claiming that, you know, foreigners are coming in and shaking up what Serbian students. So it’s been. His response has been a little bit pathetic, actually, and a little bit weak, but it’s indicative of the inability actually to adapt to the kinds of change that the students are calling for.
A Culmination of Past Struggles and a Vision for the Future
So what the students stand to gain here, I think, is immense. In a way, they are kind of a culminating point from 1968, from 2000. They have a chance to succeed where these two movements may not have succeeded. And their commitment, their energy reflects values that have been lost. for a long time under the regime of Vucic. There is a commitment or a return to some faith in institutions. There is a commitment to the strengthening of education and an innovative social and aesthetic response to demagoguery and political maneuvering. And afterwards, and I didn’t realize that I had this media opportunity here. I just prepared a very standard talk. But afterwards, we might look at some of the videos that have come out of these student protests. They’re incredible. Just look at these campaigns, the way that they’re conducted. They’re so aesthetic and so moving. And I think, I mean, and really visceral, like very emotional. After Madonna came out in support of the protest, there was a lot of Madonna in these videos. You know, if you’re a Madonna fan, it’s quite nice. But yeah, no, I mean, these are incredible, I think, aesthetic things, products that are also coming out of this movement.
But at the same time, the students are also laser focused on political change in a way that really targets the heart of the Serbian state. 1968 was about broadening, rethinking forms of political and democratic assembly. 1998 to 2000 was about ending a genocidal and ultra-nationalist regime. And these protests combine elements of all of these things while also seeking change in a really broad sense and calling for direct political intervention that is urgently needed.
Dispelling Misconceptions: Beyond Anti-Vučić Protests
Now I think I need to outline what these protests are not, okay? So what’s really crucial here is to understand that these are not simply anti-Vucic protests. And we had talked about that when we met. Aleksandar Vucic, who has ruled Serbia through the Populist Serbian Progressive Party or the SNS, either as prime minister or president for the past 15 years, just so you know, rose to power through ultranationalism and hooliganism. But he’s only one piece of a larger broken system. So he embodies in many ways Serbia’s inability to break from a nationalist past. He served under Slobodan Milosevic during the war as an information minister. His continued appeals for a greater Serbia are part of a broader propaganda effort to sustain nationalist narratives that align also with Russian interests in the region. He is part of the problem, but the students have chosen to not focus all of their energy on him for good reason.
So these protests are not anti-Vucic. They aim to challenge the system that sustains Vucic, okay? A system that’s built on corruption. unchecked capitalism, the erosion of state institutions, the weakening of the judiciary, very important, and crucially, also the decline of Serbia’s educational system. There’s a reporter from Novi Sad, Igor Mikhailovich, who, if you should watch anything he’s done, he’s really brilliant. And I’ve been kind of exchanging some messages with him back and forth for a piece that I want to write another piece. He compared it to applying a bandage to gangrene. So he says you cannot cure gangrene by putting a bandage on it. You have to cut off the whole leg. OK, you cannot cure Serbia’s problems by just removing a couple of ministers or even Vucic himself. You have to cut off the whole leg. These protests are not about replacing one leader. They are about dismantling entrenched structural issues that have plagued Serbia for decades.
Dismantling a Corrupt System and Challenging International Influence
So this movement is not just about a leader. It is about dismantling a political and economic regime that has overshadowed what should have been a democratic post-conflict society that Serbia was supposed to become after Milosevic was ended in 1999-2000. Why didn’t that happen? I think Angela Merkel is currently in Vienna. I think she was this week. There was some reporting about that. She was giving a talk about a book that she recently released. She’s great. She was a great fan of Vucic, and she called him a stabilocrat. She referred to this type of political leader as a stabilocrat, a broad pattern in which undemocratic governance can be tolerated, even encouraged. as long as it serves geopolitical and business interests. That dynamic extends beyond just Angela Merkel. I wanted to take a pot shot at her because now Germany has just appointed her successor, Merz, as prime minister. So yeah, these people, they find a way to remain in power. But it extends just beyond them in the West. Vucic is also an instrumental person to economic and political players from Russia and China.
So indeed, it is Chinese state-owned companies that Vucic has been able to push forward through these companies. He has been able to push forward some major infrastructure projects. This includes the much-needed revitalization and reconstruction of Serbia’s national railway and Serbia’s highway system. And that effort extends simply… Beyond simply building tracks, it also involves contracting services for the railway and undertaking large-scale train station reconstruction projects such as the one that happened in Avisat. So these are the projects that are now fueling public discontent and that are actually threatening Vucic’s role. They raise serious concerns about the terms of foreign loans and long-term implications of Serbia’s sovereignty and financial independence from China. Yeah, they’re an example of the way in which the Serbian government has also, the documents that were supposed, that were about the contracting for this train station in particular, nobody really knew who was involved in what capacity, et cetera, and who benefited. So this is one of the things that the students have been calling for.
Beyond such infrastructure projects, the Serbian government has also engaged in self-aggrandizing ventures with various international partners, often with very little transparency about the stakeholders involved. As I just mentioned, some examples are the controversial Sava monument in Belgrade and the highly corrupt Belgrade on the water real estate project, which is an emblematic of the opaque deals that define Vucic’s governance. Belgrade on the water is a symbol of the government’s cozy relationship with foreign investors, including from the Gulf states, and the willingness to prioritize luxury developments over the needs of the local population. The project involved transforming large swaths of the Belgrade waterfront into luxury real estate hub and has faced criticism for displacing local communities, increasing housing prices, and contributing to environmental degradation. The construction of that project was shrouded in secrecy with little oversight or accountability regarding the ownership of land or the environmental impact of the development, and it sparked outrage not just for its disregard of public interests, but also for its massive financial cost, much of which was funded through loans with high interest rates that the Serbian state will be burdened with for decades.
Most recently, importantly, Vucic has also sought business deals with Jared Kushner. the son-in-law of Donald Trump, to develop the site of what was once Yugoslavia’s Ministry of Defense and which was bombed by NATO in 1999 and left standing as a reminder to what Serbia’s relationship with Western military alliances, some of the dangers of that. So this deal has also been criticized for a lack of transparency and a heavy involvement of foreign private capital in shaping Serbia’s urban future. And it’s highly… insulting and disgusting. I can’t even bring myself to utter the words. Yeah, it speaks to a broader trend of prioritizing external interests and elite financial ventures over the welfare of the Serbian people and highlights the centralization of power under Vucic and the growing alliance between political elites and corporate interests, which many protesters view as a betrayal of the democratic ideals that Serbia was meant to uphold in the post-Milosevic era.
Clarifying Russia’s Role and Fostering Regional Solidarity
Briefly on Russia and the misunderstood role of Russia here. There is a critical misconception in Western media that Serbia functions as a Russian protectorate akin to Georgia or Ukraine or Belarus. There is support for Russia within Serbia and within the Serbian government, but Serbia is not part of Russia’s economic sphere in the same way that these other countries that I mentioned are. So narratives suggesting that Vucic is inherently, that the resistance to Vucic is inherently anti-Russian are wrong. Serbia’s relationship with Russia is multifaceted and complex, and it’s rooted in historical, cultural, and geopolitical ties that go back to like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. It’s a very strange, long relationship, but it was never, Serbia was never part of that kind of economic sphere in the same way that. other, you know, the other countries I mentioned were, in part because Tito sent quite a lot of Stalinists to Goliatuk to a concentration camp in Yugoslavia. There was a rooted purge of Stalinism. There was a concerted effort to not become part of the Soviet Union. So that history is just gone. It doesn’t exist. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t Serbian people who share some loyalty to Russia or some Serbian politicians who are loyal to Russia or who do business with Russia. But I think that we should kind of think about Russia in the same way that when we think about Serbia, that we think about the kinds of business deals that Vucic is also doing with the Gulf states, with China, and even with, as I said, the Trump family.
This movement of the students, it’s not about identity politics. It’s not about being, you know, anti-Russian. It’s not about being Serbian. It’s not framed in any opposition to a particular ethnic group in the region, which is really important given what’s happened, you know, in that region in the 90s. It’s about rejecting corruption and authoritarian political systems, okay? And it’s very heartening. to see that happen because it transcends national and ethnic divides that have defined the region. And it has even forged some solidarity across former Yugoslavia in a way that we’ve rarely seen since the 1990s. I’ve seen videos, for example, of Croatian students and Bosnian students in Zagreb and other cities who are publicly supporting Serbian students, their counterparts. And this movement might even embolden them to also follow their own anti-corruption protests. There are levels of corruption in all parts of the world and all parts of the Balkans. There’s a hope that this movement will spark further action in the Balkans, even in Albania.
In this sense, the protests are not just a challenge to Vucic. They represent a broad regional struggle against corruption, authoritarianism, and the remnants of a political system that has long served oligarchic interests over those of ordinary people. This collective effort, which seeks to unite diverse communities in the pursuit of justice and democracy, gives us a glimmer of hope for a region that’s still grappling with the legacies of war and political fragmentation. So I think that we cannot underestimate the symbolic power of this movement. It is a direct challenge to the right-wing strategy of divide and rule, which seeks to alienate, separate, and turn groups against each other, whether it’s Croatians versus Serbs or old people versus young people. This movement challenges that. And in Serbia, that divide and rule approach is being countered now through acts of solidarity that demonstrate that there are new ways of forging collective power. The movement’s ability to rally across national and ethnic lines shows that there is a growing recognition among the people that the real enemy is not the other ethnic group or somebody’s grandpa, but political elites that have perpetuated systems of injustice and inequality for decades. And this newfound solidarity offers us a vision for a different future, one where the Balkan region could overcome the wounds of its past and build a more inclusive and just political landscape.
The Roots of the Current Resistance
So the resistance that’s happening now hasn’t come out of nowhere. Obviously, the tragedy that happened in Navi Saad took everybody’s breath away. But there have been some recent precedents that we should also talk about to understand what’s happening now. In fact, to build to this kind of momentum, something has to have preceded it. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. What preceded it, I think, on the one hand was fatigue and exhaustion, okay, with the political and economic situation that I’ve just described, with those disgusting deals being done with Jared Kushner or Belgrade on the water or any of that.
We can look here not just to Russia or China, but I want to point out another controversial project that’s been taking place in Serbia that has major consequences that was commissioned by British and Australian multinational company, Rio Tinto, which has been trying to introduce a controversial lithium mining project in Serbia. Serbia has weak environmental protections that are deliberate, so deliberate deregulation of environmental protections in order to invite business into the country. And its status outside of the EU makes it an attractive site for extractive industries. looking to cut costs and bypass strict regulations elsewhere. So they discovered that in the Jadar region of Serbia, there is both significant scale and high-grade lithium quality that makes it a prime target for exploitation. And what’s really gross about this, but I think any of you who know about the politics of climate change is that… These things are happening in the name of green transition for Europe. So Europe goes green, you know, Europe gets rid of its diesel cars and it offloads all of them to Serbia, which I’ll talk about more. So this is devastating environmentally for Serbia. And the proposed mining operation that’s supposed to be pioneered by Rio Tinto in Jadr, it threatens not only to devastate the local ecosystems, but also to contaminate vital water sources. And it poses long-term risks to the region’s environmental and public health. And this case exemplifies, I think, how Serbia’s political leadership prioritizes foreign investment and short-term economic gains over the well-being of its citizens, with the culmination, of course, being, you know, what happened in Navi Sad, killing 15 people. But that ground was already, that has already been laid. It’s been really fueling the public outrage and resistance. These kinds of things have been fueling outrage and resistance for a while now.
In 2022, massive protests against this mining project forced a temporary halt to the project, which led to the revocation of Rio Tinto’s permits. But recently, there were court decisions that overturned the permit revocation, ruling that it was not in line with the Constitution and the law and effectively allowed the project to resume. While this ruling did not immediately spark mass mobilization on the scale of today’s student-led protests, it did trigger a pretty big wave of activism in Serbia, and one that the students are now drawing upon. There is an activist and scholar, Aleksandar Matkovic, who notes that foreign investments in Serbian minerals have skyrocketed in recent years, increasing sixfold from 118 million in 2021 to 704 million in 2023. And he wrote that if this trend continues, mining will surpass investments in construction and potentially the manufacturing industry, the two branches in which foreign companies invest the most. So the future for Serbia would be to be mined by international companies. And the protests against this project in particular created a huge backlash within both Vucic’s party, the SNS, and the state. It also critically marked an escalation in state repression against activists. Activists and journalists were covering the case, were faced with growing intimidation. They received death threats. There were arrests. And it was part of an alarming trend of political erosion and political repression that was happening in Serbia.
So projects like Rio Tinto… threaten the lives of future and futures of young people, and they also embody the intersection of multiple crises, environmental destruction, public health risks, sustainable development, political repression, and media control, too. It’s precisely this entanglement of issues that is fueling, in my view, the current wave of protests and draws together grievances into a single movement, a single urgent movement. So the focus on environmental issues like air pollution and unsustainable industrial practices has managed to capture the attention of both the local population and also the international community. Serbia’s reliance on fossil fuels, particularly coal, and the increasing visibility of companies like Rio Tinto and their impact on local ecosystems have become emblematic also of the broader environmental struggle that’s happening across the globe. And these protests are not just about opposing a corrupt government, but also about demanding a future that is sustainable and just for the next generation.
So as I said, there were brutal crackdowns, there were death threats. to activists protesting the Rio Tinto project that were aligned with what has generally happened under Vucic’s rule, which is the erosion of civil liberties and political freedoms, which have sharply declined. Freedom House noted, for example, that Serbia has experienced a dramatic erosion of democratic rights and ranks alongside some of the world’s most repressive regimes, including Afghanistan and Myanmar. The ruling Serbian… Party has been widely criticized for its control over the media. And if you’re in Serbia, until recently, I was there in October in Belgrade, just flipping through the channels, and it was Vucic on every single fucking channel. It’s horrible. It’s just a kind of, you know, like a monster. So they have control, you know, over the media, electoral manipulation, and intensifying political repression. And state-aligned media outlets routinely silence independent voices. They target critical journalists. They have created an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship that was cited by Reporters Without Borders as late as 2024. So that media landscape is increasingly polarized. Independent journalists face harassment, intimidation, even violence. That’s made it very difficult for the public to access unbiased information, and it’s forced citizens to rely on alternative sources such as social media and independent news outlets. which are often targeted by government propaganda.
So this movement has managed to build on top of a wreckage that is a kind of media situation in Serbia, something really important. And they’ve done that mostly through social media. If you’re on Instagram or Twitter, we’ll look at these videos later. You can see what they’ve been doing. It also, of course, is very scary because these platforms are privately owned by people who can turn off the tap. So that’s something to keep in mind as well. This crackdown on the media has had a really profound impact on the student movements. And as they unfold, I think that we’re going to see, you know, we’re going to see a big sea change in how Serbians approach media. And they mark a big shift, I think, what’s happening right now, the protests, not just because they’ve been independently producing new media, but also because the movement has also led to some arrests. Currently, there was a crackdown on corruption with 38 arrests that highlighted increasing mobilization against the government. I have some names of those who were arrested here. We can talk about that later. professor at the University of Belgrade, Dusan Vucicevic, to say that the protests have really led to some significant legal actions and that they have been collecting dust for years and that they would have never happened without pressure from blockades and protests. So this is a significant change from, let’s say, Rio Tinto. The students have actually managed, you know, to not get arrested themselves, but actually to make the state go out and arrest some people who have been problematic.
Looking Ahead: Threats and Future Steps
I’m going to kind of wrap up now. I want to kind of gesture towards the future. I’ve given you a really broad history, I think, from 1968 to 1998, to what’s happening now, to how this movement builds on big, big kind of big picture questions and tangled issues like Rio Tinto. And what I want to talk about are both the threats to the movement and what I hope are the next steps. These protests have really evolved into something significant. They’ve drawn widespread participation from students, educators, cultural workers, actors, general public. And Vucic, I think I mentioned, he’s attempted to downplay the protests. He is writing a book. I don’t know if you all know about this, but he is writing a book about how he withstood a revolution in Serbia that he’s been bragging about online and in the press. He’s been accusing foreign intervention as a source of unrest. But the movement continues to grow. The momentum is still growing and students and citizens are still organizing mass protests and blockades, both in Serbia and abroad. On sixth protest in Vienna, in front of the Serbian embassy, I think, I don’t remember how many people came to the last one. It was thousands, no? A thousand people in Vienna came to protest what’s happening in Vienna. That’s, you know, imagine that. Everywhere, you know, you can, if you watch social media, you see like Toronto, you know, diaspora protesting in Toronto and Chicago, which is where, you know, I went to school. I can’t remember. I think I saw some stuff, some Palestine, Serbia, Solidarity, some, yeah, some Serbs who were in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank protesting. I mean, it’s crazy. Kenya, I saw some Kenyans also supporting Serbia. Really, really beautiful and really interesting. So I think that the movement has potential to grow further. On January 30th, that was when that article that I had mentioned that I wrote came out. Students marched from Belgrade to Novi Sad. It was very beautiful to watch, to join a blockade of three bridges in Novi Sad and highlighting the widespread discontent. And there is an upcoming student edict protest in Niche on March 1st. So that’s on Saturday. Yeah. Saturday, it’s expected to be a pivotal event. It should begin at 9 a.m., continue until 3 a.m., an 18-hour duration that symbolizes Nisha’s area code 018 and serves as a call for change. And organizers are aiming to transition here from apathy to action.
But despite this significant support, both domestically and abroad, the movement faces challenges, which include, as I mentioned, limited international backing. under-reporting, and the lack of strong international support, which have really hindered the movement’s global visibility, which is why I’ve come to talk to you about it today. So additionally, also, I think it’s important to think about these protests in relationship to other issues that are actually affecting the health and lives of Serbians who are living there right now, like environmental issues. Severe air pollution has become central to these protests. On February 20th, So just a week ago, Belgrade was reported to have the worst air quality among major cities worldwide with harmful PM particles 20 times higher than recommended. OK, so I think, you know, the Serbian diaspora, the community has shown a lot of solidarity. There is a hope for a democratic and peaceful future in Serbia. But the next few weeks are going to be crucial for the success of the movement.
Ultimately, what will need to happen is. some form of a general strike that includes the security services, the police, the military. This is what is needed to really bring change to this regime. So, you know, short of that, the protests will continue happening. But so far, Vucic has been braying. That’s the word that my mother likes to use, like a donkey braying. braying and just hoping that anybody out there, whether it’s Russia or, you know, the West or EU will respond and come to his aid. So yeah, hopefully the next few weeks we’re going to bring Serbia to a general strike, which I think is necessary for some serious change to happen. But in the meantime, We also need to support these students in any way we can, financially, with visibility, make sure that, you know, if you’re not Serbian, as I think most of you are and are probably doing this already, you get the word out there about what’s happening. So thank you very much. I think that ends my talk.
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