Reportage
Tens of thousands in Kragujevac to support the ‘student rebellion’
The first students arrived on Friday evening after a four-day march. People came to Kragujevac from all over the country for the rally organized by the students on Serbia’s National Day. “Sloboda, freedom, that's all we ask for. Is it so hard to understand?”
It’s Friday evening. Leaning against the wall of the Faculty of Human Sciences at Kragujevac University, two girls with backpacks on their shoulders who have just arrived in town are trying to unfurl a banner. It features small writing in English, something like: “How many years must some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?”
It's a line from Bob Dylan’s Blowin' In The Wind, when young Bobby was still playing folk and had not yet gone down the road of betrayal. Or, for some, parricide. They both come from Novi Sad, where it all began.
Intrigued by the quote, I approach them and ask if by chance they had seen the recently released film A Complete Unknown. “Twice,” says one of the two girls, with a wide smile tinged with melancholy. Then she adds: “Sloboda, freedom, that's all we ask for. Is it so hard to understand?”
It was expected to be a big party, under the banner of sresti, encountering each other. And so it was. People came to Kragujevac from all over the country for the rally organized by the students on Serbia’s National Day. They were many tens of thousands – perhaps more than a hundred thousand, although the number is difficult to quantify. Some have even ventured unwieldy comparisons, such as with the famous anti-Milosevic demonstration from twenty-five years ago, which no one here likes to mention.
The first students arrived on Friday evening after a four-day march, greeted by a symbolic red carpet placed on the sidewalk and the enthusiasm of the local community. Most trickled in on Saturday morning, as the plan for the protest was to blockade the city for a full fifteen hours, from 9 a.m. to midnight.
The choice of Kragujevac was not by chance. In 1835, it was here that Serbia, then still in the hands of the Ottoman Empire, drafted a constitution aimed at limiting the powers of the rulers. They were fighting the same kind of arrogant power that the young people on Saturday stressed once again that they were no longer willing to endure.
“Our protest is not a political protest. We only demand freedom and justice,” explained Marcos, who studies Security Study at the University of Belgrade and came here in the company of four friends. One of them, Darko, seems to be one of the few who are concerned about the movement's future: “We have done great things in these months, but now we are at a crossroads,” he explains. “I think we need a step forward, maybe a big general strike.”
It is the age-old dilemma that sooner or later all movements standing before the prospect of coming of age are forced to face. What force do we want to represent? And what compromises are we willing to accept, if it comes to that? Perhaps it will be their turn to face this conversation as well. But Saturday wasn’t the day for that. There was only room for celebration, as lively, fun and rowdy as Serbs' parties can be. The din was interrupted at 11:52 a.m., when a 15-minute deathly silence fell on Lepenicki Boulevard, the epicenter of the gathering, to commemorate the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy. Fifteen chairs were placed on the sides of the street, each with a rose resting on it and a sign with the name and age of the people who are no longer with us.
“I am here to support the student rebellion, which has turned into a civil protest,” a local lady tells us, almost with a tear in her eye, after the noise returns to take center stage. ”So that Serbia can become a country where we can live with dignity.”
At one point, there was a rumor that a number of undercover agents were around, but the rally went off without a hitch. The government wants to keep a low profile, to prevent news of the protest from spreading quickly outside the country. Meanwhile, President Aleksandar Vucic is engaged in a two-pronged narrative: on the one hand, he is speculating about improbable Euro-American conspiracies aiming to undermine the country's stability, and on the other he is stressing that Europe, which has been too silent on the manner, is his staunch ally.
It’s an old narrative technique that consists of convincing others to accept two contradictory beliefs. Orwell in his 1984 had dubbed it “doublethink.” But the students who took to the streets on Saturday made it clear that they will no longer be content with these games. They want answers to the same four demands they’ve had from the beginning.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/incontrarsi-a-kragujevac-e-qui-la-festa on 2025-02-16