From Blockades to Reclaiming Politics: Serbia’s Student Uprising (Frontlines) #2

🎙️ Season 2 of This Authoritarian Life continues one another urgent frontline: Serbia.

In this episode, we speak with activist-journalists Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević and Iskra Krstić about the student-led uprising that has reshaped political life in Serbia. What began with campus blockades after the collapse of a train-station canopy rapidly grew into a nationwide movement demanding systemic change.

How did students introduce direct democracy through plenums and zborovi?
How did they build alliances that cut across class, region, and ethnic divisions—including between Orthodox and Muslim communities?
How did environmental movements prepare the ground for this moment?
And with elections approaching, can a transformational movement survive authoritarian pressure and institutionalization?

🎧 To find out, tune into This Authoritarian Life, Season 2, Episode 2 — From Blockades to Reclaiming Politics: Serbia’s Student Uprising, with Kristóf Szombati and Erdem Evren.

Further resources:

Read Saša Savanović's piece on the meaning of "systemic change":
https://www.masina.rs/eng/with-largest-protest-in-serbia-behind-us-what-do-we-mean-by-changing-the-system/

Watch the documentary "Wake up Serbia" by director Raul Gallego Abellan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3t4EiRYzHM

Follow us on Instagram: @this_authoritarian_life
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisauthoritarianlife

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Teaser & Jingle
• 1:13 Introducing the Serbian Uprising
• 3:21 Meet the Guests: Iskra & Anastazija
• 5:40 How the Blockades Began
• 9:28 A Country Trained in Resistance
• 14:49 Reclaiming Democracy: Plenums and Assemblies
• 22:49 Unity Across Divides: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Solidarity
• 29:04 No EU Flags: Extractivism and Disillusionment
• 36:06 From Movement to Politics? Risks and Dilemmas Ahead
• 48:29 Acknowledgements

Transcript

(00:01) Intro: When their survival got jeopardized, this is when the majority stepped forward and decided to take this risk. The students first started with plenums and then when they asked the people to form a zborovi, the idea with it was to show them that politics should be a part of your everyday life and that you can actually make a change.

You're listening to This Authoritarian Life, a podcast in which we explore everyday human stories to make sense of authoritarian politics. My name is Kristóf Szombati.

Erdem Evren: And I'm Erdem Evren.

(00:46) Kristóf Szombati: Welcome back to This Authoritarian Life. Just as a reminder, we're in the second season of the show and this season is organized around the idea of the "frontline." So what we basically mean by that are the everyday sites where authoritarian power is being asserted and resisted. And the overall goal is to talk to people on the ground who are not only facing, but actively trying to work against an authoritarian dynamic to learn from them.

So we thought that for the second episode—reminder, the previous one was on Gaza—so for this one, that we would look at Serbia, where there has been a student-led civic uprising known locally as "The Blockades," which eventually grew into a society-wide movement demanding justice, systemic change, and a reimagining of democratic life, I would say.

Very briefly, because maybe not everyone has heard about this: This protest movement was triggered by the collapse of the canopy of the Novi Sad main railway station, which had been renovated by a Chinese company on November the 1st, so last year. And there were protest movements and campus occupations in response to that, demanding accountability and also more systemic regime change later. So 68 out of the 80 faculties in Serbia of higher education were occupied by the students. And on March 14-15, there was really a huge march on Belgrade, which marked this transformation of student protests into a wider mobilization, a society-wide mobilization for systemic change. And this movement is still ongoing. It's still very much alive. So it's 10 months after November the 1st, which really makes it interesting. But the future is uncertain.

And why did we think that this is important? Well, A, Serbia has gotten very, very little attention from the international media. It's not really been covered. So we thought we really need to do this. But more than that, what's really interesting in this case is you see that you can really learn from this direct democratic process that the students have pioneered. And we are 10 years after Indignados and Occupy Wall Street. So this is kind of unique.

And I think we really want to jump in to learn about what you can achieve in an authoritarian or semi-authoritarian context with the help of direct democratic struggle and disruption blockades. And to do this, we have two guests who, well, faithful to the concept of the frontline, are either involved in the protest themselves or very, very closely watching.

So one of them is Iskra Krstić, who is an architect, activist, and journalist. Until recently, she was a member of the editorial board of Mašina, which is a progressive online media outlet that has closely followed the protests and analyzed them. She's also a researcher at the Organization for Political Ecology and a member of Right to Water Serbia, which is an environmentalist initiative. Erdem, do you want to introduce Anastazija?

Erdem Evren: Yeah, Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević is a student of sociology at the University of Belgrade and a journalist at the online platform Mašina. She has taken part in the student movement since the very beginning. Anastazija, I would like to start with you and I would like to actually start with a personal question. Even before the latest student movements and protests and occupations, what sort of political socialization did you have? Did you grow up in a political household? Were you involved in other political activities before you became a university student?

(05:07) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: As for the household, probably not. But as for political involvement, if it is important, I took part in some protests before the blockades in Serbia. As for the students as a whole, I think it's much more interesting, not my individual experience, but the fact that a lot of the students that were involved and are involved in the blockades, actually they never had much of a political education or involvement in any way in protests before. I mean, of course some did, but a lot of them didn't. And actually, I feel like the people in Serbia had a switch when the blockades erupted because they would always blame young people, involving students also, for not doing something. So they would always say that the youth is passive. So I think that kind of answers your question.

Erdem Evren: Alright, and the following question would be how and when exactly did you get involved in the blockade?

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: I was actually involved even before their start. I was among the people who naturally wanted to do something after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad. So yeah, I was among those who talked in the faculty, arranged some meetings, gathered more people to talk and to just do something. And from those talks, those gatherings, making your cause closer to people, the other students, actually the blockades further on evolved. So that was my initial role. And as a journalist, I think that's still the more important part, because as a journalist, they could rely on me that I would actually try to publish the announcement of the first blockade at the university building and actually get more people to see it, to be there, and make it more important and more followed by the media and possibly other students who weren't in contact with us, perhaps.

(06:43) Erdem Evren: And this was at the University of Belgrade, is that right?

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Yes, that was the rectorate, the university building.

Kristóf Szombati: Could you tell us a bit more about how this early group or grouping at the University of Belgrade, which I suppose brought together some students and some faculty, really evolved into a kind of country-wide protest movement? Like what were some of the crucial events and crucial developments that you experienced in the past 10 months?

(07:52) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Right, so actually the first faculty that was blocked was the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. They didn't announce it, they just did it. But after that, even people who didn't know what a blockade is, they quickly learned what it was because of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. So a few days after, when we scheduled the blockade of the university building, I think that's one of the reasons why much more people came to the blockade of the university building. And that was the first plenary session of Belgrade, so to say, because it wasn't the individual faculties anymore, but people from all around. So I think that was the first, you know, key event that happened.

And after this, the students of each faculty kind of on their own, they blocked their own faculties and just spread the word and spread the way of blocking and all of the ideas, et cetera. And then it just naturally kind of went on from there. So there wasn't much influence from any faculty to another, it just evolved on itself, which was really surprising.

When we first started it, some of the students just wanted to protest in any possible way, to just go on the street and yell and [decry] the corruption. But then we thought of the blockade because the students, as you know, have been attacked in public for protesting. So that was like the response: You attacked us in the streets, we're not safe in the streets. So that's why we blocked the faculties and stay there.

And when Belgrade was blocked, you know, much of the universities in Belgrade... students, because I mean, you always have some connections between faculties and young people in Serbia. So the word spread like this, kind of internally, so to say. People from Niš, from Novi Sad, from other cities that have universities talk to students of Belgrade because they also felt the need to do something. And with the help from students in Belgrade, other faculties were also blocked.

Kristóf Szombati: Was there a prehistory of doing blockades? Because, you know, it seems natural, but maybe there was something important.

(09:35) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Well, yes, there is quite a history of blockades in Serbia. Maybe Iskra could actually tell you more about those, because at least I wasn't involved with them.

Kristóf Szombati: So Iskra, tell us a bit then. I guess this is the moment to do it. So what is this prehistory that seems important here?

(09:50) Iskra Krstić: Yes, I will be playing the role of Uncle Albert here and talk about things that happened during the war. So most recently, in the last like 4-5 years, we had road blockades and mass gatherings yearly. So interchangeably, like every other year, we would have a huge protest in which like the civil society in the most narrow term—those who are engaged in the fight for political and cultural rights—would stand up against rising authoritarianism. And every year or every other year, the protests would be led by local environmentalist initiatives who are struggling against the violent land grabbing, water grabbing, resource grabbing that's taking place all over Serbia as the last stage of wholesale privatization that's been going on since the early 90s and especially since early 2000s.

So the scale of this political and economic pressure on citizens, on their territories and their livelihoods has become so huge that people are now willing to risk their lives and their acute safety, so to say, in order to invest in a safe future and the possibility of a decent living standard.

So, less abstractly speaking, 2021 is the year we need to look at, because in 2021, the environmentalist movement that has been growing strong since 2018 has become so strong that it was able to block roads and even highways in some cases, but roads in more than a hundred particular cities and municipalities. And in 2022 or '23—I'm losing count, Anastazija here—there was a huge protest against violence after a mass shooting in an elementary school in Belgrade and in a municipality near Belgrade in which I believe two dozen young people lost their lives. So people have been pushed to the edge of their ability to withstand the overall violence and the blockades became one of the ways to successfully fight back.

Because in 2021, the blockades resulted in the state withdrawing one step, so to say, back from the realization of a very dangerous extractivist project, Rio Tinto's Jadar Lithium Mine in Western Serbia. So disruption, this is how I understand it, was kind of a last resort tactic that could be deployed in a setting where the normal constitutional ways of pressuring a government to abandon certain non-popular projects were not workable anymore. Is that correct?

(13:22) Iskra Krstić: Yes, definitely. As a journalist and activist, I've been covering the topics of local struggles and national struggles against harmful urban development and harmful industrial projects. And I could just copy-paste the same introduction from one journalist piece to another, saying that the local initiatives have exhausted all institutional ways of struggle and found themselves in a position to basically have to protect the only remaining source of their, I don't know, either agricultural production or clean water or just plain safety with their own bodies. And this is how the know-how of the roadblocks became so widespread in Serbia.

Erdem Evren: I mean, in addition to these blockades and like this disruption, what is called zbori, which we can translate as plenums or assemblies—or zborovi, no? In plural, I think. Zborovi. Is the other kind of very visible form that characterizes this latest wave of protests and demonstrations. So can you tell us what it looks like, these assemblies?

(14:20) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: The students first started with plenums and then when they asked the people to form a zborovi, the idea with it was to show them that politics should be a part of your everyday life and that you can actually make a change, but maybe not as an individual that votes, for example, but that actually takes politics in their own hands. So as plenums at every individual faculty decide for their faculty, zbor or zborovi, they decide for their individual local community. But one of the reasons why they are so good is that because they can form a network. So as plenums form a network between faculties and then between the entire state, zbor or zborovi can also do that. They form networks and they become stronger and can put more pressure on the government or on the local authorities, anything to actually do something.

(15:47) Kristóf Szombati: I mean, the reason this really matters is because the way I understand it, this is a parallel political structure that is specifically designed and used to push aside those structures that were corrupted, that didn't function properly. And so this was quite broad, right? Their role, they organized the everyday life at universities. So, you know, the material aspects of that, I suppose, from food to, I don't know what, how you sleep. But also, as I understand, there were educational processes that were organized by the students and the involved professors. So there was a kind of a big learning process that also went through these plenums. And then I guess third, there was a political function of aggregating the interests of the students and then bringing them together with the interests and demands of the other groups. So there was this pretty... I mean, highly complex political task of also formulating demands and then pushing them. And here, I guess the question is, so where did this learning or knowledge come from? I don't know which one of you wants to answer, but that's really important to see where did that knowledge to how you do this emerge from.

(17:00) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Right, so something that was actually most important for us was the experience of generations before us who actually blocked the faculties. So that was the first instance, going to people that blocked their faculty before and asking them for advice. Again, there was also this Blokadna kuharica, the Blockade Cookbook, which is the recipe from Croatian blockades because the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb was also blocked in 2006, something like this. So when they blocked their faculty having their own student demands, they actually made this cookbook on how to block the faculty.

(17:50) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: But another thing I would say about it is that, yes, some people read it, but a lot more people didn't. So most of the plenums, most of the faculties, I mean, actually made their own rules on how the plenum works, what kind of power the plenum has, et cetera, et cetera. So that's it. We did have some basic principles on how to organize, which worked in the past. We took them and we kind of not reinvented them, but maybe added something to them.

Kristóf Szombati: Iskra, you want to jump in and tell us a bit about how...

Iskra Krstić: Yeah, sure. I'm sure that PhDs are being written as we speak on this topic and on this question that you posed, because it's a really exciting one. When the blockade started, most of us old people thought that most of the students and the young people just either bought into this individualist, neoliberal mainstream worldview or are just very keen on running as far as possible and as soon as possible from Serbia as they could given the deteriorating living standards and like the overall violent culture that we have made for ourselves there.

But the protests surprised us and the students' blockades surprised us and it didn't cease to surprise us until today. So what was most surprising for like the middle generation and the older people was the fact that the students decided to use direct democratic ways of organizing as a go-to technical mechanism and as the most efficient mechanism. So it was not a course of events that you would normally expect when direct democracy is employed.

(19:44) Iskra Krstić: I would speculate that there are some basis for using direct democracy in Serbia. So one is the fact that Yugoslavia has been since 1950 deploying this self-management type of socialism. So it was one part planned economy, one part market economy, but designed in a way that citizens and workers were enticed to sit together and debate things.

And when it comes to the faculty, so the state university itself, the blockades that took part in 1968, in which Yugoslav students demanded for more socialism, are also interesting to look at. And what is also interesting in the context of longue durée processes is this existing egalitarianism in the Serbian society, which is a double-edged sword. So the fact that it was a mostly rural society until 1945, and that most of the people when Serbia became a nation state in the 19th century didn't have any kind of aristocratic, I don't know, background or something, made this idea that everybody has equal rights in participating in political life very easy to implement in the cultural sense. It was more problematic in different stages.

But there is even a sort of a reluctancy towards hoarding wealth and political power that has been documented through research in Serbia. So when agricultural workers came to support the students, to bring them food, to show that they are in this together, to bring huge agricultural machines to help the blockades at the university, it was like a very normal thing to witness in Serbia, because everybody has, I don't know, either grandparents in the village or something like that. There's still not such a clean-cut class division.

(22:03) Erdem Evren: This is really, I think, one of the fascinating things about the Serbian case, as far as I'm concerned, that for the reasons that you just mentioned, like what really started as a student movement, student blockade, really managed to transcend all these, I don't know, urban, rural, class, et cetera, kind of divisions, which are really difficult to transcend in many cases, like in Turkey, in Hungary, Kristóf and I talk about this all the time.

So, and from what I understand, yes, this like assembly form really has become one of the catalyzers of this articulation between different groups and different movements. One thing that I want to ask is how does then nationalism, ethnicity, ethnic nationalism play a role in on this? I mean, this is a question for both of you. How have protesters dealt with the issue of ethnic differences and the issue of nationalism?

(22:50) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Well, maybe I can go first from the student perspective. So the thing with the ruling party is that they actually kind of took all of the national symbols to themselves. Even the colors of the ruling party resembled the Serbian flag. So wherever you see Serbian national symbols as the flag, et cetera, the first thing that pops in your mind is the ruling party. But also, all of these national symbols could be used and were used in the protests as a form of unity all across Serbia.

For example, the national flag. I've had conversations with people telling me that using the flag is nationalist. I would disagree. I would say that using the flag was actually another very important aspect because, for example, a person from Novi Sad and a person from Novi Pazar which are very different culturally, very different geographically. Even though they have so many differences... yes, did you want to say something?

(24:07) Kristóf Szombati: I just wanted to jump in to say Novi Pazar is a Muslim majority, Bosniak majority city in Serbia. So that's important.

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Yes, and even though they have many differences, we do in the end share the same flag and we do live in the same country. So I would say that the students kind of try to reinvent the national symbols. So yes, many people would comment on that as the student movement is maybe nationalist. But I would really disagree.

Another reason for that is that, as you said, there are some ethnic cultural tensions in Serbia. And Novi Pazar would always be a good example for it because the majority of the city is Muslim and predominantly the people in Serbia are Orthodox Christians. So after the wars in the 90s, there was this, you know, really clear divide between Muslims and Christians. But the student movement unified all of the people in Serbia because we all share the same problems and we all want systemic change. So the students being connected and intertwined, they went to protests with their colleagues from Novi Pazar, from other parts of the country, and actually showed that these protests and the students and the people who share the values and ideas with the students of Serbia can actually bring unity. So yeah, maybe that's an answer to your question. I mean, it's also one of the complicated ones. This should be also maybe a topic for a PhD.

(25:54) Kristóf Szombati: Sure, I'm here to... sorry, yeah, I want to give the floor to Iskra. If you can comment on another thing, if one of the things I was struck by is the lack of EU flags at the protests, which is a huge difference to Georgia, for example, where, you know, the EU flag became the symbol of opposition to the authoritarian structures and regime there. This didn't seem to happen. This is not the case in Serbia. So if you want to comment on that, which I think is interesting, then also please do that. But yeah, also the ethnic thing, why the ethnic card doesn't work is also interesting, of course. So go ahead, Iskra.

(26:40) Iskra Krstić: Thank you. First on the ethnic card thing. What is a paradigmatic example for the unity of the people disregarding their ethnic backgrounds that Anastazija mentioned is a situation that happened on Orthodox Christian Easter in Belgrade when students blocked the building of the public media station [RTS]. And those were students from Belgrade, so on average mostly Christian. And then we expected a violent backlash on Easter because we expected that a lot of the students would go home to celebrate Easter with their families.

(27:29) Iskra Krstić: But to prevent this, Muslim students, Bosniaks from Novi Pazar came to support their colleagues and allowed them to have this weekend with their families. And this is how this blockade actually became successful. So besides Bosniak students, this blockade was supported by civil society organizations, environmentalists from all over Serbia, who also came to support and to let the young people have some sleep throughout these blockades, and also supported by a group of veterans from the 90s.

Now, the veterans are a really interesting site on these protests. Given the character of the protests and the overarching request for a systemic change, you wouldn't expect veterans from the 90s to be present, let alone to be welcome. But they are present because they have made amends. So they made, at this particular occasion, one of them held a speech and addressed the speech to the parents of the Bosniak students, saying that he was, as a young man, a volunteer in the war in Bosnia, and that he now, as an older person, realizes that he was actually led astray by the violent and warmongering propaganda by the Serbian state media. And that this is also one of the reasons why he's here to support the kids, to support the students, to support everybody who is now fighting against the same fascist regime.

I already took too much time, but to go back to what I said in answering your first question: I think that a lot of self-educating, informing and organizing and mobilizing has been done in the last seven years since the environmental movement grew strong. And I think that the environmental movement has done a lot to sensitize the general public to the fact that Serbia is being robbed of its natural resources by all huge powers. So by the East and by the West.

(29:52) Iskra Krstić: And we can illustrate this by Franziska Brantner coming to Serbia a year and a half ago to state that lithium is coming out of Serbian soil, whether it's the European Union or the Chinese who will dig it out. So this is why there's no flags of European Union in the protests, because what preceded these protests is a huge fight against the Rio Tinto lithium mine in Jadar and this mine has been made a project of strategic interest by the European Commission just a few months ago and it will rely on the funding from BlackRock to realize it. And I think that people, both the students and the general population, are really aware of the fact that European Union has changed its character a lot in the last 20 to 30 years and that it's not holding up to its basic values.

Kristóf Szombati: Anastazija, you wanted to add something, I think.

(31:10) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Yeah, if I may add something. So I would say that another reason why the students were against, so to say, interference of the EU or anyone else actually was the core values of the movement. It was systemic change and systemic change shouldn't be brought on by somebody else. So the students wanted the Serbian people to change, you know, in order for the system to change.

(31:26) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: So that's another reason why the students were against elections in the very beginning, because we wanted people to be politically educated and involved first and try actually in another way to change things. But after the letter to Serbian citizens, which actually announced the movement not to be only students, but also of all of the citizens of Serbia, the students kind of also tried once again not only to share the course of the movements with the people, you know, citizens of Serbia, but the students actually tried to let them lead.

And that's another thing that's been, I think, very hard since the beginning of the movement. The students never wanted to be political figures. They wanted to wake the people, not to be leaders in this way. Leaders maybe... in a way of, you know, as I said, waking people up, trying to give them, you know, structures, trying to teach them to talk with them to, you know, bring their cause closer to people, but never to be political figures that would, you know, be there instead of the regime that we currently have.

That was the idea from the beginning, which I'm afraid we kind of failed at because the people, they would always say, "What are the students planning next? Students, please lead us. Students, tell us what to do. Students, this, students, that." And the students actually never really wanted to do that and to be those people. But unfortunately, I guess this is maybe a thing of mentality, a thing of history and history of our society that actually wants a leader.

It's really hard to be politically involved. It's hard for many people to be. As Iskra said, these are really frustrating processes. It's not easy, but we wanted to make people believe that they should be involved in them personally and not just giving the authority to someone else. We wanted for the people to have the authority. So these...

(33:48) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: I would say projects of students, are, you know, zborovi, et cetera. These are things that we still work on as students, but they have been put kind of away because of the elections. So the people wanted elections, students gave them elections. Yeah.

Kristóf Szombati: Let's come to the present. I just wanted to say that based on what you two said, I think now there's something really important that I would like to formulate as a lesson. Because one of the things we've been asking ourselves with Erdem when we were planning this episode is why is it that this movement was more successful than Indignados or Occupy Wall Street? And we could go on naming them, informing this broad popular front. So, you know, building real solidarity and real alliances that transcend the classic divides.

And it seems to me that we got two really important answers to that. One is that this is a transformational movement that managed to, through a practice, overcome, as you described very well, the ethnic divisions that were salient in Serbia, and at the same time managed to create this anti-extractivist populist coalition involving everyone who was fed up and frustrated with the unfulfilled promises of both sides of the political spectrum within this liberal democratic semi-peripheral so-called democracy that people realized was not going to deliver.

So this anti-comprador elite kind of function of the student movement really becomes clear in what you just explained to us. And I think this is a really important takeaway. And what you're beginning to explain now, Anastazija, is I think the limitations of this political vanguardism, which is inevitable. Someone needed to take up this role of "we see a way for bringing all of us together," but then the expectations towards them is to keep on leading.

(36:02) Kristóf Szombati: And in the current situation that poses very difficult questions, because I guess one of the things that now emerges is are the students going to run at the elections? Are they going to build a political movement and contest the elections or are they going to step back and then who will step in? So I think the next thing we should discuss is what are the prospects of this movement in its current form with the elections approaching?

(36:40) Iskra Krstić: So the fact that according to research, some 60 to 80% of the overall population supports the students' demands has to thank the tragic course of events that presided it and the fact that it wasn't so easy to inform and mobilize people in the previous stages of the loss of their rights. So people tried to leave the public sphere and make their own bubbles in which they could survive. When their survival got jeopardized, this is when the majority stepped forward and decided to take this risk, which we are now taking, like I said, as a community, given that what hangs above our heads is this overall criminalization of activism that might happen in the very near future.

(38:13) Iskra Krstić: The fact that students now enter the political life in another way by calling for the elections and making a students' list is also kind of a forced hand move because Vučić has shown willingness to completely disassemble the state university together with his 200 years old tradition. So the state university in Serbia is older than the state and he is willing to completely cut funds. And this is, I think this also contributed to this change of tactics of the student movement. So that they are not still pushing for blockades, but calling for elections and making a list.

And also what's kind of problematic and also kind of stands from this egalitarian line that I mentioned before is a huge distrust of the general population towards the civil society and existing organizations of parliamentary democracy. And this might prove to be a big obstacle in overthrowing the existing regime. So this kind of distrust towards the already existing civil society, especially that part that deals with more abstract political and civil rights and the existing parliamentary parties, is something that will have to be overcome or the whole movement will face a not so good future.

Erdem Evren: So this is what I understand. The forced institutionalization of this mass protest, partly by Vučić or the regime, you would think is or may kind of lead to the fizzling out of this movement, of this wave of protest. Did I understand correctly?

Iskra Krstić: Yeah, just shortly in two sentences, I think that this is a risk that has been recognized since January, at least. This risk is one of the reasons why a part of the student's movement wasn't in favor of institutionalizing the movement or calling for the resolution of this social and political crisis through parliamentary democracy.

Kristóf Szombati: Right. I wanted to come back to Anastazija to explain us, you know, what is the state of play within the student movement? What are the debates and tensions related to this?

(39:50) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: If I may. Right, let me just quickly answer the last question. So even though the protests or the blockades or anything isn't taking the same course as it has before, even though maybe the blockades will end anytime, I think it really doesn't matter so much because something was actually born from these blockades and the entire movement and that's new networks in the society.

(40:00) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: So zborovi are something really important that's going to last even after these protests and the movement. That's a way of coming together that was maybe forgotten and now we thought about it again and we're using it again. So these connections cannot be erased just like that. Also, there's this association called Društveni Front, which translates to Social Front, which is an association of workers from all of the sectors in Serbia. And I think this association actually has a really good perspective because we have a lot of problems with unions in Serbia and also distrust towards unions, etc. And Društveni Front is something that can actually bring working people of Serbia together and make some real changes.

So they've already had some protests of their own with their own demands of different sectors. They already have 16, I think, 16 members as in unions or workers, organizations of all sorts. So I think that's something really important that was actually born from this movement and that will last after this movement. So that's something really important.

But you also asked me what the situation is currently with the students and what the tensions are between them. Mostly the elections produce tensions between the students. For example, students' list for the proposed elections. Many students would disagree on the people who are on the list. The list is very heterogeneous. So I think the list and all of the rules and ideas behind the list is something that is still highly debated on, for example.

(42:26) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Should this be, if elected, if won? Should this be a government that would have a mandate of four years in Serbia or not? Should this be a transitional government or no? These are really big questions in the student movement still and in the society as a whole. So I would say this is the last reason for having tensions in the movement and society.

Kristóf Szombati: And so what are the prospects of this? Because Iskra already mentioned that one scenario is, you know, a strong authoritarian drive through lawfare or other means to basically undo or like undermine the protest movement. But maybe there are also more positive scenarios. So of course, this comparison with how Milošević fell, I think maybe appears here. There was a successful overthrow through demonstrations in the streets and other means as a general strike of a regime that was similar to the current one. How do you see the next 12 months?

(44:31) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Well, I do really have high hopes for some of these associations and organizations I mentioned, as the Social Front or zborovi. I still believe in them. And I would say that maybe Društveni Front would have a great role in this. And they have been collecting more and more people. So that's something, as I said, that would actually stay after the movement and could have a big role in organizing workers and standing for workers demands and rights.

For example, you mentioned the general strike. That's something that actually kind of failed. The students called for a general strike several times and it failed each time. And I've talked to people in unions, I've talked to people in general. I just think they're too scared because they have a lot to lose and they're afraid that if they respond, maybe somebody else won't. So maybe we didn't actually establish such a level of solidarity that they can actually trust each other that the strike would be held.

Kristóf Szombati: And another reason is of course...

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: ...too union. Yeah.

Kristóf Szombati: You mean the weakness of the unions, the traditional weakness of the unions or their corrupted nature or what do you mean by that?

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Yes, yeah. Well, of course, some are, some aren't. Some are just slow. And that was another problem. But as for the prospects of the movement, as I said, I think the struggle is now maybe not so much on the student side. Maybe the students finally gave the structures and the methods to people who are now using that in their own way through zborovi, through Društveni Front, the Social Front, or maybe something else that will appear in the coming days.

(46:00) Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: But as for the student movement, that's also a great question because the students could block their faculties once again. But as Iskra said, it's not about us anymore. It's about the pressure from the government. So if we block them, maybe the government will close our faculties. The professors will lose their jobs. That's something nobody really wants and the students, they would never choose that as an option even if it was the only one. Iskra, is it good? Do you want to add something?

(47:00) Iskra Krstić: I think that people aren't aware enough of how Milošević fell and the less visible elements of his fall. One is the general strike that preceded the huge gathering in Belgrade, which is impossible to organize now, both because of the weakness of the trade unions and because of the legal obstacles, so basically the law on trade unions and general strike prevented [it] from happening. And people can have all kinds of emotions towards that. They could be really in favor of this, but this is not possible legally and illegally it's not possible because of the weakness of organizing.

(47:40) Iskra Krstić: What we're going through now is a violent purge of all kinds of like actors in education, in elementary schools, in high schools, in universities, in hospitals, in the judiciary... we don't have a clue about how many people the regime has forcefully retired or forcefully let go from their places of work. And what we kind of also lack as a society, perhaps, is an understanding that organizing takes time and that systemic change takes organizing. So it's not enough that the people go out in the street and expect that something happens. Systemic change is a thing that needs to be built for years or possibly decades in order to successfully achieve its goal.

Kristóf Szombati: Yeah, and it's very clear that this is a transformational movement, but it really is kind of facing very difficult circumstances and a very aggressive kind of power structure that is difficult to navigate. But thanks for letting us in on the specifics. I think this is so much both of you.

Erdem Evren: Yeah, thanks a lot for agreeing. We learned a lot. Thanks for being part of the conversation.

Anastazija Govedarica Antanasijević: Thank you.

Outro: So that's it from us for today. Thanks for listening. Goodbye. We would also like to thank our contributors: music and mastering Shai Levy, artwork and graphics Polina Georgescu, editing Vera Jónás, and our in-house communications advisor Anna Szilágyi.